A long silence descended between us, one in which neither of us could look each other straight in the eyes.
“You did this!” I finally spat out. “You did this to me on purpose.”
“No.”
“You did!” I exclaimed with a shaky breath. “Didn’t you?”
“Why would I want you to put you through the same misery that I suffer through?”
“Because you wanted me to stay.”
“I do.”
“So, you …”
“No,” he cut in, before closing the large gap between us. “That isn’t true.”
“You infected me with this thing.”
“The wolf did.”
“Oh! You’re blaming the wolf now.”
“I am.”
“Damian.”
“I would never do that to you,” he pleaded. “Believe me, Sara. Never!”
I could see the truth in his eyes, the pain.
“I told you that I wanted you to be my mate, and the wolf sensed it. Why else would he bite you?”
“What?”
“He must have smelt me on you,” he deliberated aloud. “And since we share the same conscious being, my feelings for you would have …” Damian paused to lick at his lips nervously, “would have been transferred onto him as well.” Damian’s forest green eyes were full of expression as he uttered, “You mean the world to me, Sara.”
I was overwhelmed with feelings at this point, so I simply took a step away and let myself sit at the edge of the cliff alone. Damian took a seat next to me, making a small sniffling sound as the cold mist from the falls rested over his bare skin.
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”
“One day.”
“Did you know the wolf would do this to me?”
“Bite you?”
“Seek me out like that,” I voiced aloud. “With such determination.”
“The car,” he murmured. “I only see fragments of it in my mind, but I know the wolf did something to the car.”
“I care less about the car and more about Ashley.”
Damian’s voice was fraught with pain as he muttered, “I know you do.”
“She was my friend.”
“I know.”
“One of my best friends,” I droned out without a hint of emotion. “And now she’s gone because of you … and me.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I got close to you, Damian.” He pursed his lips with regret, knowing the things I was saying were correct. “No matter. Speaking of the past won’t change anything.” I lowered my head to stare into the falls. “When will I become like you?”
“Could take weeks,” he mused aloud, “Months maybe?”
“But I will become a werewolf.”
“Yes.”
I nodded my head soberly, realizing it was a fate that I could not escape.
“Pure folly,” I uttered under my breath. “Coming here.”
“I wouldn’t have met you,” he began, but decided to drop the subject once I gave him a troubling look.
“What if I just drop off the edge of this cliff and end it now?”
“I tried to kill myself.” He felt my gaze on his profile but chose to not look in my direction. “The first victim was terrible, but after a while you just become numb. It’s the coldness, the icy feeling you get when you see families cry over their dead loved ones and not feel anything because deep down inside you know that you did it, and there is nothing you could have done to stop it.”
“Like how you feel about Ashley?” I suggested.
“Yes,” he breathed out mournfully. “I took a gun to my head and wanted to pull the trigger, but I couldn’t.” He turned his head in my direction. “I carry those weapons to protect me from myself. I know the kind of monster I am inside.”
“Why didn’t you kill yourself?”
“Because I wanted to live,” he told me. “Because I knew the only place I could truly be safe was in the wild … a place like this.”
“I don’t want to become like that.”
“I didn’t want to become a werewolf either, but we’re not alone out here.” He lifted a hand and laid it over my own. “Especially now, Sara, since we can suffer through this together.”