Finding Wisp Read online

  “Thank you, Mr. Radcliff. Have a pleasant evening.” She nodded my way. “Sloane… Felix,” she added begrudgingly before dismissing herself.

  Cornelius clapped his hands together. “Well, then… let’s eat.”

  He served himself a generous portion of spaghetti, covering the noodles with a thick layer of sauce, before reaching for the bread. “So, Sloane, how was your day?” he asked. “I’ve been worried how you might be adjusting.”

  If it was true, it certainly hadn’t seemed that way.

  “And, of course,” he added a second later, almost as an afterthought, “I must admit to being curious if you’ve remembered anything.”

  I shrugged. “Not really,” I admitted. “I talked to Marianne about…” I trailed off, distracted by the way Felix had grabbed my plate, dispensing a modest-sized portion of spaghetti onto the dish. “What are you doing?” I demanded briskly.

  Felix hardly reacted, merely raising an unimpressed eyebrow as he also added some salad and a piece of bread. “Getting you your food, of course.”

  Obviously.

  “I can do that myself,” I protested.

  “Of course you can,” he agreed amicably enough, “but why deny me the pleasure of serving you?”

  I frowned. “What are you talking ab-?”

  “Your future husband,” he interrupted briskly, “Mr. Vanderbilt, will expect you to remain silent while he fills your plate.”

  It was the most absurd, controlling thing I’d ever heard. And what did Felix know about my fiancé, the ever-mysterious Graham Vanderbilt, anyway?

  I’m sure my face resembled a tomato by the time he set the plate in front of me. “Does Mr. Vanderbilt plan on feeding me, too?” I snarked under my breath – though not quietly enough judging by the way the man next to me stiffened. Regardless, he didn’t acknowledge the comment.

  Whether it had been Felix who had filled my plate or not, I was starving, and so I picked up my fork to eat.

  Only to have my wrist shackled by Felix’s unyielding fingers. Again. “Wrong,” he admonished.

  I jerked my wrist out of his grasp. “What’s wrong?”

  Felix sighed, a put-upon sound. “You’re using the wrong fork,” he clarified. “That,” he said, nodding towards the piece of silverware I’d attempted to dig into my spaghetti, “is a salad fork.” He shook his head. “Honestly, Sloane, you’re going to make an absolute fool of yourself when the time comes for you to meet Mr. Vanderbilt. How do you expect him to accept you when-?”

  Heat licked at my cheeks.

  “Frankly, Felix,” I cut in tersely, “I fail to see how my relationship” – or lack thereof – “with Mr. Vanderbilt is any of your concern.”

  Felix had the nerve to smile in response to the remark, his white teeth gleaming. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, voice low and condescending, “it’s more my concern than you know.”

  I stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean? If you’re trying to scare me, then-”

  I didn’t know what I was going to say. Probably something along the lines of: “If you’re trying to scare me, then you should stop while you’re ahead. Your sad attempts at intimidation are falling flat.” (It would have been a lie, of course, but that wasn’t the point.)

  Regardless, I never got the chance to finish my sentence because my father, who I had nearly forgotten about in my spat with Felix, interrupted.

  “Enough!”

  Honestly, I was relieved. Now that Cornelius had witnessed the way Felix spoke to me, how he treated me, he would have no choice but to step in and reprimand him – maybe even relieve him of his duties. (I could hope, anyway.)

  But when Cornelius opened his mouth again, it was my name tumbling out of it in that scolding quality of voice.

  “Sloane, dear…” He sounded stressed. “Felix is only trying to help. It was explained when I hired him that part of his job was to assist in preparing you for your upcoming nuptials with Mr. Vanderbilt.” He sighed. “He knows what he’s talking about regarding their particular… traditions,” he decided on finally. “It would please me very much if you would let him do his job. You can do that for me, can’t you?”

  I wanted to demand what sort of traditions billionaire real estate moguls had that millionaire senators like my father didn’t, but I had a feeling that asking such a thing would only aggravate the man more, so I kept my mouth shut, offering a stiff nod instead. “Fine,” I muttered.

  “Thank you.” Cornelius sounded honestly relieved before shoving a forkful of spaghetti in his mouth. “Now, you said something about speaking with Marianne?” he asked when he was finished chewing.

  It was an obvious attempt to change the subject, but seeing as the current one was about how unfit of a bride I apparently made, I went along with it. “She gave me a tour of the house,” I explained.

  “That sounds like a splendid time.”

  “It was… eye-opening,” I admitted, poking at my spaghetti with my salad fork just to spite the man sitting beside me. “I hope you don’t mind, but I asked her a few questions while I had her attention.”

  “Oh?” he asked, seemingly unconcerned – hardly focusing at all, really – as he continued to stuff himself.

  “Yeah.” I chewed nervously on my bottom lip. “Is there a reason I was never allowed a cell phone?” I asked after a short pause.

  You would have had to have been blind not to see the way Cornelius stiffened in response, but he pried his eyes away from his meal, at least, and it was satisfying to have finally captured his attention. He wiped at his mouth with a napkin. “How exactly did such a topic of conversation come up with Marianne?”

  I shrugged. “I’d just assumed I had a phone is all, so I asked her about it. I thought that if I went through whatever pictures or messages I had stored, something might jog my memory. Seeing as I never owned one, though…” I trailed off.

  “That makes sense,” Cornelius admitted reluctantly. “A very clever idea on your part.” He cleared his throat. “As for your question, well, I hardly saw the need for you to have your own phone. You spent all your time here, so-”

  “And why is that?”

  Cornelius blinked. “Why’s what?”

  “Why did I spend all my time here?” I clarified. “I mean, I’m eighteen, not seventy. Surely I had hobbies, friends – something to occupy my time.”

  Cornelius shifted uncomfortably. “Well, you’ve always enjoyed reading and doing your schoolwork,” he replied after an extended pause. “And as far as friends go, well, I suppose your mother filled that role.”

  It was the first time the man had brought the deceased woman up since he’d picked me up at the police station the other day, and it seemed almost… manipulative to do so now. “I guess,” I conceded reluctantly. “It just seems odd that I was never allowed out of the house is all.”

  Cornelius jerked backward as if I’d slapped him, the red flush slowly creeping up the collar of his shirt a sign of his rising upset. “Your mother and I always did our best to entertain you, Sloane. You were hardly a prisoner here.”

  “Okay, but why-?”

  “Sloane!” Cornelius’s entire face was turning an ugly shade of purple now, and I had a sinking feeling that I’d pushed him too far.

  “They’re only questions,” I muttered defensively.

  “Yes, well, I’ve had quite enough of your questions for one night,” he snapped. “I certainly hope you weren’t pestering Marianne like this.” He smoothed down the lapels of his suit, taking a deep breath in through his nose as he did. “Speaking of Marianne,” he added, marginally calmer, “you ought to eat your food, Sloane. It would be a shame to let her cooking go to waste.”

  It was a clear shut-down of the conversation, and hardly wanting to press Cornelius more than I already had, I took his advice. We ate in a strained silence, the only sound filling the room the noise our forks made clinking against our plates.

  After only a few minutes, Cornelius pushed his plate away. “Well,
I’m stuffed,” he declared. “I’m going to take a few business calls in the study before tucking in.” He stood and nodded first Felix’s way and then towards me. “Felix, Sloane.”

  His farewell was noticeably cooler than the warm way he’d greeted me when I’d walked into the room a half-hour before. What made it worse was the way I could feel Felix’s gray eyes drilling a hole into the side of my head all the while.

  “Pleased with yourself?” he asked when my father left the room, sounding entirely too pleased himself.

  I didn’t acknowledge the comment. Instead, I, too, pushed my plate away.

  “Finished?”

  I offered a jerky nod, my chair scraping against the hardwood floor as I stood.

  Felix rose as well. “Then I’ll walk you to your room,” he offered (ordered).

  “No.”

  The man tensed. “No?” he repeated, voice disbelieving.

  “That is… if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather walk myself.”

  Then, before he could protest, I booked it from the room. I all but sprinted past the entryway, taking the stairs two at a time until I reached the top. Once I had, I glanced back down over the second-floor railing, releasing a breath I hadn’t even been aware I was holding when I didn’t see him following me.

  That relief turned into outright giddiness when I spotted a small, rectangular device sitting on the floor outside my bedroom door. It was a laptop. There was a yellow post-it note stuck to the top, and I quickly bent over to retrieve it.

  I spoke to your father about your laptop. He asked that I deliver this to you.

  My laptop.

  Nothing could put a damper on the thrill of excitement that shot through me – not even the hint of guilt that followed it for the way I’d just pressed the man at the dinner table.

  Both feelings dissipated a few minutes later, however, when I holed myself away in my bedroom and plugged the laptop in.

  Because there were no documents saved to the laptop’s hard drive, and the computer’s history had been wiped completely clean.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Doing what I’d longed to do since I had opened the door to find Abram standing there, I curled my hand into a fist and punched the unsuspecting man in the face.

  * * *

  Abram’s eyes flashed black, his mouth twisting into a snarl, and I braced myself for a fight.

  A moment later, however, his expression cleared, his eyes slowly warming back to brown, and I had to suppress the urge to barrel my fist into his face again… when he laughed.

  “What the hell is so funny?” I spat, the beginnings of a growl reverberating through my chest.

  “You,” the man accused through his mirth. “Trying to tell me that little girl isn’t your mate, and then jumping at the first chance to defend her honor.”

  “She’s not my mate.”

  “Right.” Abram shook his head. “Who are you kidding? Our kind don’t keep bearers around unless we intend to fill their bellies with our cubs.”

  He rippled beneath the surface at the man’s nerve – at his crass way of referring to Wisp, at the nonchalant way he brought up one of my darkest fantasies. “She’s not a bearer, either,” I grit out.

  Abram snorted. “Yeah, that’s why she smells like sex personified, practically dripping with that honey scent that calls to our most basic instincts.”

  “Don’t talk about her like that!” I roared, the words more growl than English, spittle flying everywhere. And what the hell did he mean by our instincts, anyway? Did he want her, too?

  For a few precarious seconds, the bear took over, jumbled words like “rip”, “shred”, and “kill” tearing through my brain as the urge to defend Wisp against a perceived rival took precedent.

  It took every ounce of my will power to reign him back in. “And she’s not a bearer,” I added, only slightly calmer. “Stop saying that.” She was the daughter of a senator, for fuck’s sake.

  Abram’s amusement faded at my continuous denial, the wrinkles that formed on his forehead appearing infinitely more genuine than the mocking smile that had been painted on his mouth a minute before. “You really didn’t know,” he said, sounding like he was only half-aware he was speaking aloud. “But how? Hasn’t anyone ever explained-?”

  “Who?” I demanded, the word ripping from my throat before I’d even known it was there. “Who did I have to explain anything to me? My parents? In case you forgot, they’re dead.”

  Abram didn’t flinch at the blatant reminder of Boone and Rose Blackwood, of the fire – the hunters, but a muscle in his jaw twitched and any expression his face had held slipped off until it was blank – as fucking dead as my parents, his wife.

  “You?” I pressed harder, a sardonic grin pulling at my mouth, the urge to fucking whoop in the man’s face nearly overwhelming me. “You might as well have died with them for how often I’ve seen you the past seventeen years.”

  He didn’t deny it – though his eyes did glaze over slightly, wandering off to the side as he gazed into the trees that surrounded my cabin.

  I found the emotionless countenance much more satisfying than his false mirth. “So she’s really gone then?” he asked after an extended pause, outright ignoring my barbs and redirecting the conversation back to Wisp. “You actually let her leave?”

  No. I’d practically dragged her kicking and screaming, ignoring her protests and pleas as I handed her over to Ash Abernathy of all people. But I didn’t owe the man in front of me anything, least of all an explanation. “Why do you care?” I asked instead.

  The thought that he might want her still lurked in the back of my mind, his fixation on Wisp only giving new life to the idea. “Do you want her?” I demanded, hands curling into fists at my sides, the blunt edges of my nails sharpening until they drew blood. “Because if you know what’s good for you, old man, you’ll keep your dirty paws the hell away from her.”

  “Jesus, kid,” Abram snapped, his honest surprise the only thing keeping the beast at bay. “Of course I don’t want her. For Christ’s sake, she’s young enough to be my…to be my…” he trailed off, unable to finish his sentence. But we both knew well enough what he had been about to say.

  His daughter.

  The little baby he’d lost in the fire. He squeezed his eyes shut, jerking his head back and forth, and I wondered if he was trying to shake off the sudden onslaught of memories the same way I always did when they threatened to overwhelm me.

  “Then why are you here?” I demanded, cutting straight to the point.

  Abram opened his eyes, waving haphazardly at the piece of plastic-ware in my hands. “To return that,” he said, “and to tell you to keep your mate-” he paused, having obviously picked up on the way my shoulders tensed whenever he said that fucking word. “And to tell you to keep that little girl,” he amended, “off my property.” He frowned. “But I suppose I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

  For all his complaints about her, he didn’t look particularly happy about that.

  “No, you don’t,” I confirmed coolly.

  Abram nodded. “Unless… unless you plan on winning her back now that you know?”

  Now that I knew what? That Wisp was a bearer? She wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking possible, and if I allowed myself to think for even a second that she could be…

  “No.”

  Abram frowned at my blunt answer, and seeming to have finally picked up on the hint that he was unwelcome here, he turned without another word. Unfortunately, he only managed two lumbering steps towards the porch stairs before something seemed to change his mind. He pivoted back around, brown eyes open and honest as they pinned me in place. My chest tightened.

  Why did they have to be fucking brown?

  “You can always change your mind. You… you seemed happy with her, and being alone… it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  He said it like he had any right to be offering me advice, the fucking hypocrite. “You would know,” I forced
out between clenched teeth before slamming the door shut.

  I could feel him stirring and rested my forehead against the wood in an effort to regain control.

  But the rage stirring beneath the surface only invigorated him.

  I seemed happy with Wisp? What the hell did Abram know? He’d seen us together once, and I’d been a fucking bear at the time.

  Maybe he’s been keeping a closer eye on you than you thought, a hesitant voice piped up, but I batted it away.

  Right.

  Abram didn’t care about anyone – no one alive, anyway. And to show up now after all this time…

  I felt something nudge against my leg, and glanced down where Thane was pressing his snout into my thigh. I had all but forgotten about the lab in my confrontation with Abram. “What?” I snapped.

  He ducked his head and whined.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, thumping a fist against the door before reaching down and running my fingers through the coarse hair between his ears. I hoped Thane understood it as the apology it was.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  So much.

  But at that moment, more than anything, it was the urge – no, the need – vibrating under my skin to transform. Abram showing up had brought so many memories to the surface – memories that I had thought I’d successfully beaten down forever.

  Wisp wasn’t even around to distract me from them, and it was my own fucking fault.

  I couldn’t take it.

  I managed to hold him off for a few more minutes – long enough that Abram was hopefully well on his way back to his side of the river. Praying that he was far enough away that the bear wouldn’t pursue, I jerked open the front door and let him loose right there on the porch.

  I’d long ago grown used to the sensation of twisting bone and tearing muscle as I grew into something larger and infinitely more powerful than myself. My clothes ripped away and fell from my skin – my fur, and I tore off into the woods.

  I spent the day rampaging through the trees, giving into the bear and his baser instincts. I let the forest feel my wrath, ripping into saplings with my claws just because I could. I chased down wild life, digging my teeth into the raw flesh of more than one deer, reveling in the feeling of bones cracking between my jaws and the taste of blood on my tongue.