"Ambrose! ... Ambrose!!"
I shout and bang my fist on the unyielding door but get no answer.
"Ambrose, don't you dare do this to me! Don't you dare shut me out now!"
I rattle the knob a few times and then pull out my key. If he thinks he's getting rid of me so easily, he's wrong.
It takes me a moment to realize that it's not just the angry shake in my hands, and that the key really doesn't fit.
"You had the fucking locks changed?" I yell, smacking my palm against the wood panels. "Ambrose! Goddamn it, talk to me!"
Silence is the only reply I get, and after a bit more yelling and pounding, I lean my forehead against the door in defeat.
I can almost sense him on the other side, a hand pressed to his expressive lips, eyes squeezed shut against a self-inflicted pain, keeping himself from making a sound as he listens to me rail against his stupid, one-sided attempt at protecting his heart.
Because while he did a good job—said all the things he must have known would crush me, cut me deep, and plant seeds of doubt in my mind—a Wolf's heart doesn't lie, and it knows its Mate. If he chooses to reject me, that's another matter, but he can't claim we're not Mates and expect me to believe it.
At least, that's the thread of hope I'm clinging to.
On the other hand, I can also imagine him at some upper window, staring down at me with cold, impassive eyes, having realized that whatever he was feeling for me was some momentary, ephemeral thing—intense but short-lived—and he's finally understood that I'm nothing worth loving after all.
Just a stray he'd picked up and given a bit of affection, and who'd fallen into the trap of thinking that it meant something more.
Turning aside, I sink down to sit on the cold stone of the doorstep and lean my head in my hands. Dougal, who's been watching this whole time and probably wondering why I'm being so weird and not letting him inside, takes this as an invitation to lick my face.
"Dougal!" I push him away and he dashes off to find his tennis ball, thinking I must want to play.
As he does, I get an idea. Ambrose will have to let him in at some point. He won't leave Dougal out here all night—he needs his dinner. He'll let him in, and when he does, I'll be waiting.
It seems like a solid idea, but I end up waiting a long time.
The afternoon fades into evening, and evening darkens into night. The air grows cold, and a damp chill rises from the earth. Dougal is used to being inside by this time, flopped on the rug in front of a cozy fire, or curled up on his comfy dog bed in our room. He's happy enough to be outside at the moment, because I'm outside, but occasionally he gets up and goes to the door, sniffing at the seam along the bottom and wagging his tail before looking back at me with an expectant lift to his ears.
I figure Ambrose has to let him in soon. It's already past his dinner time, and there's rain expected in the night. Whatever Ambrose might be trying to prove, I doubt he'll let Dougal suffer just to convince me I'm no longer wanted.
I'm wrong, though, and as the night wears on, my hope wears thin.
At some point I doze, Dougal leaning against my side and my back against the locked door, and awaken in the blue predawn light, freezing, stiff, and slightly wet. The overhang of the roof has protected me from the worst of the rain, but my stuff looks soggy, and Dougal's coat is soaked.
In the cold, emotionless gray of morning, it's a lot harder to convince myself that Ambrose didn't mean what he said, and that the sea of pain I'd sensed behind the wall of his expression and the blankness of his voice had been real.
Few things say 'I don't love you' like leaving a man and all his possessions out in the rain all night, or depriving an innocent dog of his dinner.
I get to my feet, shivering and sniffling, with the start of a sharp ache in my chest, and finally take a closer look at the boxes and bags arranged neatly before the step—my clothes and books and other belongings—all damp from the steady drizzle of fine, misting rain that had fallen in the night. Then I see, in the box at the end of the row, the thing that finally convinces me that Ambrose is not going to change his mind.
It's Dougal's leash and bowl, and the bag of dog-food I'd bought for him.
Because nothing says 'I don't want you,' like 'I don't even want our dog.'
Again, part of me knows that if Ambrose wants me away from here for my own good, of course he wants Dougal away as well.
Of course he does.
I just don't know why, and what might have changed in the hours between when I'd left with Dane and Freya and when I'd returned, and my mind is too numb with hurt and cold to figure it out right now.
I stare down at my stuff and sigh, and Dougal stares up at me with a pensive expression in his soft brown eyes.
"Alright, Dougie," I murmur under my breath. "Let's go see Uncle Dane."
I pick up my pack and one of the bags of clothes that was closer to the house, and thus slightly less damp, and the box with Dougal's things, and walk down the path to the gate.
Dougal pauses uncertainly as I open it, probably confused as to why we still haven't gone inside, and whether he's going to have to miss breakfast as well as dinner, and what he might have done to deserve such harsh punishment.
"C'mon," I call, putting as much enthusiasm in my tone as I can muster. "Car ride."
At that he sprints after me, running to where my beat-up little Honda is parked along the curb, and dashes around it, waiting for me to open a door.
"Okay, okay," I say, getting out my keys and letting him in. He hops onto the back seat and promptly shakes, and I wonder if there's much of Brutus in the water-drops that fly all over the interior of my car, or if the rain has already washed Dougal clean.
Then I turn and look up at the house one more time, thinking maybe I'll catch sight of Ambrose watching me from an upper window, hopefully with his heart shot through with guilt, but nothing looks back at me, and all the windows are dark.
~ ☾ ~
"Noah—you're here early!" Julian exclaims when he answers my knock at his door. His brown hair is charmingly tousled and he's dressed in a soft t-shirt and sweats, looking like he just rose from a restful sleep in a warm bed. "Did you make a break in the...case...or..."
He trials off as he takes in the fact that I'm still wearing yesterday's clothes, that I'm wet, and that I'm clutching a box of damp belongings like an abandoned orphan waiting for a train that will never come.
"Whoa! What happened? I mean, come inside first—Dougal, too," he adds, spotting the equally bedraggled dog at my side. "Are you okay?"
My throat closes around whatever I was going to say, and I make a weird motion with my head, somewhere between a nod and a shake.
"Julian?" Dane calls from further inside. "Where the hell did you put my—" he rounds the corner dressed in a pair of boxers and nothing else, and stops short at the sight of me. For a moment he just takes it in, his eyes darting over each telling sign, building a story from every visible clue.
Then he rubs his hands over his face and sighs. "He didn't hurt you, did he?"
I shake my head.
"Well, get in here then. Dry off and change, and then tell me why I shouldn't head over there right now and tear him a new one."
I sniff and do as he says, setting my soggy things down by the door.
"Dougal hasn't h-had his breakfast," I say, reaching for his bowl and trying to control the tremor in my voice and the shake in my hands, which is partly due to emotion and partly due to the fact I'm still freezing. "And he m-missed his dinner, too. Is it okay if h-he eats inside? It's s-still raining and—"
"Dane and I will take care of Dougal," Julian interrupts, setting his hand over mine and stopping me. "You go take care of yourself."
He smiles, and I see that while he's still radiating Fae charm, it's more controlled now: his violet eyes still unusual but not lit with their own light, and his features still beautiful but not impossibly so.
He seems to guess something of what I'm thinking and lowers his gaze, thick brown lashes veiling his eyes.
"You were right, Noah. Talking to Dane—telling him everything—it's what I needed to do. I needed him to understand, so I could understand what he really wants. And we..."
He bites his lip and then smiles again, patting my wet hair.
"Well, let's not talk about me right now, huh?" he says. "Let's take care of you."
He takes my arm and pulls me along with him into his bedroom, where he quickly blocks my view while he sweeps a number of items off a bedside table and into a drawer.
"You're about my height," he says generously—he's five inches taller—and goes to his dresser and closet to select a set of loose, soft clothes. "Here—take these and go have a hot shower. I'll make you some breakfast," he adds. "What would you like?"
"Oh... um... a-anything's fine."
I know this is the most unhelpful answer in the universe, but in this case it's true. Not only do I not care what I eat, but I'm also not particularly hungry, which I realize is not a good sign.
Whether Ambrose meant what he said or not, whether he's trying to protect me, or truly wants nothing more to do with me; whether I'm his 'heart of hearts'—his treasure—or just something he realized he didn't really want once he had it, after all, the result is the same.
I can only hope Ambrose doesn't know how much it hurts a Wolf to be rejected by a Mate.
"I'll make some toaster waffles then," Julian says, making me wonder what the range of available choices had really been as he pushes the bundle of clothes into my hands.
Then he surprises me by smoothing the pads of his thumbs over the skin beneath my eyes and pulling me into a quick, tight hug.
"Hey—it'll be okay," he assures me, "one way or another. I'm gonna read Brutus' ring this morning, anyway. Maybe it'll tell us something." He lets me go with a reassuring smile, pushing me towards the bathroom, and then leaves me alone.
As I stand beneath the hot spray, still shivering and cold despite the warm steam surrounding me, I make a promise to myself.
Because I've been here before.
I've already had my life torn to pieces like prey surrounded by wolves. I've already lost my job, and my home, and had my heart ripped out and shown to me in all its bloody mess.
This time is different, though.
This time I love him.
So I make myself a promise that this time I'll fight.