Tales of the Otherworld (22 page)

I let the backpack slide down. He crossed the few feet between us, arms going around me.

“I missed you,” he said.

I lifted my mouth to his. The moment our lips touched, it was like a dam breaking and he grabbed me, kissing me hard, pushing me back against the bookcase. When I tensed, he pulled back, breathing ragged, gaze searching mine.

“I missed you, too,” I said.

I lifted my hands to the back of his head and kissed him. This time when he grabbed me, I let his kiss shove back all my doubts. There was an air of desperation in his passion, like when he’d talked to me on the phone the day before. After a minute or two, that frenzy ebbed and, after another couple of minutes, we pulled back to catch our breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This weekend. It was just…I don’t know.”

“Did something happen?” I asked.

“No. It’s…I had a rough time. I wanted to be there, but I wanted to be here, too.”

I took his hand and walked to the desk, and backed my rear onto it. He did the same, then shifted against me, forearm resting on my leg, hand on my knee.

“You’ve never been away this long, have you?” I said. “From home, I mean.”

“I guess that’s part of it. I’m happy here, but when I go back, I’m reminded that I miss being there, and at the same time I miss you.” He shook his head. “It’ll work out. I’m doing okay. Better than usual. When I was away at college, I hated it. Loved the education part, the classes and all that, but once my day was over, I’d just pace in my dorm room, going nuts, wishing I was home.”

I smiled. “See? You
were
the dorm mate from hell.”

“Nah, I never had roommates. Not for very long, anyway.”

I laughed and leaned against his shoulder. “Did you go home every weekend? Or is that a stupid question?”

“Left the minute my last class ended and didn’t come back until my first one. It was better in my undergrad years, when I was still living at home and I could pick my optional courses according to scheduling. I could usually wrangle an extra day or two at home each week if I did it right.”

“So you took whatever courses gave you days off? No matter what they were?”

“Well, within reason. Usually I could get something I wanted. In my last year, though, the only thing I could find to fit my schedule was a course in women’s studies.”

I sputtered a laugh. “So what’d you do?”

“Took it. Nothing wrong with women’s studies. I think I got off on the wrong foot with the prof the first day, though, when I asked why there weren’t any men’s studies courses.”

“What’d she say?”

“Nothing. Just gave me a look, like I shouldn’t even be asking. But we got along okay after that. She even mailed me a congratulations card when I got my doctorate, said I was still the only guy who’d ever earned
an A in her course and she hoped that I’d live by the lessons I learned there.”

“What lessons were those?”

“I have no idea.”

I laughed, and hopped off the desk. “We should get to work. Mind if I go grab something to eat first? I skipped breakfast.”

“I’ll go with you.” He glanced over at me. “So we’re okay, then?”

I smiled. “We’re fine.”

We were “fine” for another couple of weeks. Then we hit our next rough patch and, again, it blindsided me. Everything was great, and then, things just started getting…strange.

Clay had to make a presentation to the department on his paper, and he was stressed. I’d never imagined he
could
be stressed, but he was, working at it relentlessly and driving me almost as hard, snapping over details, getting frustrated over every setback.

When the printer jammed for the umpteenth time, he threw it against the wall. Smashed it to pieces. I could only stand there and stare. He snapped out of it right away, and apologized for losing his temper, but still…well, it knocked me off balance. When you’re trying very hard to pretend you don’t see things in someone, it never helps to have them thrown in your face…or at the wall near your face.

I could understand a young academic worrying about the initial presentation of his first big paper. Or I would if that young academic was anyone but Clay. His attitude toward his career was laissez-faire at best, that arrogant, casual air of someone who knows he’s brilliant and doesn’t give a shit if anyone else agrees. To see him flipping out over this made no sense.

The presentation seemed to go fine. So I wanted to surprise him with a celebratory night. I made reservations for dinner in the theater district. Then I’d try to scoop half-priced last-minute tickets to a show. And then…well, I wasn’t sure about the rest of the night, but if things went well, maybe, just maybe, we’d be passing that next sign on the road. I didn’t quite feel ready to take that step yet, but I really wanted this to be a big night, to shift our relationship back on track.

I bought a new outfit. A black wool dress. I never wore dresses, or
even skirts, and I wasn’t sure whether Clay would like me in one, but I was willing to give it a shot.

So I left a note on his desk telling him I’d come around to his apartment with dinner. Then I hurried to my dorm, showered, dressed, put on makeup, fussed with my hair, strapped on a new pair of heels, and walked the two blocks to his apartment, trying hard not to fall in the heels.

I used my key, went up to his apartment, and knocked. Then I waited. Knocked again. Waited some more. I had a key for this door, too, but I wanted that moment when he opened it and saw me dressed up for the first time.

Finally, after five minutes of waiting, I let myself in.

“Clay?”

“Here.”

I went into the bedroom, where he was pulling on a sweatshirt. I waited. He straightened and ran his hands through his curls, his back to me.

“I gotta go,” he said, grabbing his motorcycle keys from the nightstand. “Wait here for me.”

“Clay?”

“What?”

He snapped the word, his back still to me. I stood there, teetering on my heels, my stomach lurching and twisting. He snatched his motorcycle helmet from beside the bed and brushed past me without even looking.

“I gotta go,” he mumbled. “Wait here. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Three long strides, and he was out the door. I stood there for at least five minutes, too stunned and hurt to think. Then I brushed back the first prick of tears, whipped his keys across the room, and marched out the door.

I lay on my dorm bed, staring up at the dirt-speckled ceiling. I wasn’t the perfect girlfriend. I had my moods, too. But I’d been nothing but cheerful and supportive these last few days—nauseatingly cheerful and supportive, which was undeserved considering how he’d been acting. He should have been the one taking me out for a special night, a reward for putting up with him.

The roar of a motorcycle sounded outside my window. My heart
skipped. I rolled over, trying hard not to listen for the next sign, but straining just the same, then exhaling a small puff of relief when it came: the tinkle of stones at my second-floor window.

I forced myself to wait for the third pebble shower before I deigned to respond. Even then I just walked to my window, not opening it. He was probably just here to give me shit for not “waiting” like he commanded. At the thought, I clenched my fists. I shouldn’t have thrown away his keys. I should have kept them, so I could throw them at him now, see his reaction.

I stood at the window and looked down. He was there, between the back hedge and the wall, blond hair pale in the moonlight. He lifted something white. A Styrofoam box. He opened it and pointed inside, mouthing something. I shaded my eyes to see better. It was a takeout box stuffed full of pancakes. He mouthed something again. This time I could make it out: “Please.” I hesitated, then lifted a finger and pulled the curtains to dress.

W
HEN I WAS YOUNGER, I OFTEN TRIED TO
figure out the thought processes of animals—both predator and prey—convinced that if I knew what was going on in their heads, I’d be a better hunter and a better fighter. Same with humans. If I knew how their brains worked, I could alter my behavior just enough to fit in, and not one iota more.

What eluded me most was the mental lives of prey animals. They consistently fell for the same tricks that wolves had been using for eons. At first, I thought that this was because they never got the opportunity to learn from their mistakes or to pass that knowledge on to the next generation.

I’d tested this theory. I persuaded Jeremy to chase a young deer into my ambush position, then I pounced, and let it escape with only a torn flank. A few weeks later, we found the same yearling, and did the same thing. Again he fell for it—and this time paid with his life.

So I asked myself, what was going through that deer’s head when he saw the same scenario playing out? He couldn’t have forgotten the first time; his wound had barely healed. Did he think, “What stupid wolves, trying this again.” Or did he see what was happening, and not know how to stop it? When Jeremy jumped out behind him, and he started to run, did his heart start thumping with blind panic, knowing what was coming but seeing no way to avoid his fate?

Now I was that deer. I was racing headlong into danger with both Elena and the Pack. I saw it. And I seemed unable to do anything about it.

I was breaking Pack Law. Having an affair was fine, having a casual
girlfriend was fine, but long-term relationships were forbidden. Six weeks was hardly long-term, but I knew there wasn’t anything casual about what I felt for Elena.

When I’d hit puberty, my wolf brain had made itself very clear: I needed a mate. A lifelong mate. Now that part of my brain was finally at rest, having found what it wanted…and abandoning the rest of me to flounder about trying to figure out how to make it happen.

Logan had said he saw no reason why we couldn’t have wives, and just never tell them our secret. The thought of that—well, it baffled me. Of course, Elena eventually needed to know I was a werewolf. Even now I felt sick every time I had to lie or misdirect her.

I saw no reason why any human mate couldn’t know. Sure, there was a risk that if the relationship broke down, she might betray him. But what sane woman would reveal such a thing, knowing that the Pack would be forced to kill her to protect itself?

Yet none of that applied to Elena. No matter how angry she might get with me, betrayal wasn’t in her nature. With Elena, the true danger was that she would hear what I was and run the other way, never to return. What I had to do, then, was bide my time. Wait until she loved me enough, and trusted me enough, to hear the words and stay.

Now if I could only get that far before I scared her off for good. That was proving increasingly difficult. Like the deer, I was already hurtling toward peril, sealing my fate with every stride.

First, the catastrophic trip to Stonehaven. Talking to Jeremy by phone was one thing. Having him there, delighted by my happiness and clueless about the cause, made me miserable. Then there was Nick. He knew something was up, and he’d be hurt when he learned the truth, especially when he discovered that Logan had known.

Even just being at Stonehaven, out for runs and hunts, had been painful, reminding me that this double life was betraying two more people: Elena, by not telling her that this was what I was, and myself, by pretending that this wasn’t what I was. For the first time in my life, there were moments when I wished I was human. They didn’t last long, but the fact of them shamed me.

In Toronto, runs were no longer the highlight of my week—they were a chore to be squeezed in quickly so I could get back to Elena. I was
Changing only as often as I had to, pushing it off as much as possible. Then, in the last week, I’d pushed too hard.

I needed to stay in Toronto. That was a given; our relationship wasn’t strong enough yet for me to head back to Stonehaven after Christmas. To stay, I needed an excuse. As I’d been scrambling to create one, a fresh opportunity landed in my lap. A new professor who was supposed to start in the winter term had accepted a job offer from a more prestigious American college, and the department had to find someone to take over his classes next term. This time there was another interested party, a semiretired prof, and the department had made it clear that there was only one way I was getting the job: with my research paper. They wanted a presentation…in four days.

For those four days I worked my ass off, and worked Elena’s off, too. I couldn’t tell her why this was so important. My need to be with her was already making her nervous.

So we’d worked on the paper, and I’d put off Changing. By that time, I was already due for one, but I thought I was strong enough to hold out. I wasn’t. My temper frayed, and by the end of it, I could feel my skin pulsing, the wolf clawing at my insides.

When Elena told me she was bringing dinner over that night, I should have said no. But I needed to make up for all the crap I’d put her through that week. So I told myself I’d leave her a note, hurry out to the ravine, Change, and get back to her. Then she showed up before I could get away.

I hadn’t dared look at her, fearing she’d see something, a twitch of my skin, a look in my eye. Better to get the hell out of there, hurry back, and make it up to her then. Only when I got back, pancakes in hand, I found my apartment empty, the keys thrown across the room, and I knew I’d gone too far.

When Elena came out from the dorm that night, I’d planned to take her back to my apartment, where we could eat and talk in private, out of the bitter November wind. But the moment I saw her face, I knew I’d be lucky if I could get her out of the parking lot. I settled for a secluded spot behind a wall that blocked the worst of the wind.

She let me lead her there without a word. I snuck looks at her, trying to read her body language, but she kept her gaze down and her body still.

As she looked around for a place to sit, I tugged off my jacket, but she sat on the grass before I could offer it. When I tried to hand it to her anyway, she fussed with her own coat, adjusting the zipper and pretending not to see me holding out mine for her.

“I found your shoes,” I said.