Chapter 319 319
Sabine POV
I have to think fast. As much as I like Didier, I’m not ready for my past to claw its way back into the present. Even brushing against it sends my mind spiralling straight back to that lake house.
“I saw a man shift in front of me.”
It isn’t entirely a lie. A massive black wolf did shift the first night I was hunted through the woods by werewolves. The naked, devastatingly beautiful man that followed afterward that’s the part I keep to myself. The one that still visits my dreams.
“Fuck,” Didier mutters. “That must’ve scared the shit out of you.”
“You could say that.”
“He just let you go?” he presses.
Werewolves didn’t shift in front of humans. Ever. But I’d been running then desperate, cornered, ignorant of their world until that single night shoved me headfirst into it.
“Not exactly…”
I let the words trail off. I hadn’t been released. I’d escaped by sheer terror and instinct, under circumstances I still refuse to revisit.
“So who are you and Caroline running from?” I ask quickly, steering the spotlight away from myself.
“What makes you think we’re running?” He quirks a brow.
I’d thought I knew Didier and Caroline. Trusted them. Yet here we were, all of us tucked away on this remote farm, each nursing secrets of our own. I can only hope I haven’t misjudged them something I’ve been guilty of before.
“There’s only one reason wolves leave their packs,” I say carefully. “To become rogues. So who are you running from?”
His gaze flicks past me, toward the narrow corridor where Caroline is still resting.
“Hm. You’re well informed,” he admits. “I’m running from my stepfather.”
“Why?”
“He was trying to earmark Caroline to marry his brother.”
“I’m hoping a younger brother?”
He exhales. “Not by much. Fifty.”
My stomach knots.
“I couldn’t stand by and watch that happen,” he continues quietly. “I already lost my mother to him. I wasn’t about to lose my sister too.”
There’s grief in his voice threaded with guilt, regret, and something raw beneath it all.
Caroline had been fourteen.
Bloody hell. I can’t fault him for doing what he did.
“And you?” he asks gently. “Who are you running from?”
“Me?”
“Humans run too,” he says with a shrug, draining the last of his drink before setting the mug on the table.
My unease creeps in. His questions are fair I’d asked the same of him but now I’m acutely aware of how much I’ve already given away.
“Sab,” he says softly, reading me far too well. “I wouldn’t tell a soul what you’ve shared. Everyone here has the same unspoken agreement to stay off the radar. That’s why we’re paid cash, why we work ourselves to the bone. But you’re worrying. Let’s talk about something else.”
Relief loosens my chest.
We drift into lighter conversation, laughing about what the so-called group of ‘illegals’ might really be up to. We watch films, taking turns checking on Caroline, the hours slipping by unnoticed.
By ten, exhaustion hits me hard. My eyelids fight to stay open, and the cold seeps into my bones the thin caravan walls offering little protection.
“You’re freezing,” Didier murmurs, reaching out to touch my forehead then pulling back with a slight flinch.
“It’s the caravan.”
“Here,” he says simply. “I’m always warm.”
He isn’t wrong. I nearly groan as he pulls me against him, his body radiating heat like a living furnace.
“Why were you in the woods?” he asks as I drowsily rest my head on his shoulder. My toes curl in bliss as feeling slowly returns they must’ve been close to blue.
“I was just walking,” I mumble. “You?”
“We need to let our wolves out now and then. We came back from town early, hoping the land nearby would be empty.”
“I can stand guard,” I offer through a yawn. “Or watch Caroline if you ever want to let your wolf out.”
His warmth is better than any hot water bottle.
“Thanks, Sab,” he says quietly. “I might take you up on that.”
I feel him lean forward, lifting the blanket from my coffee table and settling it over me just as sleep finally claims me.
Laughter wakes me.
My eyes snap open startled by a sound I’m not used to hearing inside my caravan. My neck aches, and it only takes a moment to remember why. I’d fallen asleep on Didier’s shoulder, never making it to my own bed.
“Morning.”
I blink, focusing on the source of the voice. I hadn’t realised how angelic Caroline sounded having only heard her cries of pain the afternoon before.
“Caroline… you’re awake.” I sit up straighter. “How do you feel?”
“Much better,” she says with a smile. “My leg’s healed. I hope you don’t mind I got so hot in the night that I turned off your fan heater.”
“Not at all.”
I stretch, arms lifting overhead as I straighten my spine. For once, my body actually feels warm like I’d slept wrapped in a heated blanket.
“What time is it?”
“Eight.”
Shit. I’ve overslept. The bitter cold hadn’t dragged me awake before my alarm for once.
“Don’t worry,” Didier says. “I fed the animals this morning. Even made sure Gilles had eggs for breakfast but it looks like he pulled an all-nighter.” He gives me a look.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Knocked on his caravan no answer.”
“I think you were knocking on the wrong one,” I say dryly. “Try the third to the left next time.”
He pauses, then nods. “Ah. I see…”