The Werewolf Lawyer's Human Mate

9- Safe

Claire Dane’s POV

The door closes behind Jeremy with a soft click, but the sound feels too loud in the quiet room. He says he’s heading out to meet the sheriff, muttering something about the incompetent fool running the office in his absence. It is only then that I realized the man in the office had been a stand-in and not the actual sheriff.

“Sheriff Thomas Hale needs to hear, in no uncertain terms, just how useless his department becomes when he isn’t personally in command.” He’d left after saying those words, turning back only to add, “Lock it.” He’d meant the door.

A deputy blacks out in the middle of an active situation- okay, a storm because they could not know about the bullets- and no one thinks to send backup or check on a registered child trapped in a snowstorm? If Jeremy hadn’t moved the way he did, cutting and knowing what tracks to take, Daniel and I wouldn’t be sitting in a warm lodge bed right now.

The room at the main lodge is spacious and warm, built for winter survival and quiet comfort. Two narrow beds sit against opposite walls but nearly two feet off the actual walls, their thick quilts folded tight, smelling faintly of clean linen and pine cleaner. A single lamp rests on a small bedside table near each bed, casting a soft amber glow that chases away the mountain cold seeping through the log walls.

Overhead, recessed lighting hums quietly, muted and practical, bright enough to banish shadows but soft enough not to glare. The floor is beautifully carpeted, in a warm gray, plush underfoot, clearly chosen to hold heat rather than impress. A large wooden wardrobe stands between the two beds, paired with sturdy dressers on each side, which show signs of age but also care- polished, solid, and dependable.

Two small windows are fogged over from the contrast between the icy air outside and the steady heat inside, frost clinging to the edges like lace- the space between the wall and bed frames. Everything here is thoughtfully built.

More beautiful than my last apartment ever was.

Shaking my head off that thought, because I didn’t want to think of my sucky life beyond here, I focus on Daniel tucked close to my side, as I sit on the edge of one of the beds. He hasn’t let go of my sleeve since we arrived. His small fingers are twisted into the fabric like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the world.

He’s exhausted and scared down to his bones, and every few seconds, his eyes flick toward the door, like he expects it to burst open again. I answer the question he just asked me. “Your dad’s just talking,” I tell him softly, brushing my thumb over his knuckles. “He’ll be back soon.”

Daniel nods, but his lip trembles anyway.

My chest tightens as I recall the way Jeremy had raised his voice at the man behind the desk, and it wasn’t anger the way people usually got angry- it was controlled at first, furious, precise. He’d demanded to know how an entire sheriff’s department could fail to notice a missing deputy, because Deputy Miller said that he was told from the other end of the receiver to go home and rest.

Jeremy had disparaged how a radio check should have been done, how procedures could simply collapse without consequence.

“That’s not normal!” He began shouting here. “You’re law enforcement. You don’t just blackout, conveniently forget, and get sent home!” The room had gone silent after that, every uniform suddenly stiff and defensive, and I remember thinking how terrifying it was to watch a man who clearly understood systems and rules take them apart so easily. He wasn’t just upset; he was dissecting their failure, piece by piece, and for a bodyguard to intimidate the police?

That’s something.

Thinking of the man, I smooth his son’s hair back, noticing how pale he still looks under the lodge’s warm lights. Daniel shouldn’t know what bullets sound like. He shouldn’t know how to cry without making noise because he’s afraid someone might hear him.

None of this should’ve happened.

My gaze drifts to the locked door again. What kind of people make a man like Jeremy Anderson afraid enough to shout at law enforcement? What sort of bodyguard knows the Sheriff well enough to go to his home during his vacation?

I replay the sound of the gunfire in my head, the way the bullets ripped through wood like it was nothing. Someone wanted Jeremy Anderson dead.

The thought makes my stomach twist once again, just like it had in the past days whenever I thought of it.

I glance down at Daniel again, his lashes wet but remaining closed as exhaustion finally starts to claim him, his head tipping against my arm. I ease him down onto the bed, pulling the blanket up carefully, like too much movement might wake the fear back up.

He murmurs, grabbing my hand, “Don’t leave me, mommy.”

It sends my heart into a series of flutters. He thinks I’m his mother, and so knowing it brings him comfort, I do not correct him and instead go along with it. “I won’t.” And I mean it, even though I have no idea what that promise costs.

Sitting there longer than necessary, I listen to the muted sounds of voices outside the room. Somewhere down the hall, a door opens and closes. Everything feels deceptively normal. But my body doesn’t forget, the way my chest exploded with fright hearing the first bullet and registering what it was and how close it had been, then seeing the thing on the tree trunk inches from me. The way I grabbed Daniel, not even understanding, but knowing I needed to shield the child. I can still see Jeremy moving through the snow, impossibly fast. Still hear the sound his throat made when he snarled. Still feel the way my pulse kicked when I realized I was watching something that didn’t fit neatly into logic.

My mind whirls, my gaze dropping to my hand on the child’s back as I move away from him. They’re steady now, but earlier they wouldn’t stop shaking. I wipe the child’s tears now that he’s fast asleep, then I go to take a shower- I have not had one in days.

The warm water trickles over me.

Bodyguard, my ass.

Who is he really? And what kind of life does he live where gunmen show up in the mountains to finish unfinished business? I’m certain they were professionals too… Is he CIA? FBI?

Geez, I have no clothes, I realize when I finish the shower. I wash my underwear, hang it to dry on the bathroom’s railing, and rewear the same clothing. My own clothing, not Jeremy’s. The clothes I left my cottage wearing- a thick green sweater, layered over a gray long-sleeve top, and my jeans. My beanie and winter parka are on a chair near the doorway, my boots under it.

My mind never stopped swimming with thoughts and possibilities about Jeremy Anderson and his real identity, as I sit on the other empathy chair, my eyes on the sleeping boy. A knock sounds softly at the door, shaking me from my thoughts.

Both fright and anticipation have my heart jumping, and I tense immediately.

“It’s me,” Jeremy’s voice says from the other side, and I relax instantly, getting to my feet to open the door just enough to see him. Relief hits me so hard my knees almost give.

He looks… wrecked. “They’re done asking questions,” he says quietly, walking in. “For now.” His gaze flicked past me to Daniel sleeping on the bed. Something soft breaks through his expression when he sees his son breathing evenly.

“My friends were notified,” I say, my head spinning now. “They know I’m okay.”

“Good.”

“I told them I wasn’t leaving yet.”

That gets his attention. His eyes come back to mine, sharp but searching. Those strange brown-gray irises of his that pull me into them. “You don’t have to stay.”

His words sting, and I feel it deep in my chest. I swallow. “I know- but- I- I want to…”

Silence stretches between us, heavy with everything unsaid. My head spins, my vision misting with unshed tears. How do I explain what I don’t even understand myself? I thought I was safe now- that reaching the lodge meant I could finally breathe, that I could finally let go a little. I’d been holding everything in, telling myself I was letting it out slowly, piece by piece, until … now.

How? When he had been with me the entire time, through the ordeal? Why had I not fallen apart, like I am now, before? My chest tightens, emotions crashing in all at once, overwhelming and sudden, like I’ve been holding my breath for far too long.

And suddenly it all crashes in.

“I have- have to check on your arm.” My heart was pounding too loudly, my body trembling from relief I didn’t know I was holding until I saw him. Why do I feel as if I don’t have to be strong anymore? That I could finally let go?

Why can’t I stop my tears? I don’t understand it. I shouldn’t feel this way- so raw, so exposed- but the moment he wraps me in his arms, it’s like every ache I’ve carried in my life, every fear, every heartbreak, every lonely night, starts to dissolve.

The fright from the bullets. Cruise, Daphne. I can feel the weight of every insult my father ever hurled at me, every door he slammed in my face, every time I convinced myself I was enough and still wasn’t, melting into nothing against the warmth of Jeremy’s arms. My dead mother and growing up without her love… My body trembles, my tears soaking into his chest, and I can’t tell where my panic ends and my relief begins. How can one man make me feel both utterly broken and completely whole at the same time?

Every moment I’ve spent convincing myself to hold it together, to be strong, feels suddenly… pointless. All the pretending, all the careful control, all the walls I built to protect myself, they crumble here, now, pressed against him. I clutch him tighter, even though logic screams that I shouldn’t, and my mind spins, whirling with the impossible truth- nothing has ever made me feel safe, seen, or understood like this.

Only him. Only Jeremy.

And the confusion is dizzying. How can something that terrifies me, this intensity, this need, this heat, also feel like it’s healing every broken piece of me at once? How, when he had not even uttered one single word to me?

What is this aching pull to melt entirely into him and never come up for air?

Nothing makes sense, yet everything does.