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But we couldn't stay forever. We weren't healing. We needed food, shelter, somewhere to hide and lick our wounds until we recovered.

The small cottage and the crying man with the dark curls and haunted eyes. We would stay with them.

The beast howled silently, pushing, urging, wanting to go to him, but I held him back. Barely. He wouldn't shelter us. We would scare him away, and the hunters would find us. We were changed, and who in their right mind would love a monster?

And so we stayed, waiting, watching, until the night faded into dawn, and our human retreated inside, never knowing that we watched over him through the endless night.

Chapter 4

Quinn

Usually, Sunday was my favorite day of the week. I loved my job and my little shop, of course, but by the end of the week I was usually exhausted. Sundays were the day when I came in and caught up on all the paperwork and accounting that went hand in hand with owning a business. On rare occasions, I'd groom for a client who couldn't make it during the week or Saturday mornings, but more often than not, it was just me and Rom in the quiet salon. I'd pick up breakfast and coffee from Buns 'n' Roses as a treat, then settle in at the reception desk with my favorite playlist going. No people, no demands, just paperwork.

In the beginning, when I first opened, it had stressed me out. I'd gambled everything on opening this place after my whole life fell apart. Marnie Phillips, the last groomer in The Crossing, had taken me under her wing when I first came back to town after years of bouncing place to place after college and when the time came for her to retire, she’d let me buy out her business rather than bring in someone new who might change everything.

Shame still curdled in my stomach when I thought of how I’d failed her.

I’d let Aaron’s whispers feed my own fear of taking over. He spent every waking moment reminding me how risky owning a business was, how many small businesses failed every day, how I didn't have any idea what I was doing. His voice whispering negativity in my ear was almost enough to make me refuse, but thankfully, my fear of change was just a smidgen louder than him. I'd rather try and fail than let Marnie’s salon become something she’d never wanted. So, I'd agreed to buy out the business.

We'd intended to do a slow transition to make it as painless as possible, but everything went to hell in a handbasket a month after we signed the papers transferring ownership to me. Marnie suffered a stroke in the middle of the afternoon. Luckily, she'd been between appointments, so no dogs were hurt, but it put her in the hospital for weeks and forced her to move her retirement plans from 'in about two years' to 'right now'.

Without her, the salon's income was cut in half overnight. I worked as many hours as I could, often seven days a week, but that only made the situation at home worse. Aaron became increasingly volatile, and I found myself cutting back even though I knew it was bad for the business. He kept insisting that if I truly loved him, I wouldn't ignore him for work. He'd take care of us, he insisted.

I didn't believe him, but I was in too deep to fight him at that point and, to no one's surprise, the salon started to fail. Just a few short months after I took over, Marnie's Bows and Bubbles closed the door for good.

It’d taken a lot of pain and suffering to escape that hell and find a new building where I could rebuild my own salon in Marnie’s honor. Now almost five years in, I usually kept solidly booked at least two weeks in advance. Within a year of opening, I'd had to search for help to keep up and lucked into Lain, newly arrived from veterinary school in Denver. He'd never told me why he'd moved to Lowery's Crossing when he didn't have any ties to the place, and I didn't question my good luck. He told me he hated the medical part of the classes but loved the short grooming seminar they'd offered. Lain wanted a fresh start, I needed help, and the rest was history.

Lain rarely worked weekends, preferring to come in later than me and stay later for any customers who needed afternoon or evening appointments, so I had the salon to myself on Sundays.

Today, after two long nights in a row with no sleep, work was the very last place I wanted to be. I sat at my desk, a breakfast sandwich and a travel cup of hot coffee at my elbow, with Rom splayed on the floor by my feet, and all I could do was stare at the screen in front of me.

The numbers didn't stress me out anymore. I stayed on top of it and these mornings were usually a breeze, but today, I just couldn't focus.

"Rom, do you think I should consider therapy?"

My dog, long used to me talking at him to fill the silence, just thumped his tail against the floor without lifting his head or even opening his eyes.

"Yeah, you're right, I probably should."

I scrubbed my hands across my face, trying to rub away the exhaustion weighing down my eyelids, but nothing would fix that except eight solid hours of uninterrupted sleep, and that wasn't happening any time soon.

Once upon a time, I'd been one of those people who fell asleep fast and slept through the night, waking up refreshed and ready to face the day. My old college roommate had jokingly accused me of being a witch, because apparently no one should be able to be so perky in the morning without massive amounts of caffeine. I could barely remember those days now or how it felt to not be afraid every time I closed my eyes.

Remembering that fear triggered the memory of the coffee shop and Aaron's hand on my arm. Then flashes of the last time he'd put his hands on me crashed through my brain, phantom pain tearing through me. The too familiar warnings of a panic attack curdled in my stomach, a choking miasma of fear, adrenaline, and the desperate urge to hide. My breaths came shorter, and I pushed back from my desk, lowering my head between my knees and trying to breathe through the dizziness.

Rom's head suddenly appeared in front of me, his cold nose nudging my cheek as he squirmed his way between me and the desk to sit at my feet. Immediately, I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his soft black fur. His weight against my legs grounded me, reminding me where I was, and slowly, painfully slowly, the panic loosened its grip on me.

Finally, I drew a full breath and slumped against my dog, pretending not to notice the trembling in my hands and the tears soaking into his fur.

"I should have known," I whispered to him when I could speak again, some endless eternity later. "I knew seeing him would mess me up." Foolishly, I'd thought it would be okay, because I'd held it together for two days, but really, I hadn't. By not sleeping, I'd just delayed the inevitable.

To his credit, Romulus sat there with me until I thought I could let go without falling into fear again. He nuzzled against me, resting his head on my shoulder while I hugged him.

"You know, for a puppy I found in the woods and never actually trained, you're pretty amazing," I murmured to him when I finally released him and wiped the tears from my face. He just looked up at me with those big soulful brown eyes, his tail wagging again now that I wasn't a blubbering mess.

"Thanks for being you, Rom." I scratched his ears, then sighed. "Let's get out of here. Paperwork is clearly not happening today. What do you say we take the day off?"

Romulus didn't understand the words, of course, but he knew what it meant when I powered off the computer and put away the file folders. He stood and stretched, his tags jingling on his collar when he rose and shook himself, already heading for the front door.