Chapter 486

Olivia

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”

Nathan fanned at my face with a folded napkin. The cool air was a relief, but for the tenth time already, I offered him a weak smile and shook my head.

“I’m fine, really,” I lied. “My legs just got a little weak, that’s all.”

And for the tenth time, Nathan narrowed his eyes at me and pursed his lips. “I think we should get you home. You look pale.”

Home. I could accept that—anything to get away from this luncheon, away from Dan and his biting words and his digging fingers. But I didn’t feel right leaving Clarissa here with him. Not after the way he had dragged her away suddenly.

“Can we at least check on Clarissa?” I whispered. “I’m worried—”

“Liv.” Nathan leaned in closer and lowered his voice. His blue-green eyes seemed to flicker beneath the light streaming in through the stained glass windows. “You have to let her go.”

I swallowed. I knew he was right, of course; Dan’s warning had been loud and clear. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. Something was off about Dan and Clarissa, and I was worried for her; and yet, there was nothing that I could do about it. Not without real proof or reason to get involved, at least.

“Liv?” Nathan asked.

“Okay.” I finally nodded and blinked away the tears that were threatening to come.

With a soft sigh, Nathan helped me stand and led me away from the luncheon. The other Alphas and their Lunas continued dancing. Either they were oblivious to the fact that I had almost collapsed on the dance floor, or they simply didn’t care.

Finally, with a bit of effort Nathan led me out to the car. The whole time, Dan and Clarissa were still not to be found; although I couldn’t deny the fact that I somehow still felt as if Dan’s cold eyes were on me, watching me from some unseen place.

But that would be insane, right?

As Nathan put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb, I looked out the window at the tall spires of Dan’s council building.

The enormous building with its Gothic architecture was the perfect embodiment of the two of them: Dan, with his brutal and dark nature, and Clarissa was like the little stained glass windows. Or at least, that was how it seemed.

“I hardly know her,” I thought to my wolf as Nathan drove us away from that place. “Why do I feel this way?”

“Perhaps she reminds you of…”

“No. She’s not like my mom at all,” I replied. “And besides, Mom has been gone for over a decade now. I don’t even remember her voice.”

My wolf bristled inside of me. “And yet, you feel a connection to her,” she replied calmly. “I feel it, too. As if I knew her in one of my past lives.”

Maybe that was it; maybe that was why I felt so connected to Clarissa. Maybe, somehow, she contained the blood of the Ancient Wolf just like I did. Perhaps even trace amounts could be detected in one’s bloodstream. And maybe my wolf had indeed known her soul in a past life.

But I didn’t know Clarissa. Hell, I had learned so much about her from the simplest conversation today; she was hardly someone who I knew on a deep level.

Still…

“I just don’t understand why that photograph made him so… hostile,” I said coldly, drawing my coat closer around my shoulders as Nathan drove.

The sun was disappearing over the horizon already, casting the world in a soft blue hue. Oh, how I missed the longer days of summer already.

Nathan sighed and switched on the radio, filling the car with the soft staticky sounds. “Look, we barely know them,” he said. “Maybe your resemblance strikes a chord, somehow. I wonder…”

He paused, chewing his lip for a moment before continuing. “I wonder if they had a daughter at some point. Maybe it’s a sore subject for them.”

But I shook my head. “They never had children. Actually, Clarissa just told me today how she and Dan only married each other four years ago. And they met eight years ago.”

Nathan shot me a surprised look from the driver’s seat. “Really? At their age?” he asked. “They’re both in their fifties, and they’re both good looking—especially Clarissa. She must have had a marriage before—”

“No, she hasn’t,” I said. “She told me that Dan was her first. She never married, nor did she ever have kids before she met him.”

“Hmm.” Nathan seemed disbelieving. And frankly, so was I. Clarissa was, indeed, beautiful and kind and intelligent. It was hard to fathom that she might not have ever been married before.

“Actually,” I said thoughtfully, “Now that I think of it… Her eyes seemed to glaze over when I asked about it. Like… Like she was trying to remember, but couldn’t.”

Nathan listened intently as I spoke, but when I was finished, he cleared his throat after a moment of silence.

“Or she was trying to decide how much to share,” he said. His voice was gentle, but firm at the same time. He glanced over at me and shot me an apologetic look. “Maybe she doesn’t like sharing such personal details with someone who she doesn’t know all that well, you know?”

His words cut deep like a knife in my gut, but I knew that perhaps he was right. Clarissa and I knew just as little about me as I knew about her. Maybe there was much more to her story than I thought.

And maybe she preferred to keep it that way.

“Well, either way,” I said, “the way that Dan treats her is frightening, to say the least. As a fellow woman, I’ve got my eye on him.”

“And as a man, so have I.” Nathan sighed as we left the town. The open road stretched in front of us, promising a few hours of driving before we would finally get home. My body still felt weak after what had happened on the dance floor, and I was already yearning for my soft bed.

“I’m sorry for all of this, you know,” I said a few moments later. “I feel like such a burden lately.”

Nathan looked over at me from his seat. He sighed again and reached out, placing his warm hand over mine. “You’re never a burden, Liv.”

“But we had to leave that luncheon early because of me. And I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut, either.”

Nathan chuckled. “You might be right about the keeping your mouth shut part,” he teased. “But that’s what I love about you. And as for the luncheon…”

As he spoke, he suddenly took an exit off of the highway. I furrowed my brow and sat up as he pulled down a side road and into a fast food joint. “Hungry already?” I asked.

“Yep.” He grinned and pulled into the drive through, then leaned out the window to speak to the young girl manning the cash register. “Two ice cream cones, please.”

“Nathan, I don’t need—”

“Who said either one of them is for you?” Nathan smirked at me from his seat as he paid the girl.

I couldn’t help but laugh myself and sink a little further down into my seat, shaking my head at his childlike smile over ice cream.

Somehow, even after all these years, he still grinned the same way he did when we were seven.