Harry nodded, that faraway look in his eyes. “I’ll do what you ask—for now, but I won’t let you go to jail for this, Mara—or whatever crazy medieval punishment your people exact to punish you for something very twenty-first century.”
She boldly reached forward and pressed two fingers on the warmth of his lips, allowing herself only a brief second to treasure it, her own lips trembling in time with her fingers, and said, “Tomorrow we’ll talk, but please, if you do anything else tonight while you’re thinking about the day’s events, remember I’m really sorry.”
She shot a look of thanks to Nina before escaping to her bedroom and shutting the door so Harry wouldn’t see her cry like a pathetic weakling.
Diving for her bed, she drove her hands under the yellow and blue eyelet shams and yanked the pillows over her head to cover her sobs.
Mimi, Fletcher, and Harry’s face circled her brain, flashing in her mind’s eye, still pictures of the moments they’d only just recently shared stamping their imprint.
And she was ashamed. Ashamed her selfish carelessness had created a problem she couldn’t take back.
She’d taken from Harry in an even bigger way than just an ordinary accident. She’d involved children he might never be able to tell about his true nature. Might never be able to share with them the rituals of the pack he’d now become an unwilling member of because he’d have to hide what she’d done to him.
And she’d have to go into work tomorrow and hide her gut-wrenching guilt over ruining three lives, and somehow manage to get through the day without exposing herself.
She was a crappy liar.
That was her last thought before she set her phone’s alarm and drifted off into a fitful succession of disjointed dreams involving handcuffs and prison guards.
CHAPTER
7
“Where have you been?”
Mara instantly froze at the sound of her friend Astrid’s voice, guilt and panic washing over her in a wave of chills.
So, yeah, where have you been, Mara? Have you been with Hairy Harry, helping him accept his werewolf-ism, one you created in a lab like some crazy mad scientist?
She looked down at her phone to read the text Harry had sent her, keeping her eyes averted. “What do you mean, where have I been? I’ve been here all morning. Right here. At Pack. Doing Pack things . . .” Shut your piehole, she heard Nina whisper in her head. Less is more, twit.
Astrid placed a hand on her shoulder to thwart her escape up the wide escalator in the center of Pack’s busy atrium. She turned her around, her full face, almost always serious and rosy-cheeked, displayed a frown. She sniffed the air around Mara, her round eyes full of skepticism. “No, you weren’t. I looked everywhere for you on my morning break. I texted you, called you. No one could find you in the lab either.”
Oh, right. That was probably because she’d been in the ladies’ room while she pondered the slammer, hurling every last ounce of her morning coffee, vomiting her guilt up in chunks of last night’s dinner, one messy heave at a time.
She’d decided to stick as closely to the truth as she could. Astrid was genius-level smart—one little thing out of place on an average day made her paranoid and suspicious.
The magnitude of the secret she had would turn Astrid’s world upside down. And she’d be angry if Mara didn’t confide in her. Astrid’s self-esteem, right along with hers, suffered. They just suffered in very different ways.
Astrid’s low self-esteem led her to believe everyone was making fun of her and she was just missing the subtext of their snide jokes. She wasn’t good in crowds, she wasn’t good with change, and she especially wasn’t good at sharing a friend. She hoarded Mara like an intervention was needed.
Sometimes, like today, when panic was clear in Astrid’s voice, it choked her—smothered her naturally loner tendencies. Sometimes she also had to remind herself that one-on-one, she really enjoyed Astrid’s company. She just didn’t enjoy her Saran Wrap–like cling.
A deep breath later and Mara lifted her eyes to meet her friend’s, knowing the slightest thing could set sensitive, meek Astrid off. “I didn’t feel very well. I was probably hugging a toilet in the bathroom.” Mara ran her hand over her stomach. “See? Bloated. Gross.” She exaggerated, letting her tongue hang out of her mouth, making a gagging noise.
Astrid’s hand went to her forehead, concern in her sharp blue eyes. “You don’t feel warm,” she commented in a suspicious tone as if Mara’d purposely gone off shopping and lunching without her. “In fact, you feel fine.”