Sarah forced herself to meet Lucas’s gaze. She’d kept a lot from him, afraid he wouldn’t help her fight Rafe. Trust has to start somewhere.
She was already in too deep with Lucas. She’d realized that when his blood covered her and his eyes wouldn’t open. The terror had almost choked her.
No going back now. “I never knew my father. He cut out of town long before I was born. And my mother wasn’t a charmer. Or, if she was, she never found an animal that connected with her. She didn’t like—”
Monsters.
Sarah cleared her throat. She wouldn’t say that because Lucas wasn’t a monster. “My mother wanted me to be normal.” Her shoulders lifted, then fell. “The problem was that I never felt normal.” The little house in suburbia hadn’t been her.
“When I was six,” she told him, her voice quiet, “I took a field trip to the zoo.” It had been her first visit to see the animals. So many animals. So many cages. “When the wolves started talking to me, I thought everyone could hear them.” But her friends had laughed at her. Her teacher just said she had a vivid imagination.
And the wolves had kept talking.
Sarah swallowed. “As soon as I got off the bus that afternoon, I told my mom. The wolves had made me feel so good—like they knew me. I told my mom,” she said again, “because I was sure she’d believe me.” The wolves liked me, mommy. I could hear them whispering in my head. They’d—
Her mom had paled as she yanked Sarah away from the bus and away from the other laughing kids.
Don’t ever talk about the wolves again, Sarah! Do you hear me? Don’t mention them, and Dear God, stay away from them.
The floor groaned beneath his feet. “I’m guessing she didn’t believe you.”
“Belief wasn’t the problem. My mom knew about the Other, she just wanted her daughter to be normal.” And really, she knew now that her mother hadn’t been asking for so much.
“Normal’s over-rated,” he said, watching her closely. Did he realize how important this was? She’d never told anyone else about her past.
Just Lucas.
You can trust me.
“I couldn’t stay away from the wolves. No, I didn’t want to stay away. I snuck back to see them. Stole money from my mom and took one of the city buses back to the zoo.” She’d been terrified the whole trip, but she’d needed to see the wolves once more because echoes of their voices kept playing in her head. They’d been magic, and she’d wanted that magic so badly.
“What did your mother do?”
She blew out a hard sigh. “I scared her to death. I know I did.” Now. “She found me there. I was standing in front of the wolves.” She could still remember the cold steel of the metal railing. Her fingers had wrapped around it so tightly as she stared at the three wolves who’d come to talk to her.
Mommy, the wolves like me! They don’t like being here, though, but they like me! She’d turned to her mom, smiling, not even worrying that her mother would be angry with her for sneaking away. They say they want to leave. They don’t like it when the people come and watch, they want to run, to—
“When she pulled me away from the wolves, she was crying.” It had been the first time she’d ever seen her mother cry. “Then the wolves started howling, snarling, trying to get out—”
Lucas pulled her against his chest. Just . . . held her and it felt so good. But, then, Lucas had seemed right from that first moment, even when he was the one in the cage. “They were trying to defend you.”
“They got tranqed.” She’d never forget their cries as the darts hit them. Please, mom, stop them! Don’t let the men hurt the wolves. The wolves need me—
Never say that again, Sarah Belle King! Never! Her mother had run faster. Run so fast as she yanked Sarah away from the wolves.
Screams and howls had followed them as Sarah and her mother ran from the zoo. For months after that, those same screams and howls had filled her nightmares.
Her mother had still been crying when they finally made it out to their old station wagon.
I want the wolves. She’d whispered that as her mom buckled her into the car with shaking hands.
“After we left . . .” She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “She said that if I told anyone the wolves talked to me, then someone would come and take me away. She said people would think that I was crazy and that I’d be locked up.” I’ve seen it before. It’s not happening again. Her mother’s tearful words. Stay away from the wolves.
“You weren’t the first charmer in the family,” he guessed, voice gruff, but the hands that held her were so gentle.
“No.” Her lips twisted into a wan smile. “A week later, she took me to visit my grandmother.” Her visit to see Grandma Belle. “Grandma Belle lived in a big hospital. There were bars on all the windows, and guards who watched everyone too closely.”
Do you want to live here? Her mother’s question. Sarah had been scared of the men in white uniforms. The men who watched Grandma Belle and the others every moment.
Needles, screams—they’d followed her out of the hospital just like the howls of the wolves had followed her from the zoo.
She pulled away from him. Faced Lucas with her chin up. “After that, I didn’t mention wolves to my mother again.”
“The world can be too damn hard on those who are different.”
He would know.
“I pretended to be normal for years.” But she’d never really fit in. “When I was seventeen, my mom died in a car accident. A head-on collision.” So fast, so brutal. The other driver had been drinking. He’d slammed into her mother’s car when she was driving home from work at the diner.
The normal life she’d wanted so badly had killed her—and Sarah had been left alone.
“Is that when you stopped pretending to be normal?” She gave a brief nod. “A few years after that . . .” After bouncing around, living on the streets, struggling to survive, “I was arrested for shoplifting.” The luckiest break she’d ever caught. “But it turns out the cop who caught me wasn’t normal either.” That had been the beginning. “He got me straight. Gave me direction, told me that I could make a difference in the world.”
And then he’d introduced her to Anthony Miller, the FBI’s go-to guy for the paranormal.
She licked her lips. Slipping into the past just sucked. Too much pain waited there. “When I worked with Rafe . . .” Hell, this had been why she dragged up her past, to make him understand about the other wolf, so there was no stopping now. “He made me feel like I belonged. For the first time, I wasn’t an outsider.” She’d been weak. Ready to fall. “You know what happened after that.”