Dark Heart Wolf - Haley Weir Page 0,5

helped build this town and fought to keep the people safe," Sam sighed. "Who has spilled more blood for the humans than us?"

"You don't see yourself as a man?"

"The things I've done and seen make me less of a human than the people walkin' among us, Jesse." Sam tossed his glass aside and grabbed the bottle of liquor. He stumbled to his feet, boots crunching the glass beneath him as he slurred his words. "I ain't Boone. My brother went down a righteous path, and I became a bloodthirsty heathen. Don’t expect too much from me.”

~*~

Sunlight seared his eyeballs. Sam rolled onto his stomach with an irritable groan, but the soft moan in his ear caused him to tense. He cracked open an eyelid and peered over at the curtain of long hair fanned over the pillows. The pale pink lace that lined the linens was a sure sign that he hadn’t made it home the night before. Sam shifted quietly and climbed out of bed, careful not to sneeze or gag as the cloying scent of rose perfume assaulted his sensitive nose.

A fierce headache pounded in his temples as he crept across the floor and out the window. His companions often jested about his inability to use doors properly. Sam reckoned it was much smarter than being seen sneaking out a lady’s front door in the early hours of the morning. He leaped three levels down and landed on the soft pads of his bare feet before yanking up his trousers.

Sam hurried around the corner without a shirt and his boots slung over his shoulder. He bumped into someone, barely catching them before they hit the ground. Once the woman was steady on her feet and Sam’s eyes focused, he cursed his poor luck. “Mary...look, I can explain—”

She took a lingering glance at the scratches that marred his shoulders and the dark bruises peppering his neck. “No need,” Mary Ann cut in. Her blank stare flickered to the house behind him just as Bonnie Waters poked her head out the front door. Sam rushed to explain, but Mary Ann set off down the road without sparing a second glance his way.

“It ain’t fair if you don’t let me explain.”

“There’s no need to explain, Samuel. You got drunk again. I can smell the whiskey on your breath. And I know when you’re drinking that you just can’t help yourself.” She shrugged and, for some reason he could not fathom, her lack of irrational anger made him furious. He wanted her to care that he had gone home with another woman. He wanted Mary Ann to look at women like Bonnie Waters and be upset. Sam wanted Mary Ann to feel something other than content.

Wolves were nothing if not observant, and Sam had watched as Mary Ann numbed to the world each day. He felt helpless. He could not keep her from going down the path that he had wandered for a long time. Sam knew grief like no one else, so he followed Mary Ann. He tugged on his boots and was smacked in the chest by a shirt the second he walked into the bakery. Mary Ann busied herself around the shop as she tried to ignore him.

“You’re upset,” he huffed, doing up the buttons at the neck of one of his shirts he had left at Mary Ann’s several weeks ago. “And that’s how it starts. Every little thing is gonna piss you off, sweetheart, and then you’re goin’ to lose your ability to feel at all. Want to know what comes after that? Huh? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s an unforgivin’ abyss of darkness that’s ready to swallow you up whole. It’ll eat away at you slowly until all you can do is think about ways to end it.”

“Shut up.”

“No, you need to hear this.”

“Get out of my shop.”

Sam shook his head and tried his best to tidy his appearance. The taste of bile and liquor was still thick on his tongue, but he swallowed that down. He crept deeper into the small shop and grabbed Mary Ann. “You need to get angry, Mary. You need to feel betrayed and furious that I had the nerve to even look in another woman’s direction. I know you love me and I know—”

The sharp crack that rang in his ears was followed by the prickle of pain against his cheek. Sam released Mary Ann and stepped back. She glanced down at the faint red blotches on her arm where