“I’ll see you around.”
Violet watched him leave her shop, then shook her head, trying to come back to reality. She had a phone call to make, but that would come after she explained to the three idiots behind her, who were trying to listen in, what they had just heard.
Chapter 3
“Iswear,wedidn’thear anything.”
Of all of the boys, it was Berk she trusted the most. He believed in honesty above all other things, and he wasn’t one to exaggerate for the sake of a good story, as Teddy was. If he said they didn’t hear anything, then they didn’t hear anything... but that didn’t mean they weren’t trying to listen in.
The question of how they couldn’t hear, however, would have to wait until after she had them settled.
“Is this the mysterious guy? The reason you wouldn’t fuck Drake?”
“I wouldn’t fuck Drake because he’s—“
“Please don’t destroy my ego any more than you must,” the man in question groaned, pushing off the wall. “But this is him, right?”
They had all been friends for so long, much more than coworkers, that secrets like who they were dating, or at least fucking, were not something silent. They all knew, because it was obvious, that she wasn’t seeing anyone, had never been seeing anyone. They had all shot their shots at some point or another, but she had never gone for any of them.
They had questioned her sexuality and her identity, but she had brushed them off every time. Besides, placing a label on herself wasn’t important. Not in the way they assumed, of course.
Her sexuality was Henrik. Her romantic attachment was Henrik. He had been the only one to ever catch her eye, and the only one to ever hold her attention. Sure, she could appreciate aesthetics, could appreciate conventional attraction, but Henrik was the one who filled all of her desires, and it was Henrik who owned her heart. Even at her lowest and loneliest, when she had briefly considered, a few times, to fill the void he had left behind, something beyond her magic had stopped her.
She wanted Henrik. Only Henrik. No one else, nothing else, would ever do.
And so, she had been celibate and aromantic for years, at least, in their eyes. In truth, she had been waiting for him.
And the second he returned, she pushed him away.
“This is the guy,” she confirmed, sighing as she turned to head back in. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”
All three of them groaned, but she brushed it off. She had a phone call to make.
“No story? Not even a little?”
“His name is Henrik, and we grew up in the same town.” It was the only bit she would give them. The only amount of herself she could afford to reveal. “I have to make a phone call. If you see him out front, don’t try and help us along. There’s some things we have to work out first, and even then it might not be enough.”
“We’ll stay out of your way,” Berk said with a nod, then glanced at the other two. “Right?”
Twin groans confirmed they would try, but she wouldn’t hold her breath.
Stepping back into the shop, Violet took a moment to grab her phone from the front desk before heading upstairs. A call with her mother always required privacy, and a safe space to vent, just in case she lost control. The phone rang four times, and then she heard her mother’s voice, the words a confirmation of what Violet had already suspected. Voicemail. Because, of course, her mother was screening her calls.
People tended to do that when they knew they were wrong but refused to admit it.
Hanging up, she glanced around her apartment, thinking, trying to remember. They had been so young when the spell had been cast; only fifteen. She couldn’t remember it, couldn’t remember what exactly her mother had done, but surely... surely she could break it, right?
How hard could it be to break one little spell?
“Everythin’isgonnabedifferent, after I shift,” Henrik said as they sat on the porch swing together.
Violet reached out and grabbed his hand, interlocking their fingers. He was afraid of the shift, and she knew that, but he didn’t have to be. “You’re strong. I know you’re scared, but you have to be brave. Mardoc and the others are all looking up to you.”
“I know they are,” he confirmed, ever so solemn for a fifteen year old. When her smiling boy had become so solemn, she didn’t know, but it scared her. Scared her that his laughter was gone. Scared her that she was going to lose him.
“And I’ll be right here, after.”
Only a few more hours until the sun set, and then he would be up at the Reeve Farm, going through his first shift. Everyone could tell, somehow. His anger had grown, his strength as well, along with his body. He was so big now, he could pick up a fallen tree with ease. It was the wolf, ready to come out, or so the rest of the pack said.