2
1001 Words
Wren
I should have stepped back.
That was the right thing to do. Step back, wipe my face, mumble an apology, and walk away before Zephyr Nightbane could look at me too closely. That was what a sensible girl would have done.
But his hands were still on my waist, steady and warm, and his voice was still hanging in the air between us, and something inside me had been cracked open so wide that I had nothing left to hold myself together with.
"Little wolf." He said it slower this time. His dark eyes moved over my face, taking in the tears, the shaking, the way I couldn't seem to breathe right. "Something's wrong."
It wasn't a question. Zephyr never asked questions when he already knew the answer. That was one of the things that had always scared me about him. He saw everything.
"I'm fine," I whispered.
His jaw tightened. "You're not."
And that was all it took. Two words. Two quiet, certain words, spoken like he actually cared about the answer, and the dam inside me broke completely.
I didn't think. If I had thought about it for even one second, I never would have done it. But my body moved on its own, and before I knew what was happening, my face was buried in his chest and I was sobbing.
Zephyr froze.
Every muscle in his body went rigid under my cheek. His arms hovered somewhere near my shoulders, not touching, like he had forgotten what hands were for. I felt his heartbeat against my ear, and it was fast. Much too fast for a man who once fought off three rogues without breaking a sweat.
I knew I should pull away. This was Zephyr Nightbane. My brother's best friend. The pack's most feared warrior. The man who never smiled at anyone, who never let anyone stand within arm's reach of him, who made grown wolves lower their eyes in the training yard.
And I was crying on him like he was a person you could cry on.
"I'm sorry," I choked out, but I didn't move. I couldn't. His scent wrapped around me, pine and smoke and warmth, and for reasons I couldn't explain, it was the only thing in the whole world that didn't hurt.
Somewhere deep in my chest, my wolf, who had been howling in pain since Silvercrest Lane, suddenly went quiet. Calm. Like she had found something she had been looking for.
That should have terrified me. Later, it would.
A low sound rumbled through Zephyr's chest. Almost a growl, but softer. Then, slowly, like he was handling something that might shatter, his arms came around me.
One big hand settled between my shoulder blades and began to move. Up. Down. Up. Down. Gentle, careful strokes, so at odds with everything I knew about him that I cried even harder.
"Let it out," he murmured against my hair. "I've got you. Let it all out."
So I did.
I cried for the two years I wasted. I cried for the house, the truck, the birthday boots. I cried for every night I skipped dinner because Kellan glanced at my plate a second too long. I cried for the girl who stood in front of her mirror this evening, practicing a speech about forever for a man who called her a ladder.
Zephyr held me through all of it. He didn't ask me to stop. He didn't tell me to calm down. He just stood there in the cold like a mountain, rubbing slow circles into my back, his chin resting lightly on top of my head.
I don't know how long we stayed like that. Long enough for my sobs to fade into hiccups, and my hiccups to fade into shaky breathing. Long enough for me to notice that his heart still hadn't slowed down.
Finally, I pulled back just enough to look up at him. My face was a swollen mess. His shirt was soaked through where I had pressed against it.
"I'm sorry," I whispered again. "Your shirt. I ruined it."
"I don't care about the shirt." His eyes searched mine, dark and unreadable, but there was something burning at the bottom of them. Something dangerous. His voice came out quiet and rough. "What happened?"
Kellan's laughter echoed in my head. That fat girl. Desperate girls believe anything.
If I said it out loud, it would become real. And if it became real in front of Zephyr Nightbane, I didn't know what he would do. I had seen what happened to the last man who wronged someone under his protection. They still told that story in whispers.
So I swallowed it all down and asked for the only thing I could think of.
"Can you..." My voice cracked. "Please take me to my brother?"
Something flickered across his face. He knew I was dodging the question. He knew, and for one long moment, I thought he would push.
He didn't. He just nodded once, shrugged off his jacket, and draped it over my shoulders before I could protest. It swallowed me whole, heavy and warm and smelling like him.
"Come on," he said.
We walked side by side through the dark streets toward the packhouse, his body angled slightly toward mine the whole way, like a shield. Neither of us spoke. But twice, I caught him breathing in deep through his nose, slow and deliberate, and each time his hands curled into fists at his sides.
It wasn't until we reached the packhouse steps, golden light spilling from the windows above us, that he finally broke the silence.
"Wren."
I stopped. He had never said my name before. Not once in all these years. It sounded different in his voice. It sounded like it meant something.
He was staring straight ahead at the door, his jaw hard, his eyes strange and bright in the darkness.
"Whoever made you cry tonight," he said quietly, "start saying goodbye to him now."
- Writer
