His brow pinches. “That bothered you?”
“Of course it did.”
His lips part, but his expression remains the same. “Why?”
“I… care about you. You’re my friend, if nothing else. Right?” Does he not want to be my friend anymore? My cheeks warm. Maybe I couldn’t blame him for that. My heart aches, both hopeful and scared.
The lines on his face deepen, as if completing some inner war. Then, he rolls his shoulders and pushes from the tree. His steps toward me are slow, and my heart races.
Anticipation chases my anxiety away, but the relief is short-lived.
He stops only inches from me, his expression somber but curious. “Friends like that wolf shifter of yours?” There’s no accusation in this tone, just a gentle question. Deceivingly casual.
“Thompson is only a friend. I helped him pass his potions midterm. That’s what he was excited about.”
“He’s new here. He has no other pack members at the school. And he gravitated to you immediately.”
I purse my lips. “You sure seem to knowa lot about him already.”
“He’s all Elite Hall is talking about. And you, of course.”
Several emotions swirl through me. Bitterness, anxiety, annoyance, bone-deep exhaustion.
“You’ve been back long enough to catch up on all the rumors and school drama, but not long enough to even send me a message?”
He tilts his head slightly to examine me. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.”
“Why would you think that?” My voice rises too high. “I thought—” I shake my head.
“You thought what?”
“I thought we were friends.” Because honestly, I don’t know what else to say. We’re more than friends but there’s no label I could find to explain it. No box we fit.
He winces. “Last I heard, you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“No.” My voice wobbles. My mind is drawn back to the last time we’d been apart. When I was thirteen, I told him I wanted nothing to do with him after he’d scared me with his true form—a scaled monster with fangs, talons, and alien eyes that did not see me as a friend. It saw me and my sister as prey.
When he spilled her blood and ignored my pleas.
When he showed me what it felt like to be weak and meaningless.
He was the reason I hid away from the supernatural world.
Though that night was terrible and still bothers me, I know now that Jarron is so much more than a monster. To run from him was an unfair reaction out of fear.
Maybe I can’t blame him for assuming this is the same. I did push him away again, but not for the same reasons.
“You think I’m a monster,” he says it like it’s a fact. As simple as discussing the weather.
“No,” I say between clenched teeth. “I swear I don’t think that.”
“Do you fear me?” he asks, his tone filled with that alien power. He doesn’t usually use his magic to intimidate, especially with me, but I feel that darkness now. The threat of what he’s capable of scrapes against my mind.
“Yes,” I whisper. “But it’s not—”
He huffs loudly and spins away from me.
“Jarron.”
