Chapter 120: I DON’T EXPECT YOU TO FORGIVE ME

Chapter 121

Ren

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to, because my throat had gone tight, and I only shook my head a little and kept looking at her.

She laughed then, a shaky, delighted sound, bent over the plate and breathed in deeply through her nose, just the way she always had, with her eyes closed and her whole body leaning toward it.

"I’ve wanted to eat this so badly," she said. "Ren, I’ve wanted this for years." Something pulled hard behind my ribs.

There she was. There was the Lumi who used to come racing through the gate with her shoes untied because someone had told her there was cake, who sniffed every plate before she touched it and laughed with her mouth full and never once cared who was watching.

She had been buried so deep under betrayal and grief that I had half believed she was gone.

I hadn’t known how badly I’d missed her until she was sitting right here, with sauce on her lip and joy all over her face.

She’s so easy to love and the truth of it nearly knocked the air out of me.

It wasn’t because she was perfect, because she wasn’t, but because she loved so cleanly, with her whole heart and no tricks, and that kind of love should never have been wasted on men like Callum.

I swore silently, right there at the table, that I would spend every breath I had left proving to her that it hadn’t been wasted on me.

Callum was behind bars now, and so was her father, and Sienna would follow soon enough, I’d make sure of it myself.

And anything else that dared to try and take this light away from her again would have to get through me first.

I pushed the thought down before it could show in my eyes, took out my phone, and held it up.

Lumi lifted her head, a piece of plantain halfway to her mouth. "Are you filming me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I want to remember it."

"Remember me eating?" She was trying to sound scandalised, but her cheeks had gone pink. "That’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever said."

"Today’s my duty," I said. "I watch, you eat."

"You’re not going to have any?"

"Not a bite."

"Not even one?"

"I’ve missed seeing you like this, Lumi," I said, much more quietly than I’d meant to, and her fork paused.

For a heartbeat neither of us spoke. Then she reached over, caught the front of my shirt, and kissed me quickly, hard, and sauce-sweet.

"Eight," she said, when she let go.

"You’re counting now?"

"Somebody has to keep you honest." She grinned, turned back to the plate, and attacked it with a joy so violent that I laughed out loud.

She ate it all, every grain of rice and every last piece of plantain, she scraped her fork through the sauce twice to be sure.

Then she sat back, sighed like a woman at the end of a long war, and looked up at the waiter with big, innocent eyes.

"Could I have another?"

He glanced at me, and I nodded, and she ordered another, and when that one was gone she ordered a third.

By then Bram himself had come out of the kitchen with his arms folded, beaming like a proud father.

Behind him, peeking round the door in a flowery apron, a tiny old woman watched Lumi eat with a look of immense satisfaction.

I raised a hand to her, and she nodded once, regal as a queen.

By the time we left, Lumi was so full she was walking like a penguin, and she’d made me promise three times to tell Marta that she would be back every week.

She climbed up behind me on the bike, wrapped both arms around my middle, and pressed her cheek to my back with a long, content sigh.

"I love you," she mumbled into my jacket. "I love you and I love your terrible plans."

"They’re not terrible."

"They’re a little terrible." She yawned. "But they work."

The night had gone dark and soft by then, with the stars thick over the pines and the road almost empty.

I drove slowly this time because she was warm and half asleep against my back, and I wanted to keep her that way as long as I could.

We were nearly at the turn for the estate, with the gates just visible between the trees, when something burst out of the hedge.

I didn’t see a face. I only saw a shape, dark and fast, flying straight into the road, and my body moved before my mind caught up.

I wrenched the handlebars hard to the left, felt the back wheel slide on the grave, and Lumi screamed as the whole bike tipped sideways.

I threw my boot down, took the weight on my leg, and hauled us upright with every ounce of strength I owned, and the engine howled, and we skidded to a stop with the front tyre inches from the ditch.

The silence afterward was enormous.

"Lumi!" I twisted around, my hands already on her arms, checking her shoulders, her ribs, her face. "Are you hurt? Look at me. Are you hurt?"

"No." Her voice was thin and shaky, but her eyes were clear. "No, I’m okay. I’m okay."

My wolf was snarling inside me, hot and wild, and I swung off the bike and turned toward the road with my fists already curled. "Who the fuck was that?"

The figure was crumpled on the floor a few feet away, curled around one arm, a hood pulled low over the head.

It stirred and let out a soft groan, then slowly pushed up onto its knees, and I started forward, ready to drag it up by the collar and demand an answer.

Behind me, I heard Lumi go very quiet.

It wasn’t the quiet of shock. I knew that kind. This was something else, something frozen and sharp.

I felt her whole body lock as if a hand had reached into her chest and stopped it.

Her fingers closed around the back of my jacket, her nails biting through the leather, and her heart began to slam so hard that I could hear it from where I stood.

The figure got to its feet, swaying, and lifted a trembling hand to push the hood back.

"Lumi," I said, without turning around. "Who is it?"

She didn’t answer.

.....

Lumi

The hood slid back, and a mess of pale blonde hair spilled out under the glow of the bike’s headlamp.

I knew that hair. I had last seen it in a daycare car park.

My fingers locked tighter in the back of Ren’s jacket, and my heart, which had barely slowed down since the skid, started up again like a drum.

Was she okay? Who ran in front of a moving bike?

"Victoria," Ren said.

It was low and flat, the voice of a man who had been holding a door shut for a long time and had just felt it move.

He stepped sideways without really seeming to, so that his shoulder and half his body were in front of me, and I felt the heat of his wolf rolling off him in the dark.

Victoria flinched, but she didn’t back away. She stood with her palms turned out, and I noticed they were scraped raw and trembling, with a thin line of blood running down her wrist.

"Please don’t," she said. "I’m not here to start anything. I swear to you, Ren, I’m not."

I made myself look at her properly, and something strange began to happen to the knot in my stomach.

She was wearing a grey hoodie two sizes too big, a pair of scuffed trainers, and jeans with a small tear at the knee from the fall.

Her lips were bare, with no red at all, and her hair was twisted into a plain loose knot, as if she had done it in a hurry without looking in a mirror.

Even her nails were chipped, the polish flaking off in little pink, and the girl I remembered would have rather died than be seen like that.

"What do you want?" Ren asked.

"To say something. That’s all." She swallowed. "Eli, it’s fine. Stay there."

Only then did I notice the second figure, a tall, lanky man hovering a few steps behind her with his hands half raised, like someone trying to approach a frightened horse.

A battered little hatchback was parked crooked on the verge behind him with its hazard lights blinking orange, and he looked from Victoria’s bleeding hands to Ren’s furious face and back again, torn clean in two.

"I’m sorry," he said hoarsely. "I told her to wait until morning. I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to scare anybody."

"Evening, sir," he added, much more quietly, to Ren.

Sir. Why did he refer to Ren like that?

I stepped around Ren, and he made a low sound of protest, but I touched his arm and he let me go.

Up close, Victoria’s eyes were red and puffy, and she looked about five years younger than the woman who I’d met at the mall. She tried to stand straighter and didn’t quite manage it.

"You’re hurt," I said.

"It’s nothing."

"You’ve got gravel in your hand." I took her wrist as carefully as I’d have taken Theo’s and turned it toward the light. "Does it hurt?"

For a second she only stared at me, and her chin wobbled. "Why are you being nice to me?"

"Because you’re bleeding on a road," I said. "Say what you came to say, Victoria." She drew a long, shaky breath.

"I was awful to you," she said. "At the mall, and at the daycare, and in between. I said things I can’t take back, and you had a little boy standing right there who heard every word, and I’ve thought about that nearly every day since..." Her voice cracked on the last words.

"I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I couldn’t carry on without saying I’m sorry. For all of it."