In Love With The Wild

CHAPTER6

Neve Whitmore

I opened my eyes.

Entangled in my sheets, the whisper of cedar and rain brushed against me like a memory… a phantom memory that made my heart ache.

I looked around, unsure of where I was. Then slowly it all came back to me.

I felt the emptiness of my apartment louder than ever before.

Had it always been this quiet?

I moved then, lifting myself up from the bed, the memory of his strong hands on my waist and the feeling of a faint soreness in my muscles, all confirmed last night was real.

A flush of confusion and warmth spread through me. I lifted my hands up to my face, tracing my cheeks with my fingers, still feeling the warmth of his chest.

In the shower I questioned myself again. What had I done? I’d hugged a stranger—no—a werewolf!

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At my desk a few hours later, the new file that came from my editor felt like a lead weight. He dropped it without uttering a single word, not even a sound. His face, a mask of unadulterated contempt.

“Another body. Down by the river. A woman. Last night.” He finally said.

Last night.

The words were a heavy punch to my ears.

Caspian

My heart stopped beating, my thoughts scrambled, nausea twisting my stomach.

Was it him?

Had he dropped me off to go hunting last night?

The thought was a sharp and cruel blade.

I felt used.

Foolish.

The pitiful human who fell for the monster’s charm.

I was everything, not just Malik, but almost everyone had said I was, a lamb who’d willingly walked into the den.

And I was the next on his menu.

Suddenly the room shrank around me.

The clatter of keyboards became unbearable.

I made it to the restroom before the panic fully erupted.

I stood at the sink and stared at my reflection until my breathing steadied.

Think!

I needed a plan and I needed one quickly.

Then something surfaced through the noise — last night wasn’t a full moon. I’d checked the sky myself before we went inside.

That didn’t make him innocent. Werewolves could strike at will; the full moon only stripped away control.

But it was a thread. And threads were where I always started.

I waited until dusk before heading to the Glass Den, watching the city turn gold and amber from the cab window. The sunset was beautiful. It did nothing for the dread sitting in my chest.

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The bar was empty. Barely open, by the look of it.

“What are you doing here?”

His voice came before I found him — low and unhurried, folded into the shadows of the far corner like he’d been there for hours.

I didn’t ease into it.

“Was it you?” I held up the newspaper and pushed it toward him.

He stepped into the light. Took it. Scanned it with the careful, practiced speed of someone who used to read case files for a living.

Then set it down.

“The body,” I pressed. “The killing. Last night.” My voice wavered on the last word and I hated it. Memories of the rain and the kiss and the way he’d waited at the curb until I was safely inside — all of it chose that moment to resurface. I pushed it back down.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looked genuinely confused. That almost made it worse.

“So you didn’t — after you dropped me off, you didn’t go—” Hunt. I couldn’t say the word. “You didn’t go out again?”

“I went straight home. I slept.” A beat. “I told you. I only lose control on full moons. Last night wasn’t one.”

“Then who did it?”

“Another werewolf, possibly.” He said it like it was obvious. Then, reading my face, he added, “You do know I’m not the only one in this city. I’m just the only one you know.”

The floor shifted under me.

Of course.

Of course there were others. I didn’t know why I’d assumed otherwise — as if lycanthropy had looked at this city and stopped at one.

I felt like a scientist who’d spent years studying a single planet, only to look up and realize the universe was full of them.

“Now.” He turned toward the bar. “If you’re done interrogating me, I’d like to finish setting up.”

“Wait.”

He stopped. When he looked back, I caught something beneath the irritation — a faint bruise of hurt. I’d put it there. I felt the wince move through me before I could stop it.

“I need your help.” I took a breath. “I know I don’t have the right to ask. But hear me out.”

He didn’t move. I took it as permission.

“Running this bar has to be suffocating for someone like you. A man who spent years fighting for justice in courtrooms — now pouring drinks in the dark. I’m not saying that to wound you. I’m saying there’s another way to use what you are.” I steadied my voice. “You can track other werewolves in ways I never could. You have the instincts, the legal mind, the resources. And you understand what it means to have something done to you without your consent — your life taken and reshaped without being asked.” I held his gaze. “Those victims down by the river didn’t consent either. Someone is hunting them. And I think some part of you already knows you can’t just keep tending bar while it happens.”

The silence that followed was long enough that I started to regret everything I’d just said.

Then —

“When do we start?”

The relief hit me so fast it almost came out as a laugh.

“Tonight.”

“That means quitting your job.”

“Done.” I didn’t even hesitate. “I never liked it anyway.”

Something shifted in his face — quick and unguarded, there and gone. A smile. A real one. It did unreasonable things to my composure.

I smiled back before I could help myself.

“Tomorrow then,” he said, slipping back into business. “Get me everything — case files, your personal notes, anything your former workplace has on the murders. Be here by noon.”

“Consider it done.”

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I walked out into the night air feeling more alive than I had in years. Not the reckless, adrenaline kind of alive — the purposeful kind. The kind that comes from finally moving in the right direction.

I went home, gathered everything I already had, and fell asleep planning what I’d say when I handed in my resignation.

I was still smiling when I drifted off.

And I dreamt of him again.