“I guess so. I mean, why shouldn’t I be fine? I’m a werewolf, which before today I didn’t even know existed outside of horror movies. My parents are locked away. I’m so angry with them I can’t even express it. And I’m basically at your mercy, which actually feels okay, probably because of the wolf thing, and that alone scares me to death.” She sniffed again. “So, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Betsy.” He breathed out her name as he walked slowly toward her. If he could have taken all of her fears and stored them away inside of himself where she never had to face them again, he would in a heartbeat. When he got to the chair, he dropped to his knees in front of her. “I am at your mercy, not the other way around.”
“Please.” She shook her head. “Look, I don’t blame you for this. You went to get coffee, and ended up with a mate who didn’t know she was a werewolf, had no idea how to be a mate and inherited all the problems that came with her. I’m sorry for my tears.”
“You were exactly what I was looking for.” When she snorted, he continued talking. “Do you know that it’s possible to be surrounded by people and yet totally alone?”
Cyrus didn’t do this easily. Talking about his feelings had never been part of his training.
“I don’t actually. I’m almost always alone.” She shrugged. “I guess I understand why now. I was really a werewolf among humans. And I guess my parents aren’t really my biological parents either.”
“I’m responsible for a pack full of souls, and I don’t think any of them know me at all. I needed you so completely, and I was too dumb to even know it. Your scent drew me to the Starbucks. I scented you on the street and followed it inside.”
She raised her eyebrows in shock. “You did?”
“Absolutely. And then I thought you were Lilliana, which drove me crazy, because no way was I going to cross a street to follow her. She’s nice, but she’s not mine.”
“Thank you for bringing her here tonight.”
He touched her knee, needing any kind of connection. “You’re welcome.” Anything, Betsy. Anything at all.
“I’m not sure what you expect. I mean you know I’m attracted to you. You’d have to be dumb to not know that, and I know you can even smell it. But I’m not ready. My head, it’s all over the place.”
“I have no expectations.” All he wanted was to spend a few minutes in her presence. “Not sexual ones anyway. Actually, I have a gift for you.”
“You do?” She sat a little forward in her chair. That had to be a good thing. She wasn’t leaning away from him.
“I do.” He held up the necklace. “This is a very old necklace. A totem. It’s travelled through a lot of different people to get to me. Your sister wore it for a while. But it’s always belonged in our family.”
If she noticed the use of “our family”, she didn’t respond. Ordering himself to relax, he took a deep breath. Calling her family before they’d even slept together would probably be presumptuous among humans.
“It’s beautiful.” She took it from him, running her finger down the length of it. “Is it a werewolf?”
“The first one. Her name was Lily. Or so the legend goes.”
She stared up at him, meeting his gaze straight on. There were no tears in her eyes, which was a huge relief.
“Legend?” She wanted to hear more, and it seemed as though he was going to have to tell her. The creation story, the one he had rolled his eyes at since the death of his parents, had taught him not to believe in fairytales. Still, she looked at him so expectantly; he thought perhaps for that evening he could tell it like it had been told to him.
“There are many versions of this story. I think every werewolf knows it slightly differently. What changes is that there are variations in the number of people and the exact details.” She sat back a little. Shit, he’d already lost her. Maybe qualifying it had somehow dimmed the mystic element of it. He needed to do better. “But I’ll tell it to you the way it was told to me. How does that sound?”
She nodded. “I feel like a small child, but, yes, I’d really like to hear it the way you know it. Where did werewolves come from?”
He almost answered “alterations in DNA over time”, but instead, he stood up. “Can we sit on the bed while I tell it? I can’t stay on my knees like this indefinitely.”
“Oh.” She jumped from the chair, moving toward the bed. Truth was he could stay like that all day, but he wanted to be closer to her, and kneeling in front of her chair did not get the job done.