But the boy had run. She had never seen him or Shadow again. She’d searched in vain for them the following summer—her last visit to Minnesota. And then she’d had to give up the woods, her sanctuary, for a life of pain.
But the boy had found her. Here. And she’d made him another promise only yesterday, without knowing to whom she made it—a promise to the wolf who had survived against all the odds. “No matter what you are, or what happens I’ll help you. I promise.”
No mere fairy tale, Alex thought. This was beginning to take on the proportions of an epic myth. A boy who was not a boy had remembered her offer of help and tracked her down all these years later, his past a mystery and his nature an impossibility. Because of that same meeting, she’d become a wolf researcher, returning to the very place they’d first met.
It was more than myth. It was a miracle. A miracle dropped in the lap of a woman who hadn’t been a believer in a very long time.
Alex inhaled and fought down the panic. “What happened to you, Kieran Holt? How did you find me?” The questions sounded desperate, as if she could make a cage of them to trap fear and hold it at bay. “Were you here all along, waiting for me?”
He shook his head, tossing black hair dusted with melting snow. His voice changed, took on a harsher note like a growl. “I don’t remember. It’s all… dark.” He passed his hand over his eyes. “I only know that you were there when—”
He broke off. Alex watched his face become a mask of pain and bewilderment, as if he had become that boy again—the boy who had mourned for murdered wolves.
Shadow’s parents. Wolves that surely hadn’t been wolves at all, but like him. His parents, murdered almost before his eyes. Alex hugged herself, seeing it all in her mind. And seeing another death, another time she’d broken a promise to save someone she had loved, too weak and too afraid.
Mother…
Warmth touched her. Kieran’s hand, closing around her arm, pulling her back to the present. His grip was gentle, but it trapped her completely. She went very still.
“I can’t remember what happened,” he rasped. “You were there, Alexandra. You will help me.”
Help me. The boy’s last words to her—and the man’s first. She met his gaze. His eyes hadn’t changed. They were still Shadow’s. She had stroked Shadow, touched him, loved him. Yesterday and a thousand years ago.
“There is something I must understand,” he said. “Something I must find.”
Had it been yesterday that she’d wished Shadow were human with all the noble qualities of a wolf? Fairy tales were real, and her wish had come true. Crazy, crazy wish.
“Alexandra,” he said—a plea in that vibrant, unpracticed voice.
His eyes. She must focus on his eyes and not the rest of him; the human shape that overwhelmed her with too many emotions, too many impossibilities. “How?” she asked hoarsely. “How can I help you?”
He was silent for a long while, the struggle for memory visible in his face. Incredibly open, that face. In an animal feelings would show in tilt of ears and tail. Wolves always broadcast their intentions to their fellow pack-mates; such signals fostered peace and cooperation and reduced misunderstanding.
He’s not a man…
“I was a wolf when I came here,” Kieran said. “I have forgotten… how to be human.”
Alex choked on a laugh. “You want me to teach you how to be human?”
Abruptly he released her, looking away at something only he could see. Something that hurt. “I must be a man to remember. To understand.”
And you think being human will help you understand anything? Alex wrapped her arms around herself. That she, of all people, should be asked to teach a wolf how to be a man…
“There is no one else.”
No, it wasn’t a plea. He had too much dignity for that, Shadow/Kieran. He spoke as Shadow would, as Shadow had with everything but human language.
He waited before her now, the boy she’d never had a chance to know or to help. Kieran Holt and Shadow. Wolf and not wolf, human and inhuman.