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Joe would do anything for his son, Dylan—not excluding murder if it came down to it. I liked the man, regardless of his less-than-legal business dealings. He was entirely loyal to shifter kind, and I always knew where I stood with him. That day, because Tristan had asked, he’d brought a new mattress and bedframe and an antique dresser, plus an area rug, toiletries, and some new clothes. There wasn’t room in the cabin for much, but we made it work.
The space was too tidy, too new, to be compared to her old shack, but I liked to think we’d done an all right job of making it feel homey.
“What do you think, Vesta?” I asked as I set down the new rocking chair I’d made beside the wood-burning fireplace and gave it a push. It didn’t creak the way her old chair had, but it rocked smoothly and was sanded and varnished to a deep amber color.
When she didn’t answer, I turned around to see if she’d heard me. I found her staring out the back window at the woods as if she could see every tree, and my heart gave a painful lurch in my chest. I walked over to stand beside her. I towered over her, and I tried to remember if she’d always been this small.
“Vesta, I…” I wasn’t sure what to say. I wanted to apologize for the way time marched on whether wewere ready for it or not, but I suspected she already knew that truth well enough.
She turned and tilted her head up at me, her milky eyes glazed. There was a gentle smile on her lips, and I was glad to see it. “Don’t you worry, big man. I’m not going anywhere yet. I have plenty of years left in me.” She sighed and turned as if to survey the room, patting the windowsill with her callused hand. “And thanks to you lot, I’ll live out my final years in veritable luxury!” Her chuckle was low and throaty.
Vesta took a few steps over to the massive bed, and she looked so unsteady, I was prepared to lunge over and catch her if she fell. She ran her hand over the quilt we’d brought from her home. “This bed…” She groaned in bliss, pressing into the soft mattress. “I should’ve asked for this years ago, but I was too damn stubborn for my own good. This… is the shit.” She winked at me.
I barked out a laugh. Yes, Vesta would be just fine here.
“Help me to the new chair?” she asked, holding out a hand for me to take.
“It would be an honor.” I took her hand and tucked it into the crook of my elbow, escorting her to her rocking chair, and helped lower her into it.
She sighed as she leaned back in it, testing out the way it rocked and running her hands over the arms. “This is beautiful, Jude. It’s perfect. Thank you.”
Accepting praise didn’t come easily to me, and I felt my cheeks heat with a blush. “You’re welcome,” I said, and I meant it. “Do you need anything else before I go?”
She smirked. “Oh, I dunno… maybe stop using taking care of me as a distraction, and you could talk to me about that mate of yours?”
“I—” Shock had my body locking up. I thought I’d had it all stuffed deep down inside myself, but at the wordmate, it all surged right back up to the surface. My skin pebbled with goosebumps, my blood rushed in my ears, and I clenched my fists to keep my wolf from bursting out in some kind of sneak attack. It sent a tearing electric current straight through me, almost like I was being torn in two. But wasn’t that exactly what was happening? My wolf and I were standing on two sides of a river, and the longer it went on, it felt like those riverbanks were eroding, putting more distance between us. I clutched at my shirt, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.
“Pull up a seat,” Vesta said. “I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up, but it’s clear now that you were never going to. It’s like you don’t know what’s good for you.”
“Good for me?” I spat, hackles up. “He’s human! How is that in any way good for me?!”
Vesta rocked a few times, just letting my anger simmer in the silence. Finally, I huffed in defeat and dragged the stool over and sat in front of her. “What do you know about my past?” I asked her.
She pursed her lips, clasping her hands in her lap. “I… feel like I used to know, but lately… it’s all slipping away. I know you were mistreated by humans, that you don’t trust them.”
I was pretty sure everyone in the pack was aware of my unease around humans, even if they didn’t know the reason for it. I rubbed at my face with hard strokes. “How could fate have decided that a human was the right choice for me?” I asked, my voice revealing my anguish. “She’s wrong, end of story.”
“Fate is never wrong,” she said, a deep sadness soaked in those words. “It’s not a matter of choice, it simply… is. Fate will bring you the mate most suited to your needs, as well as theirs. Have you considered that just maybe this man could help you heal your wounds? Maybe he could teach you a few things about trust and love and loyalty. He will never hurt you, and deep down, I think you know that. But in the end, you have to be open to that possibility. If you choose not to accept your mate, you are not justdooming yourself, but also your wolf, not to mention the man meant for you. You will all live out your days alone. Trust me when I say you don’t want that. Loneliness is an awful thing.”
“Did you reject your mate too?” I asked carefully. I knew nothing about her life before, but I hadn’t wanted to pry. She deserved her privacy, just as I did.
She didn’t seem to mind the question, though. “No. I was mated to a wolf once. She was… everything to me.” Her smile was warm like the sun. “Her name was Victoria, and she had this hair… it was the color of a sunset on a fall day, and her beast had russet fur. We had three beautiful sons together.”
“What? I never knew.” Why hadn’t I considered the possibility of her having a family? I was a bit ashamed of myself. I had naively assumed she had lived out here in the woods by herself all this time, but of course she had a life before we came along.
Vesta waved her hand. “It was long ago, another lifetime. Our children grew up and moved away, had children of their own, and those children had children and so on. And my mate… Well, shifters have long lives, but they can’tlive forever.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling that familiar lingering ache inside where the mating bond would form if I let it. “It must’ve been hard living without them.”
She nodded, closing her eyes. “I miss her every day… but I know she’s waiting for me. I’ll see her soon enough.”
Vesta grew quiet, her rocking slowed, and her eyes remained shut. I assumed she’d drifted off, so I rose slowly from the stool and grabbed a knit afghan off the end of her bed and laid it across her lap. She’d said she had a few years before she left us, but I still found myself listening to her breathe for a few moments just to make sure it wouldn’t be tonight.
When I went to rise from my crouch in front of her, Vesta’s arm darted out and clamped down on my forearm with deceptive strength, sending a buzzing ripple of energy up to my shoulder. “Gods!” I gasped, every survival instinct kicking into high gear. Images of men in lab coats, syringes in hand, flashed before my eyes, and for a split second I forgot where I was. I jerked away, but her grip remained strong, fingernails digging into my skin.
Her voice brought me back. “He’s yours to protect…” she rasped, her voice low and monotone. This wasn’t Vesta—this was a premonition from a world beyond.
My throat seized. “What did you say?” The temperature in the room dropped, and my breath puffed from my lipsin a frosty cloud, but inside, my whole body felt like a block of ice. “Who, Vesta? Who needs my protection?” Even as I asked it, though, I knew the answer. My mate.
