"You don't understand." Damien's voice grew low. He tried to stand up, but his leg buckled under him and Julia saw his wound start to bleed freshly. "You don't know—"
"I don't know anything about you!" Julia cried, wanting more than anything to turn and run. "And I don't want to know!" Looking at Damien's leg, she realized she couldn't abandon him here. He realized her thoughts a second later.
"It's fine," Damien said. "I can get home from here."
"How can you get home when you're..." Julia's words faded in the hot air.
"Scent, usually," Damien said, pulling out a cell phone from his pocket. "But I need to call one of my friends. He's a doctor."
"Your leg," Julia said.
"Not for me," Damien said. "For him."
Julia looked where Damien nodded and saw the injured wolf lying on his side.
"You'll have to stay here, too." Damien said.
"I'm not going to stay with you," Julia said, her arms crossed defiantly.
"Unless you want to risk running into another one of those wolves, you'd better stay," Damien said. Julia's breath left her body in a whoosh as she thought about encountering another wolf on the trail. It was miles back to the trailhead, and she had nothing for protection. Except Damien. Except...
"Don't worry," Damien said. He smiled sadly at Julia, and she saw his golden eyes flicker underneath his dark brows. "They'll be here soon. And I promise not to bite."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Damien
Damien smelled the three wolves in his pack before they emerged from the forest. Sitting on a log by the lakeshore, Julia kept a safe distance between the two of them. Damien could feel the soft ripples of feelings coming off of her body. Sometimes an intense wave of emotion would sweep across him, and he could almost get a hint of the thoughts she was thinking: "don't believe it, can't believe it...never have someone like him...liar...liar"
He was crushed. Though his senses might be misleading him, his heart pointed solely in one direction, the direction of his Calling. There was no helping it. Julia was his mate, his true partner. For her to reject him now made perfect sense, but he was crushed nonetheless.
"They're coming," he said to Julia.
"What?" Julia asked. She turned around, saw the wolves emerging from the forest, and shrieked.
"Damien! Wolves!" she cried.
All of a sudden she was next to him, her arms clutching his body. Before when she touched him, it felt like heaven, but now her fear spiked intensely through his own nerves. His heart pounded, and he had to convince himself that he was alright.
"It's okay," he said, trying to calm them both down.
"Oh god," she said, her fingers digging into his skin. "There's three of them. You can't—"
"Julia," Damien said, turning to her and caressing her cheek with his hand. "It's okay. It's my pack."
He felt her emotions twist from fear to confusion to relief in an instant. Then she dropped her hands from him and took a step backwards, and the deep connection was lost. Only a ripple of anger came from her, and after that, embarrassment. She was embarrassed to seek his protection. He wanted to tell her that it didn't matter, that he would always protect her, but she clearly didn't want his help or his assurances.
Jordan shifted first, dropping his bag on the ground before he changed, and Damien heard Julia's gasp of fright as the wolf turned into a human.
"I thought you said she knew about us," Jordan said. He pulled open his bag and took out a change of clothes to cover his nak*d body, and the rest of the wolves followed suit. Damien could tell that Julia was watching Katherine shift when a blast of embarrassment hit his mind. Embarrassment, jealousy, guilt. He wanted to kiss Julia right then, to promise her that she didn't need to be jealous of anything, but he couldn't.
"I brought some painkillers," Jordan said, kneeling down next to the injured wolf. "Looks like he's already unconscious, though. We'd better get him back to someplace I can stitch up these wounds."
"You really did a number on him," Kyle said. As he spoke, Damien sensed Julia's anger near him.
"I was defending myself," Damien said, a sliver of guilt inching its way outward of his skin. "Will he be okay?"
"He'll be fine," Jordan said. "Just need to stop the bleeding. We parked the car as close as we could. It's a straight shot through the woods here."
"I can carry him," Kyle said.
"This is your pack?" Julia asked softly. Damien knew that all of the other shifters could hear her speak; in human form their hearing was duller than it was in wolf form, but still acutely sensitive.
"Yes," he said. He felt her anger turn towards him, and he didn't understand why until Katherine spoke.
"So this is the girl whose house we were looking at," she said, striding toward Julia, though her words were aimed at Damien. "Guess you haven't convinced her yet to sell."
"Katherine, don't," Damien said.
"Strange," Katherine said. "I would have thought you would seduce her a lot more easily. But I suppose shifting into wolf form would scare off any human."
Julia's breath rasped between her lips.
"I'm leaving," she said.
"Guess we are too," Katherine said pointedly. "Back on the move."
"Julia, please wait," Damien said. He followed her footsteps toward the trail. "I need to talk with you about all this."
"There's nothing you can say that I want to hear," Julia said. Her anger washed red over Damien's mind, like storm clouds full of bloody wrath.
"What if there are other wolves?" Damien pleaded.
"Then they'll kill me."
"Julia, don't do this—"
"Go back to your goddamn pack and forget about me!" Julia said. Her voice was trembling, on the edge of tears, but all Damien sensed was rage in the air. She stormed off and left Damien standing alone.
"I can't," Damien whispered, but she was already gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Julia
Julia went straight up to her room when she got home. Granny Dee was in the kitchen baking and the last thing Julia wanted to do was explain why she was crying her eyes out.
Oh, that guy I fell madly in love with? Yeah, he's a werewolf. Oh, and he already has a girlfriend. She's a werewolf too. And they wanted to take our house.
Sure. That would go over really well. Julia fell onto her bed and sobbed into her pillow, muffling her cries as best as she could. The long day of hiking and sun had tired her out, and she cried herself to sleep, her bathing suit still on.
When she woke up, it was nighttime and Granny Dee was knocking on the door. Julia fumbled for the switch and turned on her lamp.
"Julia? Julia, it's time for dinner."
"I'm not hungry," Julia called.
"Are you okay?" The sympathy in Granny Dee's voice only made it hurt more.
"I'm fine," Julia said. "Just tired."
There was a pause.
"Okay," Granny Dee said. "If you want to talk, let me know."
"I will," Julia said. She sat up, dizziness rushing through her head. Her phone had six missed calls from Damien. Only one message. She dialed into her voicemail, her hand trembling as it held the phone up to her ear.
"Julia..." Damien's voice sounded tired. "I need to talk with you. Just once more. I—I can't leave here without talking to you. I hope to see you soon. Call me, please."
Julia deleted the message and lay back on the bed. The night air in summer had always been soothing, but tonight it stifled Julia's breathing. She stared at her ceiling. One crack in the plaster had always captured her imagination, the lamplight playing shadows over it and creating all manner of faces and creatures in the twists and turns of the cracks. Now she saw a wolf's face staring at her from the ceiling crack, the line of its tail extending out. She rolled over and out of bed.
Granny Dee left Julia alone when she needed it, and now when she tiptoed down the stairs, she could hear her grandmother in the downstairs bedroom listening to one of her jazz records. Quietly, she slipped out of the back door and into the meadow behind the house.
Fireflies everywhere. Julia walked forward, arms outstretched, feeling as though she was floating across the field. She looked up at the sky, and the stars and the lights of the fireflies seemed to blend together, white and yellow dots of light swirling around her.
Then she felt it.
The same feeling that she had gotten when she first saw Damien in the library. Her eyes swept across the woods, looking for something, anything. The sense that there was somebody near her made her whole body vibrate with anticipation instead of fright, a strange reaction.
It was nothing. She was imagining things. She turned to go back inside.
"Don't go." The voice came from out of the darkness. His voice. She spun back and saw Damien walking slowly across the field, as calmly and gracefully as if he had not been blind. The dim moonlight showed only the outline of his figure, but as he came closer Julia saw that his eyes still glowed with a golden hue, and his white shirt reflected blue in the light of the moon. Although her brain told her that she should be scared—he was a monster, after all!—she wasn't in the least bit afraid.
"Damien." Julia lost her voice as Damien stopped in front of her. She'd forgotten what she wanted to say, or maybe she had known all along that there were no words that could describe what was in her heart at that moment. The longing, the desire, and the blunt agony of knowledge that no amount of either would bring him to her. Yet there he stood.
"Julia, I need to talk to you."
She cleared her throat.
"Then talk."
"I should have told you earlier. I don't want this to come between us more than it already has."
"You've already chosen someone else," Julia said. "That's clear enough."
"I don't want her," Damien said. "Not now. Not after—"
"After what?"
"Not after I've found you. We were only together by necessity. Neither of us had mates."
"She must love you, though?"
"She owes me her life, and I am the leader of the pack. Truth be told, she would rather be with someone else. The only binds she has toward me are feelings of obligation. Not love."
Julia saw the sorrow in his eyes, and she knew that he was telling the truth. Her heart ached.
"I can't, Damien," she said. "Not after you lied to me about so much. Your girlfriend. Wanting to buy my house. Are you even blind? How do I know that's not a lie too?"
Damien cringed at the word girlfriend.
"Please," Damien said. "Ask me anything. I'll answer honestly. Ask me any question in your mind and I'll tell you the truth."
"How can I ever trust you again?" Julia whispered.
Damien was silent for a moment. The breaths between them were filled with heat.
"You have to choose to trust me," he said. "It's a hard choice to trust somebody. Always. Every day is another choice, and you will have to decide again and again whether or not to trust me."
"You lied."