Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

“Wow,” I whispered back to him.

“I’m still pretty gross.”

“You are.”

He snorted. “And I feel like crap.”

“I know.”

He looked shyly at me. “But….”

“But?”

He shrugged before jerking his head toward the other side of the bed.

It took me a moment before I realized what he was asking.

And I could barely restrain the urge to howl and shake the bones of the house.

I toed off my boots, letting them fall to the floor. I turned, carefully climbing over him so I didn’t hurt him. He pulled back the comforter, and I got underneath. He was almost wolf-warm because of his sickness. He moved down on the bed and laid his head on the pillow. I did the same, our faces only inches apart. He pulled the comforter up and over our heads, surrounding us with semidarkness. Our scents mingled, and though his was human and dulled with illness, it was enough.

His eyes searched mine, and as we watched each other, I forced myself to search the furthest corners of my mind for something, anything that I could remember. There was nothing, of course. The void was absolute.

And I was so angry because of it.

He brought his hand between us and poked a finger against my cheek. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“You’re thinking too hard. I can see it on your face. Just be here. Right now. With me.”

And how could I refuse that?

I said, “I’m here.”

“You are.”

“Right now.”

“Yes.”

“With you.”

And god, how he smiled at me. Here, in this little cave we’d created for ourselves, this little section of life we’d carved out, he smiled. It was bright and fierce, and I reached up to brush another tear away from his cheek before it could fall onto the pillow.

He said, “My father loved me.”

I said, “He did. Very much.”

He said, “I don’t know why I never realized it. How deep it went.”

I said, “How could he not?”

He said, “We’ll fix this.”

I said, “If we can’t?”

He said, “Then we start again. From the beginning. It may take time, and there will be days when we both get frustrated, days when you’ll wonder if I’m not better off with someone else, and I’ll tell you to stop acting like such an idiot. You’ll scowl at me, and I won’t pay it any mind because I’ve had enough with the sheer amount of martyrs that we seem to have in this pack. But those days will be few and far between because every day will be us. You and me. And I won’t stop. I won’t ever stop. Even if I lose you again, if you somehow forget all of this, I’ll do it again. And again. And again.”