scar, the one between his shoulder blades. It had faded since the first time she’d seen it. Then, it had been as livid as a bruise, but now it was just a pale, silvery squiggle, hardly visible. Yet a shiver ran through him as her lips brushed it, as though the wound was still fresh and tender.
“I’m worried that all this repression is going to come around and bite you in the future. I don’t want you to get hurt even worse,” she murmured against his skin. “I wish you would talk to me.”
“Have told you as much as I can.” He pulled away, bending down to pick up his pants. “Am going out.”
She hugged her knees, watching him pull on clothes. “To shift?”
He shook his head as he did up his jeans. “Need to…be elsewhere. Sometimes gets too hard to control my animal around you.”
She wanted to embrace him, to smooth out the tight, unhappy lines on his brow…but she knew she’d only make things worse. “Okay. I’ll wait for you.”
“No.” He bent to kiss her; briefly, but it was enough to loosen some of the knot of worry in her heart. “Go to sleep. Might need to be gone for a while. But will come back. Will always come back.”
“I know,” she whispered after him.
She lay back down, staring at the ceiling. After a minute, she mumbled a curse, and got up again.
“You might not be interested in your past, Fenrir,” she muttered as she flipped up her laptop screen. “But I am. And you just gave me a clue.”
Chapter 31
“Does anyone suspect?” Lupa asked.
She was only half there. Shadows embraced her slim form in a coiling, ever-changing aura. Even face to face with her, he still had an eerie sense of absence. It was like talking to a reflection, or a ghost.
Fenrir still didn’t know how Lupa managed to do that. She wasn’t in hellspace—she couldn’t be, since she wasn’t shifted. She hadn’t gone anywhere. It was more like she’d pulled some other place into the normal world, wrapping herself in an alien void.
“No,” he replied. “Have been careful, like I promised. No one knows.”
Behind her, the wendigo stirred, claws flexing. She’d ridden the huge creature to meet him here, well outside the hotshot base. It seemed uneasy, constantly lifting its skull-head to sniff the air with fleshless nostrils.
Lupa looked worried too. She toyed with the end of her long red scarf, rubbing the fine, soft wool through her fingers. The gesture reminded him of Edith; the way that she too would fidget with things when she was nervous.
His own hands itched to reach out to his sister. He wanted to hug her close, to wrap his arms tight around her and tell her that all would be well. That he would take care of her, like a big brother should.
But she would only flinch and push him away. He couldn’t comfort her. He could only protect her.
“They are no closer to finding you,” he said. “Have told them I can’t pick up your trail.”
“And you’re sure they believed that?”
“Yes. They trust me. They don’t think I could lie to pack.”
Saying the words out loud added a few more stones to the heavy weight in his gut. He hated keeping this secret from his friends. Sometimes, he was sure that everyone must be able to see it; a black, monstrous shadow hanging over him, as visible as the darkness that embraced Lupa.
“You can’t tell them anything,” Lupa said sharply, as though she’d sensed his conflicted thoughts. “If you say anything, anything at all, then the deal is off. I won’t be able to help you anymore.”
“I understand. Don’t worry. I won’t let them find you.” He hesitated, unease prickling down his spine. “Darcy is still trying to uncover my past, though. Wants me to try to remember.”
“You can’t.” The shadows wreathing Lupa flickered, drawing back. She took hold of his arm, fingers gripping tight with urgency. “You can’t, F—Fenrir.”
She didn’t say his name often. When she did, it was always with a stammer. He had a similar curious inability to say her name. No matter how he tried, ‘Lupa’ stuck in his throat. It just felt…wrong.
But he’d promised not to think about that. He didn’t want to think about that.
“I know,” he said. “I won’t. Can’t, anyway. The wolf swallowed all those memories. Think they’re gone forever.”
“Good.” Lupa’s fierce eyes lowered, dimming. “Trust me, you’re better off not remembering. I wish…I wish I didn’t.”
He tried to reach