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But he didn’t kiss Nora. I did.
He didn’t let her into my house. I did that too.
And when my teeth ached with the need to mark her throat, the want wasn’t trapped somewhere separate inside me.
It was mine.
For the first time, blaming the wolf doesn’t work.
Chapter 12
Hewit
I don’t sleep much that night.
Every time I close my eyes, I see Nora against my kitchen counter with her head tipped back and her throat exposed.
Then I remember what almost happened. My teeth. Her skin. The instinct to bite.
By morning, I’m at the diner before Marnie has finished turning the chairs down from the tables.
She stops when she sees me already sitting in my usual booth. “You’re early.”
I look toward the kitchen.
Marnie sighs and disappears through the swinging door.
Usually, this place settles me. Same table, same wall behind my back, same view of the street through the window. The town wakes around me while I drink bad coffee and mind my own business.
Today, nothing settles. My wolf has been pacing since Nora left my kitchen yesterday.
My wolf.
The phrase still feels strange when it surfaces. Not wrong. Just unfamiliar.
I rub a hand over my face.
Nora was right about one thing I didn’t want her to be right about—I’ve spent years talking about him like he’s somebody else because it was easier. If the wolf wanted something, I didn’t have to. If the wolf growled, paced, rejected people, or lost control, I was the man dealing with the consequences rather than the man who carried every one of those instincts in his own skin.
Except yesterday, I wanted Nora’s throat under my mouth. I wanted to mark her, and when I stopped myself, it didn’t feel like dragging the wolf back under control. It felt like tearing myself away from something every part of me wanted.
Marnie drops coffee in front of me. I reach for it, then stop. Across the street is a truck I don’t recognize. Black, mud up the sides, Fable Forest plates.
I know that truck. Or rather, I know the man who used to drive one just like it before the world changed.
The diner door opens, and I smell him before I turn.
Every muscle in my body goes still.
Wolf.
Family.
I turn toward the door. Reid is broader than he used to be. He still has the same dark hair, though his eyes are amber now, like mine, with more lines around them. He has a scar near his jaw I don’t remember. But he’s still unmistakably my brother.
His gaze passes over me, then snaps back as he catches my scent. “Hewit?”
His voice is rougher than I remember.
