18. 976-EVIL

"What was her name?" Seth asked as he rubbed his face against my stomach.

"I don't know. She had long dark hair. Kind of tan. Brown eyes. She worked there."

"Oh, that's Megan."

"Oh," I said. Still had no idea who this chick was.

"She was the last girl I dated before I met you."

"Oh..." I said again, more interested. "She said you two were friends."

He snorted. "We're not."

"That's what I said," I shrugged.

He climbed back up to the pillow area and laid sideways, nose to nose with me. Which was adorable, but it definitely made me want to go and brush my teeth. "You're not upset, are you? I don't talk to her. I actually kind of forgot she existed."

I laughed. "So did I after I saw her downstairs with you."

I could see him thinking about it. "I forgot about that, too."

The smile slipped from my face and I sat up. "We still have to talk about me going on tour."

"The possibility of you going," he corrected. His eyes met mine, smoldering. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to be away from you?"

And we're off like a bullet. He didn't give me time to answer.

"It kills me, Liz. It's like ripping out my heart and dragging it away and I can't fucking feel anything but pain."

I could feel my face crumple. "I'm sorry. I don't ever want you to feel like that... I just think sometimes you don't realize that I'm not just a part of you. I'm a person."

"I know! I'm not trying to hold you back, I just don't have any options here."

"You can come with me!" I countered.

"Leah's pregnant, Emily's pregnant. My whole life is here! Not everyone can just pick up and leave everyone they care about whenever they feel like it. Some people have real families."

My heart started pounding furiously, my body shook with anger, rippling and rolling and hot as the fire I could conjure with a thought. What had been a light rain a millisecond before suddenly turned into a storm of epic proportions and the three light-bulbs on the fixture just above my head shattered and rained down onto me.

I tried to calm down, but it was coursing through me, fire in my veins. "That was a shitty thing to say," I managed through my clenched teeth. I was moving to stand up when he grabbed my shoulders and kept me in place.

"I'm sorry I said that, but look at me. You have to learn how to control this."

I felt like I was going to explode. I needed to be out of this room.

"Just look at me and breathe. I know you're mad. Try to calm down."

I stared into his eyes, lost myself in the foresty green-brown and gold flecks. It took longer to calm than it had to anger, but I finally did. I shook the glass loose from my hair and started cleaning it up. "Just so we're clear, picking up and leaving isn't easy for me. I've done it because I've needed to, and I've done it to tour. Doing what I do for a living is hard sometimes and I've made sacrifices, but I still love it. Music is more important to me than you can understand."

He sat there on the bed watching me, which was unusual. I didn't expect him to always help me, but the fact was that he always did - especially with something like shattered glass - and it felt weird that he wasn't. After I was finished cleaning up, he helped me out of my clothes and went into the bathroom to turn the shower on.

"Are we just not going to talk about this anymore?"

"You really blow my mind, Elizabeth."

I couldn't decide whether to be insulted or gratified. "Okay," I eventually said.

"You make me think about things... just So. Many. Things. It never bottoms out."

I still wasn't sure, so I produced another lame, "Okay."

"You're twenty one years old." He shook his head like he didn't believe it. "I've been devoted to being a wolf, to staying here since I was barely fourteen. This has always been it for me. You... you're all over the place."

I swapped places with him and waited for him to say more. I didn't at all get where he was going with this, but I sure was enjoying my view of him being doused in hot water.

"Spread your wings and fly, baby," he said, eyes closed as he pushed all of his hair back and towards the nape of his neck.

I blinked. "What?"

"Go on tour and keep making music and do your thing. Just come home to me."

He wasn't wavering, no matter how long I stared at him.

"By come home to me, I mean - "

"No, I know what you mean. Are you serious right now?"

"Absolutely," he said. And I could tell that he actually meant it.

I was just stunned. I had been totally prepared for a fight; I was not however, prepared for him to just give in. I wasn't prepared to win at all.

He turned the water off and stepped out to dry off. I guess I wasn't moving fast enough for him, because once he was dry he wrapped a towel around me, threw me over his shoulder and carried me to my mattress. He gripped both of my inner thighs and pushed me until my head was on a pillow.

Then he ducked down and ran his tongue all over my clit.

I kind of gasped in surprise and excitement. God, even just his breath on me, all of that heat coming off of him...

"Barely touched you and your toes are curling," he smirked, full on cocky mode.

Breathing evenly was no longer possible. "My body reacts to you."

He ran his fingertips gently from my neck down, watched as my torso raised to meet his skin. "I know." He jerked my legs open wide before burying his face against me for a few incredible moments, then pulled away again.

I was so impatient during sexy time. He loved to tease me and drag out foreplay but when I wanted his dick, I wanted it immediately.

I was trying to pull him upwards and he wasn't budging. "Not yet," he murmured, his eyes finally pulling away from my body to land on my face. He eased one finger into me and I moaned so loud that it embarrassed me.

"Baby, please," I groaned.

He crept upwards leaving a trail of soft, wet kisses across my skin. His lips met mine like fire meets gasoline, but still he was teasing, holding back on me while my body arched beneath him. "Not until you're screaming my name."

My eyes snapped open to the darkness of my room and the bright red numbers of my clock telling me it was past three in the morning. It felt like only moments ago I was still being fucked into an oblivion of ecstasy by my man, but I must have slept for a few hours.

The bed was cold without him in it. I felt wrong without him next to me.

I rolled out of the bed, pulled on some clothes, and found my cigarettes. The sky was dark tonight and the air was still thick from the rain today. I leaned over the railing of the deck, looking around at the few shining stars and enjoying my nicotine fix when I realized someone was watching me.

I couldn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary, but still I knew. Every hair on my arms was standing on end, every muscle within me was preparing to launch myself at something that I somehow knew for certain was there.

I wanted to use magic, but not only was I not sure at all what to actually do, I was also afraid of causing another downpour - or who knows what else. Without even thinking, I crouched down and jumped, landing lithely on the very thin banister in front of me. I closed my eyes and focused on a sense I'd never used before.

As soon as I pinpointed the threat in my mind's eye, it disappeared from the radar and my body relaxed quite a bit. I eased myself back down to the deck and had to sit down.

I didn't know how to take the things that had been happening to me lately. Magic was exciting and I liked it, but the lack of control was not okay with me. I couldn't trust my body or my emotions anymore.

Despite the strangeness of my current situation, I went back inside quietly, climbed into my huge empty bed and slept like the dead.

Seth woke me up again at six in the morning. He was all wet and dirty from running wolfy all night, so there was only one reason he'd be intentionally waking me up.

He didn't go slow this time.

I was in the kitchen making breakfast for everyone when Josh came into the room. "I knew there was a reason Ana missed having you around so much," he said as he sat down to look through his phone.

"Maybe you should start making breakfast. Then she'll like you as much as she likes me."

It was a joke and I had been sure he'd know that immediately, but he looked kind of pissed. I opened my mouth to explain when Ana came in walking like a zombie.

"Coffee," she mumbled before glaring at me. "You woke me up."

"Me?" I asked innocently.

"Yes, you! Oh! Seth! Yeah! Fuck me!" she imitated. "Sound familiar?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You're really not one to talk, Belle."

"Well, I didn't get laid last night at all."

I flipped the dish towel in my hand at her ass. "Jealous!"

She pouted. "I really am."

The sound that caught our attention was a sort of popping. We both fell silent as we stared at Josh and his now crumpled metal and shattered glass cell phone. He was clearly losing his shit, though I had no idea why.

"I'm going to work," he said before practically running off.

We didn't move an inch until we heard his car down the street. "What the fucking hell was that?!" I finally asked.

"I have no idea... he's been grouchy since he woke up but that was just some next level shit."

Seth came into the kitchen still in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. "What's going on?"

"Josh is acting psycho. Why aren't you dressed?" I finished up with breakfast and started moving food to plates as he came up and wrapped his arms around me from behind, burying his face in my hair.

"I think I'll stay home today," he finally said. "I don't feel so well."

I set the plates back on the counter and turned around, my face twisted up in confusion. "Are you sick? You're never sick." He didn't look ill. He looked more attractive than should be allowed, like always.

"No, not exactly. I just don't feel like myself today."

"Okay," I said, but something felt really off to me.

He was quiet during breakfast, but at least he ate. Ana kept glancing at the clock because she wanted to wait for the very last minute to leave for work. Everyone seemed so bummed today and it was starting to bring me down. I sighed as I went to my room and packed a bong.

Ana smiled when I came back. "This is why you're my best friend."

"You worried about Josh?"

She nodded as she blew her hit out and took another in her mouth to shotgun to me. "I might go over and see him later on lunch. That was just so out of character."

I glanced up and Seth was lighting my dab with a look on his face like he'd just seen someone kill a puppy. "Seems to be a lot of that going around."

He looked up and forced a smile. "I'm fine. No psycho stuff over here."

Ana took one more hit, pecked me on the cheek and rushed out the front door. She was definitely going to be late. I got up and turned on some music. Out of nowhere, Seth appeared and turned it off.

"I don't want to listen to that," he said. He scrolled through my iPad until he found some Korn and turned that on instead.

I guess the grudge against Chino was going strong.

"What do you want to do today?"

"Smoke. Sleep. The usual."

"No sleeping," he whispered into my ear as his hands caught my swaying hips from behind me.

I spun around and planted a kiss on his lips. "I'm not sure I can go again, baby." My legs were still shaking from earlier.

He smirked. "That's fine so long as you don't mind me keeping my hands all over you today."

"Wouldn't want it any other way."

We settled back at the table and smoked ourselves silly. Then, for the second morning in a row, I found myself in the midst of an epic nerf battle. This one was totally unfair, though; Seth didn't miss, and he was solely aiming at my ass the whole time.

We had a fun afternoon playing and laughing and dancing with one another, all weirdness from this morning seemingly vanished until we were lounging in bed, propped up by tons of pillows and enjoying a movie together. He hadn't said much in the last half hour or so, but nothing had happened to prepare me for a mood change.

My phone started to ring from across the room and without my really trying to make it happen, the phone flew over to me. I thought that it was cool, kind of funny, even. Seth, however, absolutely did not. He smacked my phone just before I caught it and sent it sailing across the room.

"The fuck, babe?!" I got up to see how badly he'd wrecked my phone, pissed that I might have to get a new one. I went through phones every few months and this one was relatively new.

"You promised me you wouldn't do magic right now!"

I turned to look at him and was immediately put on edge. I felt like I knew Seth better than pretty much anyone, and the angry, quivering mess of a man standing there right now was not at all him. It wasn't just that he was mad, or even that he was mad over something so stupid; it was the look in his eyes terrifying me, a look that had no business on the face of someone I knew to be so kind, loving and gentle.

"Something's wrong with you," I said quietly. The last thing I wanted was to send him over the edge.

"Maybe it's you," he sneered. He started to stomp away, out of our bedroom and into the kitchen. I wanted him to leave and assumed that's what he was doing, but before he left he reared back and punched a hole into the kitchen wall, then slammed the door so hard that the frame splintered.

I stood in the same spot for at least ten minutes, crying silently and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Should I call someone? Should I leave? I had wondered idly over the years if it was possible for an imprint to wear off, but I hoped that we were deep enough into this that he would love me regardless. Now it seemed he hated me completely and I had no idea why.

I eventually wiped the moisture from my cheeks, took a deep breath and moved. I surveyed the damage to my door frame - not that I knew about woodworking and carpentry, but at least the lock still held.

I went back to my room, sat on the bed, and lit a cigarette. My head wanted to spin like a top, but I was trying so hard to keep it calm, keep it cool. I couldn't afford to lose myself in my feelings anymore.

My doorbell rang once and I looked out of my bedroom window to see who it was. She was an older lady, probably a Jehova's Witness or a Mormon or some other weirdo sect of Christianity that I had zero interest in. I answered the door but stepped out to speak with her instead of inviting her in.

"Hello," she said, looking at me funny. "My name is Mary." She held her hand out.

"Liz." I gripped my cig between my teeth and shook her hand. "You selling bibles or something?"

"Oh. No, Liz," she smiled. "I'm not. I've come to speak with you, and to offer you safety."

"You mean for my eternal soul and all that?" I couldn't help but to giggle.

"I can't save your soul. I want to save your life."

Alarms started to flash in my head and I looked Mary over once more. I'd missed something big on the first go around; this cute little old lady was more than a lady. I could feel her power... though admittedly, it didn't feel like all that much.

"Are you crying over your wolf?" she asked. I didn't like this, not one single bit. I flicked my cigarette off into the yard, not taking my eyes off of her. "He's your natural enemy now."

I'd been considering going back inside and just forgetting this strange encounter, but that piqued my interest. "Why?"

"Because it's what they were built for. They are protectors, and a witch poses a great risk for their tribe."

"Tribe," I scoffed.

"They were once. And, despite the fact that they themselves have magic running through their veins, the animal inside sees another supernatural and wants to kill."

"He wouldn't." But would he?

"If you come with me, we can protect you."

"From Seth? He loves me."

"When the time comes, he will stand with his brothers. He will light the fire that burns you alive."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Fire can't hurt me."

There was a flash of excitement in her eyes and my view of the situation changed. This woman was evil, I was sure of it. She trapped me in her gaze and as we stood in this death stare, she hissed - fucking hissed! - at me.

"Get away from her!" I heard Seth yell. He appeared moments later, squeezing his huge frame into the small space between the witch and I.

"If you harm her, we're coming," she growled in return. She stepped backwards until she was off of my porch, and then she shot upwards into the air like a bottle rocket.

I stepped back away from Seth. I wanted to believe that something else was at play here, that there was a reason he was being so mean that wasn't just him changing or things being different between us... but I couldn't be sure. I was afraid of him.

"Liz, I - "

"You have to go," I said.

I went inside alone.