Tucker
That night, after we were both dressed and fed, we returned to the main room of the house. It was the warmest place in the cabin without lighting the fireplace in the master bedroom, and it was still too early to go to bed.
Emma sat in the chair opposite of me with her legs curled beneath her, nursing a cup of tea.
I caught her smiling at me and sat up. "How long have you been in love with me?" I asked.
It was an honest question. While Emma hadn’t told me, I could read her thoughts as easily as she could read one of her books. I knew she’d fallen in love with me before I'd picked her up at the psych ward. Her body language since we left was evidence of that.
Emma stared down at her tea, the warm liquid steaming in front of her face. "A while," she said, furrowing her brow. "I’m not really sure." She looked right at me. "You were my escape, you know?"
I cocked my head to one side.
"Even though I couldn’t leave the ward, my dreams... my thoughts of you let me escape. I guess I’ve loved you ever since you left." She shrugged.
"It makes sense, especially because of where you were."
I couldn’t imagine what had gone on within those walls, and I didn’t have the heart to ask. If she’d used her memories to escape, it was only fair for me to keep it that way. Making her look back on the ward and everything inside would’ve done more harm than good.
"I’m sorry I took so long," I said.
Emma hugged her mug in her hands, its contents completely forgotten. "Couldn’t you find me?"
I licked my lips. "I never lost you, Emma, but I couldn’t shift. Not until recently."
"How recently?"
"Your eighteenth birthday."
"But that was over a year ago," Emma pointed out.
I nodded. "Yes, but I needed to round up some papers to get you out. They wouldn’t have let you leave otherwise, and I didn’t want to risk getting caught until I was sure I had all the necessary documentation."
"Is the bonding..." Her voice shook, and she looked away. "Is that why you waited until I turned eighteen?"
"Mostly. It was also because I wanted you to be sure."
"Sure of what?"
"Your dreams, me, how you felt about what I told you so long ago. The other guardians might have taken you much sooner, but I needed you to need me, to want my company before I came to you."
"Because of the imprinting."
"Yes."
"What about you?" Emma asked, her eyes on me. "When did you fall in love with me?"
I stared at the flames in the fireplace. I’d only ever been in love twice, and both times I hadn't been able to explain it. The first time I fell in love with a guardian, it was a mix of being in love with the idea of bonding with a wolf, as well as becoming one. And I was sure Emma felt the same way. But now, I couldn’t say if I’d fallen in love with Emma the first night I'd seen her in the streets, or sometime after that.
"I’m not sure," I said, after giving her question some thought. "I want to say back when you were still a child. I had a need to protect you, but what I felt then isn't anything like how I feel now. That love—that bond is even stronger since I found you."
"You're still overprotective. You know that, right?"
"Oh, I know that. It’s just—"
"I’m not ready," Emma finished for me.
I shook my head. "I think it’s mostly me who isn’t." I sighed, looking back on her last question. "Sometimes the need to protect another, and our instincts alone, can be mistaken for love. That's why I can't say for sure."
"Is love the other half of the bond?"
Her question caught me off guard, and I gave her a sideways glance.
"You haven’t said anything to me since we got here unless it was worth saying," Emma said. "And since you asked when I first fell in love with you, I figured it had to do with the bond you mentioned earlier."
I cleared my throat. "Love is the other half of the bond, yes."
"So after we bond, what happens next?"
"We wait. Unfortunately, the bond isn’t enough. The songs I mentioned?"
"Yeah?"
"I don’t know the words. It’s something I need to learn from our bond. I need you to give me the words. I need you to inspire me."
"How do you know all of this?"
"It probably seems like some messed-up guessing game right now, but I’ve been here once before, only the roles were reversed."
"So you were bonded to another."
"Yes, but it was many, many years ago." Way too many for it to be relevant.
Emma’s face twisted in pain. I could’ve kept the truth to myself, but what good would it have done? It’s better I tell her now. The ache was something I’d carried with me ever since I'd lost my guardian. There were times I'd wished she would’ve told me the same thing. Prepared me for what was to come.
"What happened to her?" Emma asked, setting her empty mug on the floor before joining me. She took my face in her hands so she could look into my eyes. "What went wrong?"
I took an unsteady breath and patted my lap for her to sit down. Emma accepted my invitation and curled up in the chair beside me.
I combed my fingers through her hair as I spoke, winding one of her curls around my index finger. "When a guardian and his or her child fully bonds, the guardian learns a set of lyrics from the child’s memories or actions. This is why imprinting is so important. Think of the memories you have now as a set of photographs. Each one stands for a different word, and the stronger the memory, the more important that word becomes."
Emma leaned against my chest. "Why not sing the song your guardian learned from you?"
I closed my eyes. "It doesn’t work that way. I tried, many times. The song must be given to a guardian from his or her child. When the time is right, they sing together, becoming a single form in the night." I pressed my forehead to hers. "I need you to open your mind. I can show you what happens, but there are words I can't speak. Words that are too painful. Can you do that for me?"
"Yes." Emma’s voice shook.
"Close your eyes and empty your mind. Let all of your thoughts go. Think of nothing else except what I’m about to show you."
I pushed past the pain, sharing a series of images with Emma. She tensed when our minds connected, then went limp, falling victim to my memories.
* * * * *
Emma
Tucker’s body shuddered beneath me by the time I’d emptied my mind. At first, all I saw was black, but then things started to focus. A gray wolf stood at the base of a great tree accompanied by a young man. The two forms sang a mournful melody across the landscape, and as they sang, the Earth began to mend.
The wolf and the man who I could only assume was Tucker, swayed from side to side, their voices growing stronger as the moments slipped by. Then, Tucker’s form was gone.
The song ended shortly after, the gray wolf’s pelt turning a light brown. The wolf continued to sing, but he sang with a single voice. I knelt a few yards away from him, a heavy weight pressing against my chest, and pain—so much pain, I could barely see.
When I opened my eyes, the images were gone.
* * * * *
Tucker
Emma stirred in my arms, and I tilted my head back, severing the link I'd formed around her mind. Gods, I shouldn’t have shown her. The memories weren’t meant for her, but I’d done it anyway.
Emma pressed a hand to one of my cheeks, her eyes full of worry. "What happened?"
I blinked. "Didn’t you see it?"
"I-I did, but I want to hear you say it. I can’t believe it if you don’t say the words."
"I became the wolf, and she..." I couldn’t say anything else. My throat tightened anytime I tried to speak.
"I don’t think she’s gone," Emma said, curling up in my lap. "You remember her, which means there’s still some of her left."
"Emma..."
"You left me, and I could’ve thought you were gone, but I still remembered you. I remembered what you told me, and I waited for you. Maybe she’s waiting for you, too."
I hugged her against my chest, breathing in her hair and the sweet shampoo she’d used earlier. I knew what had really happened, but I let her hold on to her dreams. It was all I could do to keep from going back to that place. I was hers now, and until I fell into the Earth, I’d remain at her side.