Page 109 of A Wolfe in the Woods

“Not sure what to believe anymore. I know one thing though,” he said, pinning me in place with a cold glare. “Nothing good comes from Graymore.”

The words sliced deep, splitting me clean down the center. A quiet, surgical cut…leaving my softest parts exposed to a city made of knives.

“I’m not from here,” I barely managed, thin and splintered.

He looked so eerily similar to when I’d first met him at Juniper Hollow, when he’d been less than friendly. The same mistrust was in his eyes, the blank coldness on his handsome features. Only it hurt so much more now becausehe knew me.

And I’d liked to think that I knew him.

Now? I wasn’t so sure, especially if he thought me capable ofthis. This betrayal. This terrible lie. That I would spy on him for…Erik Skoll.

Maybe he’d never shaken his original assessment of me—that cutting opinion that he’d once held. That I was just a spoiled girl from Graymore, that I was only ever looking out for myself, trying to get a leg up, trying to get ahead.

“You know me, Jonathan.”

For a heartbeat, I thought he might soften. I saw the uncertainty in his eyes, as if logic was warring with the words I’d spoken. But then I watched his resolve harden, right before my very eyes. The moment closed.

He looked away, toward the street as if already leaving. “I need time,” Jonathan said. “To think. I can’t breathe in this place.”

“I never lied to you,” I insisted again as I felt my heart splintering in my chest. “And I never would. You have to believe me.”

I stepped forward, hoping proximity might fix what words couldn’t. His instinct was to step back, the space between us opening like a fault line. Left standing on the wrong side. My fault.

And I didn’t even know what I’d done wrong.

“Please,” I begged. “Let’s talk about this. Let’s?—”

“It’s best you leave me alone, Blanche,” he said, his tone sharp. Suddenly I saw the color of his eyes change and shimmer. His wolf was close to the surface, his temper stoking it. I couldn’t help but hold my breath. “For a while.”

Then he turned and walked away. Just like that. He was gone as fast as he had come into my life.

I didn’t follow him. I stood there frozen by the fountain, the sound of water rushing loudly in my ears, watching his back disappear into the hazy city. I just stood there invisible to everything around me. So thin and transparent…I might as well have been a ghost.

Nothing good comes out of Graymore.

“I’m not from here,” I whispered again—this time not to him but to myself.

And for the first time, I wasn’t sure where I belonged at all.

CHAPTER 30

BLANCHETTE

Nothing good comes from Graymore.

His words followed me all the way home.

They were still echoing in my head when I unlocked my apartment door and stepped inside. I didn’t bother turning on the lights. The dim orange glow from the hallway shone in for a second, then vanished as the door clicked shut behind me, leaving the place in a colorless shadow.

I dropped my keys onto the little entry table. I missed, and they skittered to the floor.

My bag slid off my shoulder and thudded down beside them.

I ignored both.

For a moment I just stood there, my back to the door, eyes closed. The city hummed outside…traffic, sirens, someone shouting on the street a few floors down. All of it muffled, far away, like I was underwater.

Then my knees gave out.