The Price of Staying

The Price of Staying


"I should go back," I say, but I don't move from the desk chair.

Rowan's still sitting on his bed, watching me with those gray eyes that make my stomach do complicated gymnastics. "Should you?"

"My parents are waiting. They want to have 'the conversation' about rejecting you." I make air quotes around the words, which feels ridiculous but accurately conveys my feelings about said conversation.

"And you're planning to tell them what, exactly?"

Good question. Excellent question, actually. What am I planning to tell them? That I can't reject him? That I'm choosing a vampire I've known for two days over their lives? That I'm exactly as selfish as Amy accused me of being?

"I don't know," I admit, pulling my knees up to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. "Maybe I'll just stay here forever and they'll forget I exist."

"Your father's the Beta. He won't forget you exist."

"A girl can dream."

Rowan stands up and crosses the room, kneeling in front of my chair so we're at eye level. This close, I can see flecks of silver in his gray eyes, like stars in a storm.

"Julia, we need to talk about what happens next."

"Next implies there's a plan. I don't have a plan. I have a disaster with my name on it."

"Then we make a plan."

"A plan that doesn't end with everyone I love dying?" I ask. "Because those seem to be in short supply."

His hands find mine, cool fingers threading through my warm ones. "What if you didn't have to choose?"

I laugh, but it comes out bitter. "That's not how this works. Pack law is clear. Mate a vampire, everyone dies. It's very straightforward."

"What if you left the pack?"

The words hit me like a slap. "Leave the pack?"

"It's an option."

"It's not an option. You can't just leave a pack. It's not like quitting a job or canceling a gym membership."

"Actually, you can. Wolves do it all the time."

I stare at him. "Wolves leave packs?"

"Lone wolves exist, Julia. Werewolves who choose to live outside pack structure."

My brain struggles to process this information. In seventeen years of pack life, I've never heard anyone talk about lone wolves as anything other than cautionary tales. Wolves who went rogue and lost their minds. Wolves who became dangerous and had to be put down.

"Lone wolves go crazy," I say. "Everyone knows that."

"Some do. The ones who are forced out against their will. But wolves who choose to leave? Who have a reason to survive outside the pack?" He shrugs. "They do fine."

"Define 'fine.'"

"They live. They adapt. They build new lives."

"Without their family. Without their friends. Without everything they've ever known."

"Yes," Rowan says simply. "That's the price."

I think about my parents. About Amy, who just walked away from seventeen years of friendship. About the pack, who would execute me without hesitation if they knew the truth.

"Some family," I mutter.

"They love you, Julia. They're just afraid."

"Fear makes people cruel."

"Sometimes. But it also makes them protective." His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand, a gesture so gentle it makes my chest ache. "They're trying to protect the pack. You're trying to protect yourself. Neither of you is wrong."

"Then why does it feel like I'm losing everything?"

"Because you are," he says quietly. "That's what choice means. You lose one thing to gain another."

I look at our joined hands, his pale fingers wrapped around my darker ones. "What would I gain?"

"Me. My family. A life where you don't have to hide what you are."

"What I am is a werewolf."

"What you are is my mate."

The way he says it makes my wolf purr, a sound of contentment that feels deeply inappropriate given the circumstances.

"Your mate who can't swim and shoots penguins instead of vampires," I point out.

His mouth twitches. "My mate who's braver than she thinks."

"I'm not brave. Brave people make hard choices. I'm just... stuck."

"Stuck between two impossible options?"

"Stuck between dying if I stay and dying slowly if I leave." I pull my hands away from his, needing the distance to think clearly. "At least if the pack kills me, it'll be quick. Leaving means losing my family piece by piece until there's nothing left."

Rowan sits back on his heels, studying my face like he's trying to solve a puzzle. "What if there was a third option?"

"There isn't."

"What if we could make your pack accept this?"

I laugh again, and this time it sounds slightly hysterical. "Accept that their Beta's daughter mated a vampire? Sure. Right after they throw a parade celebrating interspecies romance and declare it National Vampire Appreciation Day."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. The pack will never accept this, Rowan. Never. It goes against everything they believe, everything they've been taught. Vampires killed werewolves for centuries. Werewolves killed vampires right back. That kind of hatred doesn't just disappear because we have good chemistry."

"We have more than good chemistry."

"We have a supernatural bond that makes me want to throw up when I think about rejecting you. Is that what you want to hear?"

The words come out harsher than I intended, and I see something flicker across his face—hurt, maybe, or disappointment.

"I want to hear that you want this," he says quietly. "Not because of the bond. Not because your wolf won't let you walk away. But because you choose it."

The question hangs between us like a challenge.

Do I choose this? Do I choose him?

Without the bond forcing my hand, without my wolf screaming in protest at the thought of rejection, would I still want Rowan?

I look at him kneeling in front of me, patient and beautiful and two hundred years old, and try to separate what I feel from what I'm supposed to feel.

"I don't know," I admit. "I don't know what's me and what's the bond. Everything's tangled together."

"That's fair."

"Is it though? Because you seem pretty clear about what you want."

"I've had more time to process this than you have."

"You've had two days."

"I've had two centuries of knowing this was possible. You've had forty-eight hours of chaos."

He has a point. A very reasonable, very frustrating point.

"So what do we do?" I ask. "Wait for me to figure out my feelings while my family plans my execution?"

"We could start by keeping you alive."

"Revolutionary concept."

Rowan stands, offering me his hand again. "Stay here tonight. Let your parents think you're at Amy's. Give yourself time to think without pack politics breathing down your neck."

"Amy and I aren't friends anymore. They'll know I'm lying."

"Then tell them you needed space. Tell them anything. Just give yourself one night where you're not trying to save everyone."

I look at his outstretched hand, then at his face. "One night?"

"One night."

It's a terrible idea. My parents will worry. They'll call Amy's house and discover I'm not there. They'll panic and organize search parties and probably assume I've been kidnapped by vampires, which is technically accurate but not in the way they'll imagine.

But the thought of going home and facing their expectations, their fear, their demand that I destroy my mate bond to save them—it makes me want to disappear into the lake and let the water suppress my wolf until I forget I ever was one.

"Okay," I say, taking his hand. "One night."

His fingers close around mine, cool and steady, and I let him pull me to my feet.

"There's one problem," I say.

"Just one?"

"What do vampires do for fun? Because if the answer is 'brood in the darkness,' I'm going to need different entertainment options."

Rowan's laugh is warm and genuine. "We have a library."

"Of course you do. What self-respecting vampire mansion doesn't have a library?"

"This isn't a mansion."

"It's bigger than my house and you live at the end of a mysterious lake. It's a mansion."

He tugs me toward the door, and I follow, trying not to think about what I'm choosing by staying.

Trying not to think about Amy's face when she walked away.

Trying not to think about my parents, waiting at home for a daughter who's about to break every promise she ever made them.

One night, I tell myself.

One night can't hurt.

But even as I think it, I know I'm lying.

One night might be all it takes to lose everything.