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Vera spun around, chest to chest. His eyes were half-lidded and content, long hair mussed against the pillow. He blinked them guiltily.
“I wasn’t,” he protested, muffled against the pillow.
His full bottom lip was bruised from her kisses. She liked that. Liked leaving her mark on him.
“I know you. If you keep lying here, you’ll be asleep in two minutes. Come on,” she urged, glancing at the baby monitor. Jessa was still sleeping soundly in her crib, but who knew how long that would last. “Let’s rinse off before she’s up.”
He groaned, limp as a dead body, when she grabbed his hand and attempted to pull him from the bed. With him being nearly twice her size, it was a losing battle. Bracing her legs against the bed, she gave one valiant final yank and succeeded in sliding him one inch closer to the edge of the bed.
Huffing, she let go and put her hands on her hips. “Fine. But if you get up and shower with me, I’ll let you wash me clean very, very thoroughly.”
He perked up at that, leaping out of bed and dragging her toward the bathroom. “Well, when you put it like that.”
Laughing, she let herself be pulled along, leaning against him while he adjusted the temperature of the water. It still didn’t seem real. She could touch him whenever she wanted, and he’d turn and smile down at her, like he wanted it too. They were together. For a moment, the feeling of relief overwhelmed her and all she could do was close her eyes, pressing her forehead against his bare back.
“You okay?” He asked, concern in his voice. “Was it too much?”
She shook her head and turned him around, planting a kiss on that fat bottom lip. “It was perfect.”
The wrinkles smoothed on his forehead. “Come on then, I’ve turned it up to the devil’s own temperature, just how you like it.”
“Maybe youdolove me,” she teased, climbing in.
He followed, letting her take the brunt of the hot water. It steamed and scalded deliciously, turning her skin bright pink beneath the stream.
Rami looped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, water dripping off his cheeks. His eyes were serious, holding hers. “I do, Vera, and I always will.”
Her heart swelled and cracked, the delicate wall she’d built around it to protect herself from him shattering. It melted away in the shower, and for the first time there was nothing between them. His skin against hers, their hearts beating in time, and Vera let herself trust that this time, it would be different. This time, it’d be forever.
Chapter 16 - Rami
Spring’s warmth faded with the sun, leaving a chill in the air that even Rami’s thick fur couldn’t keep out. Vera padded beside him in the twilight, and up ahead, he could see Moira, Jonah, and Spencer moving between the trees. Despite his mistrust of the rogue wolf, Rami couldn’t deny that James had been helpful, laying out everything he knew of the curse.
It was on his information that the two packs worked together that night. That, and an old tale Evelyn had found in one of the storybooks. A story of a tragic romance. She’d stood up suddenly one night as they toiled in the library and started to read aloud, spinning a story of a romance between a human woman and a shifter.
The words hung in the air, given a life of their own in that close room. The shifter’s pack had been adamantly against the love affair, warning the shifter off of the woman and threatening dire consequences if he refused. It was a dangerous time for shifters. Hunters roamed the land, determined to stomp out anything they deemed an abomination.
A human woman caught with a shifter would not be spared. At the time, such a romance was considered unnatural. But their love was not so easily put aside, and the two snuck away, determined to live their lives together even if it cost the shifter his pack and the woman her home.
One night, as they set in motion their escape plan, they were discovered. The pack reacted swiftly, determined to wipe out the threat to their secrecy before it could put them all in danger. Acting out of love, the shifter leaped to his lover’s defense and fought against his own pack, ordering the woman to flee during the distraction he created.
Though it broke the woman’s heart to leave her lover behind, she knew there was little she could do to stop the violence and used the moment to run into the woods. The wolves let her go, knowing her scent would be easy to find and that hunting a single human through the woods was child’s play. But after they’d finished with their pack mate, they found the woman’s scent dispersed through the forest, leading them on one false trail after another.
They searched for her until exhaustion wore them down, and the sun broke over the forest, putting them all at risk of discovery by hunters. The next day, all traces of the woman had vanished.
Rami was about to speak up and tell Evelyn this was nothing more than a tale used to scare young wolves away from risky relationships with humans, when she went on. Her voice was low, and everyone watched her from the edge of their seats, hanging on to her words. Everyone was desperate for the answer.
Despite the woman’s disappearance and the death of their pack mate, the pack found that their troubles were not over. One by one, members of the pack fell into a disoriented state, as if they’d ingested a toxic mushroom—hallucinations, delirium, and eventually a sleep they could not wake from. When the pack leader was the last alive, he smelled the familiar scent of the woman, tainted by heartbreak. That night, he fell ill.
An uncomfortable look passed around the room as Evelyn shut the book. No one wanted to break the silence. Finally, it was Vera who spoke up, tapping the end of her pen against the notebook she’d been taking careful notes on. Rami could see the perfect bulleted outline.
“I think that’s a really good find, Evie. The scent, the connection to heartbreak, and the sickness even sounds similar. But that was a long time ago, judging by the state of that book.” Vera pointed to the book’s faded cloth cover, barely hanging on to the spine. “Even if that story is true and not just something made up to scare young shifters, that woman can’t still be alive, right?”
Evelyn shrugged. “You’re right. It’s an old story, but if this person has enough power to curse an entire pack, maybe they have the power to prolong their life.”
Rami rubbed his chin, watching Vera consider the information. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, still in disbelief that she’d decided to give him another chance. The probationary period she’d insisted on didn’t scare him. He wasn’t going to mess up again.
She felt his eyes on her and looked at him, a half-smile tugging up the corner of her lips and making that single, irresistible dimple on her right cheek pop.
