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Chapter 23: Sarah
I drop into the Al Cappuccino coffee shop on a whim, before rehearsal the day after the polo match. Holly was asking me about a third date as we were travelling back in the coach, and I need to get my head on straight before I see him again. I’ve promised myself to give him a proper chance over three dates. That means not starting the third date already convinced that I need to tell him it’s not working.
The coffee shop is crowded, almost every table full. It’s comforting, in its own way. I am alone in the crowd, cushioned by the mass of humanity. I manage to grab a free spot by slotting myself in just as a couple are leaving. It’s a small, square table attached to the wall with barely enough room for two chairs.
I’ve just got settled with my long black- no syrups or milk, just plain caffeinated goodness- when I spot another patron searching the tables. My eye is drawn to him instantly, although I couldn’t tell you exactly why, other than the way he looks out of plac
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Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 24: Aiden
I gulp down the muggy, traffic fume laiden air of the street and fight for control. Frost’s distraught howling in my head is drowning out the rumble of car engines and the wail of bus brakes. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m not even looking. I’ve got to get away before my savage and bloogthirsty werewolf instincts cause an incident that would hit every news feed around the world and plaster the knowledge of werewolf existence across every television and computer screen.I finally regain enough self control to pay attention to what’s around me. I’m still on the same street, I think. Several blocks down, maybe a mile, which isn’t as far as I thought I’d gone. Maybe I wasn't almost out of my mind for as long as it seemed at the time. They're all big public buildings here, museums and libraries and stuff like that. It's all grey stone, fancy pillars, spiky black metal fences and and trees growing out of metal doors in the si
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 25: Sarah
I wish I could hole myself up in my apartment, spending all day wearing pyjamas with my hair in a mess, eating ice cream out of the carton with Netflix providing a distraction from thinking. I wish I could turn the clock back and go change my mind the first time Holly asked me out, so I never got his hopes up only to go stomping all over them. I wish Holly wasn’t so d*** nice, so I could blame him instead of drowning myself in this ocean of guilt. If I wanted to lie to myself I could blame the stranger in the wine bar. I felt more then, caught between him and Holly, than I have at any time before. It’s the only time Holly has ever had my belly tingling and my panties growing wet. I didn’t need a creepy weirdo to remind me of what I could feel for the right partner, though. If I could blame anyone it would be the art student from the cafe, who was a million worlds away from Holly, all rough edges, surprise and disjointed conversation but who piqued my curiosity in just one ch
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 26: Aiden
The concert hall is a modern building that looks a bit like a bunch of glass huge glass blocks stacked up by a toddler. It’s on a street corner with roads on two sides and older grey stone buildings shoved up against it on the other two. The front of it has a row of glass doors beneath illuminated letters that spell out its name. Display cases beside the doors have glossy photos of the stars that have featured in previous performances. Here are doormen. I doubt I’ll have any luck trying to find Sarah through that entrance.The side around the corner is more industrial, with rambling pipes, steaming vents and two fire escapes. There’s a couple of black dumpsters against the wall. There’s a doorman here too, next to a door labelled ‘stage exit’, only this guy looks more like a bouncer. He gives me a suspicious look as as I approach. I keep walking.Once I’m past him I cross the street. The other side is mostly more of the same, but there
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 27: Sarah
Werewolf. That’s what they had to be. Part man, part wolf, shape shifter. Monster, in so many stories, but I’ve learned something about monsters in my lifetime and I know that they come in as many shades as humans. Some of them are human. My pulse is still racing, my fingers trembling from the remembered terror of that looming figure closing on me, but I know the danger to me is over even while another figure bearing claws, and fangs, and fur is hovering right by my side. I can sense the danger in every last hair and tooth and talon of him, but none of it will harm me, and my voice is calm when I thank him. I should be running screaming, my rational human side tells me. Instead, his presence soothes me. He looks hesitant, this monstrous werewolf beast, when I turn to him. What would such a killing machine to be so hesitant around me? Bellmouth may be something to do with it. I try to reassure him, laughing at myself for it but then pausing to wonder.
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 28: Aiden
When I was younger, Caleb dared me to jump off a cliff into the river. I was fourteen, he was eight. We were both trying to catch the attention of a girl, although I had a lot more of an idea about what I might get up to with her if I succeeded. Caleb was always the risk-taker, the type to lead from in front, to leap first and look afterwards. I was the one who wouldn’t do anything without thinking it through first, without having a plan. Spontaneity was dangerous. Thoughtless impulse got you killed.I remember what it felt like as I was standing on the cliff edge, my stomach in my throat, my mouth dry, my knees shaking. Caleb’s argument had seemed persuasive to fourteen-year-old me. I’d seen the older teens jumping before. It was an unofficial rite of passage for the Pack, for those who had turned eighteen over the winter to leap into the spring meltwater and bathe before the dancing and partying of the May Day celebrations.I hadn’t had the cour
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 29: Sarah
I wasn’t drunk last night. My head is perfectly clear.Having been drunk would be the rational explanation. As I wasn’t drunk, the only explanations left are those that I cannot tell most people, including my mundane human friends. They either make me look insane, or grossly insensitive, or a slut, or totally lacking in any good decision making skills. Or all of them.Sleep continues to fade, making me aware that I’m lying on my bed. I’m aching pleasantly in all the right places and not so pleasantly in an area near the side of my neck, and I am rather unpleasantly sticky between my legs. There’s a solid shape beside me, not quote snoring. His breath puffs against my shoulder, and his arm is looped across my waist. I am aware of his contentment just as surely as I am aware of my own.It was his dream that woke me and not mine. Two wolves running through a forest, the dream view seen through the eyes of one of them. His feel
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 30: Aiden
The sleepy bliss I feel on waking up next to my Mate lasts until we make it to the breakfast table. I’m determined to enjoy the sensation for as long as I can. Life is complicated. Simple pleasures don’t come along that often. Bliss is rare. Sarah starts asking me about people she met, and it’s obvious they’re not just humans, and the problems of the real world are back. So is Frost. I’d have thought he’d have been right there with me last night, but it turns out human sex doesn’t interest him even when it’s our Mate. He’d just curled up and gone to sleep, or the equivalent anyway. Possible danger to her, that gets his attention. Sarah mentions Cavendish and frost nearly takes over, wanting to charge right over to the club and tear him to pieces. For once have the winning card, and I can’t help laughing. Whatever Cavendish wants with Sarah, he’s not going to get it now, because of his own decisions and pure chance. Sarah fills me in on what she knows of Caven
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 31: Sarah
I don’t know where the pep talk came from which I gave to Aiden, but I needed it as much as he did, I think. I have a way forward. I’ve agreed to give this thing between us a chance, and I owe it to both of us to put everything I can into it.My track record is not good, I have to admit to myself. I certainly didn’t put as much effort in with Brian as I could have done, although I very much doubt things would have gone any better if I had. Did I fail the same way with Holly? Perhaps not. I hope I gave it a fair shot. If Aiden really is right, everything else was doomed anyway. There’s a part of me that is now clinging to that possibility, because it eases the guilt I still feel from the trail of broken romances that I have left in my wake.I don’t have any more time to myself to contemplate the way my world has fundamentally changed in the last twelve hours. My phone rings, and it’s my contact at MI5. My first thought is that it woul
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