Half Truths (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) (13 page)

She reached her
floor, walking down the long hallway until she came to her one-bedroom
apartment at the end of it. Unlocking her front door with a twist of her wrist,
she dumped her bag and coat onto the small table next to the door, kicking her
work shoes off and running her feet through the thick shag carpet she’d had
lain last winter. She sighed. There was nothing better than this after a long
day at work.

Padding into her
more than spacious kitchen, she snagged the bottle of red she’d had on her
counter since last weekend and poured herself a glass. Listlessly, she wandered
over to her answering machine to listen to the message patiently blinking at
her. No doubt it was her mother.

‘Hi Honey. It’s
your mum. I was just checking in to see how you were. Call me back.’ The
message ended; Larissa hitting the delete button before sinking into the
overstuffed couch with her glass of wine. Her head rolled back against the
cushion; her eyes sliding shut just for a moment until something brushed past
her leg.

‘Hello Oscar,’
she mumbled, her eyes still closed. Oscar meowed in response, rubbing past her
legs just once more before jumping up into her lap. She scratched under his
chin, making him purr. And it was as simple as that. He didn’t care that she’d
been away all day working. All he wanted was a cuddle and a scratch.

She took another
sip from her glass, set it onto the coffee table next to the couch, and picked
up the phone.

‘Mum, it’s me,’
she said exhaustedly into the phone when her mother answered.

‘Larissa, Honey?
You sound tired. Been busy with work?’

Larissa took
another mouthful of wine. ‘Yeah. Work has been crazy.’

‘You know you’ll
never meet a nice man if you keep working such long hours,’ her mother chastised,
laughing nervously to disguise it as only a joke, but Larissa heard her intent.

Larissa ignored
the gibe. ‘It’s only been a little over a week since I started working with the
detective squad. They don’t seem to work regular hours,’ she replied, rubbing
her eyes with the back of her hand.

‘Well, are there
any nice men you’re working with at least?’ her mother pressed.

Larissa
scratched the back of Oscar’s neck. ‘There is one,’ she admitted.

‘And have you
asked him out on a date yet?’

‘Mum!’

‘What? Can’t you
just ask him out?’

Larissa sighed,
pushing Oscar off her lap and getting up to refill her wine glass. Holding the
phone between her shoulder and ear, she uncorked the bottle. ‘It’s not as
simple as that.’ A little wine spilled down the edge of the glass, making a red
ring form on the granite bench.

‘And why not?
He’d be a fool if he didn’t find you attractive.’

Larissa tore off
a square of paper towel and mopped up. ‘It’s not that. I don’t think … I don’t
think I’m ready yet.’ There, she had said it. The words were out.

Her mother’s
sigh on the end of the line was audible and not wholly unexpected. ‘Larissa,
it’s been three years,’ she said in
that
tone.

‘I know,’ she
whispered back. She was still standing at the kitchen bench, bottle in hand,
staring down at the plain gold band she still wore on her ring finger. ‘I don’t
know if I can open myself up to that kind of pain again.’

‘Larissa,’ her
mother began, exasperated. ‘Brad died. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘But he left me
so alone. I needed him. I
still
need him. I can’t imagine letting that
happen again. I think it would break me if it did,’ she finished, silently
thankful her voice hadn’t cracked during her confession.

The sound of
rumpling clothes came over the line; her mother was settling in for the long
haul. ‘You know what, Larissa?’

‘What?’ she
sniffled, hating that the tears had come despite how strong her voice had been.
Oscar jumped up onto the kitchen counter and rubbed against her arm—comforting
her in the only way he knew how. His citrine-yellow eyes watched her carefully
before he finally began washing his paw.

‘I always knew
you two were going to be together. Do you remember the first day we moved to
Buxton?’

Larissa cleared
her throat. ‘Yeah. The truck with all our stuff in it broke down on the way and
couldn’t get repaired until the next day.’

Her mother
laughed—the sound filling Larissa with an overwhelming feeling of
contentedness. ‘That’s right. We had to camp out in the living room with
sleeping bags borrowed from the new neighbours. That was the first time Brad
slept over, but it certainly wasn’t the last. Larissa, honey, Brad loved you
from the moment he saw you. And I believe that he will always love you.’ She
sighed again. ‘I just think it’s time to let him go.’

‘I could never do
that,’ she whispered in a hoarse voice.

‘I don’t mean
forget about him. I just mean let him go. He’s gone now, but his memory will
last on in your heart. You will always remember him, and nobody can take that
away from you.’

Larissa sunk
back onto the couch, pulling her legs up underneath her body and cradling her
wine glass to her chest. ‘What if I’m not ready to let him go?’ she whispered,
barely able to hear the words herself.

‘Are you still
wearing his ring, Larissa?’

She could just
picture the stern look on her mother’s porcelain face. ‘Yes.’

‘Don’t you think
it’s time you took it off? This will be the first step for you, but you have to
want it. Now, I know what you’re going to say, but let me say this first: that
ring is not Brad.’

‘I know it’s
not, but it was his,’ she replied in a breathy voice. Her hand shook as she
took another sip from her glass.

‘Yes, it was,
but it’s not him. You don’t love the ring. You love it because it meant
something to Brad. Take it off Larissa. Can you do that for me?’

She cleared her
throat, the tears still threatening to strangle the sound from her throat.
‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Good. That’s
all I ask right now. Honey, I’ll let you go so you can get some sleep. You
really do sound exhausted.’

‘Alright. Thanks
mum. I’ll speak to you again in a couple of days.’

‘I love you, Honey.’

‘Love you, too,’
she replied, not putting the receiver down until she heard the click from her
mother hanging up first. Setting the phone back into the cradle, she staggered
to the bathroom to run the bath. She just needed to be submerged for a while.
She needed all the thoughts in her head to just float away until she could
collect them all together again and make a decision.

Oscar followed
her into the bathroom, jumping onto the side of the bath to watch the water
fill the tub while Larissa undressed. Exhaustion rolled through her body,
causing her muscles to ache and her head to pound. This day had been the
longest she had ever had. And to top it all off, she now had to consider doing
something that would tear her heart out of her chest.

For months now,
Larissa had known that she should take the ring off. She was giving off the
wrong signals, giving men the wrong idea about her. She was single. She
deserved to be happy. But there was one thought that always came back to her:
Brad would never be happy again. He would never have the life he’d meant to
have. He would never know the feeling of holding their first child in his arms,
or giving away their daughter on her wedding day. He would never know because
he’d been dead and buried for three years now. Grief had a funny way of
controlling her life, but she was determined to get it back.

She turned off
the taps, testing the water with her hand first before stepping into the tub,
carefully lowering herself down until the hot water lapped at the top of her
breasts. Idly she fingered the ring, suddenly finding it heavy on her hand.
Lifting her hand out of the water, she looked at the thick yellow gold band
sitting on her left hand. She twisted it nervously. Could she take it off? Her
mother was right—she knew that—but talking about doing one thing and actually
doing it were two different things.

Exhaling, she
grasped the ring in her right hand, inching it slowly off her finger. It glided
effortlessly over her knuckle, landing heavily in her palm. She hadn’t taken it
off in three, long years, and suddenly felt naked without it. She put it on the
side of the tub and stared at it. Oscar meowed at her.

‘Yeah, I know. I
never take it off. I’m just trying something out, okay?’

He meowed again
then walked out the bathroom door that she had left ajar; his tail trailing out
after him like a wisp of smoke. Larissa closed her eyes, her head rolling to
face forward again. Her memories of Brad came as soon as she had shut her eyes,
but something was wrong. Brad had grey and blue eyes in her memory, but that
wasn’t right. Brad’s eyes had been the same shade of green as hers.

Her eyes sprang
open, her breath heaving in and out of her lungs. She stayed that way until her
pulse settled, and closed her eyes again. Like before, memories of Brad flooded
her subconscious, but the details of his face were different. It wasn’t Brad as
she remembered him. His hair was a lighter shade of blond, his jaw more
angular. With a jolt, she realised what was wrong with this version of Brad. It
wasn’t Brad at all. It was Vaile. She was thinking of Vaile, but it felt …
right to be thinking of him.

Larissa looked
over at the ring again. Maybe that was why she couldn’t think about anything but
Brad. When she wore his ring, his memory burned into her like a tick burrowing
into her skin until she had no choice but to recognise it. The need to have it
back on her hand, to feel the slight weight of the gold was still calling to
her, but her mother’s words came back even more loudly now.

Brad is not
the ring.

‘Larissa?’ a
familiar voice called from outside the bathroom.

She looked
towards the open door. Vaile was standing there, and he had called her by her
first name. Heat brushed her cheeks; suddenly aware she was nude. But the
strange thing was she didn’t feel the need to cover herself up in front of him.

‘Yes?’ she
replied. He came further into the bathroom, his bare feet moving soundlessly on
the tiles. His shoulders were so wide, so muscular that she wondered whether
she could get her arms around them. There was just so much of him. And she
wanted to touch every inch of his skin. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked
when he simply stood there, staring down at her with a longing in his constantly
shifting eyes.

‘I wanted to
talk to you about what you said to me at the diner.’

She smiled,
knowing exactly what he was talking about, but unable to resist having a little
fun with him. ‘And what did I say to you at the diner?’ she teased.

A small smile
revealed the dimple in his cheek that she loved to see. ‘You said that you
liked me.’

‘Yes.’

‘You weren’t
lying to me, were you?’

‘I never lie,’
she countered, opening her legs a little—experimentally—rippling the water
around the tops of her knees. Vaile’s eyes darted towards the movement, and
when he looked up, hunger burned in his ice-blue eyes.

‘You’re playing
a dangerous game with me, Larissa. I’m no good for you,’ he growled, taking
another step closer before sinking down onto his knees beside the tub.

‘I know what I’m
doing. I know what I want,’ she replied in a breathy whisper.

Vaile licked his
lips, his eyes smouldering slowly as he dragged his molten gaze up her body.
‘And what do you want?’ he asked; his voice rough.

She held his
eyes for a long time, enjoying how they changed colour. ‘You, Vaile. I want
you.’ The fire that had been burning in his eyes before turned into an inferno.
He leaned forward, taking her face in his hands and kissed her roughly.
Desperation made her melt into him until she was being lifted out of the water,
her whole being cradled against his huge, hard chest. Vaile’s mouth consumed
hers as he took her towards her bedroom.

He pushed open
the door, shoving it closed behind him with his leg. Larissa moaned into his
mouth, Vaile mirroring the sound. He lowered her down onto the bed, straddling
her hips and, somehow, he was already naked.

‘How?’ she said,
but Vaile only smiled at her making her forget her words.

Her phone began
to ring.

‘You should get
that,’ he murmured, leaning down to nibble her earlobe.

‘Forget about
it,’ she said in a rush; her breath leaving her as he bit down onto her ear,
sending shivers across every inch of her skin.

Her phone was
still ringing.

Vaile stopped
what he was doing. Positioning himself on his elbows, he looked down at her.
‘You should get that, Larissa.’

‘It will go to
the answering service,’ she replied, frowning and trying to reach for him
again.

‘Answer the
phone,’ he said in a hard voice.

Larissa’s eyes
flew open. Water sloshed out of the tub and onto the towel on the floor as she
jerked out of one of the best dreams she’d had in a long, long time. Panting,
she looked around her bathroom. The shrill ring of her phone split the silence
open once more. Leaning over the tub, she frantically looked through her
pockets until she found her phone. By now the floor was soaking wet, but she
would have to worry about that later because Vaile was calling her.

‘Hello …’ she
asked, the phone slipping out of her hand. She cursed, picking it up again.
‘Hello? Hello?’ she said again, her heart pounding too loudly in her ears. She
swallowed her pulse.

‘Grey? Are you
alright?’ Vaile’s voice was a rough pleasure to her ears; flashes of the dream
coming back at the front of her skull.

She swallowed
the blush. ‘Yes, I’m fine. What’s wrong?’

‘Where are you?
There’s an echo.’

Embarrassment
seized her again. ‘I’m … ah … I’m in the bath.’