The Rogue

XXXV

*Faye*

The kitchen smelled wonderful. I knew instantly that my mom was making spaghetti, my favorite dish. My stomach growled hungrily. It had been far too long since I'd tasted her cooking. I wandered into the the kitchen and spotted my mom standing at the stove with my dad behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist. They had been inseparable since we'd returned home from Nevada.

A pang shot through my chest, and my hand instinctively rose to cradle the ache. We had been home for nearly a week now, but it was like every day that passed and brought me closer to the normal life I once had...made me feel more restless and uncomfortable than I had ever been. Even when I had been locked up in Maxen's apartment. I knew why, too.

This place was supposed to be my home. My parents were here. My friends were here. Every childhood memory I cherished had taken place either in the walls of this house or the streets that surrounded it. It should have felt like home. But it didn't.

I remembered stepping through the front door after my mom had picked my dad and I up from the airport. I'd been anxiously waiting to feel my sense of security return to me, desperately needing my home to breathe a fresh breath of air back into my lungs. Unfortunately, the release never came. I had been hoping the feeling would pass with the days, assuming the tension I felt in my mind and muscles was just a result of the last few days. Well, it wasn't.

That was how I knew that this house and these people weren't even my home anymore. The last two places I'd lived in didn't feel like home. Maxen's apartment resembled more of a prison cell to me, and now my childhood resting place no longer gave me rest. I could only think of the last place I really felt like me. Or, rather, the last person who made me feel like myself.

Rian.

Part of me wanted to curse him and punch him and yell at him for trying to kill my dad. Clearly, there was something inside of him that needed to be resolved. Even if my dad had led an attack on Rian and Maxen, he did it to protect me. Not to mention my dad was human, and a direct assault from Rian would certainly kill him. It nearly had.

Then there was the other part of me. This was the side of myself that had been wrestling with my heart since I boarded that plane five days ago. I missed him. I didn't want to let myself feel it, because it seemed weak to forgive him so quickly. But seeming weak didn't matter to me anymore. I was weak, and I knew I wouldn't get any better unless I forgave him.

He had come to me in my dreams every night in the last few days. Every dream ended the way I wished it would: back in his arms. Sometimes we would be fighting. Sometimes we would be curled up in his bed or on the couch or in the middle of the forest. Sometimes it would be just me and his wolf.

I wondered if this was the anima bond. If it was, it had surely taken long enough to take action. That was why I didn't really believe it was the bond. It should have been there to coerce me back into his arms all along, not just after the chaos settled and I was left alone. No, I believed it might have been love. I did love him. In spite of his violent tempers and beastly other half, he was a strong leader who loved his people and felt for them. Although the members of his pack so often doubted his capability to be Alpha, even his own family, I knew he would make it.

So why didn't I support him better? Why didn't I try harder? I was crushed to think he might have mistaken my behavior for indifference or something worse, but I had just been confused. The wolf world was entirely beyond me. It was only now, from a great distance, that I could make any sense of it.

Dinner that night was delicious. Rhonda and Kate, my best friends, joined us. After I'd eased their concerns, mostly the ones about how I'd fled almost overnight across the country without any warning with a boy I hardly knew, we almost felt normal again. Rhonda joked and giggled. Kate gave me the skinny on everyone. We talked about college and their freshman orientations, which had been the hardest part for me.