Page 44 of It’s You

Tallis took a deep breath, then sighed, staring at the fire.

“Bane of my existence, that girl. If she’d bind herself, I could finally get her out of this house, but she finds fault in every available male.

That they want her at all is a mystery to me.

She’s nothing but a filthy Reynard bastard, even if she goes by Beauloup. ”

“It’s not her fault?—”

Tallis raised her eyes to Julien, and they burned yellow to match his.

“We won’t discuss it. You go wash up. Use my bathroom.”

Tallis watched him cross the room and waited until he had closed her bedroom door behind him, then she gestured to the seat across from her, encouraging Jack to sit.

“Did you see her? Your human?”

Jack nodded, sitting on the edge of his father’s rocking chair across from his mother, then looked down at his hands.

“And?”

“Didn’t go well, Maman . She caught me shifting.”

“That wasn’t the plan.”

Jack rubbed his eyes with his hand. “I’ll go back after the Gathering. I just want to give her some time.”

“Are you still bound to her? Did you?—”

“Yeah, we are,” he said quietly. “And yeah, we did.”

His mother gave him a sad, gentle smile. “I could see it on your face.”

“I have to get her back.”

“We’ll see.” She tilted her head. “And the rest?”

“It worked. The vault. The fresh dead. It all worked. If she hadn’t seen me…”

Jack rubbed his jaw, frustration and hunger causing the bile from his stomach to spew into his mouth. He swallowed it back with a grimace.

“How I hate zis Darcy from Carlisle,” his mother declared in heavily accented English in a low growl.

“Well, that’s too bad, because I love her.”

“Who is Darcy from Carlisle?” asked a sleepy Delphine, stretching her arms from the comfortable cocoon of her grandmother’s lap and yawning.

Jack’s eyes flew open and met his mother’s in a panic. Aside from Tombeur, no one knew Darcy’s name or location. Although a few had asked about Jack’s binding over the years, both Tallis and Tombeur had protected the identity of Jack’s mate.

“Who is she, Grand’mère ? And why do you hate her?”

Tallis took a deep breath and gave Delphine a cheerful smile, answering her in French. “A legend, louveteau . Just a silly old legend.”

Jack shook his head in anger, holding his mother’s eyes.

It had been careless of her to say Darcy’s name out loud, and although the child seemed pacified with the simple explanation, and too sleepy to actually absorb the information, it made Jack realize how much danger he put Darcy in every time he came home.

Lela came out of her bedroom, running her fingers through her long, black, wet hair.

She was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt that hugged her breasts, and bare feet.

He tried to see her through Julien’s eyes, and her appeal wasn’t lost on Jack.

She was trim and attractive, with a feisty spirit, and Delphine’s face brightened the moment her aunt entered the room.

Lela approached Tallis and reached her arms out for her niece. “Come on, Delphy. Tante Lela will put you to bed.”

Jack watched as the sleepy little girl was transferred lovingly from Tallis’s lap to Lela’s arms. Whatever bad blood ran between the two women, it was good to see them keep it under control in front of Delphine.

“Night-night, Grand’mère ,” the little one called, resting her sleepy head on her aunt’s shoulder.

“ Bonne nuit, ma chérie ,” her grandmother replied.

“What about Dad?” Jack asked as Lela shut the bedroom door with a quiet latching sound.

He watched in horror as his mother’s steely eyes filled with tears. “Barely a thread now. Not even. I can’t find him inside, and my heart feels him slipping away.”

Jack took a deep breath and reached out his hand to hold hers. “We’ll look again tomorrow. Maybe he’s just injured. Coming in and out of consciousness.”

“ Non, mon fils .” His mother turned back to the fire, tears streaming down her face and rocking softly . “Tu ne le trouveras pas. Il est perdu pour moi.”

No, my son. You won’t find him. He is lost to me.

Jack wanted to talk to Tombeur, but he also needed to talk to Willow.

After dinner with his mother, Julien, and Lela, he said he wanted to take a drive over to Tombeur’s place and wouldn’t be back until later.

Although Tombeur sat on the Northern Bloodlands council, he wasn’t part of the Portes de l’Enfer pack.

His cabin was a hard drive northeast, a little under an hour away on the eastern end of adjoining packlands.

Tombeur was the leader, or alpha, of the Lac Noir pack.

After about thirty minutes of driving, Jack pulled over onto the shoulder of the road and dialed Willow’s office number, hoping she’d still be there.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Doctor Broussard’s office.”

“Willow?”

“Jack.” He heard the tired sigh in her voice. “Let me close my office door. Unlikely anyone would come at this hour, but just in case.”

“How’s Darcy?”

“She’s sad. Fragile. She’s also getting pretty angry at the whole situation. I checked on her this afternoon. I don’t think she’s left that damn window seat since she got home from your place yesterday morning. She’s pretty much a mess.”

Jack clenched his jaw, feeling his chest tighten . Darcy, Darcy, Darcy.

“So…listen,” Willow continued. “I tapped into the New Hampshire medical system records, and using the date you gave me, yes, I found a very, um… unusual case matching the dates and location you gave me.”

Jack took a deep breath and refocused his attention on the conversation with Willow. “Just to be sure we’re on the same page, can you describe the injury you were alluding to?”

“Severed, um… limb . Neatly severed.”

“Any other details?” she asked.

“It had a tourniquet. Tied with dental floss. Green.”

“Goddamn it,” murmured Willow, and he could hear the grudging acceptance under layers of shock in her voice.

“He was going to rape her, Willow.”

Willow didn’t speak, and Jack went on in a rush.

“He was a scumbag piece of shit, and he was cheating on her. He came by one night to see her, late. And she let him in, and he was drunk. And she made him tea, and he started to assault her. I was out on her fire escape, so I shifted into Roug form, and I broke through her kitchen window and…Well, I…”

“You cut off his dick.”

“Yeah.” Jack sighed. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. I wanted to. Darcy was lying on the floor?—”

“You called the ambulance?”

“Yeah. I put that shitbag in the back of my truck and waited until the ambulance got there, then we drove north. Check the almanacs. It was a waxing gibbous moon that night. I had to be back up in the Bloodlands before?—”

“Before the following night. Full moon.”

“Yeah,” Jack whispered. “I am who I say I am, Willow.”

She ignored this. “But Darcy never mentioned seeing you.”

“She never saw me. I spent three nights on her fire escape. In the corner. Frank saw me. Didn’t like me much, either. I followed her to and from school. I watched her. I was there on the fire escape when fucking Phillip came that night, and I?—”

“You rescued her.” Willow breathed.

“I’d do anything for her.”

“Anything else? About that night?”

“I took something. I just…I just wanted something that belonged to her. It was a silver necklace. A Métis eternity symbol. You know, the figu?—”

“I know the necklace you’re talking about.”

“You do?”

“I gave it to her, Jack. She lost it. In college.”

“She didn’t lose it. I took it.” He may as well come clean. “And I returned it last week when I left flowers for her on your porch swing.”

“You came into our house?”

“I put the necklace in her jewelry box and left.”

“Jesus, Jack. That’s trespassing. And pretty creepy.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t have a good excuse. I couldn’t give it to her, and I’d waited a long time to return it.”

There was a long pause on the other end, and Jack worried Willow had hung up.

“Willow?”

“You know, I…I want to believe you.”

“Then, please, believe me . We kissed when we were kids, the summer before my eighteenth birthday. It bound us together. Her to me and me to her. It shouldn’t have happened.

It should have been impossible, but it happened.

And yes, I have to shift when the moon is full.

For three nights. But I don’t hunt. I lock myself away.

I wouldn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt any of her kind. ”

“Where do you lock yourself?”

“Under my garage,” he answered. “You want to see it? You can go there and see it.”

“How do I get in?” Willow asked.

“Garage code is DARCY on the alphanumeric keypad. Back of the garage. You’ll see a metal door and another keypad.

That one is ROUG78. You’ll be able to see the control room, and if you flick the cameras on, you’ll be able to see the vault.

I’m sorry, but you can’t go in. The only way to get into the vault is a combined retinal and fingerprint scan, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

But there’s no escaping, believe me. Once you’re in, you’re in until the door unbolts automatically, which, for me, is generally seventy-two hours. Go see it.”

“This is some crazy shit, Jack.”

“It sounds crazy, but it’s true. Your tribe’s legend is my pack’s history. Is that really so unbelievable, Willow?”

There was a long pause as he waited for her to answer. He heard her sigh.

“What a life you dragged my friend into. Wanting you for decades, she finally gets you, and surprise! You’re a werewolf.”

He heard the very slight tone of humor in her voice, and it made his muscles relax. He spoke calmly. “Not a werewolf. A Roux-ga-roux. Full-blooded, not turned. And I had no idea that kiss would be binding. I never would have?—”

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

“You believe me, Willow?”

“Sort of. My Nohkom said…” She paused. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to check out your…vault. Hey. How’d you get Amory to build something so creepy for you?”

Jack smiled. “I told him it was a wine cellar.”

“Figures. Amory loves his wine.”