DAN & LIV

A HOLLOWAY PACK SPECIAL

BOOK 5.5

J.A. BELFIELD

ALSO BY J.A. BELFIELD

BEGINNINGS

DARKNESS & LIGHT

BLUE MOON

HEREDITARY

CAGED

UNNATURAL

ENTICED

CORNERED

THE THERAPIST

DAN & LIV

Published by J.A. Belfield

www.jabelfield.com

Copyright © 2017 Julie Anne Belfield

This story has been produced for the fans of the Holloway

Pack only, and is only available to those who have read

Cornered. To anyone else, this story will not mean

anything and, if read prior to reading Cornered, will be a

massive spoiler for the story ahead.

So do the book world a favour.

Be a friendly sailor, not a pirate.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, locations, or any other element is entirely coincidental.

First Published: December 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Pure & simple: This one’s for my readers

1

I hadn't expected Nate to grant me the day off work. Had expected him to say no.

Or maybe I'd just hoped he would. Maybe I'd been hoping for any reason to put off what I had planned for the day—though, too much stacked against my not taking the opportunity when it’d arisen.

One: I needed the forest.

Two: Liv only seemed to own Converse, and I doubted those would come out alive from a downpour trek through the trees.

Three: After weeks of rain, rain, fucking rain and thunderstorms, nature had finally served us a dry spell.

I'd thought Spring had been bad. Then we'd been hit by Summer, and Spring hadn't seemed so bad, after all.

“Do I get to know what we're doing?” Liv asked.

Snapping out of the day's schedule running through my head, I glanced toward

where she sat in the passenger seat of Nate's pickup.

Yeah, Nate had been so keen for me to get the bloody task done, he'd even provided the wheels for the day.

“You'll know when we get there,” I told her, forcing a smile. Not that I had to force it too hard. Something about seeing Liv next to me, knowing I got to keep her, even if only for a little while, had my soul lifting higher than I ever thought it could go.

Rolling her eyes, she glanced back toward the road in front of us. A familiar road.

One she knew well by then, and if she hadn't figured out our destination … well, I guessed we'd blame that on the pregnancy hormones. Seemed to be a good excuse for a lot of situations in Liv's book.

Me? I still couldn't quite believe what I'd gone and done. Not in a bad way. More in a, Am I really ready for this shit? kind of way.

One glance at Liv, though, each time I had those thoughts, and I knew the answer.

I'm ready. Hell, was I ready.

I only hoped she was ready for me.

***

Home stood empty and quiet as death. Liv had narrowed her eyes when I’d pulled

onto the driveway, and she’d stared at me when I’d scooped up a ready-packed

basket from beneath the carport and tugged her straight past the life-barren house toward the forest. Although the mass of leafy timber stood sentry on all sides of the property, we’d grown into the habit of only accessing the wooded area via the rear garden. The less folks saw human-looking movement in there, the less likely they’d be to trespass themselves. It also diminished the chance of us being followed, especially when most activities we used the forest for should never be witnessed by Joe Public.

“Where are you taking me?” Liv asked, frowning.

My lips twitched as I said, “You’ll see.”

It took seconds for the canopy of foliage to shroud us as we slid between the first trunks we hit. Thanks to the sunshine trying its damnedest to beat back any rain, dappled spots danced across the forest floor, creating our own personal party hall of the best fucking kind.

The tilt back of Liv’s head had me glancing to the side. I couldn’t help but relax at the way her eyes seemed to scan as much of her surroundings as she could, and as my gaze drifted lower, I drew in a deep sigh of male satisfaction.

The ankle-length skirt she wore swayed its rustic colours around like fallen autumn leaves, with each swing of her hips. Atop that, the simple white brocade blouse made her hair stand out like her sizzling hotness had set it alight, but mostly I loved the way the bottom couple of buttons no longer met over the slowly swelling mound of her belly. Yeah, Liv looked fucking amazing along every single inch of her pregnant glory.

Chin lowering, she sliced her gaze my way like she’d sensed me staring. “What?”

“Nothing.” I smiled. “Just thinking to myself, is all.”

“What’s in here, anyway?” she asked, turning away again.

A small laugh breathed from me. “You’re looking at it.”

She teetered to a stop, her arm shooting out. “Unnh!”

A swamp of mud sludged up the ground in front of us. Liv’d only just saved her skirt hem from getting dunked. Gripping the handle of the basket tighter with one hand, I wrapped an arm beneath her butt and hauled her up off the floor against me.

“Is it this muddy right through?” she asked, peering toward the ground.

“Probably—but that’s half the fun.”

“You’re such a dick,” she muttered.

“Just hold on,” I told her, and waiting until she wrapped her arms over my

shoulders enough to get a good grip, I strode us right through the slippery mush like it wasn’t even there.

Around another five minutes in, where the branch overhangs were thicker and

lower, among a cluster of chestnuts, I found a spot dry enough to set us down.

“This’ll do,” I said, settling Liv’s feet back on the floor. Despite her verbal assurances that she could manage without being carried, she hadn’t really tried too hard to be put down.

“For what?” she asked, shaking her skirt straight.

Not bothering to answer, I tugged out a blanket from atop the basket’s contents and flapped it loose of its folds. It floated down to the ground like a magic carpet, creating a waterproofed layer for us to sit down.

As I waved a hand toward the offering, Liv smiled. “You better have food in that basket, too.” Dropping to her knees first, she made some ungraceful attempt at sitting before rolling onto her butt and flopping onto her back—until she took up most of the blanket. She patted the tiny triangle of fabric at her side. “That’s your bit.”

“Sounds about right,” I muttered, lowering down and joining her. At least she’d left me the trunk of a sweet chestnut to lean against. “Hungry?”

She breathed out a laugh that made her tits jiggle. “Always.”

Dipping a hand into the basket, I located the only packed jar and a packet, and dragging them out, I held them up. “I’m one-hundred percent in disagreement with this disgusting concoction, but …”

She bolted upright—as much as she could without straining herself—her gaze

latching onto the crap in my hands. “You love me. You must love me. I knew you were in denial.”

Grinning, I handed them over. Marmite. And marshmallow flumps. Just the idea of putting the two together made me shudder. I grabbed a packet of mints out of the basket and tossed them down next to her. “Just make sure you suck on a few of these after.”

Daubing up a dollop with a flump, she sucked on the tarry nastiness, making sure to face my way as she said, “You don’t like my Marmite breath?”

“Do that again, and I won’t like you at all.”

She smiled around the gunk, bit off a chunk of marshmallow, and shaking my head, I fished out a sandwich. A normal sandwich. For myself.

“You bring any pillows?” she asked, as I bit into a wedge of bread, salami and cheese.

“Yeah, hang on. I’ll just grab the one I have in my pocket.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Next time, bring pillows.”

Next time, do this. Next time, do that. Seemed to be Liv’s favourite kinds of commands, the more pregnant she grew.

“Yes, ma’am.” And that seemed to be my go-to response.

Chewing down on another bite, I let my head sink back against the bark, and the speckles of invading sunlight beamed down against my face. Around us, a soft breeze hushed its way around the leaves and branches, but beneath that tune, the presence of so many animals created a quieter, less prominent song—one Liv, no doubt, would be totally unaware of. Not me, though. I heard it all. Just by mentally weaving my way through every rustle and pat-a-pat-pat, I could figure out pretty much every creature that moved about around us. The rapid scurry of mice. The heavier, lazier path of a badger. Foxes cautiously manoeuvring the woodlands by day. Squirrels—a quick sweeping sound punctured by small pauses as they no doubt checked their next move before making it. Hell, even the differing birds bouncing from tree to tree filled the air, their music as unique as the flapping of their wings.

“You’re quiet,” she said.

As soon as she’d spoken, I sensed her staring my way. “I’m relaxed. Being here relaxes me.” Though, nowhere as near as it would’ve if I didn’t have to do what I’d taken her there for.

“Yeah, relaxes that frown right onto your face,” she said.

Ordering said frown to fuck off, I glanced across at her. I didn’t want her to figure me out. To know just how much I had on my mind. Not yet, anyway. At least let us have something decent for a little while longer. Before I’d go and ruin it all.

“Better?” I asked.

“Marginally.” She sank back down against the blanket and fed herself a sludge-

smothered marshmallow. “I can’t believe you got time off work,” she said around chewing.

“Me either.” I shoved another bite of sandwich in my gob to hide the lie.

The pack’d barely been on site over the past few weeks—the funky weather had seen to that—and the lapse in heavy rain and robust winds had been our first chance in too long to rumble along in and catch up on a bunch of missed jobs. It’d also been my first chance to bring Liv into the forest—it offered no reprieve, though, just forced my hand in a game I didn’t want to play. A game I’d put off playing.

“You come out here a lot?”

The question tore me back to the moment, and I nodded. I did head out there a

lot—definitely a lot more than Liv knew about.

“I think we should come out here more.”

“Yeah?”

Her returned nod messed her hair up into an even wilder mass than it already was.

“I think I just found my new place to study.”

“Out here?” I shoved in the last mouthful of sandwich and chewed.

“You can just sit there, all broody and quiet—like you usually do. And I’ll have loads of peace and quiet for getting on with stuff.”

I chuffed out a sound that might’ve passed for a laugh. Mostly because, after I’d finished with the task assigned me, there’d be no guarantee Liv would want to come anywhere near me. Not in the forest. Not anywhere.

Although in the summer holiday stage of uni, Liv would be heading back for the new year, new term soon. Despite her being pregnant, they’d agreed to her

continuing on, with the understanding that she’d relinquish her place if the

pregnancy and baby began interfering with her studies.

Except, after I’d done, there wouldn’t be any guarantee of a baby any longer, either.

And damn, every time that thought so much as poked at my skull, my breaths

seemed to fuck off, leaving me with a sucker-punch of pain in my chest.

“Hey.” Her hand wrapped over mine, and she gave a slight tug. “Seriously. Why so tense?”

She said it like I wasn’t normally tense. Like I didn’t carry a rucksack of uptight on my back every damned day. Or maybe I’d outdone myself and sat there even more

rigid and wound up than I’d been known to ever since my life had taken a nosedive for the worst.

Of course, that’d been before Liv had shown up on my doorstep with the news of a life growing inside her—a life I’d half helped create.

I tried mentally draining the stiffness from my shoulders, dropping them a few inches, like that’d help. “I’m not. I’m okay.”

I doubted she believed me—confirmed in the way she stared at me through the

lenses of her specs for a few seconds longer than necessary before glancing away.

“So, what goes on out here, anyway?” she asked, rolling up to her butt.

“What d’you mean?”

“You know, all this space. All this privacy.” A hint of a smile played over her lips.

“You must use it for something.”

I glanced down at where she still held onto my hand. “What would you use it for, Liv?”

“I dunno.” She lifted her face, her eyes seeming to scan between the trees. “Nature trails …”

Yeah, we had that in spades.

“Horse riding, maybe …”

My head was shaking as soon as she started speaking. No way. Horses—with us?

Bad idea.

She gave a quiet laugh, her eyebrows lifting as she offered, “Build a treehouse?”

“You’re a bit old for a treehouse.”

“Hey!” She knuckled my shoulder. “You’re never too old for a treehouse.”

“Yeah?” I leaned in a little as I asked, “And what would you do with it, if you had one?”

“Hide,” she said, laughter coming through in her tone.

My lips curved. “From whom?” Like Liv needed to hide from anyone.

“Not from whom,” she said. “With whom.”

I opened my mouth, a silent Ah forming between my lips. “And what would you do while hiding, exactly?”

“I dunno.” She swivelled toward me some and, stretching a hand out, walked her fingers long my arm. “This maybe.”

“Dangerous,” I said. “No wonder you’d need to hide.” I didn’t mention how the

small contact had a trail of goose-bumps blazing after it.

She merely smiled—a smile that warned of her shifting mind from relaxed to active.

“And this maybe.” Pushing onto her knees, she smoothed that same hand over my

chest, higher across my clavicle, until it settled against my neck, the tips of her

fingers teasing against the pulse below my ear. “Definitely this,” she whispered, and she pushed in closer, bringing her lips against mine.

For a moment, I contemplated just closing my eyes. Going with it. Seeing how long I could blank out the darkness within my mind that’d no doubt spread, the second I released the reins. I didn’t, though. Instead, I kept them open as I took her by the hips and lifted her high enough to seat her across my lap.

“Seems you have a few ideas of your own for this treehouse,” she said against my lips.

Smiling, I nudged closer, lifted her glasses up to rest on her head, and invited her in.

Her mouth tasted as sweet as it always did. Her tongue smooth and enticing, as familiar to me as my own. I loved the way it brushed over the ridges of my mouth.

The way it danced around my own tongue before it retracted. She closed her lips over mine. The undulation of them an erotic dance as she tilted her head to the side, her nose brushing my own. Her fingers tightening over my neck as she deepened the kiss.

As had become the norm for us, I let her take the lead. While a part of me screamed for the control, an even bigger part of me trusted Liv. Trusted her to know when to push, when to pull back. To understand each and every shift in my mood.

In truth, she shouldn’t have to be stuck with that much responsibility. Especially when she still didn’t know why.

When she gripped hold of one of my hands, I let her. When she drew it along her thigh, loosening her hold just enough to lift the hem of her skirt, I obediently followed. And when she placed my palm against the soft skin of her leg, I took the guidance for what it was and skimmed over her thigh. All the way up to her arse.

Her very silky, very naked arse.

Pausing, I drew back enough to see her eyes. “I see you had a few plans of your own for today.”

She just laughed, a tiny, totally naughty giggle of a sound, and nudged her lips back against mine.

“Wait,” she said, shifting back by less than an inch. “Anyone ever come in here?”

“Apart from us? Nope.” Except for the very rare occurrence, anyway.

“So, nobody’s going to see us in here?”

I shook my head. “Not unless you count all the creatures roaming around.”

“Creatures I can deal with—unless they’re like dogs who sit at the end of the bed and stare at what you’re doing like they’re trying to—”

I kissed her. “Shut up, Liv,” I whispered, and kissed her again.

Within seconds, she’d enveloped me in her arms, as if she somehow knew it was

something I needed. Her fingers dug through the strands at the back of my neck, as if to add additional grounding. Bringing my other hand up under her skirt, I gripped the mounds of her butt and dragged her closer to me, until the V of her thighs fitted perfectly over my swelling dick and her breasts almost cushioned my chin with every inhalation she took.

She gave a slow grind of her hips. My dick liked it. A lot. What it didn’t like was the jersey fabric of my sweat-shorts getting in the damned way of feeling her soft folds glide over its ever-growing rigidity. And I didn’t much like the divide of my T-shirt and her blouse separating my skin from hers, either—keeping my mouth from those hardened buds of hers I could feel even through the layers of clothing.

“That blouse need to be buttoned?” I asked, not even bothering to remove my

mouth from hers.

“It really turns me on when you ask so nicely …”

My lips curved with the small laugh that broke free, growing into a full on grin when we both reached for her top button at the same time. Shifting her hand to my shoulder, she lowered her gaze toward where I flicked free one button, then another two. Smoothing a hand over the flesh of an upper mound, I curled my fingers around and under, brushing my thumb over her nipple as I lifted a breast free of the bra, the tight skin there instantly puckering as it was introduced to the air.

Not even bothering with a request, Liv squeezed against the back of my neck,

nudging me toward the awaiting pleasure tip. Because one thing Liv loved was having her tits suckled. And I happened to love doing it.

The second I drew her into my mouth, her breaths sharpened. The moment I

tugged her between my teeth, her hips tilted back. As I followed up with the

tormenting salve of my tongue across its tip, she ground against my crotch and let out a small moan. So, obviously, I did it all over again. And again. Until Liv’s breaths hitched and her nails dug into my nape, and her hips swayed in a torturous dance that had my dick crying for some of the action.

Gripping hold of her hips, I rolled her from over me, following the manoeuvre, until she lay on her back, her legs all a-fucking-kimbo and her glasses clinging to her hair, and me one-hundred percent on top.

The quiet sound she made held a whole lot of surprise, though I couldn’t tell if it was from the sudden switch of positions, or because it was the first time I’d given in and taken the lead since before she got pregnant. A fact that had absolutely zip to do with her condition.

Beneath me, her hair looked even wilder than ever, all splayed and tangled and bright, so fucking bright, against the dull earth it spilled onto. “You’re driving me crazy,” I murmured.

“Because I want you.” Hooking a leg over mine, she lifted her hips until her pelvis met mine. “And judging by that weapon you’re carrying, I’m going to guess you want me right back.”

“I do want you. Fuck, Liv …” I always wanted her. Wanting wasn’t the problem—

never had been. It was that damned disconnect happening up in my brain all the bloody time. Driving me to miserable distraction, like it had that one, singular goal, and it would achieve it, whatever the cost.

She pulled on the back of my neck, lifting up herself until her lips brushed mine.

“Then, show me, damn it. Just let go of whatever’s holding you back. You know it’s not going to hurt the baby—the doc confirmed it.” An excuse I’d been using that she’d gotten kicked out of the way. She kissed me again, a tiny nudge of encouragement.

“For me.” Another kiss, and I found my body relaxing, my lips easing into a smile.

“Please.”

Blanking my mind of all unwanted thoughts, I let myself sink into her as she

lowered back to the ground. Let myself get lost in the gentle brushes of her hands—

over my back, beneath my T-shirt, down beneath the waistband of my shorts to

stroke my butt, my hip. The slow glide of her fingers over my shaft had me groaning out a breath, one she swallowed up with a greed she showed every damned time we got as far as we had.

“Stay with me,” she whispered, as she pushed down against my waistband, and her feet came up and the toes of her Converse urged my shorts down further.

Obliging, I kicked them off the rest of the way, lifted my arms when she tugged at my shirt.

Her lips took mine again as if anchoring me to her, and her to me, as if that

connection alone would ensure I never left what lay before me. “God, Danny, why d’you have to be so bloody hot?” Words whispered into my mouth that had my lips

curving and my chest rumbling in acceptance of her appreciation. “Makes me sick,”

she added, her lips smiling against mine.

The wriggle of her butt beneath me, as she hiked up her skirt, had my dick bobbing about in excitement, and the wrapping of her fingers around its length had me

sucking in a breath and my lids flickering.

“Open your eyes, Dan.” A gentle command, but one she somehow understood I

needed—one I needed to obey—to stay there. With her. In the moment.

Focusing wholly on her, I watched the concentration in her eyes as she guided my tip to where she wanted it, watched the determination in the line of her jaw, as she tilted her hips and her grasp of my own directed me deeper. Keeping my focus there, I caught the slight darkening of her smoky blues as I did exactly what she needed and slid my shaft inside her, the popped parting of her lips, the softening of her features at finally getting that for which she’d been waiting.

“You okay?” she whispered up at me, and I nodded.

“More than okay,” I murmured, and I let my lips drop to hers. Tightened my arms about her shoulders. Curled my body around hers like she needed protecting even through an act filled with tenderness.

Her soft moans breathed across my face as I lowered my forehead to hers, moans of my own building in the back of my throat with every retreat and forward drive of my dick into her tight channel. Another few thrusts and my body begged to drive faster, harder, those moans threatening to deepen into growls of need and a desperation to take what I too often denied myself. A desperation so intense, I simply let go. Let my body take control and my mind get hauled along like it rode bareback on a wild horse, my eyes closing against the imaginary parting of the wind.

Beneath me, she gasped on every breath she took, her breath hitching every

damned time. Her legs circled my hips. Her arms circled my shoulders. Her

fingernails dug into my skin. Sharp and insistent and gouging and—

My entire body stiffened and I stilled.

“Danny.”

Those damned fingers. Those fucking fingers. Digging—always digging in.

“Danny, open your eyes.”

I obeyed, but all I could see was hair swaying and swinging, and tits bouncing and clenching, and—

“Breathe, Danny.”

I sucked in a breath, sharp and harsh and hard enough to graze my insides on its way down.

“Stay with me. Stay me with.” A soft hand stroked my face. “Do you see me?”

I did. I did see her. All red-haired and fiery and achingly sweet.

The relief that hit me seemed to shoot pain throughout my entire soul, like my body had broken into a billion particles that’d gotten individually sucked back into the moment before realigning themselves, the entire process leaving my brain a little foggy.

Or maybe that was being inside Liv. Still hard as hell. Still eager as hell. Still in need—so much fucking need—of a release.

“I’m here,” I whispered, my voice a whole lot of rough, and I kissed her. Kissed her like I needed her just to keep breathing. Because some days, it felt like I did.

And ordering my hips to get moving, I sank into her like I needed her to make me whole again. Because all too often, whenever I didn’t have Liv in my sights, I felt so fucking incomplete.

It didn’t take long for the sounds of her pleasure to once more fill the air, or a gentle rumble of thunder to roll through my chest, and I kept my mouth linked with hers the entire time. My gaze on hers the entire time.

Her fingers gripped tight to the hair at my nape, her hips urged upward in small frantic jerks, and I knew she was ready. I was ready, too, and as soon as the

heightened cry spilled from her lips, and her body clenched around mine, I quit holding back and let myself go. Let the roughness pour from my throat on a growl and the tension seep from my muscles, as the ejaculation pulsed through my body with enough force to leave my limbs trembling.

Though our bodies relaxed, one against the other, our lips still fed as if our hunger still required that last dose to be fully sated. As if that continued connection kept us floating on the high of orgasm. And I wanted nothing more than to stay there, locked with Liv, mind closed to anything else. Especially the real reason I’d taken Liv out to the forest.

That, I wanted to forget most of all—but thanks to it having been issued as an order by my Alpha, I didn’t get to shun the responsibility with which I’d been landed.

Moving less than a hairsbreadth from her lips, I slipped from inside her and rolled from over Liv, my grip of her shoulders forcing her to roll with me. Until we lay side by side, facing each other, her shoulder on the blanket, mine on the moist forest floor.

Her glasses had, at some point, made a bid for freedom, and I grabbed them up

from the dirt above her head.

Taking them from me, she slipped them back on. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she said, her lips twitching into a smile.

Weaving my arm around her waist, I tugged until she curved against my body.

“Nowhere near bad.”

The smile lingered on her lips, in her eyes, as she traced a finger over my

cheekbone, across my mouth. Pausing there, she gazed at me so hard she seemed to be seeking out secrets and truths. As if, by merely looking deep enough, she could figure out what had me so screwed up over intimacy, a story I hoped she’d never uncover, if only because I never wanted to relive it, even for her.

What’d happened to me, what I’d gone through? That kind of shit fucked with a

male’s masculinity. With his identity. It was only through Liv that I’d begun finding myself again. If she knew the whole of it, the why of it, would she start seeing me through pitying eyes? Would she quit pushing me through the blocks and over the hurdles?

I didn’t think I could deal if that happened—no, I knew I wouldn’t deal. Because if that happened, I might never make it to the other side of whatever bog I’d gotten stuck in.

“I love you, Daniel Larsen,” she said into the settled quiet.

Despite my initial urge to smile, only a frown found place in my features. “I’m counting on it.”

“For what?”

I tried to form the answer, but it seemed stuck halfway up my throat, and as I just lay there staring back at her, a nervous half-laugh bubbled free of Liv.

“For what?” she asked again. “What aren’t you telling me, Dan?”

“There are parts of me you don’t know about,” I said, my frown instantly deepening at the shitty opener.

Her lips twerked in the corner. “We’ve all got little parts of ourselves we don’t let anyone see.”

“Yeah, but these parts of me …” I inhaled. Exhaled. “If you knew about them— know about them … it scares me that you won’t …”

“Feel the same about you?”

I gave a slow nod. “That you won’t see me the same way.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” she said, her thumb brushing along my jaw, but her brows lowered as she said it.

“It is.”

“How bad can it be? I mean, what are you, like, some crazy, psycho serial killer, and you haven’t told me about it?”

Being the total dickhead I could be, I paused to contemplate the question. Actually paused. Like I gave it serious consideration. Because I had killed. More than once.

But killed for sport, or sexual need, or whatever urge a serial killer might decide is good enough to act on?

Spotting the worry creeping in and dulling her eyes, I quickly shook my head. “I’m not a serial killer.”

Her exhale was heavy, telling me I’d hesitated for a beat too long. When I didn’t immediately elaborate, her next breath came out as a sigh. “Just tell me, Dan.” More serious that time. Less playful. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

She could try beating the shit out of me with her shoe. Jump up and leave and

never come back.

Terminate the pregnancy.

“It’s not something I can tell you,” I said, forcing myself to continue. “It’s better shown. To help you …”

What? Understand? Understanding was a big ask. Maybe too big an ask. I’d settle for accepting what she saw as true, but knowing how fucking ominous that sounded, I didn’t bother finishing, just pushed up onto an arm and held out my hand to help her up.

“Where do we have to go for you to show me this something?” Though she didn’t

sound pissed off, her eyes had narrowed with a whole lot of suspicion.

“Right here.” As she propped herself on a hand, holding herself up on one hip, I slid her blouse back over her shoulder, then leaned in and kissed her. Not just a simple peck, but a hard, lingering, memorable kiss. Like a part of me already expected it to be the last time I’d get to see her, once I’d followed my orders. “Just do me a favour,”

I said, drawing back enough to bring her eyes into focus.

Her brows arched over the tops of her glasses in question, the left, as always, slightly higher than the right.

“Just …” I took a breath. “Whatever happens next, whatever …” I shrugged, then ordered myself to quit stalling. “Just promise me that, whatever, you won’t run.”

Her lips danced like she wanted to laugh, but her frown seemed to stall completion of the action. “What’re you talking about?”

“Just stay, okay? Don’t run away from me. Promise me, Liv.”

“Should I be worried about this request?” she asked, swinging her legs around and sitting straighter all of a sudden. Almost as if she prepped to do the exact opposite of what I’d just asked.

“You don’t need to be worried. You never need to be worried around me. I can

promise you that.” I tucked a wild cluster of curls behind her ear. “I just need you to promise me you won’t run.”

She nodded, but it stank of hesitancy and uncertainty. “I promise,” she uttered, sounding as unsure as she looked.

I studied her a moment, seeking some kind of reassurance that I should continue—

though, fuck knew what kind of sign would give me that. When she didn’t look away,

I pushed to my feet, bending to undo the laces of my trainers—the only thing Liv hadn’t dragged off me—and as soon as I was fully naked, I took a few steps back.

Despite my muscular form being on full show, despite my dick swinging around

and smelling a whole lot like Liv, she didn’t once shift her gaze from mine.

Trapped by her focus, I rolled out my shoulders, stretched my neck out. Thought about doing an entire routine of body flexing just to delay the next step.

“You’re a stripper on the side,” she said, smiling. “That what this is about?”

I didn’t answer her. Just squatted down until my fingertips met the earth beneath me. “Don’t be scared,” I told her, watching as the smile faded. “Nothing bad is going to happen. I swear.”

She laughed then. A totally nervous sound. I hated that I’d been the one to place those emotions within her, but I’d have to fix it later. If I kept putting off what needed doing, I’d end up baulking. Which would earn me a slamming from Nate.

Disrespect from my pack brothers.

Not to mention, keeping Liv in the dark any longer …. She didn’t deserve that. I owed her the truth.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I concentrated on what needed to be done and

called forth that part of me that stayed hidden from the majority of folks. Invited in what sometimes felt like the real shape of my soul, at other times a damned curse.

And willed my mind to succumb and my body to obey its demands.

As soon as that first prickle danced over the nape of my neck, I lifted my lids and focussed back on Liv.

She just sat there. Staring. Patient. Impatient. Waiting, I figured, to see what the hell kind of game I was toying with.

Seeing her there almost stole my discipline—being watched like that. Sure, I’d changed in front of others. I’d done it plenty. The pack did it in front of each other without so much as a thought.

With an audience who had no fucking idea what was coming, though?

Gritting my teeth, I ordered myself to keep going. Until the unbidden flex of my muscles told me the change had truly begun. The twists and tugs to my flesh

challenging the strength of my arms as they held me steady.

In front of me, Liv blinked a few times, like she tried to double check her vision.

Lips even twitching a few times, as if to smile, like she still thought I was pulling a stunt, like she expected me to jump up and do something ridiculous like swinging around in cartwheels any second. As a sharp drag of the muscles through my

shoulder had me grunting, she even drew down her glasses, her gaze one-hundred percent on me as she vacantly wiped the lenses on her skirt hem. By the time she stuck the specs back on her face, she’d lost the smile completely. Only alarm shone out from her eyes, her lips slightly parted, like they agreed with the sentiment but the tightness of her jaw prevented her from fully gaping.

“Dan, what …” She shifted up onto her knees, but I kept going. Every muscle

throughout my body clenched tight as they began their slow stretches along my arms.

My thighs. As the tics began across my face, the change working beneath the surface before it’d alter me completely, my grunts deepened into an almost-bark.

“Dan, what’s wrong with you?” Shrill. Panicked. She half-pointed. “Something’s wrong with your face.” She shook her head. Leaned back like even that bit of added distance could give her the upper hand that her survival instincts no doubt told her she needed. “Stop it, Dan. I don’t like it. Can you stop now, please?”

I wanted to tell her no, that I couldn’t stop. That if I had my way, I’d never have begun, at all, but I had no choice in the matter. The order had been given by my Alpha. And I had to follow.

What the hell would she understand about that, though?

Her head continued to shake, as deformity claimed my limbs and twisted the

muscles taut across my torso and stomach. Her pleas for me to stop spilled from her, with each part of me that gnarled itself into a new form, each sound she threw at me slightly higher than the last, slightly more desperate than the last, definitely more heart-breaking than the last.

By the time fur began bleeding from my pores, my limbs struggling to brace me as my back bowed in preparation for the most agonising phases of the change, Liv had got her feet under her as if ready to bolt. The way she’d done it, I wondered if she was even aware of the subtle suggestion. I also wondered if she realised how much she mirrored my own pose.

Holding myself there, I waited a moment. I needed to see if she’d do it. Run.

I wanted to tell her not to, to stay. Please stay. But she wouldn’t have understood a damned word of it, and I doubted growling at her would’ve done the trick of

steadying her precarious thoughts.

When she didn’t move, I held my breath. Gulped down the blockage in my throat

that always appeared right before the final stages. And pressed forth.

A long, low growly-groan tainted the air as it forced its way from my throat. And one vertebrae at a time, my back snapped, starting from the top, a loud-to-my-ears series of click, click, click …, each one wanking my shape up a little more, all the way to the bottom, where heat bloomed through my coccyx, heat that deepened and raged like a forest fire with each inch the bone lengthened, dictating the formation of muscles not usually present. During it all, I swayed there, in as poised a posture as I could summon while watching the shifting emotions twisting up Liv’s features,

beneath the heavy scent of fear moving across on the breeze, like she had no clue how to feel. No fucking clue.

Who the hell could blame her for that?

On her knees, she held one hand toward me—though, whether to offer comfort or

restraint, I couldn’t be sure. The other hand she held halfway to her face as if prepared for a sight she didn’t want to see.

In truth, she’d probably already reached that point, the shock that held her entire body rigid likely what ceased her hand from lifting any higher. If not for the harsh pumping of her chest, warning me how ragged her breaths grew, she’d have

resembled a statue.

Willing her to hold on, just a couple of minutes longer, I drew in a long breath of my own deep into my lungs. Held it. Gritted my teeth. And tried to hold back the whimper—failing the moment my lowest vertebrae snapped itself into position. With that one in place, the others followed suit, a reverse pattern of gunshot-worthy booms along my spine, each one shooting agony into my nerve endings like lava

spilling onto my back.

Reaching my first vertebrae, the infliction paused. In its place, tingling poured through the base of my skull, up over my crown, down across my face, like thousands of tiny receptors marched over and vetted the terrain before plantation. As soon as the needling sensation shrouded my jaw, and wrapped itself around my throat like hands contemplating the stealing of my breath, I braced myself yet again. Even so, that didn’t hold back the harsh snorted grunt as pain exploded across the seasoned bone of my head, didn’t restrain the stifled yelp as my nose shattered and splintered and stretched itself into a snout.

As if spurred by my own distress, Liv finally gave a yelp of her own as she stared at me, her eyes widening with each destructive phase of my altering features. Like the pure, unavoidable ugliness of being mid-change hadn’t been quite enough to affect

her—not like what remained of me disappearing did. The glisten of a tear cut a path over her cheek, while the hands she held out trembled—no, not trembled. Shook.

Shook like someone’d taken hold of her shoulders and tried knocking some damned sense through her system. Or maybe that was Liv trying to knock some sense into herself, her inner voice screaming for her to shake her vision loose of whatever tricks it played on her and fucking well see what’d been before her only minutes before.

What she wouldn’t realise immediately was that that hadn’t changed. I’d stood

before as human. I stood before her as wolf. Me. How many seconds, minutes, days

… years would it take for that to sink in?

On a low whine, the final restructure of my jaw kicked in, the lengthening of my canines stretching my gums. I forced myself on, knowing I had mere seconds left to endure, the pressure within me like air being forced through my ears, until with a short bark of a growl, I jolted forward from the other side of my change.

Still before me, additional tears had formed in Liv’s eyes, balancing on the tips of her lashes before drooling the length of her cheeks. Not a single inch of her had relaxed. She remained stiff and unmoving around the continued rapid rise-and-fall of her chest—no, she had moved. The legs she’d been kneeling on had shifted. One slightly out-turned, her foot on the floor. Her body raised an inch from resting against the leg still beneath her.

Every instinct in me begged for a nearness I knew she wouldn’t appreciate. Those same instincts had me as braced as she held herself. Because those same instincts recognised the fight-or-flight within her, the taut muscles in her body a warning that flight would win. It would definitely win. Just a matter of when, not if.

Had I been capable of words, I’d have cajoled her somehow, begged her to stay.

Convinced her she didn’t sit in the path of danger—she never had.

Instead, the only sound that left my change-rusty throat was a soft whine that ended on an even gentler growl.

That was all it took.

She ran.

At that point, I should’ve sank into reversing the change. Hell, I even managed to hold myself frozen for almost an entire minute.

Again with those damned instincts of mine, though.

With the scent of her swirling around on the tame breeze like a breadcrumb trail to exactly which route she took, I couldn’t take it any longer.

With a scratch of my claws against the soil beneath them, I chased her. I fucking chased after Liv.

***

She must’ve heard me coming. Not surprising, really, considering it took only

seconds for me to catch up. The closer I got, the stronger her scent, the more pungent the tang of fear weighing it down. And the closer I got, the more rapid the head tosses she gave in those glances behind her.

Seemed inevitable she’d hit the deck any … second …

Her shoulder crashed first, shaking up her mangled look of surprise and fear, and shock and fear. The small squeak she gave on the way down got swallowed by the Unchh of air she let out, and stepping over her, I took my nose right to her stomach.

her swollen stomach. Praying she’d be okay and not hurt and the baby unbumped.

The second I did, though, she seemed to find her breaths well enough, because tiny whimpers made each of them squeal on the way in and whine on the way out. Like a polished saw over wet wood.

Stepping over her a little higher, I sniffed my way up. Over her chest. Along her throat. Until I peered down at her from above, and she stared right back like she’d rather be looking anywhere else, but her damned eyes refused to budge. I stood like that for moments, willing her to understand. To see.

Beneath me, her arms curled over her body protectively. One curving itself around the small mound of her stomach. The other across her chest, the curling of her fingers brushing against my inner foreleg.

The longer I stayed there, the less her body trembled. The less music of dread came out on her breaths.

Until I went and did the stupidest fucking thing I could do.

I licked her.

Fucking licked her.

Like that’d make everything okay and convince her I didn’t want to eat her.

For some reason, I didn’t seem able to help it, though.

She lay there. I loved her. I licked her.

And that damned shaking of hers wracked over her body all over again.

Shit! Shit, shit, shit!

No way would I convince her it’d all be okay if I remained as wolf. No way.

So, because being a complete moron seemed to come naturally to me, I stayed

exactly where I was as I set about reversing the change.

***

I couldn’t quite judge how Liv felt about a two-fifty-pounds wolf twisting and

contorting over top of her while becoming something else. Becoming me. I couldn’t judge, because she kept her eyes squeezed shut the entire time.

Part of me wondered if that might’ve been a good thing. Seeing a change in one direction was probably more than enough for any human on any given day. Seeing it reversed would likely have tipped the scales outside of my favour—if they were even still within there, at all.

Breathing hard, body slightly slicked with damp sweat from the harsh push through the change, and breaths still slightly out of whack, I crouched down over Liv. Body swaying, but only a little. Arms trembling, but only a little. My heart booming the fuck around inside my chest a whole bloody lot.

Liv still hadn’t opened her eyes. At least she didn’t sound quite so panicked. Her long inhales and exhales and the steadying of her shaking shoulders spoke more of a quiet acceptance than anything else.

I doubted that acceptance had much to do with me being wolf. Probably more

accepting that her end might be nigh.

“Liv?” I whispered.

Her body jerked a little, but she didn’t open her eyes.

“I know you can hear me, Liv.”

A small, twitchy shake of her head.

“Liv, please look at me.”

Her breathing sped up again, her breasts pushing up each time she inhaled and

brushing her arm against my chest.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“I’m me, Liv.” I risked placing a hand against her cheek. “I’m just me. I’m still me.

Open your eyes and you’ll see.”

The slight flutter to her lashes told me she contemplated the idea, and in the next breath, her lids lifted and glossy grey eyes stared out through her lenses. “This is not funny.” Still with the whispering.

“It’s not a joke,” I told her.

“It has to be a joke.”

I shook my head. Kept my gaze on hers.

“Then … what the fuck just happened, Dan?” Okay, she’d started to sound pissed.

Pissed, I could deal with.

“Me.” I studied her face, but couldn’t quite decide if fear kept that glossiness over her eyes, or if she just wanted to slay me for doing what I just did. “I happened.”

She gave a small headshake as if trying to lose what I’d just said, but then asked,

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I happened. Me. I told you I needed to show you the truth. You deserved to know.”

“To know …” The first press of her hands against my chest warned that she’d be fighting me in around three … “What the hell …” … two … “What …” She shook her head again. “I don’t …” … one … She shoved at my chest. “Get the hell off me,

Danny.” When I didn’t heed right away, she shoved harder. “Get off!”

I did as she demanded and rolled onto my butt. She didn’t stay beside me, though, but got right to her feet. Paced a few steps away. Paced back less.

“What the hell was that?” She pointed at me—not with a finger, but her fist. “You bring me out here like we’re having some kind of personal time together, then as soon as you’ve got what you wanted out of the day …”

I winced at that. I so hadn’t brought her out to the forest hoping for an easy shag.

I’d never have done that to Liv, and the fact that she thought I would …

Scrap that. She knew I wouldn’t. She was just flinging out the sharpest blades in hopes of cutting me more than skin deep.

More of that fist pointing. “What the hell is wrong with you, Danny?”

My first response probably should’ve been a lot, but I didn’t think she’d see it as me being serious. She definitely seemed to need serious right then.

“You know what? I can’t do this. I can’t do this with you.” She paced off again, and I jumped up to my feet with little thought for if it was the right thing to do.

“Liv, wait.”

“No.” She shouted it back without even turning. “I’m going home, Danny.”

I followed, but not so close as to scare her again. “I had no choice,” I told her.

“What the hell does that mean— you had no choice?” She threw that one back over her shoulder.

“Exactly that.” A sharp thorn scratched at my sole, but I ignored it. “I was given an order. I had to follow it.” I caught her scoff, but she didn’t slow. “Nate told me I had to tell you.”

“What the hell does Nate have to do this …” Again with those fists of hers. “This!”

“He …” What the hell could I tell her without blowing everything? Nothing was

probably best. At that point, anyway. “He said you had a right to know. Before it’s too late.”

“About what?” she shouted back, lifting her skirt over a gnarly root.

“Come on, Liv. Don’t play it like the past half hour didn’t happen.”

She didn’t respond. Not for minutes. Then she suddenly slowed to a stop, but

didn’t turn.

“Too late for what?”

Fuck. Why’d she have to pick up on that bit? Of all the fucking parts she could’ve dug into.

Again, I hadn’t a clue how much to give her, and when I still hadn’t replied after more than a few seconds, she made a slow pivot back to face me. Head low. Eyes hooded and full of life-threatening venom.

“Too. Late. For what?”

I opened my mouth, but still no answer seemed forthcoming, leaving it hanging, and I knew the moment my lack of response translated into one she really didn’t fucking want by the tilt of her head. Followed by a harsh headshake. Then another.

“No.” She almost growled the word. “No!” She seemed about to shake her head

again, but instead marched toward me, fists pumping about and eyes full of bloody murder.

The slap stung my cheek more than I expected, but I didn’t back away. Didn’t resist.

The next hit came from her fist. I still didn’t duck, or hide. I stood there and accepted it.

Just as I stood and accepted the next slap, the next punch, the next kick, one after another, until my breaths came through clenched teeth while Liv’s panted out fast and sharp. Until I didn’t know which of us cried the hardest because everything was too fucking blurred. Until hit on top of hit and slap on top of slap grew weaker yet, somehow, more painful.

I just stood there, because I knew, I fucking knew, I deserved it.

***

God knew how long the assault went on for, but my body felt bruised and battered

and sore all the fuck over, and Liv seemed to have zero energy left, judging by the wilting of her bloody everything.

Maybe that was a good thing. Because after she’d collapsed into a sorry heap on her knees and demanded, in a whisper, to be taken home, she hadn’t hit me again on the walk back to the house, and had silently waited in the truck while I ducked in and grabbed fresh clothes to pull on. The stuff in the forest would have to be collected later. Preferably by someone else. I really didn’t give a shit right about then.

All I knew was the day had taken a doddering step into the worst case scenario, and Liv wouldn’t even look at me as I drove her home. Despite the glances I kept sending her way.

“Liv?” I’d already tried a couple of times with no response, and it was no different that time. “Liv, please?”

Nothing but a high lift of her shoulders as she heaved in a sigh, and them lowering back down as she released the breath out.

Up ahead on the right, a narrow road curved off to a small wooded picnic area. I knew she wanted to go home, to get the hell away from me, but I couldn’t shake off the bubble of panic that pulsed inside my chest with every mile I drove us closer to her house. Like, her getting out of the truck would be it—some kind of pivotal moment that would leave us balancing on a pinnacle of ‘what the fuck now’.

I flicked on the indicator, but as soon as I did, her head snapped round to face the windscreen.

“I swear to God, Danny, if you pull off this road, it will be the last time you ever see me.” She breathed in hard, like the entire sentence had been just that little step too far for her already exhausted mind. “Take me home,” she said, the tone of her voice as gritted as her teeth seemed to be.

“Liv, please. We need to—”

“Take me home!”

The high screech of the word warned that true hysterics banged at whatever

barriers she held in place. So I knocked off the indicator and obeyed. Unless I wanted a full-on freak out from a pregnant female who’d already been tossed enough to chew on, I didn’t really have any other choice.

I hated that I didn’t have any other choice.

***

Her parents’ car stood in the way of my pulling onto her driveway, so I parked at the kerbside and switched off the engine. Why, I couldn’t quite figure, because I knew she’d bolt even before she snapped at her door handle.

As her door swung open, I all but dove across the seat and grabbed hold of her arm.

“Liv, wait.”

Her entire body stiffened like a plank. I hated that. Hated that I was the cause.

“We can’t leave it like this,” I said, a whole lot of pleading in my voice. Hell, I was pleading.

She just shrugged me off, pulled her arm free. Slid from the truck.

“Liv, please! Talk to me.”

She seemed to hesitate just outside the door, like she considered my words, and just as I dared to hope she might listen, the door swung to and clicked shut.

I had my own door open and my feet in the road before Liv had even reached the end of her driveway. I didn’t touch her—didn’t dare—just darted my rear around in front of her and held my hands up. A blockage to her route, but with little threat as possible. “Please, Liv. Don’t walk away like this. Don’t do this.”

“I need some time, Danny.” She didn’t look at me as she spoke.

I reached out like I meant to hold her. Or something. Because I’m a fucking idiot.

She took a step back. “Don’t, okay? I just … I can’t right now. I just … I don’t know what to do, okay? I need time.” Body twisting, she pushed her way past me. Onto her driveway. Onto her path. Toward her door.

As much as every selfish part of me wanted to cry about how it all affected me, and me alone, personally, an even bigger part of me couldn’t ignore the fact that she was about to walk into a house, that held other humans, with a knowledge she’d lacked upon leaving that morning. If Nate had been home, no way would she have even left our property before promising to keep her mouth shut, no matter her decision. No way. If I didn’t get at least some kind of assurance of that, I’d be getting my second arse-kicking of the day as soon as I got home.

“Liv …” I took a step to follow. “Please, Liv. About what you saw today—”

She stopped moving away, her head tilted to the side by the barest of fractions. “I have no idea what the hell I saw today, Dan.”

“But even so …” I hesitated behind her. No so close that I’d crowd her. “Whatever you saw, or think you saw, or, you know … any of it.” God, I sounded like the most selfish prick on the planet. Like I had more interest in protecting myself than in how she felt. I didn’t. Far from it. Didn’t change the fact I had a duty to uphold. “It’s not something that can be shared. It’s not something that—”

She scoffed then. Others might’ve mistaken it for a laugh, but I didn’t. “Who the hell would I tell, Dan?” Another scoff, that one a little more emotional. “Who the hell would believe me?” She stole away what little of her profile I could see, lifted her face toward the sky as her breaths worked their way in and out of her. Four short breaths in. Four longer breaths out. And, with a shake of her head, she marched the rest of the way to the porch with a tossed out, “Just leave me alone, Danny.”

The porch door pushed inward, Liv followed it in, and as she closed the door

between us, it was like so much more had been closed off. Like I had been closed off from her.

***

The house was still empty when I got home. I wanted to revel in that. Lap up the silence before the chaos ensued, but I knew putting it off wouldn’t bring me any true relief, not really, so I picked up my phone. Made the dreaded call.

“Danny, how’d it go?” Dad asked. He didn’t even bother with hello.

I inhaled then exhaled, then, “It was a wash.”

“A clean wash?”

“No, Dad, a use a muddy cloth and leave forever streaks all the fuck over your clean china kind of wash.”

He might’ve moved the phone away, but I still caught his muttered expletive. Dad rarely cursed. Not good.

Not that I’d expected much less.

“Where is Liv now?”

I sucked in another deep breath before telling him, “At home. She made me take her home.”

Another muttered curse, that one even more impressive than the first. “Did you tell her?” he asked, his voice full of urgency. “Did you tell her she couldn’t say a word to anyone?”

“I told her.”

“And do you think she will?”

I almost rushed in with Of course she won’t, but instead paused to consider. To recall her words. To be sure of what guarantee she gave—or didn’t. “No,” I said after a few beats. “I think she’ll be discreet.”

“Then, that’ll have to be good enough,” he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. At least, until he added, “For now,” before hanging up.

For now. The two words could sound as simple and innocent as they liked, but anyone in the pack knew the truth behind them.

Liv didn’t have forever to make up her mind. And she didn’t have forever to step back into the fold.

***

Four days.

Four days of me trying to ring Liv. Getting no answer. Leaving voicemail messages.

Getting no reply.

And then, out of the blue, a text.

Tell me what you are Danny.

So, obviously, I picked up my phone. Tried ringing again. Got no joy. Again.

Going back into the message, I hit reply.

You know what I am.

My phone pinged back within seconds.

I need to hear you say it.

Then you need to answer your phone when I call.

I can’t speak to you right now.

I sighed. Lifted my face to the ceiling.

After the phone call with Dad, Nate had driven straight to ours after work. No stopping home for dinner, to kiss Beth, not even to check in. Just straight to ours. To me. Where he’d sat me down at the table and told me, in no uncertain terms, to please sort this out because I don’t want to have to sort it out for you.

I’d been trying to ‘sort it out’ since. Only trouble with that, though, was I needed Liv to actually let me speak to her to even begin pulling it off.

My thumb hovered over the keypad for a beat before I typed in a reply.

It’s not something that can be discussed in message Liv. Surely you must understand that.

I waited for her response. The entire conversation had taken place within a minute, but two minutes later I still hadn’t gotten a comeback. Nor three minutes later.

Caving, I called her. It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

As I went to hang up, it connected.

I held my breath. It was the first time Liv had answered since I took her home four days earlier.

No words greeted me, though. Just soft breaths.

“Liv?”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

I hesitated. Not because I didn’t want to answer. More than I didn’t quite know how to. “I think you already know the answer,” I said, in the hope of avoiding another screw up.

“Why would I know the answer?” she asked.

“Because you were there, Liv. You’ve got eye—”

She hung up.

“Shit.”

A few seconds later, my phone pinged.

What I saw isn’t something that can be explained.

Can’t? Or you just don’t want it to be? I texted back.

Quiet again.

Then my phone vibrated and the ringtone trilled out. I nearly dropped it in my rush to answer.

“What I saw …. How can you expect me to make sense out of something that’s

impossible, Danny? Out of something that doesn’t make any sense?”

“By getting rid of preconceptions and what your mind is convinced can’t be possible and believing what your brain registered from what your eyes saw.”

“How can I put a name to what I saw?”

“I dunno, Liv. How about you start by telling me what you saw?”

“How about you just answer the damned question I asked you in the first place?”

“Because you don’t need me to tell you. You need to believe yourself.”

“How can I believe something that isn’t supposed to be true?”

“And we’re back to those preconceptions of yours.”

“I can’t call it by what I saw. It sounds ridiculous. And stupid. It makes me sound crazy.”

Alarm kicked up in my chest at that. “Crazy to whom?”

“To me?” she said, her voice rising. “In my head.” I could almost picture her

tapping at the side of her skull.

“Who cares?” I asked, after a sigh of relief.

“I do. Because I have felt like I’m going insane since …” Her breaths came heavy, like she couldn’t quite bring herself to plant a description about what’d happened in the forest. “And my thoughts are driving me crazy since then. You have no idea what kind of crazy stuff is going on up there.”

“If any of it’s close to the truth, I can.”

More heavy breaths. Then, “What is the truth, Danny?”

I opened my mouth. The words I’m a werewolf poised on the tip of my tongue, but as much as she begged for it, I didn’t truly believe hearing them was what Liv needed.

Not as much as she needed validation to convince herself she hadn’t lost the plot as much as she believed she had.

After a deep breath to centre myself, I told her, “The truth is what you saw. Why not stop trying to put a label on it and just believe that?”

The line went dead.

***

Two more days of radio silence. Two more days of me trying to call Liv with no

success. Two more days before the next text pinged through at ten thirty while I was trying to focus on mixing cement at work.

Who else?

I frowned down at my screen, before glancing across at where Nate and Ethan

pushed through the brickwork of the latest development. When neither of them

glanced back, I hit reply.

Who else what?

Thirty seconds passed before the next text.

Who else is like you? You can’t be the only one.

I tilted my face toward the charcoaled clouds above. Asking me about me was one thing. Asking me about everyone else?

After checking that I still wasn’t being watched, I typed out a reply.

I’m not.

Who else then? bounced back at me lightning fast.

My thumbs hovered over the keypad, close to typing out the truth, but another

glance across at the old guys had me backpedalling, and I strode across the site in their direction.

Like they had some kind of connective vibe going on between their brains, the

second Dad registered my approach, Nate looked up beside him.

I didn’t speak. Just handed them my phone with the messages still up.

Nate held it in his big palm, the forefinger of his other hand skimming the

conversation down to the beginning of the feed, while Dad glanced in from the side.

“What do I tell her?” I asked them.

Neither answered for a few beats, probably reading everything Liv and I’d had to say to each other since I’d fucked up my show and tell.

“What do you want to tell her?” Nate finally said, meeting my eyes.

I shrugged, then realising that was far from what I really wanted to say, I told him,

“The truth.”

His gaze sliced across to Dad, then back to me. “What’s your gut telling you on this, Daniel?”

“That she needs to hear the truth, if I’m ever going to gain her trust again. That’s what this was all about in the first place, right? Clueing her in on everything.”

“About you,” he said, poking a finger in my direction. “Not the entire pack.”

“But doesn’t the pack kind of come as part and parcel where I’m concerned. It’s all linked. Me, you, the pack, us. Everything. I mean, she’s already figuring it out, by the looks of it.” I nodded to my phone, her messages. “Be better to tell her on our terms.

Keep her on our side. If she thinks we’re being open, there’s less chance she’ll freak out.”

“Freak out more, you mean,” Nate rumbled.

I half-nodded. I had to give him that one. “That’s what I meant.”

He handed me my phone back. “You give her what she needs to figure out whatever it is she needs to figure out. No more. But you send any more messages that so much

as implicate our lives, and your job for the next month will be sweeping every square inch of this site, with a hand brush, daily, every time there’s a downpour. Do you understand?”

Considering at least half the site still consisted of overturned dirt and turned into a mud-pool any time it rained, and it currently seemed to rain more than it didn’t, it sounded like a pretty shitty consequence to avoid. “Yeah, I understand,” I said.

“And, Dan,” he said, before I could so much as turn away. “I want to know every damned thing you say to her. And every single detail of her response. No argument.”

I didn’t really have much of an argument, anyway. Nodding, I knocked out a

message as I crossed back to the mixer.

I’m going to call you. You want answers, you’ll pick up.

When I made the call, I didn’t think she’d heed me to begin. The damned thing rang seven annoying times before the line connected.

Just like on a previous call, she didn’t speak.

“What do you want to know?” I asked her, heading for the coffee hut.

“Everything.” A pause, then, “The truth. About everything.”

I chewed on my words for a moment, before blurting out, “Then, meet me

somewhere. Or let me pick you up. We can talk in—”

“No.”

“We should talk in person,” I said.

“No, Danny. I’m not ready. I need answers. I need to know what I’m dealing with. If you’re not going to give me that—”

A huffed sound of exasperation blasted against my ear, and she hung up. Again.

Jumping the couple of steps up to the hut, I shoved open the door, lowering my phone as I strode across to the kettle and switched it on. My body buzzed to call her right back, but I doubted she’d answer without a chance to release herself of those heavy breaths I could imagine grinding their way in and out of her. Pumping her chest up and down. Hell, if I didn’t have so much of a bigger problem on my hands to fix, I’d probably have smiled at the visual. Enjoyed it. A whole lot.

As the water boiled, I tipped some sugar and coffee into a mug, grabbed milk from the mini-fridge. Two minutes later, I set my butt down in Nate’s rolling chair behind the desk, with a hot drink I didn’t really want and a mission to master.

Heading back into my phone messages, I typed one out.

I’m going to try again. Answer Liv, okay?

I counted to ten before redialling her number, listening to each ringtone as I waited for her to pick up.

“I’m not ready,” she answered. She sounded like she might’ve been crying. Which stuck me right up there with all the other complete arseholes of the world.

“Okay,” I said quietly. “We’ll do it this way. What did you want to know?”

A sigh of relief. A sniffle. “You said you’re not the only one.”

“I’m not.”

“Then, who?”

I breathed in, long and heavy. Breathed out again.

“Look, if you’re not going to tell me, this isn’t goin—”

“My family,” I cut in before she could shut me off again.

Rapid breaths filled the few seconds of quiet that followed.

“Your whole family?”

“Yes. It’s hereditary.”

“It’s hereditary.” She whispered the words a few times beneath her breath, but I caught them just fine. Just as I caught the increased thickening of her voice with each repetition, and I knew I’d just confirmed something she might not want to have

accepted. That I’d just given her little choice but to accept it. Her sniff crackled down the line. “Is that it?”

Propping my elbow on the desk, I dropped my forehead down to rest against my

palm, my fingers gripping at the strands of hair overhanging my brow. “No,” I said.

She gave a hitched sob then. “Wh—who else?”

I closed my eyes. Like closing my eyes would somehow shut out the pain I could hear in her voice. “Nate’s family.”

“All of them?” she asked, her voice pitching up.

I nodded, though she couldn’t see me. “Yeah.”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, before the line quieted. Like she’d abandoned the call. Or buggered off without her mobile.

Or maybe she’d chucked the phone down the loo—would be understandable, given

how much shit she was suddenly expected to get a handle on.

“I need a few,” she said down the line. “I need a bit of time to let this sink in. Okay?”

“Okay,” I muttered.

The line went dead.

***

I expected to be waiting another day, or two, for the next message or call. In truth, I’d barely been home from work an hour when my phone started ringing.

With a towel hooked around my waist, and another soaking up the hair at my nape, still dripping from my shower, I connected the call and held the phone to my ear.

“Hey,” I said, like everything that’d gone down between us hadn’t really happened, and my usual greeting had never disappeared.

“You said everyone.” Her voice sounded small and uncertain. “All of them. That’s what you said.”

I mentally flipped channels to our earlier conversation, just about recalling the comment being about Nate and the others. “I did,” I confirmed.

“So, all of them … are like you?”

“Yes.”

One of those not-great scoffs of hers came down the line. “I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on this.”

“Why would you?” Wasn’t like we walked around wearing marketing campaigns

about ‘the werewolf way of life’.

“I can’t believe none of them said anything to me. All that time I spent with Jem and Beth and Brook—Shelley, even.” A barely perceptible groan came through, then a whispered, “Oh, my God, is Shelley like it, too? What about Mia?” she asked, her voice a little louder.

“No, Shelley’s human.”

“Human,” she muttered, deadpan. “Jesus Christ. Meaning you’re not.”

I didn’t answer that bit. Some things were best left hanging. “Beth’s human, too.”

“Okay.” For some reason, that seemed to settle her a little, though she paused for a few beats before asking, “And Jem?”

“Not human.”

“So, like you?”

“Yes.” I shrugged, grunted a little. “Kinda.”

“What does that mean? She either is, or she isn’t.”

“It means, she wasn’t. She used to be human.”

“That makes no sense.”

“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just …” I sighed. “Jem’s story isn’t mine to tell.”

“So, what can you tell me?”

I scratched at my head, sending flicks of water spraying outward. “I can tell you that the gene that makes us this way usually only passes from father to son.” I didn’t think she was ready for me to outright state our race. Not yet, anyway. “That when we have children, we only bear sons. Which kind of ensures the continuation of our kind.”

She made some kind of noise in the back of her throat that might’ve been a hitched breath. “So, this baby inside me …”

“Yes,” I said simply. No point in wrapping it up in pretty paper and tying a bow.

Her breaths came faster down the line, like her body considered going into panic mode. Then she went quiet. Real quiet. “Wait. You said it passes to only sons and you have only sons. But what about Lia? If Jem can have a girl, then it might be all right, right?”

“Lia is …” An anomaly? Shit, how to word it without making the kid sound like a freak. I sighed. “She’s an unusual case. Rare.”

“What does that mean, Danny?”

“It means she has the gene, despite everything we know about us meaning a girl should never have been born, and especially not one like us.”

A dull thud, like she’d dropped the phone followed. In the background, I could hear shuffling like she paced around. I wondered if she gripped hold of her hair as much as I wanted to my own right then. How the hell I hadn’t pulled most of it out over the past week, I didn’t know.

Tears distorted the sound of her voice, when she came back on the line with her whispered, “I’m scared, Danny. I’m so scared.”

I pressed my fingertips into my eye sockets like that could somehow halt the

responsive filling of my own eyes. “I know you are, Liv. I’m scared, too.”

“You are?”

Though she couldn’t see me, I nodded. “Yeah, I’m scared.”

“Tell me what you’re scared of.”

I sniffed hard before any snot could escape. “I’m scared of becoming a dad. I’m scared of not being good enough. I’ve been terrified of having to tell you these truths, since the minute you turned up on my doorstep to tell me you’re carrying my child—

that if you knew everything there is to know about me, it would scare you away. But you know what I’m most scared of, Liv?”

“What?” she blobbed out.

I blew out a steadying breath that didn’t quite do the job. “I’m most scared of you being too scared to give this shot, and never getting the chance to find out if I could’ve been any good as a dad. If I could’ve been any good for you. That I’ll never get the chance to make this right.”

“How can you possibly make this right, Danny?”

I tugged at my hair. I didn’t have the answer I wanted to give—the one she needed to hear. “I can’t,” I admitted. “But I can try my damnedest to make it as right as it can be.”

“What if near right isn’t right enough?”

“I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know what the difference between the two might be—only you can decide that. But know this. However bad you think this is. However hard you think it will be. We won’t be dealing with everything alone. Anything the kid needs, or needs to know— our kid—I’ll be there to give it, to show him. My family will be there to show him. Nate’s family will be there to show him. The kid will have all the support he’ll need to get through life, and then some. And double that, and you might come close to the amount of love he’ll be showered with. That’s guaranteed, Liv, I can promise you that.”

More of those wobbly breaths of hers came through, before a quiet, “Okay.”

The first spring of hope had my heart thumping a little harder. “Okay?”

“I …” She made some weird grunty-squeaky noises, like indecision had her warring with any words wanting to come out, followed by what I one-hundred percent didn’t want to hear right then. “Bye, Danny.”

“Wait!” I barked before she could hang up. “That’s it? Bye. We’re not even

discussing this anymore?”

“Do you have anything more to tell me?” she asked, her voice a little high like she seriously hoped not.

My mouth poised for something to grasp onto, more stuff I could give her to ease her load, but on realising I had nothing in my armoury to do that, I shook my head.

“No.”

Though she didn’t speak for a few beats, it felt as if her sadness poured through the connection to overspill into my room, and I knew I hadn’t gotten anywhere closer to sorting it all out. Hadn’t gone anywhere near convincing her, or reassuring her, or getting her to see that everything could be all right.

“Bye, Danny,” she said again. And hung up the phone.

For seconds, I sat there, gripping the damned mobile like she might still be there and would speak again, and I’d get another shot at playing my cards. Like the last words she’d spoken hadn’t sounded as final as they had.

I knew she wasn’t, though. Knew they had been. As the reality of that sank into my soul and bled through my bones, my entire body coiled tight into a knotted ball of tension, and my arm flung the damned phone before I had even the faintest fucking clue how to stop it.

Bouncing back off the wall, the device sprung apart, clattering to the carpet in a spread of front, back and battery.

“Fuck.” Staring at the fucking thing, I raked my fingers over my scalp, gripping tight to my hair as a second, “Fuck!” growled from my throat and bounced against the walls as hard as my phone had.

***

Climbing the walls—an apt fucking description of how I’d felt since Liv’d hung up.

That’d been four days past, and yes, I’d tried calling her back. Multiple times. Yes, I’d tried texting her equally as much. Not a single response, no matter what the hell I did. Which left me feeling as if my insides were fighting to free themselves in search of any solid surface that might ground them, while my body plodded around barely functioning and my brain spazzed out over what the fuck to do.

As a result, I’d begged for freedom from work, agreed to by Nate so long as I ‘sorted out my stuff’, and, with little clue over where else to go, I’d ended up at Nate’s house surrounded by Beth, Jem and Brook. Like, somehow, I’d expected the female

perspective on my situation to be more sympathetic, more understanding.

All they’d done was continued to potter about around me, before levitating toward the kitchen, the room I’d been sitting in for over an hour just staring into space, and joined me in my muteness as if waiting for me to speak first.

So I did.

“I should’ve played it differently,” I muttered.

Brook lowered the book she was reading from in front of her face. I’d warned her a few days earlier about Liv’s questions. About the origins of us all—that she might want to contact Liv. They’d struck up a friendship since meeting for the first time, and it seemed only right that Brook break the news of her lineage to Liv herself.

Which she had done, and even that hadn’t brought any further texts.

Jem scarcely even looked up from her seat at the table—though, in her defence, she seemed to be listening out for Lia waking up.

Beth glanced over from her spot by the fridge, her eyebrows slightly drawn. “How, exactly?”

I could understand her reaction. After all, she’d been the one to tell me to just ‘rip off that band-aid’ and it’d all work out.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Broken it to her more gently. Maybe have explained it to her before subjecting her to a full-on visual of the uglies of a change.”

“Rubbish.” She turned back to the fridge, her face disappearing behind the door as she reached in for whatever she’d gone in for. “If you’d have tried telling her, she’d have first: told you to quit fooling around, then: told you to stop messing with her while getting annoyed at your insistence, followed by: outright being pissed off at you for not changing the story she didn’t like.” She popped back with a butternut squash in one hand and red onions in the other. “And then she’d have refused to speak to you as long as you were still being stupid.”

Flopping back in my seat at the kitchen table, I shook my head. “You can’t know that, Beth.”

“Yes, I can, and you know it.”

The gazes of both Jem and Brook seemed to track Beth across the kitchen. Still, neither of them piped in as if by mutual agreement not to interfere.

“If Nate hadn’t taken me out to that forest and showed me what he is.” She pointed briefly toward said forest before peering at me over her shoulder. “I’d never have believed him.”

“In all fairness, Beth,” Jem said quietly from my left, “you told me you already had an inkling that Nate wasn’t …” She shrugged, lifted her palms. “I dunno. Normal?”

I wagged my finger her way before turning back to Beth. “You see? Liv obviously didn’t get that vibe from me. So she wasn’t on the same page as you were, when Nate dropped the W-bomb.”

“Yes, well, maybe if you’d given the girl more time to get to know you, before impregnating her …”

Beth turned slowly to face me, and yes, I had the good graces to lower my face slightly. Because, I did feel, at least slightly, ashamed of having no will, nor want, to control my urges that night. Fuck, it wasn’t as if it’d happened between us only the once. By morning, I’d lost count of how many times I’d been inside Liv, and any one of them could’ve flicked the switch from ‘just Liv’ to ‘Liv pregnant’. With my baby.

My baby—who might not even have much time left in existence if I couldn’t get Liv to just see how everything could be okay.

Choking down those particular emotions, I splayed out my fingers. “Yeah, well, Sean didn’t have to show Jem anything for her to believe. She just believed.”

“Dreams,” was all she said. Pretty much all that needed to be said. Because Jem and Sean had both dreamed of each other before meeting. They’d been with each other before meeting—just in other lifetimes.

“Must’ve been nice getting a head’s-up,” I muttered, and smiled, in spite of how I felt on the inside.

“It certainly helped,” she admitted.

“And none of this is helping me figure out what the hell to do next.”

“Just be yourself,” Beth said.

Brook nodded. “The yourself that attracted her in the first place.”

“And bare your soul until the fire of the sun leaves blisters all over your bones,”

Jem said, though she smiled as she said it.

“Great,” I muttered. “Be me. Be charming.” Beth gave one of her feminine chuckles as I said that one. “And be prepared for immense pain.” I nodded like I had it all figured out, at last. “Now, if only I can get her to speak to me, maybe I can pull all of that off.”

“You will,” Jem said, reaching over and rubbing at my shoulder.

“Yeah, but when?” Because, really, how long could be considered an acceptable

length of time before a guy had to assume he’d lost the fight?

***

The choice of ‘when’ got taken out of my hands the next morning, when Nate told

me ‘this has gone on long enough’, and to get my rear over to Liv’s and not come back without at least some kind of resolution. Whatever the outcome of that might be.

So, as everyone else had set about work at the site, I’d grabbed the keys to Dad’s truck and reluctantly driven my arse to whatever doom awaited.

On the journey over, I honestly considered pulling into a lay-by a good few times, maybe wallowing in the nerves that seemed to be rattling around in my stomach, if only to put off what I didn’t want to hear. Instead, I ordered myself straight to Liv’s by convincing myself that, the earlier I got there, the more time I’d have to convince her of my case.

Just like the last time, her mother’s car took up the driveway outside the house, so I pulled up alongside the kerb, before taking a deep, much-needed breath and flinging my unenthusiastic self from the cab.

The walk up to the front door felt like some kind of death sentence. Like a had a thousand spectators—all of them hiding behind twitchy curtains and garden fences.

All in my head, of course. Not a single one of the curtains so much as bounced.

Reaching the porch, I had to steel myself again before raising a fist and knocking. I swore, even my bloody bowels felt like they were slowly loosening up while I waited, as presentiment had nausea swirling in my gut.

A handful of seconds later, softened footsteps sounded from just inside the house, and the door inched forward. To reveal Liv’s mum.

She paused in the doorway a moment before stepping out into the porch and

opening the outer door. “Daniel.”

“Mrs Fanella.” I nodded in greeting, but couldn’t quite muster a smile. Not under the current circumstances. “Is Liv about?”

Wrapping them around herself, she rubbed at her arms, like it was colder than it actually was. Or maybe I was just a whole lot more heated up than she was. When she shook her head, I suspected the battle I had on my hands had just begun.

“Please, Mrs Fanella. I know she might not want to speak to me, but it’s important.”

“She’s not here, Daniel.”

Blowing out a breath, I took a step back. Ran a hand over my hair. And hoped my eyes held a shed-load of pleading when I looked back to the woman who’d never been truly happy about me and Liv. Though, at least she’d seemed to have come to terms with the pregnancy. “Please?” I tried again.

She sighed. Her arms unfolded, and she gripped hold of the doorframe, instead, as she leaned toward me a little. “If I tell you where she is—”

I nodded, probably a little too eager. “I’ll do anything. I just need to speak to her …”

Before it’s too late, I didn’t add.

Another sigh, but one of acceptance rather than annoyance. “She’s at Uni.” Uni was a big place to have to hunt through, and I almost groaned, until she added, “Try the south sector.”

“Thanks,” I said, already turning for the truck.

“Daniel,” she called after me, and I paused long enough to glance back. “Whatever this is that’s going on between you two, promise me you’ll sort it out.”

I frowned at her words. Mrs F actually wanted me and Liv to figure out our shit? I’d always thought she hated me.

“Daniel,” she repeated, more insistent. “Olivia has been far too quiet and sullen lately, and I have a feeling you’re to blame. You will fix this. Yes?”

Though poised as a question, it sounded more like an order, and I nodded, with a promised, “I’ll fix it.”

***

The Uni Liv attended was fucking monstrous in size. Luckily, every sector was well signposted. Not so luckily, the south sector alone was big enough that a person could get lost.

Most of the corridors seemed pretty empty, just a few groups wandering around.

Probably on free period, or whatever entitled them to not be in a lecture. After glancing down corridor number six and not seeing any sign of Liv, I stopped

someone to ask. Mentioned her name, “Liv Fanella?” and that she was studying

teaching—because I was a dolt who didn’t have the official name of her course.

“Not hundred percent sure,” she told me, “but I think that might be on the second floor. Room S-two-eleven.”

“And which way do I go for that?” Hell, I hadn’t even seen any stairwells, let alone rooms on the second floor.

“Take two rights, and you’ll find the stairs on the right. Then follow the door numbers. They’re numerical,” she added on the end, like I was some kind of dunce who couldn’t figure that out on their own.

Thanking her, I set about following the directions. Two right turns. Up a flight of stairs I likely would’ve missed if looking without the guidance. And four confusing turns later, I spotted the door label: S-two-eleven.

Only trouble was, I had no idea how to proceed from there.

Loping up to the door, feeling as if I had a thousand fire ants crawling over my body, I tried seeing through the small panel of glass. Inside seemed fairly dark, and getting closer, I peered harder. Seats. With people in them—some staring toward the front and others not. Some woman at the front, yakking away while she pointed to a screen behind her.

Waiting until the woman half-turned toward her presentation, I pushed on the door and slipped inside.

Barely anyone so much as twitched at my intrusion—just those near the door gave a slight sideways glance my way.

I slipped my butt into a free seat, my thighs instantly restricted in the small space below the desk. Not wanting to kick up a scene by acting like a dude trying to find his way back to his seat in a dark cinema, I leaned in toward the nearest person until I had their attention. Ignoring that the guy seemed a little irked by my interruption, I whispered, “Liv Fanella—you know her?”

He stared at me like I was some kind of fucking idiot, and what the hell was I doing there if I hadn’t come to learn.

“Forget it,” I muttered and sidled over to the next free desk.

No go on that one. No go on the next one, either. The third one, some female with hair pulled back tight enough to stretch her skin, glanced from me to across the seating, but just as she lifted her hand to point, a loud throat clearing had everyone in the lecture room ceasing in their tracks—me included.

“May I help you?”

I turned toward the speaker, as everyone else turned toward me.

I half-straightened, my mouth poised open like it knew I needed to speak, even if my brain hadn’t caught up with the fact, yet. “I was ….” I cleared my throat, just nowhere near as impressively as she had. “I was just looking … for someone.”

“Evidently.” She sounded about minus-one percent amused, and the rest bloody

annoyed. Lifting her sights toward her students, she asked, “Does this young

gentleman belong to any—Ah, there.”

Liv shot to her feet, her frown clear as day even from across the room. “Danny …

what …?”

“I just need to speak to you, Liv. I …. Please.”

Sighing, she began gathering up her things, but even in the dimmed lighting, her blushing cheeks shone out, warning me I’d just embarrassed the hell out of her.

I probably should’ve felt bad about that, but with the bigger issue at hand, I couldn’t quite muster it.

“Sorry.” She said it as if to the whole room. “I’ll take care of this.”

She didn’t look at a single one of the other students as she made her way to the back of the seating and headed in the direction of the door.

She didn’t look at me, either.

As she got in line with where I hovered, I twisted my way out of the seating,

probably trod on a few toes, and made my way up to her.

She still didn’t look at me, not then, nor as I pushed open the door and waited for her to pass through ahead of me. Hell, we got the full length of the corridor before she spun around and faced me, still not quite looking at me, her hands fisted in her hair. When she did look at me, her eyes didn’t hold the anger I’d expected to see there. “Are you crazy?” she asked.

I half-nodded. “Probably. Depends who you ask.”

She didn’t smile, as I’d hoped she would. Instead, she reached for my hand and dragged me down the corridor like she wasn’t a fraction of my strength and her legs half as long. “We can’t talk here,” she muttered. She’d early on figured out that she didn’t need to speak up for me to hear her. I wondered if she’d since connected that with my big reveal.

“I don’t mind where we talk so long as we do.”

She didn’t answer, just kept on hauling me along, not even seeming to notice the odd stares we got from those meandering about. Thankfully, she seemed to know

exactly where she was going, because a heap faster than I’d found my way in, she was leading us out. Into the too cool to be refreshing winds that explored the grounds.

Once there, she didn’t stop walking. Not until we were a good fifty yards from the building, hidden within the protective boughs of a willow.

I half expected her to stay standing with her back to me. To fold her arms. To have that ‘angry’ stance of hers while waiting for me to state my case. She didn’t. When she turned to me, she met my eyes, the sigh she gave heavy and filled to the brim with sadness and uncertainty and a whole lot of other stuff I couldn’t determine. “This couldn’t wait until I finished classes?”

She may have meant it as a question, but it sounded more like an acceptance, and I shook my head. “No, it couldn’t.” I glanced around at our surroundings. Despite the crappy weather, students still milled about. “You want to do this here? Or go

somewhere else?” A voice chanted in my head for her to go with option one.

Something told me the journey to somewhere else would offer up too big an

opportunity for her to formulate her thoughts to the negative.

Relief seeped through me when she shook her head.

“Are you mad at me for coming here? I know it’s not ideal, but …”

“You’re right.” Another sigh. “This needs … I don’t know.” She shrugged.

“Resolution?”

Fuck, I didn’t like that word. Not coming from her. Not under the current

circumstances.

Because who the hell knew what resolution might mean to Liv.

And resolution to what? To us? The baby? Everything?

Despite my heart thunking against my sternum, I nodded. After all, I needed that resolution myself.

“So …” she said.

A few beats of quiet, then, “Do you hate me?” left my lips, like that was the most important question of all. “Since, you know, all this …?” I gestured to myself.

Her eyes shone, but she sniffed, seeming to get any tears under control. It was faint, but it was there: the smallest of headshakes. “No, Danny. I could never hate you.”

“But …” I frowned.

“God, Dan. You threw some really freaky shit at me last week. Really freaky. You can’t give someone that kind of information and not expect them to need some time to digest it.”

“I know,” I said, and I did. Kind of. But knowing didn’t do anything to ease the panic I’d been feeling since I last saw Liv.

“And it’s not just about that—about you,” she continued. “It’s not just how I feel about it all, you know?”

I nodded. “I know.”

“It’s about this.” She pointed toward her stomach. “And this is so much bigger than anything I might feel about the rest of it. If it was just you, that might be easier to handle. But …” She let out a strangled grunt that sounded a lot like a stifled sob.

“Jesus, what I saw. What you showed me. It was scary, Danny.” One of her scoffing noises burst out. “Who am I kidding—it was terrifying. And knowing that might be passed onto this child inside me …. Is that fair?” She took a step forward, her eyes boring right through to my soul. “Does our baby deserve that?”

“Deserve what?” I asked. “A solid family connection and as much love as a kid can possibly have? I know—” I reached a hand toward hers, but dropped it before

connecting. “I know what you saw looked bad, but that? That part of who I am—who my family is? Please don’t judge what you haven’t experienced for yourself. Because the freedom of being in that form—”

“Wolf,” she cut in.

I let out a breath. Nodded.

“Because you’re a … you’re a … werewolf. That’s what you showed me. Isn’t it?”

I nodded again while keeping the rest of my body rigid. Like the slightest

unnecessary movement might have her bolting and going back into hiding all over.

She sniffed hard as her eyes filled with that glossiness again. Her hands flickered about at her sides, but as if she did it unconsciously, rather than as a way to shake off her nerves. Then she swiped across her eyes and peered up at me again. “You like being like that? As a … as a wolf—you like that?”

I nodded. “It’s amazing.” It truly was. I might’ve had moments in my life when I’d wished I led a normal existence, but that was more about fitting in with people I didn’t really need to fit in with, than it was about feeling out of place when I ran. “It’s

… liberating, and ….” I ran fingers through my hair. “Running, like that … it’s one of the things in my life that help me stay sane. It’s one of the things in my life that feels right.” When I reached for her hand that time, I didn’t fall short. “You know what else feels that way?”

“What?” she asked quietly.

“You.” That she hadn’t tried to pull free of my hold gave me hope, and I tugged on her wrist until she’d taken a step closer. “You feel that way, and make me feel that way. And everything in between. You are the best thing in my life, Liv, and right now, I’m so scared of losing you, of losing what we have, I feel like I’m slowly dying on the inside.”

A stifled sob had her chest lifting, and she lowered her face as she mumbled, “I’m scared.”

“Tell me what you’re scared of.” If she announced I scared her, after her knowing the truth …

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything.”

“You’re not scared of everything, Liv. You never have been. You’re stronger than that.”

She lifted her face, but glanced away as if gathering her thoughts before she met my eyes again. “I think … I think I’m scared of the outcome. Of what this might mean for us.”

“Before I told you what I told you, did the outcome of everything and what it meant for us scare you then?”

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead shook her head.

“Then, nothing’s changed, Liv.” She opened her mouth again, but I cut in quick with, “Whatever you think, it hasn’t. That person you thought you knew, the me you knew before our picnic last week? That’s still me. I am still that person. I haven’t changed.”

“Maybe not, but it still changes everything for the baby.”

Those words terrified me—as well as the look in her eyes, and I reached for her face, held her steady as I poured every ounce of honesty in my eyes as I told her, “It hasn’t—you just don’t realise it yet. It will still be our baby. He’ll still grow up like a normal kid. Go to school like a normal kid. Make friends like a normal kid.” Or he would to a degree, anyway. Both Josh and I managed it just fine. “And all the rest.

The hard stuff that you’re scared about? That won’t hit until he’s old enough to understand, I promise you. Just as I promise you that I will be there every step of the way to walk him through it. Every step. Just …” Letting a pent-up breath seep from me, I lowered my forehead to hers, closed my eyes. “Just give me a chance, Liv. I’m begging you.”

She didn’t speak for a few long minutes. A big part of me hoped our proximity

helped ease her personal suffering—like it did mine. Because being that close, after being so far apart, was like some kind of fucking balm to my soul. That honeysuckle scent of hers blew up from her hair each time the wind teased its ends, and each lungful I inhaled settled the turmoil of my mind a little more.

Before I knew it, I’d edged my nose closer. Brushed my cheek against hers. My lips across hers.

She didn’t push me away. Didn’t argue, or fight, or ask what the hell I was doing.

Her head tipped a little. Her breath hitched a little. Her lips parted, just a little. And I knew, in that moment, I hadn’t completely lost everything. We still had something.

For minutes, we stayed like that, locked in the softest kiss we’d ever shared. Barely moving. Barely opening. Just content to breathe in each other’s breaths.

Until Liv pulled back by the smallest of fractions, her hand coming up to rest against my cheek. She didn’t meet my eyes as she whispered, “Just give me a few more days, Danny. Please?”

A few more days in exchange for a decision to affect a lifetime. Though everything within me rebelled against doing so, I nodded, my eyes closed against the action like that’d soften the blow. Because I knew even before she released me, even before she

worked her hand free of my mine, before she stepped away and the cool wind

strangled my torso … I knew she was about to walk away from me again.

And she did.

***

Pain. It swamped me—physical, mental, emotional. Battered from all angles by an

ache I couldn’t describe and couldn’t seem to shake, even in sleep.

Beth kept trying to cajole me with food my body didn’t really want.

Dad and my brothers kept trying to show their support with grips of my shoulders and gentle shakes, to remind me they were there if I needed them.

Nate? Yeah, Nate kept sending me glances filled with a synergy of worry, sympathy and impatience. I knew I only had so many hours of space left before he’d be driving around to see Liv himself for a ‘talk’ she wouldn’t be prepared for. I’d told him she asked for a few days. He’d agreed to that, ‘ but no more’.

Workdays should’ve been easier to handle the distractions. Especially with Dad and Nate throwing one job at me after another, ensuring I stayed busy with little time to brood. And while they weren’t—not really—they seemed a damned sight easier than when the weekend rolled around, and I found myself pacing my room. Pacing the

kitchen. Pacing the garden. All that exercise fitted around my intermittent curling into the foetal position on my bed while gripping tight to my phone and praying it’d ring.

Fuck, I wanted to up and head out. Ride to Liv’s. Just … I didn’t know. Maybe just be with her until she reached a decision.

She’d asked for a few more days, though.

And I’d agreed.

Sunday morning came. Day four-point-five since I’d last spoken to Liv. The fucking end game, as far as Nate was concerned. He knew where she lived. Would he take his arse over there without telling me and sort ‘my mess’ out? Or would he warn me, out of respect, giving me a final chance to get to her first?

Over a breakfast that seemed to hold no flavour, I watched Dad from beneath my brows. Checking for signs that he knew of Nate’s plans—if he knew something I

didn’t.

As if in tune with my mood, Josh just shovelled in his fuel without a single word.

Opposite him, Kyle and Brook did the same, both of them pretending not to look my way while sending sneaky sideways glances like they thought I wouldn’t notice.

Dad, though? He just didn’t look my way. At all.

One sausage down, two to go, along with a few rashers of bacon, egg, beans … too many items I knew I’d have to force my way through. As I made an unenthusiastic cut through a buttery mushroom, the low rumble of a vehicle sounded out front

somewhere. Followed by the opening and slamming of a door, before the engine

growled off again.

Pausing in chewing, Dad glanced around at each of us.

“I’ll go,” Kyle said, pushing his chair back.

“Eat your food,” Dad said, setting down his fork. “I’ll go take a look.”

Not that a car stopping out on the road was a regular cause for concern, but we kept our gates locked overnight, so they’d still be secured from then, and there was nothing but a few blades of grass and high hedges surrounding our house. Which meant there was little out there beyond visiting us for passers-by to stop for. That, or they planned on trespassing.

The other three turned back to their food, as Dad grabbed up the keys and headed for the front door. I went back to pretending. But all four of us tilted our heads toward the front of the house like we anticipated a need to step in and aid Dad.

While playing at not listening, I heard the padlock to the gates being unfastened, the tiniest of squeals as one of those gates was swung in.

“You coming in?” I heard Dad asked.

Whoever it was, if they answered, I didn’t catch it, and a couple seconds later, Dad’s footsteps clomped him along the hallway and back into the kitchen. Alone.

“You have a visitor.”

We all paused in the pretence of eating, and it took me almost three heartbeats to realise he was speaking to me, and I thought, This is it. Nate has come to put an end to my mess. To my future.

The lump that formed in my chest was like a solid block of ice that forbade me from answering. My shove to my feet was clumsy. Loud.

Ignoring the stares of the others, I rounded the table, stopping only when Dad stepped in my path, grabbed the back of my neck, and tugged me in for a quick bear-hug that didn’t reassure me in the slightest.

“You need me, I’m here,” was all he said as he let go.

I couldn’t even muster a nod as I pretty much staggered past him and out into the hall with all kinds of scary thoughts bashing the insides of my skull. That Nate had come for me. He’d make me watch the destruction of my life. The demolition of Liv’s trust in me. Too many thoughts. Too many emotions.

If it hadn’t been for them, I might’ve realised who really stood at the door before I breached the threshold and found myself staring down at the one person I’d been praying to see. Except, her standing there, right then, before me only brought about a whole new set of feelings that spun my head at even dizzier speeds than the previous ones.

Panic had my breaths coming short, and though I tried hiding the fact as I strode the last stretch of the top step, I couldn’t quite disguise the weakness that claimed every one of my limbs as I slid down the couple of steps up and sank my butt down until only inches short of being eye level with Liv.

“Hey,” she said, the word whispered as if she wanted to share it with my ears alone.

Forcing my face upward, I studied hers.

The redness of her cheeks could’ve been down to the slapping wind as much as it could emotion, but not the slight tremble of her lips. I took in her eyes, that amazing smoky blue that shifted shades with her moods, but I saw nothing there. Nothing to make my heart pound harder than it already did. Nothing to ease it, either. Just a hint of that fear I’d found in her the last time I got to see her—a part of me wondered if that would ever go away, with the new knowledge she carried.

My fingers itched to reach out to her, to take her hand. Take her waist. Bury my face in her scent. But that’d be presumptuous, right? Or hopeful, at least, and I didn’t dare hope in that moment. Not when I had no fucking clue where I stood.

My jaw worked as I searched for the right words. A simple Hey back might’ve sufficed, but it seemed so inadequate given how much roiled around inside of me.

I settled with, “You came,” a whole rush of breath carrying on its tail like an avalanched sigh.

“It’s kept me awake all night,” she said. “Trying to figure this all out. To know what to do.” She wrapped her arms around herself—might’ve been against the cold, but it seemed against more than that to me, and I suddenly felt cold myself. Bone fucking cold like the liquids sloshing about my body had begun slowly icing over. “And it hit

me. It hit me this morning, and that’s why I came over early, because you need to know, too. And I wanted to tell you while I have it all straight in my head.”

I just stared at her. The slight frown across her forehead, pushing against the tip of her glasses. The tiniest sway of her body that definitely wasn’t caused by the wind.

“I need to know what?” I forced myself to ask when she didn’t continue speaking.

“That I trust you.”

“You …” Whatever fist gripped hold of my heart loosened its hold a little.

“I trust you, Dan. I’ve always trusted you. If I didn’t, I’d never have come back here in the first place, to tell you I was pregnant. I’d never have let you back in. God help me, you’re a pain in the arse, and volatile, and probably a whole lot of messed up, but

…” Unfolding her arms, her hand reached out and curled over one of mine. “You’re my messed up, volatile pain in the arse . And we can do this. Whatever this is.”

Again, I just stared at her. After the past couple of weeks, her visit felt like I’d stepped into an alternative dimension—one I hadn’t dared hope existed. I’d spent days trying, and failing, to prepare myself for the worst. Convincing myself I’d blown it, and I’d never get another chance, not after the second one I’d been granted.

Her frown crept back in. “Tell me we can do this, Danny.”

I nodded, but I didn’t seem in control of the action. Like my brain had its shit together even if I hadn’t caught up with it yet. I nodded again, a little more assertive that time, and I knew, even as I tugged her toward me, that I gawped like some kind of fucking moron who’d just been given a maths equation he had no chance of

figuring out.

“Say something,” she said.

I didn’t. I couldn’t. My body felt on the verge of implosion, and all breaths seemed to be trapped in my lungs. So I just nodded. Again. Drew her in until close enough for me to grab her hips, swing her round for her arse to plant in my lap, until I had her well and truly tucked in close enough that I could band my arms right the way

around her body like that’d, somehow, stop her from changing her mind or dropping any punchlines I wouldn’t want to hear.

“You’re not going to say anything?” she asked, but at least I heard a hint of humour in her tone.

I burrowed my face into her hair. Sniffed long and hard until fucking heady as hell, before nuzzling my face in tight against her throat and closing my eyes alongside the wash of contentment that came with her nearness, like a much-needed drug for the addict I was.

“Thank you,” I whispered. Because, really, what else needed to be said?

About J.A. Belfield

Best known for her Holloway Pack Stories, J.A. Belfield lives in Solihull, England, with her husband, two children, a cat and two dogs. She writes paranormal romance, with a second love for urban fantasy.

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Other Titles by J.A. Belfield

Document Outline

DAN & LIV

A HOLLOWAY PACK SPECIAL

BOOK 5.5

J.A. BELFIELD

ALSO BY J.A. BELFIELD

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About J.A. Belfield

Other Titles by J.A. Belfield