Laura's Wolf (Werewolf Marines) (26 page)

Then, unexpectedly, he found himself shouting in a burst of anger, “Goddammit, Laura, live for yourself! Forget about me! You’re too good to die like this! Don’t give up and die like a fucking pussy!”

To Roy’s astonishment, that got her attention. Her eyes opened all the way, and she actually looked annoyed. “You know I hate that word.”

Scalding tears still poured down Roy’s cheeks, but that made him laugh. He felt as if he was drunk or losing his mind. “Change, and I swear I’ll never say it again. Come on, Laura. One last try, and then you can sleep. I know you can do it. Give it everything you have.
Everything.
Lift that fucking car, Laura! Lift it now!”

The air shimmered, and Roy held a gray wolf in his arms.

The wolf turned her head, examining Roy with her yellow eyes. She was panting, her sides heaving, but her heartbeat was strong.

So this was Laura’s wolf. He would have expected her to be plump or stocky, to echo the woman’s voluptuous figure or her strong muscles beneath, but the gray wolf was small and lithe, with black markings on her sleek coat.

Roy stroked her fur, marveling at the life he felt beneath his hands. His chest hurt as if he’d been coughing all night, the bones of his face burned and ached, and his tears flowed and flowed as if he’d turned on a tap. It was exactly like he’d always been afraid would happen if he ever let himself cry: he couldn’t stop. But Laura was alive. Everything else was small potatoes.

Roy cleared his throat. “Can you change back? It should be easier.”

With another ripple in the air, Laura again lay in Roy’s lap. She looked utterly exhausted, but no worse than that.

“Hey, Roy,” she said softly. She reached up a trembling hand and touched his cheek. Her fingers were warm again. “Didn’t mean to make you cry.”

He tried to smile. “Shows how special you are. It’s probably been fifteen years. It’s been so long, I don’t remember how to stop.”

“Fifteen years of tears,” Laura said. “That might take a while.”

Roy changed the subject. “How do you feel?”

“Tired. Achy. But pretty good, considering I was dying five minutes ago. Roy…”

“What?”

Laura broke eye contact, looking down. “Did you mean what you said?”

“Yes, of course.” Roy scrubbed at his face, ordering the waterworks to turn off. They stayed on, full blast. He felt like a wreck, and now that he had to say it in cold blood, all the reasons he hadn’t said it before felt more valid than ever. “I love you. I know I’m not in any shape or situation to have a relationship. My life is a mess.
I’m
a mess. I have no idea where I go from here, I can’t ride in a car or turn on the lights—I can’t even stop crying!”

“Roy…” Laura began.

Determined to be honest, he plowed on, “I know you like me, but love is different. I’m afraid you’ll say yes because you can’t know yet how hard it’ll be, and then you’ll find out and leave me. And that’ll be more heartbreaking for both of us than if we’d never tried at all. But yeah. I love you. And I hadn’t intended to say that at all, but if I had, I sure wouldn’t have wanted to do it while I’m
crying
.”

Laura chuckled. “Enough about the crying. You don’t do it all the time and you have a good excuse for it. Besides, women like sensitive men.”

“There’s sensitive, and there’s Niagara Falls.” Frustrated, Roy again swiped his hand across his eyes. No luck.

“I love you,” Laura said.

The entire world seemed to stop. No birdsong, no wind, no drip of melting snow. “You do?”

Laura looked exasperated. “Roy, I thought
you
didn’t love
me
! You’re the one who said having sex was a mistake and we shouldn’t do it again and you were leaving—and not just leaving, but leaving
me
.”

“Oh… well…” If his face hadn’t been so hot already, Roy would have flushed with embarrassment. “Yeah, I can see how I gave you that impression.”

Laura laughed again, and Roy forgot about everything else in a burst of sheer joy. Laura was alive, she was laughing, and she loved him. She’d seen him crying and broken down and laid out on her kitchen floor because he’d been knocked out by a light bulb, and she
still
loved him.

Roy bent his head to kiss her. She was too tired for passion and he was too shaken up, and his tears got all over her face.

He never wanted it to end.

“Come on.” Roy stood up, lifting her easily. “I’ll carry you home.”

Chapter Fifteen: Laura

Run with the Wolves

Laura woke alone, and yet not alone; the bedroom was empty, but she knew Roy was in the kitchen, making breakfast and coffee. She could feel his presence as if she was there in the room with him.

You can smell the coffee and hear stuff clinking,
she told herself.
Obviously Roy’s in the kitchen.

She’d slept through the journey back to the cabin, then awakened in bed when Roy had begun to clean her bite wounds with stinging antiseptic, her foot propped on a folded towel.

His crying had tapered off, but every now and then a tear would run down his cheek. He seemed to have given up on trying to stop it. His eyes were red, his face was puffy and flushed, and his bitten lip had swelled up. She’d seen him looking much more handsome, but she’d never loved him more.

“You okay to be alone for a few minutes?” he’d asked when he finished bandaging her ankle. “I want to get you something to drink.”

She nodded, and drifted off before he’d even left the room. He woke her up to give her some hot broth, lifting her head and holding the cup to her lips, then laid her back down and kissed her. The last thing she remembered was a drop of salt water trickling into her mouth.

Laura had been too dazed and exhausted the day before to take in what had happened, but it came back to her now in a rush of vivid, impossible moments. Opening her wolf’s eyes to an utterly different world. Roy telling her he loved her. Roy sobbing and sobbing, begging her to live.

In all the times she’d imagined what it would be like if Roy loved her, she’d sometimes thought of how sad and angry and betrayed he’d be if she lied to him or if he grew disillusioned with her. But it had never occurred to her that she could hurt him that badly through no action of her own, simply because she was a human being who could die.

Roy loved her. She didn’t disbelieve it—she’d seen the prospect of losing her tear him apart—but she couldn’t quite believe it, either. It was easier for her to accept that she was now a werewolf.

Laura sat up, testing her body. She felt fragile, her skin and nerves over-sensitive, as if she hadn’t eaten in days and then stayed up all night. But when she searched inside herself for the place that had slid out of her grasp so many agonizing times the day before, she easily found her wolf, cool and alert and full of grace.

Roy came in with a cup of coffee and a plate of toast. His eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by raccoon-like dark circles. If she felt like she hadn’t slept in days, he looked it.

“How’re you doing?” he asked, setting the coffee and toast on the table. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be up to eating anything.”

“I’m a little shaky. But I’m hungry, too.” She took a bite of the toast. It was plain and crisp, like you’d give to someone with stomach flu; she had to wash it down with coffee. “Thanks for the toast and coffee. And thanks for saving my life. That’s twice now.”

“It better be the last time,” Roy said, with feeling. “I never want to do that again. I swear to God, it nearly killed me.”

“I’m holding you to your promise,” Laura warned him.

“What? What promise?”

“There’s a certain word that you’re never going to say again.”

Roy laughed. “Oh, right! Consider it struck from my vocabulary. Though it did justify its existence yesterday.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and took her into his arms. Laura leaned back and let him hold her, breathing in his scent and enjoying his warmth. He held her as gently as if she was made of blown glass, but she felt his breath shudder through his chest.

“Are you all right?” Laura asked.

“Sure.” Then he admitted, “I feel a little strange. I guess I’m still shook up from yesterday.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“I slept some,” he said evasively.

“Were you guarding me?”

“Yeah,” he confessed. “I believe you that Gregor probably won’t come after you, and I know I’ll wake up instantly if anyone breaks in. But I had to watch you breathe for a few hours before I was completely sure that you wouldn’t stop the moment I took my eyes off you.”

It was the first time she’d heard anyone use “a few” to mean “six or eight,” as she was certain he had. She twisted around to look into his face, which was still creased and worn with grief and fear.

He did love her. She believed it now. And she knew what he needed to hear.

“I love you.” Laura willed her words to sink in and take his pain away. “I don’t care how hard it is to be with you. I won’t leave you. And I’m not dying now.”

Before he could reply, she locked her hands behind his head, his fine hair sliding beneath her fingers, and pulled him down to kiss her.

As their lips met, she felt a silent but distinct inner
click,
like a puzzle piece fitting into place. They both jumped.

“Did you feel that?” Laura asked.

Roy’s jaw fell open. She watched, fascinated, as his expression shifted from confusion to disbelief to astonished joy.

“It’s gone,” Roy said at last.

“What’s gone?” Laura felt different too, but she couldn’t put her finger on how.

“The loneliness.” His words tumbled out excitedly. “Ever since DJ bit me, there’s been this emptiness inside of me. I thought I missed my buddies, but it was more than that. Like nothing I’d ever felt before. I tried not to think about it, but every now and then it would hit me and knock me flat. And now it’s gone. You’re with me, and I can finally believe it. I’m not alone.”

The lines in his face had smoothed out, making him seem years younger. Laura had gotten a hint that Roy was capable of looking like this when she’d seen him asleep, and after they’d made love. But even then, a shadow had clung to him. She hadn’t realized how much of his energy had been poured into concealing or fighting his loneliness, until she finally saw him with that burden lifted.

The sensation Laura had noticed earlier, when she’d known Roy was in the kitchen, was more distinct now. When she focused her attention on it, she could feel it as a bond that connected them, humming with life.

Laura gave it a mental tug. Roy’s hand flew to his heart, his breath catching.

“Sorry!” Laura gasped.

“No, no, it’s all right,” Roy assured her. “It didn’t hurt. It was just startling.”

“It’s the pack sense!” Laura exclaimed, grabbing Roy’s shoulder in her excitement. “Roy, that has to be what it is. It’s what that poor pack of Gregor’s couldn’t live without—what he thought I’d go back to him to get.”

So much for Gregor,
Laura thought with satisfaction, imagining him waiting and waiting and waiting for her, getting more and more confused and frustrated as the days ticked by and Laura didn’t crawl back.

“So that’s what I needed,” Roy said in wonderment. “All this time.”

“How long has it been since you were bitten?”

“About two months.”

“You really are one tough wolf,” Laura said. “No one in Gregor’s pack held out anywhere near that long. Nicolette only made it six weeks, and believe me, she is hardcore.”

“Yeah, but she knew how to make it stop,” said Roy, shrugging. “I didn’t. You can endure anything when you don’t have any alternative.”

He didn’t move, but Laura felt him reach out through their bond. She perceived him through it, not merely as a presence, as she had before, but as a personality. Laura felt his strength and warmth and humor, his endurance and love and icy battle rage. And beneath it all, she glimpsed a pain as deep and raw as the loneliness he no longer felt.

“I thought I’d fixed you,” Laura said, disappointed, then felt blood rise hot to her face when she heard her own words.

Roy cupped her cheek with a rueful smile. “That would’ve been nice, wouldn’t it? I have to tell you, though, that went both ways.”

Laura stiffened involuntarily at the thought that he had read her mind, knew her secrets, knew—

“I didn’t get any details, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Roy assured her. “Just a sense of you, like I guess you got a sense of me. There’s a lot of pain in you that I wish you didn’t have, that’s all. I couldn’t tell what it was about. And you saw mine, huh?”

Laura nodded. “I wish I could do more for you.”

Roy’s palm was still against her face, gentle and warm. “You fixed me enough. Not losing my mind from loneliness is plenty. And you’ve done way more than that. You saved my life. You saved my life four times! You love me. You…” He choked up. “You lived.”

“Sorry I made you cry.” Laura traced a fingertip down his cheek where the tears had run.

“Don’t worry about it,” Roy said quickly. “In fact, let’s not talk about it.”

“I have to ask one question, and then I’ll never mention it again. When did you stop?”

A pink flush crept over Roy’s cheekbones. Then he met her eyes, shrugging wryly. “Some time after I fell asleep, I guess. When I woke up, the pillow was soaked.”

“Wow. That really was fifteen years of tears.”

The flush faded. “Not quite. It was four years since I last… you know. But probably ten or eleven before that. So, fifteen total, but not fifteen continuous.”

“Exactly four?” Laura asked, then remembered. “Oh. Your mother.”

He nodded, his gaze downcast, looking at least as embarrassed as sad.

“How many times have you seen me cry?”

“A couple,” Roy said tactfully.

A lot
, Laura thought. “Did you still respect me in the morning?”

“Of course I did. But it’s different for you.”

“I have breasts. That doesn’t make me a different species.”

“We might both be a different species now,” Roy said, catching her light tone. “But that’s not what I meant. Female Marines don’t cry much either. Neither do female cops.”