Page 13 of The Healer and the Wolf, Part One

13

LEO

W as it possible to fall in love with someone in less than a month? More importantly, was it possible for me to fall in love at all?

I didn’t know, but the question had begun to bleed through my mind the more time I spent with Ven.

Everything about her was so… lovely. Enticing. Perfect. Kindness radiated from her, and her dark eyes sparkled with delight whenever I asked her something about the garden. I adored her silliness when she played with her cats. Her figure. Her smile. Everything.

I was so conscious of her when she was around me that there was little room for anything else. And strangely, I didn’t mind.

Which made absolutely no sense.

“Ven, what are you doing?”

She was standing on her kitchen table, the cover to the overhead light in her hand while she reached down for a box of lightbulbs at her feet.

“The light went out,” she said, eyes wide like she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. “Don’t worry, I’m going to clean the table.”

That wasn’t what worried me. Ven was entirely human, and although I was viscerally attracted to how soft she was, if she fell, she could get really hurt.

“Here, let me do that,” I said, closing the distance between us.

Her little laugh was like bells in my head. “I’m already up here, silly. Makes no sense to climb down just for you to climb up.”

“Can I at least give you some stability?”

She shrugged. “Sure, don’t suppose I’d mind. This table is sturdy, but up here it does feel like it wobbles.”

“All right, then.”

I settled my hands on either side of her soft, lovely waist, applying just enough pressure to keep her stable. Almost instantly, my wolf reared his head as if he were summoned by the visceral reaction of my body.

It wasn’t my fault that Ven’s body was the perfect combination of contradictions. She was so strong. I could see it in her frame, how she held herself, and feel it underneath her soft skin. But she was also so incredibly fragile. She wouldn’t heal like I would if she fell. And she was just so perfectly plush . I wanted to sink into her and be surrounded by the luxury of it all, even if it wasn’t something I deserved.

I was so lost in the feel of her, my mind filled with images of bending her over and finding out exactly what it would feel like to have her wrapped around my cock, what kind of dulcet sounds she would make with my lips against her neck, that I almost didn’t hear her speak at all.

“Okay, it’s in. You can let me go.”

I swallowed hard, trying to get my mind and body to veer off the dangerous road it was on. “Right. Of course.”

I was remiss to let her go, my hands desperate to rove over her gorgeous, generous form, but somehow, I restrained myself. Maybe I was more human than I gave myself credit for.

“Thanks,” Ven said, clambering down and giving me an appreciative pat on the shoulder. I knew it was a simple, friendly gesture, but ripples of sensation spread out at her touch. Did she really have no idea what she did to me?

She traipsed off to go be a work of art in another room, leaving me locked in my thoughts once again.

As the days passed, more and more memories came back to me. I had a deep love and loyalty for my pack, even if I couldn’t entirely remember them. I wanted to—oh, how desperately I wanted to—and every day I tried to grasp the ghosts in my memory. They still eluded me.

What I did know, however, was that for the longest time my pack took up all the space in my heart. I had a duty to them, and I spent my whole life protecting them, providing for them, fighting for them. There was so much responsibility tied up in things, I didn’t even know if I was capable of something like romance. Especially with my loved ones lost to the recesses of my own mind.

“Hey, would you mind switching the laundry from the washer to the dryer? My direct deposit just hit, so I’m going to grab another shirt and pants from the thrift store, and some more food.”

“Of course,” I answered, putting my book aside as Ven rushed through the living room/my bedroom.

She was in a hurry, as she often was whenever she was about to leave the house. I rather enjoyed watching her hop around on one foot while trying to put a sock on. She could sit down to make the task a lot easier, but I found no reason to tell her that. Ven did things the way Ven wanted to do things, and who was I to tell her otherwise? It wasn’t like I was an expert on humanity anyway.

“Is there anything else you need?”

A large part of me hoped there was, if only to make her life easier. I would be lying if I denied being completely enamored with Ven in every single aspect. Not just her physical stature, because while I loved that she was tall and muscled, yet still soft (and had belatedly remembered I was very much a thigh and ass man), but her personality, too. Her compassion. Her intelligence. Even down to the way she talked about her cats and her plants. I was besotted, yet I was comfortable being that way from afar. While Ven was endlessly kind to me, I saw it for what it was—her being the sweet soul she was. Someone like me had no chance with someone like her.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate what time we did have together, even if I didn’t know how long that would last. While I still had so much to remember, enough had come back to me that I could recall things like rent and bills. Really depressing stuff. Every day I lingered here, I was costing Ven money, hence my desire to try to make up for that in any way possible. The last thing I wanted to do was to be a burden when she had saved my life.

“Uhm, could you put the dishes away? If that’s not too much trouble?”

It saddened me that she was so reticent to ask for anything. Putting the dishes away was a nothing task, yet she acted as if she were selfish for even daring to request it.

“It’s not too much trouble at all. I’m happy to. Anything else?”

“Uh, no, I think that’s it. I gotta go. Be safe.”

She gave me a little salute, then hurried out. My heart clenched as I watched her go, and I wondered about her life outside of these four walls. Perhaps it was my misconceptions from being a wolf, but she seemed as lonely as I was. Maybe her life in human society wasn’t that fulfilling?

Once I was a bit more caught up with everything it meant to be human again, maybe I’d ask her about it. I still felt like I had a laundry list of questions a million miles long that my brain was still meticulously going through.

I stood there for a long while, completely lost in thought. It wasn’t a rare occurrence lately—I definitely had a lot of thoughts to work through. However, my contemplation was cut off by claws slipping on something a little too smooth, followed by a sharp yowl.

“Hello?” I asked, heading toward the noise. “Are there kitties in here getting into trouble?”

Another yowl answered me as I rounded the corner into the kitchen to see the orange cat, Fork, hanging from the fridge with the leader of their cat colony, Mudpie, sitting atop it, her paw raised as she was about to step down onto Fork’s own paws. His singular eye was opened wide like he was truly in the climax of a great Shakespearian tragedy.

It reminded me of a movie, but I couldn’t place which one, and Goober’s anxious meow below prompted me to move instead of getting stuck in another recollection loop. He was pacing back and forth, occasionally standing on his hind legs like he wanted to give Fork a boost back to safety. But while the gray cat was large, he wasn’t that large, and couldn’t quite reach Fork’s dangling feet.

“Would your mother approve of this?” I asked, looking straight into Mudpie’s bright, yellow eyes. “I’m sure she raised you to have better manners.”

Even though I was a shifter, it wasn’t like I had a special way to communicate with most animals. It didn’t work like that. But Ven spoke to her cats like they understood so often that I assumed they would do the same for me.

And for a moment, Mud Pie did look at me as if she were considering my words. But that lasted only a few seconds before she reared her paw back and skibbity-bapped Fork in the head until he let go and tumbled to the floor.

For some reason, wildebeest came to my mind. I had no idea why. Probably the root of another phantom memory. But I knew Ven would be horrified if one of her cats ended up hurt on my watch, so I scooped Fork up to make sure that he was okay. After a couple of treats, exactly two kisses, and five minutes of being cradled upside down, the orange menace was perfectly fine and raced up the cat tree to give himself a bath.

It was funny. I had almost no memory of interacting with domestic cats before, but I was slowly growing to like the trio of chaotic creatures. They all had their own distinct personalities, and the hijinks they got into were low stakes but endlessly entertaining. After everything I’d been through, low stakes was more than welcome.

Also, a regular steak would be welcome. I’d been having more and more memories of cooking red meat on an outdoor fire for some reason, and my body craved it something fierce. However, I got the impression that red meat was expensive, and Ven didn’t have much money as it was, so I wouldn’t ask.

Hmm, maybe there was a way I could get money myself to purchase some? It would be a nice way to thank the woman who had literally changed everything for me.

That seemed like something a book could help me with, so once I was sure the cats were settled, I returned to the living room and dived into some of the nonfiction pages.

I didn’t realize quite how much time had passed until the front door opened and Ven stepped in. Like usual, all the cats ran to greet her, but unlike usual, she didn’t call out her normal phrase.

Something was wrong.

I was on my feet in an instant and rounded the corner to the small foyer at the front of the house. I could tell just by looking at the beautiful woman that she seemed so very defeated, and when her scent hit me, it confirmed it. It was bitter, acrid, with a strong rush of melancholy. My nose burned, and my heart ached for her. What was wrong? What could have happened? Not for the first time, I wished that there was something I could do for her.

“Are you okay?” I asked cautiously, not wanting to pry too much.

“I’ll survive,” she said flatly. “I need to feed the cats.”

She drifted past me, her scent lingering like camphor from a fire. I didn’t know if she wanted privacy, but since she hadn’t said it directly, I followed after her.

She didn’t say anything for a long while, but that was okay. I was comfortable with the silence. I was used to weeks of it at a time when I was a wolf. She uttered the occasional request, like to pull something out of the fridge or grab something from a shelf, but that was about it. She didn’t seem irritated at my presence, though. Not even when I followed her out to the garden.

Perhaps it was strange, but it made me feel incredibly close to her. Something was clearly troubling Vanessa, and I remembered that usually meant people wanted space. To be alone. But Ven didn’t seem to mind my presence at all. No, to me, it seemed like she appreciated it. Especially when I helped her carry several trays of her plants to the garden.

Although I was dying to ask her what was wrong, I held my tongue and did as she instructed, placing certain potted plants in different areas. When I wasn’t needed, I sat on a low stool a short distance away, hoping my company would give her some comfort.

God, I wanted to reach out and touch her. Wanted to wrap my arms around her and pull her flush against my chest. Her body would feel like heaven against mine. But our relationship wasn’t like that, so I remained on my stool.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t belong in this world.”

She spoke out of nowhere so suddenly I almost didn’t catch it right away. I immediately looked up from the stick I had been fiddling with, giving her my full attention.

“There are all these things people are supposed to do as a matter of course, but they don’t seem like a matter of course to me, and sometimes it feels like everyone around me can just tell that I don’t get it.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, completely mystified. I hated seeing Ven so hurt, but I was afraid I didn’t quite understand what she was talking about. To me, it sounded like she didn’t have any sort of community, any sort of family, and I simply couldn’t imagine that.

Although my memories were hazy, I knew I had grown up surrounded with a core group of people I could trust. And while I could feel there was tragedy wound up in it, I had never been truly alone, even as an alpha. Although I was slightly hazy on what exactly it meant to be an alpha.

“For what it’s worth,” I hedged cautiously, “I like to think I get you.”

She huffed a dry laugh full of pain and derision, and I didn’t like the sound when it was directed at herself. “I suppose it says something about me that a wolf who’s trying to connect to his humanity after being cursed understands me better than any humans I know.”

“Or it says something about you being able to break the curse that denied me my humanity.”

I caught the change in her scent before I noticed her cheeks redden. A streak of pride went through me because I’d made her blush. “You’re biased.”

“It doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“Touché,” she murmured before returning her attention to the plants.

I wanted the conversation to continue, but I sensed Ven was grappling with her own internal struggle. I wanted to take her hand, tell her everything would be okay, but I had no way of knowing that. At least I could take solace in the fact that the bitterness in her scent had faded slightly. Even if she didn’t believe my compliments, it had cheered her up a bit.

And while that was enough for the moment, I found myself wishing yet again that I could do more. I felt a bit helpless, not like an alpha at all. Although I supposed Ven wasn’t technically my pack, but I still felt like I should be protecting her. How, though, did I protect her from a world I was only just beginning to remember?

So much from before I was cursed was still fuzzy, but I could faintly recall most of my time as a wolf. Even as an animal, I had places I could go that were havens of a sort. Ports in the storm of life where I could be at peace.

“Ven,” I murmured, not wanting to jolt her as she scribbled something onto a label, then placed it next to the starter she was planting—a variety of tomato given the trellis she’d buried it next to.

“Yeah?”

“Would you like to go for a walk with me?”

She fully paused what she was doing to lift her head and gave me a curious look. God, I didn’t think I would ever grow tired of her gaze on me. “Where to?”

“A place I used to go when I wanted to forget about the rest of the world.”

I was fully prepared for her to say no, but to my surprise, she nodded. “Why not? Maybe a change of scenery will do me good.” Standing, she stuck her trowel upright in the dirt and wiped her hands on her pants. “By all means, lead the way.”

“All right, then.”

I stood and walked to the western side of her property, away from the garden. Ven trudged after me, but I was half-afraid to turn around and make sure she was there, as if doubting her presence would somehow make her vanish entirely. I was nervous to show her something that had solely belonged to my wolf self, afraid it would somehow make me backslide into my half-existence of before, but the risk seemed worth it. Because for the first time in a long time, it felt like I had a pack again.

And I would do anything for my pack.