Page 11 of Ruined Wolf
She looked up at me, bravely meeting my eyes. My cold, black heart ached for her. She was so much stronger than she knew, than anyone else realised.
“I’m mad, yes, so mad I want to shift and run and rip something apart. At you? No. I hate that someone has hurt you. I hate that I wasn’t there to protect you, even though I know I couldn’t have been. I hate that you’re stronger than you think, and that you’ve never let yourself believe it. I hate that what they did to you has made you doubt yourself. I want you to see what I see, not what they told you that you are.”
“What do you see, Lucas?” she asked.
“Strength, courage” —I sighed— “and sunshine.”
“Sunshine?” She looked confused.
I reached out and touched the back of her hand with my finger. Her hands were cold, and I swallowed, forcing myself to concentrate on her face. “You’re like sunshine, just like my life was similar to this island in the winter—cold, desolate, and forbidding with dark clouds overhead. When spring came, you arrived, parting the clouds, and for the first time in what feels so long, I feel... warm. You have a storm raging inside of you, I can tell, but I have one too, and I believe with all of my heart that you can beat it, that you can make the clouds part and the sun shine through.”
“Lucas,” she murmured. Her eyes shone with tears, and she reached for me. I took her hand and stood, pulling her up and into my arms.
“I can’t protect you from everything, I can’t take your pain away and make it seem like nothing ever happened, but I will be your strength when you need me to be, and when you give me the names of those who did this to you, I will be your avenging angel and bring my wrath down on them all.”
She turned in my arms then looked up. “I don’t want that.”
“But—”
“No, Lucas. I just want to put it behind me and start over without their shadows.”
I nodded in understanding, although my wolf still snarled and the desire to hunt them down remained strong in my mind. She didn’t need to know, not until it was done. I would bring her their heads and show her they were dead and could never hurt her again. She needed that closure, even if she didn’t know it.
I rested my chin gently on her head. “A new start. That sounds good.”
CHAPTER FIVE
NOVA
I walked alongside Lucas, taking in the beauty of the coastline. The sun was shining down on us, casting a warm glow over the rocky cliffs and the sparkling water below. Thankfully, Lucas had returned where he had left his clothes and then came back up onto the bluffs fully dressed. He hadn’t shown any kind of aversion to the cold or to walking around naked, but I was glad he’d put on his clothing. It made it rather hard to concentrate on the beautiful surroundings otherwise, and I wanted to. The whole place just thrilled me. The wind whipped my hair around, and I almost felt like I could jump off the cliff and fly on it. I could hear the surf raging below. The water hadn’t been that choppy before, but Lucas explained that this was a part of the island where winds and currents worked together to create a permanent spot where the water was wild. I rather liked it, and I found the crashing waves calming, though peering over the edge of the cliff and seeing the white water below did have me walking a little farther from the edge as well.
Lucas was a wealth of knowledge when it came to the wildlife on the island. Normally quiet and reserved, he came to life out here in his natural environment. He seemed to glow with a contagious enthusiasm as he pointed out different types of birds, picking out unmistakable silhouettes and describing their characteristics in great detail. As we looked out over a cluster of islands, Lucas pointed to a small rocky island nearby. The surface appeared to be moving at first, but then I made out the dozens of harbour seals sunbathing and moving about.
“Seals and sea lions! This place is incredible, Lucas,” I gushed.
His mouth twitched, and he looked back out at the seals. “There are a few species of them around here. You can identify these ones by their small size and round heads. We saw the Steller sea lions earlier, but we sometimes also get the northern elephant seals. They are really huge. You should have heard them during mating season. They roar like real lions.”
I shook my head, becoming more and more amazed at this walking encyclopaedia. With his close-cropped hair, tattoos, and piercings, he wasn’t the kind of man you’d think would be interested in this kind of stuff. He wouldn’t have looked out of place in a motorcycle club in the heart of the city, but his trousers were the cotton kind designed for walking that zipped off at the knee, and he wore a thin fleece and a padded windproof jacket on top in a camouflage design that enabled him to stay hidden in human form when he wanted to watch the wildlife. Out here, he was almost chatty and much more relaxed, and it was hard to reconcile this Lucas with the dark dominant one in the bedroom. His passion for wildlife was contagious, and I found myself getting more fascinated by everything he told me.
I couldn’t help but feel a sense of peace and tranquillity wash over me as we walked, but despite the serene surroundings, my mind couldn’t help but wander back to the revelation I had shared with Lucas earlier. Lucas hadn’t reacted like Maverick. He’d wanted details of exactly what my father had allowed, what his alphas had done, how many times, and over what time period. It had felt a bit like an interrogation, and at first, I had been confused and a little disturbed by Lucas’s interest in it.
I’d looked up when he’d finally ran out of questions, and when I saw the look on his face, I knew he wasn’t getting off on it, that was for certain. He looked angry, and his eyes were gold like mine, a sure sign his wolf was fighting for control. I realised he was cataloguing the events in his mind and committing them to memory. When he’d mentioned wanting to go after those who hurt me, I almost told him who they were and who I was, but I’d held back.
Tensions between the two packs were high after Maverick cast Tessa aside to marry me, and so far, I had no idea if they even knew who he’d chosen instead. Ethan’s threat wasn’t an empty one. The High Rocks Pack’s alpha would not appreciate the insult of having his daughter cast aside, even if he was currently playing the understanding friend to Maverick. But if my father found out it was me who scuppered whatever plans he’d had for uniting the packs? I shuddered at the thought. He would come after me with all the force of the pack, and even though I knew Maverick and Lucas would protect me, people would get hurt, and I couldn’t have that on my conscience, especially since I was still keeping secrets from them.
Lucas must have sensed my discomfort, because he didn’t push me to talk about it anymore, and I was grateful for the comfortable silence I could keep as he talked about his island.
As we rounded a bend in the trail, Lucas suddenly stopped and pointed to a large rock formation in the distance. “That’s the Devil’s Chimney,” he said.
I squinted, trying to make out the details of the formation. As we got closer, I realised that it wasn’t just a rock formation, but a cave. The land had dipped here, taking us closer to sea level again, and I could see dangerously sharp rocks littered around this part of the coastline. Violent surf filled the cave, blowing the white water up through an opening and making it look like a whale’s blowhole. My curiosity was piqued, and I moved closer, trying to get a better look.
“I found the petroglyphs etched into the rock around the blowhole when I was a kid,” Lucas said, noticing my interest.
I looked up at him, trying not to let my excitement show. “There are petroglyphs here?”
He nodded and led me closer to the hole. “Around the hole. I like to think they might have been some kind of protection spell to stop someone from falling in.”
I looked at him, raising my eyebrows, and he flashed me a quick grin. “Or it could have been to lure unsuspecting walkers to their deaths.”