Crimson (The Silver Series Book 3) (19 page)

“
You okay?” Jaze asked when
the others had gone into the house.

I nodded, but I could tell he didn't believe
me. “I think I'll go for a walk.”

“
Watch out for Troy,” Jaze
said knowingly. “He seems the sort that would rather tear you apart
than talk to you.”

“
What makes you think I'd
be walking anywhere near him?” I asked with as much innocence as I
could muster.

He smiled and shut the door behind him.

I started off down the road in the opposite
direction of the motel. My shoes scuffed softly on the pavement
while the scents of cut grass, traffic, and the last remnants of
sunlight touched my nose. I couldn't enjoy the smell as much as I
had with Grace. With her, I noticed all the things that I had taken
for granted when I was human. I was my best self when she was
near.

The thought changed my path and I started
jogging in the direction Jaze had guessed I would go all along. I
surprised myself by pausing at Jaze's house and depositing my
clothes in a small alley behind his fence before phasing and
continuing my journey in wolf form. It was much easier to follow
the scent of Jaze's SUV back to the motel as a wolf, and I thought
with a touch of humor that Grace would be proud of me learning to
use my nose.

I hadn't planned on what I would do when I
got there, but my heart sped up at the sight of a lone figure
standing outside room twenty-one. I slowed when I drew near, but
she turned at the sound of my paws on the pavement.

“
Kaynan?”

I touched her hand with my nose and sent her
a picture of walking along the road at night. I remembered her
comment about her love of jogging before she went blind, and
changed it to an image of running, the scenery blurring by with the
call of the wind rushing past.

Grace's breath caught and her hand moved
through my fur to the back of my neck. “Do I dare?” she asked
softly.

I snorted at the thought that she would even
ask and started forward. She had no choice but to walk beside me if
she wanted to see. I listened carefully and smiled inside when she
took a deep breath of the fresh night air and let it out with a
sigh of relief. “It's nice to get out of there.” She paused, and
then said, “I love Troy, but the pack gets a little intense
sometimes, especially in close quarters. It was much more
comfortable at Jaze's.”

I flashed her a picture of Jaze's house, but
she shook her head, her sneakers soft beside me. “I can't. I've got
my brother back and he'll never let me go.”

I wanted to ask her what she truly wanted,
but was unable to in the confines of my wolf form. I couldn’t
decide if that was a good or bad thing.

We walked along the street for a while, then
turned down a dusty dirt road just outside the city limits. I
picked up my pace, then felt Grace’s fingers entwine in my fur as
she started to run. I glanced up and saw a look of pure joy and
relief on her face. The expression sent a surge of happiness
through me and I studied the landscape around us, determined to let
her see every inch of the night we traveled.

My chest was heaving by the time she pulled
back to a walk. “It feels so good to run again,” she said, her
voice heavy with emotion. “I think I’d almost forgotten on
purpose.” We walked in silence for a few minutes, then she laughed.
“Sounds like you need to get out more.”

I snorted, a difficult feat while I
struggled to catch my breath, but she just laughed again. A rush of
pleasure ran through my body at the melody, light but full, like
the song of a meadow lark combined with the last blush of moonlight
before sunrise. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly to
center myself. Grace’s fingers toyed with my fur, tracing patterns
at the base of my neck while we walked.

The next field we passed had been allowed to
run wild. Sunflowers stood almost waist high in several places, and
even though their faces were lowered with the passing of the day,
the scent of golden dew and summer still touched the night air. I
led Grace through the fence and into the midst of the flowers. She
ran her fingers along the silky petals and knelt to press her face
against them.

“
They’re beautiful,” she
whispered, though to my wolf’s eyes, their true golden was washed
to light gray with midnight centers. “Sunflowers were always my
favorite.”

I sat on the ground next to her and sniffed
one of the flowers she held out. Grains of pollen rose from the
petals and tickled my nose. I turned my head just in time to avoid
sneezing all over her.

She laughed again and rubbed the fur between
my ears in a gesture that was so familiar it made my chest ache.
“Bless you.” She sighed and settled on her back on the clodded
ground. “Care to join me?” she asked, gesturing up at the sky.

Confused, I glanced up and realized she
wanted to see the stars. I settled on the ground and turned
not-so-gracefully onto my back. The position felt inappropriate and
undignified. I put my tail between my legs to cover up areas I
normally didn’t expose to others, and tried to concentrate on the
stars above while Grace’s fingers rested gently on the soft fur of
my chest.

“
I used to stargaze with my
dad when I was little. He’s the one that gave me the running bug.
Mom used to joke that my feet never stopped moving.” There was a
wistfulness to her tone when she spoke about her parents. She
rubbed her eyes. “I guess some things do change.”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly,
then showed her the images from my dream on the plane. The power
surge flashed, pain ran through my body, then everything grew dark.
The image hung in the air the way my heart froze, suspended in my
chest, waiting for the words that would condemn me for what I had
done to her, for stealing her sight and her world away, for taking
away even the simple joy she had in running. Because of me, she
couldn’t go two steps without being afraid of tripping over
something.

“
I already
knew.”

Her words, so soft and accepting I could
barely believe my ears, started my heart again. I shook my head to
deny that she could ever trust someone the way she did me while
knowing what I had done to her, but her hand moved from my chest to
my muzzle.

“
I knew the day it
happened. Dr. Tannin, the lead physician at the lab,” my heart
skipped a painful beat at his name, “Said that the werewolf
experiments had finally worked, but the subject it worked on died
during the procedure and when they used the defibrillator to bring
him around, the instrument shorted out the entire facility.” Her
voice softened. “They were testing my brain capacity at the time in
an effort to better understand us. The shock ran through the
electrodes attached to my skull.” She stopped as though the pain of
the memory made it too hard to describe.

I rolled onto my stomach, wanting more than
anything to jump off a cliff if I could find one.

“
It’s not your fault,”
Grace said. She set a hand on my shoulder. “You didn’t do it. You
wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for them.”

I would have been dead. The thought must
have occurred to her too, because she leaned her head against my
shoulder. “I know it might be wrong to say, but I’m glad you were
there.” She lifted her face to mine. “I’m glad you’re a
werewolf.”

Disbelief clouded my thoughts. I turned my
eyes away from her features, softened by moonlight and lovely in
their earnestness. Dark thoughts about the creature I had become,
and the way it reflected what I had been inside before the
accident, swarmed through my mind with sharp claws that raked
across every gentle feeling I had for Grace.

“
I wish I could see you,”
she said.

I was quiet for a minute, then sent her an
image of a scrawny wolf cartoon I remembered from the zoo. The wolf
was a gangly puppy and had a plastic six-pack can holder around his
four overly large paws. The cartoon reminded zoo visitors not to
litter.

Grace laughed. “Not in your wolf form,” she
said. “I want to see you as human.”

My breath caught in my throat. For some
reason, the fact that Grace had never seen me, yet trusted me with
every step she took, meant so much to me. But maybe she should
understand what I truly was, what she deserved to know about me;
maybe then she wouldn’t trust me so much. It was what I
deserved.

I showed her an image of me before the
accident. I stood in a gas station bathroom staring at my
reflection in the dirty mirror. Black hair, ratty and clumped by
whatever drink Moe had spilled on me the night before, hung limp in
front of brown eyes that stared back dull and uncaring, the sclera
red from the high I was on. Track marks ran down both arms, ending
in thin, pale hands with dirty fingernails. The hatred I felt for
myself and the world I had created around me marred a face some
might call handsome, but I found pale and indifferent. I realized
as I showed the image to Grace that some of the ugliness I felt
inside really had shown on the surface.

Grace’s breath slowed and her hand slipped
down my shoulder to my foreleg, her fingers tracing softly where
the track marks had been. She shook her head. “Show me you now,
after the accident.”

I couldn’t refuse her anymore than I wanted
the image of the old me to stay in her mind when she heard my voice
or touched my hand. I closed my eyes and focused on the reflection
in the Carso’s bathroom after we were rescued. My hair had a gleam
of red among the black, and strayed in front of blood-red eyes that
stared back at me with a mixture of self-loathing and despair. My
jaw was tight and forehead creased, but something hinted in my
features that had never been there before.

There was confidence in the angle of my head
and cast of my brows despite the pain I felt, confidence at being
relied upon, at being trustworthy. The confidence was brought by
Grace.

“
You’re handsome,” she
said, a touch of surprise to her voice.

I snorted, as much at the comment as her
surprise about it.

She gave a light laugh. “I’m not really
surprised; I just thought that someone who spends as much time as
you do hanging out with a blind person might have more motives
behind it than just a good heart.” Her lips pursed and her head
cocked slightly to the right at a teasing angle. “I guess you just
have a good heart.”

I stood up and shook myself. She laughed and
threw her arms around my neck in a quick hug, then jumped to her
feet. “We’d better get back before Troy throws a fit.”

The thought sobered my enthusiasm. We jogged
slowly back up the dirt road, then turned onto the paved one. I
slowed near the hotel, but Grace’s steady hand kept me going. I
walked her to the door of their room, my heart heavy and throat
tight with unsaid words.

Grace touched the doorknob, then turned and
dropped to her knees in front of me. She buried her face against my
neck. “I'll be lost without you,” she whispered into my fur before
rising and opening the door. She closed it before I could think of
what to do.

“
Where have you been?” Troy
demanded angrily. I bared my teeth at his tone and fought back the
urge to tear down the door.

“
Running with Kaynan,”
Grace replied calmly.

“
With Kaynan?” I could
imagine veins bulging from his neck and forehead. A soft growl
rumbled in my throat.

“
Yes, with Kaynan. He’s a
perfect gentleman and has taken care of me since we escaped,” Grace
said.

“
I’ll bet,” Troy replied in
an ugly tone. “Bet he couldn’t wait to take care of
you.”

Something that sounded like a lamp crashed
to the ground. “You have no idea what I went through there,” Grace
said. Her voice shook slightly, but she continued in a tone that
left no room for argument. “I was blind, scared, and alone until
Kaynan came along and helped me escape.” Her voice caught. “He
saved my life, Troy. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead like Gabe.
He saved me from them and helped me find what sanity I had left.”
Her voice drew close to a whisper and I strained to hear her next
words. “I love him, Troy, and I won’t listen to you slander him.
One more word about Kaynan and I’ll leave and never come back.”

I begged with the remaining breath I could
gather that he would say something that would drive her from the
room and back to my side. I waited by the door for a long time, but
it never opened. Entirely lost as to what action I should take, I
eventually turned and padded my way slowly back down the road.

She loved me. I said the phrase over and
over in my head. I heard it in her voice, in her words, but could
barely believe that she spoke about me. At the same time, my heart
sang an echo of that love, daring to believe that I could love her
as much as I wanted to, daring to hope that she might return it. I
realized at that moment how much I had forced down until I knew
that my future with Renee was over. A faint voice in the back of my
mind questioned if it was fair to bring Grace into the wreckage
that was my life, but my soul held her words in its palms and
wasn’t willing to give them back.

***

I phased and pulled on my clothes behind
Jaze’s house, then hopped the fence and slipped in through the back
door. The kitchen was empty, a strange occurrence when my nose told
me that Brock was in the house. Voices rose from the living room. I
followed them with trepidation growing in my chest.

“
Kaynan!” Jaze exclaimed
when he saw me. He looked back at the others. “Let’s go.” He
motioned for me to follow him out the front door and the others
filed out after us.