Vera was already waiting in the kitchen for her by the time she made it downstairs. Sara was glad the girl had a key to the place, especially when she saw what Vera had been up to.
“Sweet girl, you made coffee!” Sara cried, rushing to the blessed drink that Vera offered her.
“I figured that you might have had a late night,” Vera replied with a shrug. “What happened? Why did you need to add the alarms and stuff?”
Sara nodded and sighed. “It’s a long story.”
Before Sara could find the right words, there was a knock at her door. She excused herself and went to answer it.
“What are you doing here?” she snapped when she opened the door to find Rhett standing there. She immediately tried to close it.
“We need to talk,” he said, sticking his boot in the doorway to stop her from slamming it on him.
“No. We really don’t.” She considered leaving the door and going back to the kitchen, but she didn’t want him to follow her in. “You’re not welcome here. You need to go.”
“I don’t know why I let you drive off the other night,” he said, pushing the door wider so she had to look at him. “I should have grabbed you and stopped you.”
“Because you want to make a habit of forcing me into things against my will?”
His face fell in shame. “Look, Tristan called me this morning and told me what’s going on. I’m here to help. We can forget about the … "
“Sara?” Vera’s soft voice chimed up behind her and cut off Rhett’s words. “I just got a call that something came up, so I’m going to have to cancel for today.”
“It’s okay, Vera, you don’t have to go.” Sara looked back at the girl. Certainly, her apprentice was making this up to get out of the awkward situation. “This man was just about to leave.”
“Sara, you have to talk to me,” Rhett objected.
“No, really, I have something I have to take care of,” Vera said, slipping past both Sara and Rhett. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Sara threw up her hands in defeat, walking away from the front door when she saw Vera drive away.
She went back to her kitchen, to the blessed coffee that still waited for her.
Rhett followed.
Without looking at him, Sara snapped, “Do you have any idea how I spent my night?”
“Tristan told me a bit, yeah.”
“Oh, he did?” She was going to take another sip of coffee and realized her cup was empty. Luckily, Vera left more. She poured herself a second cup while she told Rhett, “So he told you that I heard something outside and went to go check? That I then shifted into a wolf and ran to his house out of some instinct, and then they coached me to shift into human form, and I passed the fuck out?”
“Yeah, that’s what he told me.”
He helped himself to a cup of coffee, and she nearly slapped his hand for it.
But she held back.
Why?
Because I’m glad he’s here. Because his presence soothes me in a way that chamomile tea can’t. Because he’s my mate, and I need him.
Her own thoughts were echoed by the new voice that lived inside her. One she recognized as her wolf. Someone who had been there her whole life but who had been drowned out by all the magic she’d focused on instead.
She shook her head, stopping herself from thinking too much into anything other than her explanation to Rhett. “Anyway, after that, they took me home and verified that I hadn’t hallucinated the lynx shifter, and Tristan had all these cameras and alarms set up.”
She was still pretty pissed at him but nowhere near as angry as the night of the scenting ceremony. Something inside of her felt almost giddy that he was standing there in front of her, looking hot as hell, wanting to work things out.
“How the fuck did you shift into a wolf?” he asked.