He grinned weakly at me. “I know, baby. You’re my queen. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I laid my head on his chest to hear his heartbeat, hoping it would calm me.
I ended up sleeping in the hospital chair that night. In the morning, Holden insisted I go home and get some rest. Exhausted and starving, I reluctantly agreed.
Imagine my surprise, though, when the next day, I got a call from Holden, telling me he was ready to be discharged.
“This doesn’t make any sense.” I was so confused.
At his house, I was, of course, his nurse. I went to change the bandages on his arms and face and realized he didn’t even need them. The road rash he’d endured was now nothing more than dried scabs, ready to fall off. He should still be in the nasty, oozing phase of wound healing at this point.
He gave a noncommittal grunt as he sat up from his bed. “I told you I was fine.”
I gritted my teeth and glared at him. “I read the medical report. No way you’re fine. Like, at all. This is… just… weird.”
He grabbed my hand, still sitting on the bed. “Sit down, I need to tell you something.”
Oh, God. Here it was. I knew he was too good to be true. I knew he was hiding more secrets. Worse than the ones from his past.
I stared at him a long time, still dumbfounded as to how his face wasn’t all oozing pus and blood at this point. I ran my fingertips over the scabs and stared into his eyes, terrified about what he was going to say.
He stared back at me, seeming to hesitate getting out what he wanted to say. We gazed into each other’s eyes for so long, I wasn’t sure he was going to speak at all. But the suspense was killing me.
“Holden… baby. Please. Just spit it out. You’re killing me.”
He tilted his head to the side, placed his hand on my cheek, rubbed his thumb along my jaw, and sucked in a big breath before saying, “Emory, my queen. I’m a shifter.”
123
Holden
Her face twisted into a mask of confusion, then horror, then anger as she placed her hands on her hips and yanked away from my touch. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I sighed, knowing this wasn’t going to be easy, and terrified that this was the pivotable moment that I was surely going to lose her. The love of my life. My queen. My forever wifey.
“Sit, let me explain. Please?” I begged
She hesitated but didn’t sit. “I… I… just don’t understand.”
“Babe,” I said as softly as I could. “I’m not entirely human. I’m a shifter. A leopard, to be exact.”
She furrowed her brow, hurt and bewilderment in her gaze. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I know. It’s so confusing. Let me explain. See, my mom was human, but apparently, my biological father was a shifter, and—”
Tears welled in her beautiful jade eyes and her bottom lip quivered as she cut me off. “I knew it. I knew you were too good to be true! You’re crazy! I knew this would end in my heart being fucking broken! Damn you!”
I couldn’t stop her as she turned on her heel and stormed out of my bedroom. The slam of the front door was the final stab to my heart as I knew I’d lost her forever. The ring I’d bought her sat in my underwear drawer, as I had awaited the right time to ask her to be my forever queen. Now, I was wondering if I was out ten grand on a hunk of metal and stone that would mean nothing if it wasn’t sitting on the left-hand finger of the love of my life. But… the money meant nothing because it wouldn’t mend my shattered heart.
For the first time in my thirty-one years, I put my face into my hands and I fucking cried.
Weeks felt like years as I tried to move on with my life without Emory. Calls, texts, and emails went unanswered. Visits to her apartment were futile, as the door never opened when I’d pound on it, demanding five minutes. Blocks by her Aunt Nora at the clinic were becoming the norm as I went there every day for weeks.
Why wouldn’t she just listen to me? Let me prove that I was who I said I was? Not some mentally ill person believing I was this supernatural creature from the tales of lore?
That being said—I did understand why she wouldn’t see me. I sounded like a crazy person. Some psychopath who believed I could shift into a leopard. Emory had admitted to me that she had watched a lot of Netflix… but, had she watched Supernatural? The Vampire Diaries? True Blood? The Walking Dead? No, I didn’t think she had. She seemed to love medical dramas and true crime shows. I wanted to so badly to convince her that the supernatural was real. That there were monsters out there. Monsters like me. Like vampires. Like wolves. Like witches. But then again… what would be the point, really? She would still be terrified, and I would still end up on the losing end of this once-beautiful relationship. This soul-deep connection that was slowly trickling through my fingers like sand.
As the weeks ticked by, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be forever single. A terminal bachelor, intent on fucking randoms to get my needs met, but never finding that physical, emotional, and spiritual connection to another being like I had with Emory Marie Bloome. I’d had my chance. I’d had my one and only, and she’d slipped through my fingers. And it had been all my fault for not being truthful with her from the start.
I arrived at the jobsite in my work truck, unloaded the lines of
