smartest thing to do, I know, but I did it anyway. Because I was gone. That’s when I was important.”
I thought about my disappearing acts, how sometimes they worked, sometimes no one ever noticed. Except one person always asked where I’d gone if I left a place he was at. Alex. The one person to look each and every time. At least I had him to file a report on me back home. He wouldn’t be able to find me here.
I let out a shaky sigh. I shouldn’t have been doing therapy with Wolf. Marianne was somewhere out there still, being dragged away from everything she knew by some magically created phantom. I closed my eyes. He stood close, listening to every word.
“But you.” I reached out to touch his face. “A strange man…half-wolf. I’ve known you for a few days and yet you’ve always come looking for me.” My voice dropped a whisper. “And you’ve always found me.”
“I will always look for you,” Wolf said, his eyes gold and burning, “and I will always find you. Because you’re more important when you’re here.”
“I’m sorry for being so much trouble.” I smiled faintly. “You won’t have to look for me again.”
He pulled me to him and kissed me, slow and long. And I kissed him back. A crazy man. A crazy wolf. Whatever he was. I kissed him anyway. When he pulled back his eyes had returned to normal. We began walking again.
“By the way,” I said, “what did you do with the necklace?”
“I was going to throw it in a lake,” Wolf said. “But before I got to one, it flew away.”
A disbelieving snicker escaped me. “It flew away?”
“Up, out of my pocket, and away back to the town. No doubt returning to its mistress.”
I shook my head. “That necklace was supposed to help me.” The witch had said to keep the right desire at the forefront at all times. Oops. “Instead I fly into harpies and end up sleeping with you.”
“Oh, we didn’t sleep, sweet Caroline.”
“I know that,” I said, trying not to think of his skin against mine. Then it hit me. The witch never said anything about the necklace exclusively helping me find Marianne. I’d spilled my guts to Wolf the next morning thanks to that necklace. Told him things I’d never spoken aloud to anyone. Things I’d never told my parents because I knew they would dismiss me or ignore me or go into denial about it. So I ran. I ran away, far away from everyone to be on my own, finally finding solace in the woods and the wolves. And what did I do in the end? Cry to a wolf about everything, and for once I didn’t feel so alone.
I was pretty sure I was fucked up.
While I pondered my slightly broken childhood and my response to it, Wolf frolicked ahead, swinging around trees and occasionally jumping around me with a grin on his face. I’d never seen a grown man leap around with such abandonment and figured in my world I probably never would. If I did, it would have looked completely bizarre, yet here watching Wolf, it seemed completely natural. His wolf side was happy and full of energy. Finally he jumped behind me, wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off the ground in a big hug. I shouted in surprise, but couldn’t help but laugh. His spirit was contagious. Then he put me down again and let out an excited sigh that sounded partly like a playful growl.
“I feel so alive. Don’t you my sweet Caroline?”
“I’m fine…thanks.” I did feel good, but I wasn’t about to start jumping around in the same way. “How far away do you think we are from Marianne? We…I wasted a whole day we could have been looking for her.”
Wolf stopped in the middle of the path and inhaled long and deep. “Oh.” He inhaled again, his eyes wide…wild. “I smell sheep.”
“Focus, babe.”
He grinned. “Sorry.” He took another breath.
“God, it’s like I had sex with you and now you’re all crazy,” I said, keeping my voice low. He glanced at me and his eyes flashed gold-red. I still didn’t like the red.
“Oh it’s not just you my heart,” he said, “the full moon is coming tomorrow. It’s going to be so big and bright and beautiful in the sky…”
So that’s why he was acting so weird. He’d gotten laid and the moon was on the cusp of being full. I got the