Page 5 of Wolf Revealed

Since Mike hadn’t been a werewolf when she’d left Dallas a decade ago, she couldn’t help wondering when—and how—he’d become one. Lark knew getting bitten by another werewolf wouldn’t do it, and she was only generally aware of how people who weren’t born werewolves ended up that way. All she knew for sure was that it involved a lot of pain. The mere thought of whatever traumatic thing had happened to Mike to turn him made her want to cry.

“We need to talk, Mike,” she added when he still didn’t say anything. “And out here on the sidewalk probably isn’t the best place to do it.”

The muscle in his jaw flexed before he gave her a curt nod. Reaching out, he held up the crime scene tape so she could duck underneath, then wordlessly led her to a nearby pack-and-ship store she assumed had been evacuated during the hostage situation at the warehouse. Packages sat on the counter, some half-taped, while one wall boasted shelves of packing supplies for sale along with a rack of greeting cards.

“I have so many questions for you that I don’t even know where to start,” Mike said the moment the door closed behind them.

She nodded. “I know. And you deserve answers.”

“Damn right I do,” he growled.

“And I’ll answer all of them,” Lark promised. “But first, I need to tell you why I’m here.”

“Because Roman kidnapped Kal?”

Her stomach lurched. “Roman is the one who kidnapped Kal?”

Back when they were together, Mike rarely talked about what he did while working undercover, but he’d mentioned Roman specifically, saying how dangerous the man was. Kal must be terrified.

“That’s what he told me when I saw him in that warehouse a few minutes ago,” Mike said. “I didn’t believe him because I didn’t think my son was still alive. How the hell did he find you when I didn’t even know the two of you were alive? Which begs the question, how did you and Kal survive that explosion? And where have you been for the past decade? While we’re at it, maybe you could explain why you smell like a werewolf.”

“That’s a lot of questions,” Lark said instead, taking a deep breath and trying to push her fear for Kal aside for the moment. “Which one would you like me to answer first?”

Mike crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Start at the beginning, and we’ll go from there.”

Her head spun. Okay. Unfortunately, she wasn’t exactly sure where to start. At least not in a way that would make sense.

“I was born a werewolf,” she finally said, since that was essentially the foundation for everything else that had happened. “I know it’s different for you and the others in your pack, but my parents are werewolves, so my sister and two brothers are werewolves, too. Everyone in my family is.”

From the expression on Mike’s face, you would have thought Lark told him pigs fly south for the winter. But rather than getting sidetracked, she focused on the next piece of information Mike needed to know.

“While most of the werewolves in my pack in Washington State tend to stay close to home, some of us leave town to see what the rest of the world is like. I was one of them. I can’t really explain why I left, but one morning I woke up with this urge to come to Dallas. It was like I was drawn here, only I didn’t know why. I’m still not sure that I do. But right when I was about to leave and go back home, confident I’d never find whatever I’d been looking for here, I found you.”

Something flickered in Mike’s eyes at that, but he didn’t say anything.

He wasn’t going to make this easy on her, was he?

Lark sighed. “When I came to Dallas, I never dreamed I’d meet someone and fall in love, so I never considered how I’d go about telling that special someone I was a werewolf. All I could imagine was you calling me a monster or a freak, and leaving me when you found out what I am.”

Mike tensed, expression darkening, and Lark hurried on before he could point out—correctly—that it’d been her doing the leaving, not him.

“I don’t want it to sound like an excuse,” she said quickly. “But you being a cop just made everything that much more complicated. What if I told you about my pack and you told the people you worked for? What if they told the government? What if they went after my pack? My family? What if they took away my child?”

He opened his mouth, but she held up her hand.

“I know what you’re about to say,” she told him. “That you never would have done that. That you wouldn’t let anyone take Kal from us. But I couldn’t know that for sure. All I really knew was that I was a new mom with this tremendous secret weighing down on me. And that I was far from home, terrified that something bad would happen to Kal. Throw in the very real possibility of you getting killed while undercover, and I was totally freaking out nearly every minute of the day and night. Even with all that, I didn’t want to leave you. I never wanted to leave you.”

Mike’s expression softened a little at her confession, and Lark thought maybe...just maybe...this might work. That he might be able to forgive her.

“Then one day I walked into our house with Kal in my arms to find a bomb strapped to what looked like an old-fashioned alarm clock sitting on the kitchen table, counting down the minutes until it went off. I could only assume Roman had found out about Kal and me and was going to kill us to hurt you. That’s when I made my decision. It was a horrible choice to make, and probably the wrong one, but I couldn’t see any other way. I needed to keep Kal safe, and I didn’t think we’d ever be safe while you were an undercover cop.”

“And you decided to use the explosion as cover so you could escape the situation without having to worry that anyone would ever come looking for you, including me,” Mike said. “I get it. I’m furious at you for doing it, but I get it. How did you survive the explosion, though? I saw you walk by the window right before the house blew up. It must have only been a second or two.”

Lark once again felt a stab of pain at the reminder of how she’d left things, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. The past was in the past. All she could do was hope she and Mike could move on from it.

For Kal’s sake.

“Werewolf, remember? I move really fast,” she said. “I could see the clock on the bomb, so I knew exactly how much time I had. I grabbed the go-bag I always kept packed in case I had to leave quickly and took the cash we kept in the cookie jar in the kitchen. When I saw you get out of your SUV, I almost changed my mind, but then I picked up Kal and ran. I was already ten yards from the back of the house before the bomb went off. I left Dallas and went to my pack, where I hid with Kal, questioning the choices I’d made nearly every day since.”