Jaws clamp down, not breaking skin because the Nature of my Wild can’t, letting the Luna back away. This won’t right the wrong that was done to me. This will only haunt us for the rest of our lives. Instead, the Wild turns her back, and the Luna begs to be sent to the moon. A streak of black takes the neck, ripping it away easily. Luna Grace doesn’t believe in second chances. She finishes the Luna in one quick bite and pull. Her muzzle is saturated with the blood of a rival. The Wild tries to back away from her, only stumbling on a paw that doesn’t want to work properly.
She touches her nose with mine before bounding away.
A body presses into hers, cheek rubbing into our flank, up along our injured shoulder, a tongue trying to lick the wound better. His fur brushes along her fur. A soft gentle growl comes out of his chest into hers. It’s a soothing, relaxing sound.
He presses the Wild down into a lying position, belly flat against the earth as he takes in the injuries, whining at the worst ones. A lip lifts, exposing teeth as he growls at the former dead Alpha. He’s rubbing against my Wild, saturating his smell into the fur.
Without my consent, without Dallas’s consent, the Wild in me marks him as hers. It’s a quick strike to his neck. Dallas has no time to react. Small glimmers of thoughts start to penetrate our soul, wrapping around us like twine that binds us loosely together. She holds this wolf tight, not willing to let him go until we feel his sadness. That’s when her jaw releases with a high-pitched whine.
Great pounding sadness washes against us as the last ties of his mate slips away from him. He wasn’t prepared for that to happen. Dallas has been holding onto that last flicker of light for so long. Even after his mark faded, he still had that last little goodness to grasp on his darkest days.
Now I have ruined it, destroyed that last little bliss he has of her. He can never get that back. How can I be forgiven?
I can’t breathe. What my wolf has done is unforgivable in my eyes. She starts to regress into herself as I make the shift from fur to skin. My arm hangs loosely at my side now. I get up, walking away from all this death and loss.
This is all my fault…
His eyes look like they could cry. His body is shaking slightly with the full loss. A sorrowful wolf song starts to rise from his throat, and his family follows his cries in mourning.
My mom’s words come back to haunt me.
He can be claimed.
The dark hides my shame of what the wolf has just done to him, taking away his most precious gift.
He doesn’t follow me. He doesn’t say anything. It’s his turn to hold onto the earth, fingers gripping tight to dirt that just crumbled in his hands.
His grief is too powerful at the moment. It’s an epic loss that’s hard to recover from.
Chapter 16
Love Hurts
My nose is above water, my lips below. The arm that’s injured is on my stomach as my other arm is buoyant, floating beside me. The water’s warmth surrounds me, while his cold, broken soul freezes my insides. Arctic waves of iced fury rock my foundation. It’s a burning cold pain, dry ice steaming and smoking.
He’s scorching and searing me with his anger.
What have I done?
The water only moves with my intake of breath, little waves hitting the side of the white porcelain walls. A hammer in my gut strikes hard. It’s almost as if I can see the flash of steel on metal. I groan to myself. It echoes in this closed-up little room. I can only sense the most powerful emotions from him, but they are thundering loudly. I can’t protect myself from their rumbling.
Our canvas is starting off now with the ugly colors, painted by me. Always I have the worst to offer.
My body rises slightly in the water as I inhale and sinks slowly down with the exhale. My arm hurts so bad that even with his ice hatred of me at the moment, my wound is overwhelming me. The water is the color of diluted cherry Kool-Aid. The wound still bleeds slightly. I don’t care. Let me bleed.
Blackened ice is replaced now with grief’s pain, its ivy circling around my spine, climbing up to my neck, constricting me tight. He can’t breathe.
I’m not sure what hurts more: the complete hatred or the bottomless grief he’s going through. I think I choose hatred; I can deal with that much better than his grief. It’s as if he had the last photo of her face and I just destroyed it. Never will he have that picture again.
What have I done?
Love only hurts. The only love that I have known causes the worst kind of pain and destruction.
Sinking into the warmth, I just want to stay here.
He won’t block himself from me. There’s no bricked-up bitter room that he’s hiding behind. He’s letting me feel all of this.
Getting up, I sway with the pain. Good, let it sway me. I deserve this. I’m the lowest of the low, marking someone when I have a mate.
What have I done?
Why? I want to scream at the mirror. Instead, I whisper it—why?
The wolf is not understanding. She only feels bad for me. Not for what she has done. If given the opportunity, she’d do the same thing over and over again.
Drying off, I put on my robe so I can get to my wound easier. I put a towel there to soak up the blood still dribbling out.
A knock on the door has me taking little quiet breaths. A harder bang comes next, followed by a bigger bang.
“I know you’re in there. I followed the trail of blood.” I think it’s Cash behind the locked door.
“We can do this very easy—you open this door up—or we can do this the hard way. I just come in.” Before I even answer him, a hard crash creaks the foundations of the home.
“I’m coming!” I scream back. I leave the bathroom quickly before he decides to let himself in.
Opening it up, he looks around my small place. I hold my arm against my chest with my other hand. He takes a seat at my table, as if I just invited him in for a cup of tea.
“He sent me over to make sure you’re okay. Let’s see it.” He motions with his finger to come to him. He stays sitting on the chair.
“No.”
Well, it’s obvious he doesn’t like that answer by the hard line that furrows his brows.
“We can do this easy or hard. Your choice. I either see that injury or I make you show me that injury. I don’t have the time for this or the patience.” He’s not the same wolf I met for dinner at his brother’s house.
This wolf is angry, mad, and raging.
Just a second hesitation on my part is all that’s needed for him to be up and on me. He pulls down my robe to expose the sliced tendon. It’s a deep wound, meant to immobilize, not kill. His fingers poke around while I sway with blood rushing in my ears. My vision darkens slightly. He has to hold me up as I cry out in pain, my legs giving out underneath me. He supports my weight, sitting me down on the chair.
“I might get sick.” I can’t move, so he hands me a cup that’s on the table. He just stares at me with eyes that aren’t seeing me. He must be mind-linking with his brother.
“He says you should be fine. You need to rest and not move around too much. Don’t come to work until Thursday. He’ll have Aurora reschedule all your appointments.”
Tears pooling from eyes that can’t hold the salty water any longer, he looks up at the ceiling, exhaling a breath.
“Does he hate me?” His eyes go glossy again.
“At the moment, he’s very upset with you.”
“Tell him I’m sorry.” I lay my head on the table, shoulders shaking.
“I’m not your go-between. I came here to check on you for him. Whatever else you two need, work out yourselves. I’m done. I have enough to deal with.” He pounds his fist on the table, a growl tumbling out.
“How long!” His voice sounds tight in his throat while he sits back down on the chair.
“What?” I’m confused by his question.
“How long have they been together?”
“Since they pulled their first breath from their mother
s’ wombs.” I see his jaw clench tight, teeth groaning in pressure not to explode in his mouth. He picks up a chair, throwing it against my wall. It goes through my drywall.
Love is hard.
“What did you do? Why didn’t he claim you?” His accusations hit me hard.
“I wasn’t her.” Another tear rolls down my cheek, but he doesn’t care.
“No, you’re not her.” Another fist pounds the table hard, the legs shaking underneath the violence.
He crosses his arms in front of him. He looks like restrained fury. Calm body, thunderous eyes.
Taking a few breaths, he sets the storms of sight on me.
“This just isn’t right.” He’s growling out his words, still holding my gaze hard, his whole body vibrating with its own life.
“No, it isn’t, but it doesn’t mean you can make it right again.” I can’t look away from him.
“Your opportunity is now. It’s what you do with this opportunity that matters. The past is gone, it’s already been lived, and it can’t be changed, ever. You have a choice to make.” I give him stuff that I’ve read in some self-help books. Hopefully, this helps him. His body stills, eyes closed, and he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“What kind of wolf is she?” he says quietly.
This is my chance to taint it from the start, rub salty words into his exposed soul, but I won’t.
“I never really knew her, but what I felt from others, she was liked. She had friends. She was popular. She could make people laugh. She’s beautiful. Her parents loved her. She doesn’t have any siblings, the only child.” He stares at the floor.
“She’s loyal to the people she loves.” That just hurt my heart to say.
“She’s been as respectful to me as she could. It was only in the end that she wasn’t what she was. She was twisting up inside. Made her say or do things that really wasn’t her. She was as nice to me as she could be.” He just sits and listens, holding himself just a little tighter. A sad look in his eye replaces the storm.
“I could smell her as soon as we got to the clinic. Can you even imagine what that was like for me, seeing my mate with her throat opened up?”
I just shake my head no. I feel as if this is all my fault. Guilt is building inside me. Do I have any silver in this house? It’s just a fleeting thought.
“This male that I don’t know pulls out his phone. He’s crying. He’s yelling into the phone, telling someone that Kennedy is hurt, they need to come, and it’s all his fault. That’s when I went after him, telling him she’s my mate.” His fist pounds my table again.
How much can this table bear before it breaks?
“He could have killed me. Do you know how that feels?” Instead, he just let me punch him once. Then he just held onto me, restraining me. He told me he was sorry, and in the end, he hopes he gets what’s coming to him.” Cash is visibly shaking again. The eye of the storm is done, and the tail end is coming around hard.
“I start to put the pieces together in my head, everything that I heard about this pack. About him, you, her.” Another fist pounds against the wood, shaking the foundation of the ancient masterpiece. The quality of workmanship stands strong against fists of iron. They don’t make things like this anymore—strong, sturdy, able to take a beating, not bending from all the pressure.
Another pounding fist on the table and his knuckles split open, but the table remains upright. Some kind of emotion shadows in his eyes before he gets up.
He reaches into his pocket, pulling out two white pills. “He said to take them. They’ll let you sleep.” He goes to the sink, turning on the water as he looks into my cupboard for glasses.
“I’m not going to take them.”
“Rya, either you take them, or I make you take them. Either way, you take them.” He just stands there with his outstretched hands toward me.
“Cash, I’m not sure who you think you are—” He’s on me again, shoving the pills in my mouth, handing me the glass of water. Waiting for me to swallow. If I don’t, somehow I think he will make me, so I swallow those pills down.
My injury opens back up, fresh blood saturating the robe’s material. He takes some napkins, pulling down my robe to hold pressure on the wound, muttering curses to himself, to me, about the situation.
Swatting his hand away, I take the bloodied napkins from him. He sits there at the table and puts his head in his hands. He’s lost in his own thoughts. A rumbling wave of anger rolls through me again from Dallas, but then there is this little gentle wave of pleasure now coming from him. I almost missed the feeling. I would have if I wasn’t staying so concentrated on his emotions. That pleasure leaves quickly, replaced by guilt.
This medication is very slow to start working, but like a train that’s trying to stop, my mind is slowly shutting off. That moving train is stopping in place. I can see how people love this, I think, laying my head on the couch, closing my eyes. I can hear the door open and close, but I just can’t get up to lock it. I can’t move, my limbs heavy as cement, anchoring me down into the couch.
Hazy drug-induced visions swarm. Who lit the fireplace? Did I?
A blanket covers me on the couch. My eyelids are just too heavy to keep open. Dallas’s gentle voice is in my ear. “Go back to sleep.” I do easily.
I’m being carried, my robe coming off my body. A low vibration of sound hits my body. I try to open my eyes, but it’s hard to start a train that has completely stopped. It takes a lot of effort that I don’t have at the moment. The medication I was given has left me useless, unable to even open my eyes.
I feel him pressed up against my side. His nose is against my neck, inhaling.
I can’t feel clothes on him. All I feel is skin against skin. His mouth is on the spot that should be marked, pulling the skin in and sucking hard. I feel his excitement against me. I can’t even moan, but I am excited by this.
“My mother says it would stay, says you’re very special, Rya. Should I mark you now, take your choice away?” He’s over top of me now. All I can smell is his hunger for me. Lick your lips good.
This male wolf is rubbing his scent into my body, his cheek along my shoulder, trying to press as much of himself into me as he can. A growl, teeth scraping my stomach that will leave red lines. He’s just above my hairline, sucking the skin there, leaving red hickeys in his mouth’s wake. Everywhere he’s touching me he’s leaving behind a trail of red. He doesn’t stop until all I smell is him all over my skin. You can’t wash this off easily. It will need to fade on its own.
My eyes open to the low light of the morning. His head has left an impression on the pillow. His spot is still warm as I let my hand feel the fading heat. All I smell is a male’s mating hormones all over the place. It’s heavy on the tongue. It’s impossible not to notice this pungent odor. It overrides every other scent on the body.
I’m completely naked underneath the blankets. I touch myself down below, thinking I feel like I have been taken. No blood, no pain when I rub my legs together. I am slightly wet when my fingers come out; my virtue is still there.
I get up. My tongue feels thick and dry. I can’t swallow my own saliva.
Opening the tap up, I put some water in my hand and drink from it. As I wipe my chin, I look into the mirror. My breath stops.
What has he done? I have hickeys all over my body, along with teeth lines that have slid down my skin. I turn my body. At least he left my backside alone. My inner thighs, lower abdomen, and chest are littered with them. I check my neck; there are no claim marks. What did his mother mean his mark would stay? Did I imagine that?
I put on some very comfortable clothes; my arm still doesn’t want to work properly. The white bulky bandage he put on it is held securely with tape.
On the table, there is a water bottle, a small medication bottle with a few pills in it, and a note.
We need to talk, just not yet.
That’s all it says, nothing else.
He doesn’t come back the next night or t
he next. He doesn’t call me; he doesn’t check up on me. When I try to call him, it goes to voice mail, so I stop trying to call.
There’s nothing else from him anymore, no more iced pain, or raging grief, nothing. He’s turned off the show.
When I walk into the clinic on Thursday, only my females are waiting for me. No other patients are there.
“Aurora, where’s Dr. Valentine?” I finally manage to ask around lunchtime.
“He took the next two days off. Lots for him to do and figure out, he told me.” I nod as if I understand.
“Rya, I’m supposed to tell you that he’s hosting a pack barbecue, and he expects everyone to attend. It’s Saturday at three.” I just walk away, tending to the various pregnant females.
Friday has me finishing the rest of my paperwork as the last patient leaves. I didn’t see Kimberly this week. I will have to see what’s going on and why she didn’t come to a scheduled appointment.
A groan hits my ears; it’s deep and full of pain. His cries stand the fur on end. He’s slowly waking up for very short periods of time before they drug him back into a sleep of healing.
This is an example of why doctors are worth their weight in gold. What’s supposed to have died, they are able to keep alive.” Clayton’s smell to me is of pain and hurt. Instinct wants to drive me to his room, but my mind keeps me away. He never came and helped me long ago.
Aurora’s coming out of his room, carrying some vile-looking blood-soaked dressings. I see him then. His hands are restrained by thick leather attached at his wrists. He’s on his stomach, sweat making his hair stick to his head. His lips are trembling, back exposed. He has no back; it just looks like ground-up meat. His eyes find mine, and I stop for a moment before he picks his head up and looks away from me. I can see his shoulders shake as if he’s crying.
Pain like this has no peak. It doesn’t stop in an hour; it holds your body hostage until you just wish for your death.
Clayton (The Wildflower Series Book 1) Page 13
