Lyssie
“I need your help,” I said to Kiera when we got to the shelter. She’d spent the night with Baron, and Dallas had insisted she not come get me until Chandra left.
The sickness was scary, the prognosis even more terrifying, but the way he wanted to hide it made my stomach churn.
Kiera’s face lit up over her coffee mug. “How’d last night go? I stayed with Baron because I wanted the two of you to have some alone time. The way the two of you were dancing—“ she fanned herself, “—so flipping hot. I picked up a couple new moves watching you and Baron’s totally going to buy your next beer as a thank you.”
I laughed. “Good to know. Um, things didn’t go as I expected.”
Kiera put down her coffee and picked up the dog that had his paws on her belly. She squinted as he covered her face in kisses. “Lyssie, I’m saying this as your best friend. You’re way overthinking things. Take your clothes off and let Dallas ravish you like the animal he is. Next time he comes over, answer the door naked. I’ll stay in my room. Don’t worry about what you don’t know. Your body’s smarter than you give it credit for. Just enjoy the ride and stop fucking thinking for once.”
“That’s exactly it. Did you see that girl come up to us right after the ball dropped last night?”
Kiera shook her head. The whole thing felt crazy, and I really wanted one witness.
“She’s one of the Montana wolves. She bit him, trying to mark her territory. So when I left with Dallas, we were actually fighting. We kind of smoothed things out, but Dallas passed out hard when he came back to our place. Moaning and talking in his sleep, he had a ridiculously high fever. Blamed the bite. I called Chandra even though he begged me not to. I think he’s embarrassed that this chick bit him, or he’s got something to hide. Whatever. My point is, Full Moon Fever is a real thing, he has it, and the only thing that will cure it is him screwing his mate’s brains out.”
“Oh.” Kiera’s mouth kept the shape of the sound as she eased the dog back down to the floor. “He’ll stay sick until he sleeps with the she-wolf?”
“Until he has sex with his mate. Chandra stressed that wolves mate for love. Me and Dallas have been weird, but we’ve got something. We promised each other we’d stop wasting time. I still need to tell him everything...but none of that matters right now. If he’s not cured, he’ll go feral. Lose his humanity. I’ve got to give his wolf the best sex of his life or little Miss Montana staking her claim will be the least of our problems.”
The smile returned to Kiera’s face. “We’ve totally got this. You know how much I hate to lose. And I want to see you happy. But I need you to do some research, because what works for me isn’t necessarily going to work for you. You might not want to know this, but I’m the dominant in our—“
I put my hand up. “You’re right. Too much information.” Kiera and Trina talked about sex all day long at the shelter, but listening to them made my skin crawl. Maybe it was with jealousy that I couldn’t join in, or that the thought of it made my cheeks burn.
Yup. You heard it here first. Lyssie Bradley was a twenty-seven-year-old virgin. It was the opposite of all those rock stars that died at twenty-seven; I had yet to live. I had a perfectly good excuse for it that I’d rather take to my grave than say out loud, but that was no longer an option. I had to rip everything open and let it all hang out.
Kiera sat beside me on the couch, bumping my leg. “That’s the first thing. You’ve got to get comfortable talking about this stuff, because you have to be able to tell Dallas what you want. And ask him what he needs. Which leads me back to my point. It doesn’t have anything to do with your bodies—sex is a mind game. Let him think he’s in control, that he’s claiming you. In reality, you’ll be in the driver’s seat the whole time. The only way you’ll lose him is if you fuck this up. I know that’s harsh, but it’s true. I can’t sugar coat things.”
“I know. That’s why I asked you.” I sighed. No better time to talk about all the things that scared me than now. “I’ve been having trouble lately. I’ve been...feeling like I did when I first got to CAST. I didn’t want to say anything, because everyone else around me is so happy, and there’s a little voice in my head that laughs at me, telling me I don’t deserve that. Now that just turned into a big voice, with bright red hair and a giant rack. And honestly, I don’t know if I can beat her.”
Kiera hugged me. At first it was weird because we were both card-carrying members of the No Hugging Club, but it was exactly what I needed. “Don’t give her a chance,” she said against my cheek, then pulled away. “I know this violates the cardinal rule of Forever Home, but what the hell happened to you? If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
She chewed on her lip, just as nervous as I was. We made a pact when we came to Granger Falls, all of us strangers, connected by our grief and the hope that a bunch of unwanted animals could help put us back together again. We never talked about what got us there. No looking back. We couldn’t change the past. The present was what we had control over.
Trying to form the words, I was brought back to that day. Pain balled in my chest like a giant fist around my heart, squeezing it. In my mind’s eye, I watched the car pull away, always as vivid as the first time it happened. “My mother left me in a Walmart parking lot. She’d just got her check. I only remember it because we ran out of everything at the end of the month, and I’d be so hungry before we did our big shopping. She let me pick out one thing I really wanted, and I chose those sugar cookies with the frosting on top. I gag just thinking of them now. She loaded up the car, buckled my little brother in, and said she didn’t have any room for me. They actually waved at me as they drove away, and me, being the naïve little ten-year-old that I was, waved back. I didn’t get what was happening.”
“I don’t get it now.” Kiera’s eyes glassed over. “How the fuck could someone do that to their kid? I’m so sorry.”
“I waited for them to come back all night. One of the employees that rounded up the carts noticed I’d been out there for hours. Once the cops came, and the social workers, they brought me to live with my grandmother. I didn’t really know her before that, because she didn’t get along with my mom, and she saw me as her second chance. I thought it was my fault, that I’d been left there. My brother was with us too, but he considered me the reason we didn’t live with Mom anymore, and he made my life miserable. He left when he was sixteen, and I haven’t seen him since. Gram and I clung to each other. She didn’t like to leave the house, and that was fine with me. I didn’t like going anywhere, because I’d freak out if my Gram was out of my sight. When she died...I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t call anyone, because I thought I’d be in trouble. I knew they’d take me away. Or I’d be left behind with nothing again, because I was twenty-two and had no idea how to take care of myself. Her visiting nurse found us.”
“And that’s why you hate to be alone,” Kiera said.
I nodded. “At CAST they told me I had agoraphobia. I panic anytime I’m in an unfamiliar situation.” The first couple of days in Granger Falls had been sheer hell. Left in the middle of nowhere with complete strangers. Luckily, Kiera needed someone as badly as I did, and even though we’d lived together for almost a year and this was the first time I told her my story, she’d always known what I needed.
“Is that why you’re afraid of having more with Dallas? You’re worried he’s going to leave you?”
“Exactly. Everyone I love leaves me.”
Kiera squeezed my hand. “I’ll never leave you, I promise. We may not always live together, but that doesn’t mean I’m not here for you. Wherever I am. As far as Dallas is concerned, remember, wolves mate for life. You hook him, he’s yours. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect boyfriend.” She smiled, but couldn’t hold it for long. “Okay, my turn. When I was in Iraq I, ah, got in an argument with a bomb and lost.” She lifted her sweatshirt and showed me the price she paid.