“Did he hurt you?” I ask, gritting the words out. I don’t want to embarrass her, and I will never victim-shame her, but I swear on the love of my mother, if this guy laid a fucking hand on her, I’ll rip his throat out.
“No,” she whispers.
I relax. Somehow, just that single word changes so much for me.
“You got away.”
“He shifted to his human form and started talking to me. As soon as I thought he was distracted, I scratched him with my claws and I took off running.” She looks up at me, eyes blinking brightly. “I hid in the caves until it got dark.”
She doesn’t have to tell me what caves she’s talking about.
I know perfectly well about the deep caves that fill the forest. The two of us spent plenty of time there as teenagers and well into our early 20s. Those caves were the perfect place to fall in love. They were the perfect place to lose ourselves.
“I was scared,” she whispers, and I reach for her. I pull her closer, and I wrap my arms around her. She leans against my chest and lets out this long, low sigh. It’s a sort of contented sigh, really: a happy sound that makes me think she feels safe now, and that makes me happier than I’ve felt in a long time.
It’s not fair: this moment between the two of us. In this moment, all I want to do is save her, protect her. All I want to do is pull her close and promise that no matter what happens, she’s safe now. She’s okay. She’s here with me, and I won’t let anyone hurt her.
> The problem is that she’s not exactly mine to save.
We broke up a long time ago, and Foxy? She’s on her own now. I can’t rush in and save her because the truth is that she doesn’t want that. She made that very clear when she left. She was the one who walked away. She was the one who very bluntly, very succinctly ended things between us.
So how am I supposed to help her?
What is it that I’m supposed to do?
She was scared.
She was scared in the darkness, and there was no one there to take care of sweet, perfect Felicity.
“I know,” I whisper, because there’s nothing else I can say right now. I know she was scared. I know she was afraid.
“I thought he was going to kill me.”
“I know.”
“And you know what the stupidest thing of all was?”
She whispers this part, and it catches my attention because her sniffling suddenly stops, and she looks up at me like this is the most important thing she’s ever going to say.
And I pause, because I don’t know what she’s going to tell me.
I honestly have no idea at all.
“The only thing I wanted was you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Brendan.”
And then she kisses me.
Chapter 3
Foxy
It’s so, so wrong, but it feels so good. In this moment, I forget about everything else: the past, the breakup, the fear that filled my night. My entire mind clears and the only thing I feel is him. Right now, it’s just me and him. This is exactly how it should be.
“Felicity,” he whispers, and I ignore him. He’s the only person I let use my real name. Even my own mother calls me Foxy, and I can’t quite explain why I have this policy in place except that with Brendan, it’s different. Things have always been different. With him, things have always been…special.
Unique.
And now he’s kissing me back like we haven’t just spent the last few years apart. He’s kissing me like I matter, like I’m important, and like he needs me just as much as I need him right now.