Finding the Wolf Within

Chapter 34

Eek! FTWW made it to #45 on the What’s Hot list! Thank you all so much for the support. :)  

It seems like only yesterday when the story reached the 100,000 read mark, and now it’s more than double that! Please keep reading and voting and commenting and fanning. I really appreciate it.

Many, many thanks again…

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Recap

As the fire slowly died down, I found myself getting drowsy. I didn’t want the day to end just yet, but my eyelids were refusing to stay open. It was a combination of the use of my ability, the physical activity, the wine, and the warmth of the room. I felt Eddie pick me up and deposit me gently on the bed before leaving to grab the comforter and pillows off the floor. He quickly joined me, wrapping his body around me and tucking the comforter around the both of us. I instinctively snuggled up against him, sighing deeply as I once again felt whole in his arms.

Eddie kissed the back of my head before whispering, “I love you.” I was already half asleep but managed to murmur it back to him. He chuckled, so maybe I didn’t say those exact words to him, but I knew he understood what I had meant.

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Chapter 34

I smiled happily to myself, maybe a little too happily because Matt took one look at me and rolled his eyes. I was sitting in English class, daydreaming about what Eddie and I had done over the weekend. It was my favorite thing to replay in my head during classes.

Sunday had been almost as amazing as Saturday. We spent the morning together in our room before venturing out on snowboards until late afternoon. There had been no pillow fight or playing with food, but we had spent quite a bit of time in the extra-large tub. Eddie had surprised me with a bubble bath, and I made sure to thank him properly. I almost flushed at the memory. I was getting better about keeping my cool when I thought about everything we had done, but sometimes the images were too overwhelming, too delicious.

When we finally left our room, we stopped by the ski patrol office before we headed up the mountain to see if they had any word on the guy we had rescued. It turned out that he was going to be fine. I remembered feeling so relieved and thankful. Eddie told me again how proud he was of me. I blushed at his praise, but I knew I was proud of myself too. It felt good being able to use my abilities to help people.

Snowboarding had been as easy to learn as skiing had. Eddie ended up showing off a bit, at my insistence, by doing some tricks. He held back from going all out, but he still drew quite a crowd. I could tell that he loved it, both skiing and snowboarding, and I vowed that we would come back next winter. 

When it was time for us to leave, I had felt disappointed that the weekend had gone by so quickly. I even felt sad about going back home. It had been such a wonderful couple of days, just the two of us. We had truly left all of our worries behind – Amber hadn’t come up in my thoughts at all.

Now that I thought about it though, I didn’t notice anyone who might have been sent as a guard from our pack. I felt my cheeks beginning to heat up – I hoped Eddie and I hadn’t done anything embarrassing that the guard might have seen. I guess it didn’t really matter, since I was fine with him reporting our entire weekend to the Alpha. It was just that the idea of someone spying on us felt a little creepy, especially since I remembered that Brian was one of the guys under suspicion of being a traitor to the pack.

I shivered. I knew I was supposed to believe in innocence until proven guilty, but it really did give me the chills knowing that he had been watching over me at the shelter for several weeks while possibly working for the Caladium pack. I felt more scared about that than I did about Amber. There was just something about not knowing who your enemy was that was frightening to me. At least with Amber, I could put a face to the danger. With the traitor…I don’t know. I kept thinking about Brian, about the fact that he wasn’t there when Amber had shown up at the shelter, but that he had been there when we had gone out for Matt’s birthday.