by Amira Rain
With another sigh, Mark raked a hand through his hair. "I don't know what I thought. I'm sorry."
I was sorry that he was even apologizing.
"It's fine. But can we just move on from talking about my family? I just don't want to dwell on the subject anymore."
"I understand. So, just let me switch gears and ask you this, to help me continue to get to know you a little better and build my trust in you. Do you in any way believe what the Angels are fighting for? Do you in any way believe in a cause that has resulted in innocent people being killed and others enslaved?"
Again, I didn't even hesitate a moment in my response, because it was the truth. "No. I don't believe in the Angels' cause in any way. I don't believe in what they're fighting for, and I don't believe that the things that they do are right. In fact, I think most of the Angels are pure evil...and that's not what's in my heart. All that's ever driven me is love. I swear that to you."
"But you truly don't love Dylan? You've never had any kind of a relationship with him? Not on a physical level or an emotional one?"
I had to bite back a laugh. "I'd just about rather die than ever be touched in a sexual way by Dylan. And as far as any kind of an emotional relationship with him, all I can say is that I've never had any feelings of love for him. Ever."
"Then, why, the first time we were in this kitchen together, did you fight so wildly to-"
"I don't know. I really don't know, Mark." I cringed inwardly, hating that I was lying to him. "I just don't know."
He searched my face for a long moment before speaking again. "Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome? Where a person who is abducted ends up sympathizing with their captor, and maybe even develops a sense of loyalty to him or her?"
"I don't have Stockholm Syndrome. I'm aware of what it is, and I think I was able to fight it off the entire time I was with the Angels. For the most part, anyway. For...well, for the most part."
I hadn't really meant to admit that truth, that I felt like I'd avoided Stockholm Syndrome only for the most part, but it had just kind of come out. But now I didn't want to say any more.
"Look, Mark...can we just change the subject? I just want to talk about something else right now. Just something other than Stockholm Syndrome, Dylan, and the Angels. I don't love Dylan and never have; I don't love any other Angel and never have, same for all their shifters, too; I don't believe in the Angels' cause; and I didn't develop Stockholm Syndrome during my time with them, or at least not more than the tiniest touch of it, and I guess I just don't want to say anything else about those subjects."
Lest my habit of revealing truths, I thought, even when I didn't necessarily mean to or want to, ended up blowing my whole plan of getting Mark to trust me fully so I could escape.
Now he was looking at me with his expression unreadable once again. Unreadable except for maybe a touch of wariness in his eyes.
"You are a tough one, Paulina. I'm starting to trust you more and more, and I believe all that you've told me here this evening, but at the same time...."
At the present time, my palms were beginning to sweat.
"'At the same time' what?"
Mark opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then closed it and gave his head a little shake before trying again. "I think we've made some progress here. That's all that matters. Baby steps."
Just then, Rocky came padding into the kitchen with his nails, which I planned to trim soon, making tiny little clicking noises on the linoleum.
I looked from him to Mark, smiling. "Right on cue...baby steps. Get it? His. Because he's the baby. Because we both like to baby him so much. Right?"
Groaning, though clearly fighting a grin at the same time, Mark rose from his seat, lifting me up and setting me on my feet along with him. "That is not entirely true. But I'll tell you what. If your cooking tastes as good as it smells, I'll agree to anything you say."
Smiling at him over my shoulder, I went to get oven mitts to take the lasagna out of the oven. "Deal."
I turned my back to him to put the mitts on so that he wouldn't see combination of pain, anxiety, and guilt that I was certain was present in my eyes.
*
A few weeks passed. Mark and I continued to grow closer, making love frequently and having long talks about our interests, the village, and life in general. However, I couldn't help that our growing closeness was somehow false in a way, maybe even in a major way, because obviously I was holding back from him.
I was not only holding back important information about my past, like how I'd wound up fighting for the Angels; I was also holding back from telling him my future plans, specifically my plan to escape the village and return to Dylan.
I didn't feel like I could abandon it, though. I couldn't just simply give up, throw in the towel, and abandon a chance to have my family resurrected. There was no possible way. Fortunately, Mark didn't ask me any more probing questions like he'd done the night I'd made the lasagna. This allowed my guilt and anxiety to plateau at a level that wasn't exactly comfortable for me, though at least I could mentally push it to the side and forget about it sometimes.
During these weeks, I also became closer to Rocky, Butterscotch, and Lily-Rose, knowing it was going to be just as hard to leave them as it was going to be to leave Mark. I could only hope and pray that once everything was all said and done, and all my family members had been resurrected, Mark would find it in his heart to forgive me and take me back, understanding why I'd done what I'd done.
If he couldn't understand and forgive me, I'd accept that, although I knew I'd be enjoying my new-found joy with my family with a large hole in my heart that I was pretty sure no other man could ever fill. I'd come to realize that I'd fallen in love with Mark, and deeper in love than I'd ever been in my life.
A couple of times during these few weeks, we barely had time to see each other for days at a time on account of Mark having to leave the village to deal with Angel trouble. Although Dylan and most of his fighters were thought to be remaining in New Bad Axe, he was periodically sending down large groups who'd try to attack, though usually, they didn't make it closer to the village than a mile before Mark and his North Haven fighters would meet them head-on, and at that point, most of the Angel fighters would turn tail and flee, heading north.
Mark thought it likely that Dylan was just experimenting, trying to find cracks in the village's defenses, or possibly even just trying to wear Mark and his fighters down via battle fatigue, though that didn't seem to be happening.
At any rate, one thing was clear, and that was that Dylan was feeling pretty bold, sending his fighters out time and time again with no apparent fear that this might cause Mark and his fighters to attack New Bad Axe in retaliation. I knew exactly why Dylan didn't fear this; he probably figured that I'd told Mark that there were too many women and children in New Bad Axe to ever attack the settlement without a good chance of innocents being hurt in the process.
And the truth was that I had told Mark this. I wasn't really worried about him and his fighters accidentally causing loss of innocent life in an attack, however, even though I realized this was a possibility. What I was more worried about was Dylan causing loss of innocent life by using the groups' women and children as human shields.
When one of our encampments had been attacked by a group of non-Angel wolf shifters, I'd actually seen him do this once, with one of his wives, one of his daughters, and the daughter of one of his low-ranking soldiers. Horrified, I'd come upon the scene to defend Dylan, removing his need for human shields, just in the nick of time before anyone had been hurt.
Mark had the feeling that at some point, Dylan was going to try to attack North Haven with every single one of his fighters in tow again, like he'd done the fateful day when I'd fallen unconscious during the battle. Mark didn't know exactly when Dylan might try this again, of course, only that he would, and I knew he was right.
Dylan hadn't conquered half the state of Michigan only to turn back
from the thumb, where he wanted to establish the capitol of his new empire. It just wasn't his style to give up on what he wanted, no matter how persistent he had to be.
Meanwhile, during these weeks of growing-though-not-entirely-genuine closeness with Mark, poor Christy seemed to be unraveling. She stopped and started her library project several times, stopped and started many other different projects several times, and could often be seen wandering the woods at the edge of the village alone, crying. Britt had told me this one day in private, while Christy had been painting a large mural on a sheet of particleboard in front of The Hub, muttering to herself about how she just needed to stay busy.
Naturally, everyone in the village felt terrible for her and wanted to help in some way, although none of us really knew how to do that, being that none of us could bring Nolan home to her. Several women brought her freshly-baked treats like cookies and muffins, hoping that she might become interested in food again, because she'd clearly lost several pounds, making her long, slender frame appear outright skinny.
Britt treated her to a shopping day in Temple, buying her shoes, a new top, and lunch. I tried to help her in some small way by inviting her to take long, relaxing walks with Rocky and me, but she was usually too involved in one project or another to take me up on my offers.
And even when she did walk with me, I got the feeling that she wasn't really with me, even though she often talked a mile a minute, telling me various details of all her different projects. Britt had noticed the same thing, and had told me that it seemed like Christy was "drifting away in some strange sort of way. She's here but she's not."
I totally got what Britt meant. Heartsick for Christy, I just didn't know what more any of us could really do for her, other than just continue to be her friends and try to support her in whatever ways we could.
In the back of my mind, I had an idea that once I was reunited with Dylan, maybe I could somehow get him to tell me if he knew what had happened to Nolan, and if he knew whether or not he was still alive. Then, if he was still alive, maybe I could get that information, along with a location, back to Christy while I was waiting for Dylan to resurrect my family.
Being that Nolan had apparently run into trouble while on a spy mission, and being that any enemy activity in any Angel camp in the state was always reported to Dylan eventually, something told me he'd at least be able to give me some information about Nolan.
Several more days passed, and when Mark and I had been together nearly a month, he arrived home from running patrol early one evening, bearing a beautiful, enormous bouquet of two dozen flawless red roses, which he presented to me with a sexy half-grin.
"I took off a bit early today and made a trip into Temple to get these, because I wanted to see your gorgeous green eyes light up like they're doing right now. My trip was well worth it."
With my heart melting, I cradled the roses, inhaling their sweet scent, then looked up at Mark, smiling. "Thank you. They're absolutely stunning. But what did I do to deserve these? You really got them for me 'just because?'"
With his delectable full lips still curving in a partial grin, he took the roses from me, set them on the counter, and then pulled me into his arms. "Yes. Just because I've fallen in love with you."
He'd never said that to me before. I'd never said it to him before, either, but I wanted to now.
"I've fallen in love with you, too."
Now it was Mark's turn to have lit-from-within eyes, and he lowered his mouth to mine and gave me a tender, lingering kiss before pulling away to look at my face again. "I was hoping you'd say something along those lines."
Rocky, who'd been scurrying around by our feet, periodically making short, deep, disgruntled-sounding little barks, as if he was put out that he wasn't getting attention, now tried a different tack, walking his front paws up the side of my leg, whining. Smiling, I extricated myself from Mark's arms and knelt next to Rocky, instantly transforming him from a whiner into a wriggling, ecstatically-barking ball of joy.
Laughing, I scratched his ears kind of forcefully, knowing he liked that. "Who's a jealous little guy? Is it you? Is it Rocky?"
Slobbering all over my face, he barked once, as if to say that it was him. He was a jealous little guy. However, he wasn't exactly little anymore. Though nowhere near being fully grown yet, Rocky was really becoming too big of a puppy to pick up and carry around, at least not easily.
All muscle and voracious appetite, it was seeming like he was going to be a hulk of a golden retriever, which was remarkable, considering that he'd been the sickly runt of his litter. I kept telling Mark that all he'd needed was a loving home and some serious babying, and Mark agreed. About the loving home part, anyway.
After giving him some love and cuddles, I looked up at Mark, asking if he could take him outside to play with the guards for a while. "It's just that when two people admit for the first time that they're in love with each other, I think they should immediately spend some time in the bedroom together to explore that love a little further. And you know how upset Rocky gets when he hears strange noises possibly related to love."
He hadn't yet outgrown his trembling problem, and in fact, Mark and I had also discovered that thunderstorms gave him the uncontrollable shakes, too. However, weirdly enough, the sound of roaring lions had no effect on him whatsoever, maybe just because they were fellow animals, I figured. He was a funny boy.
Even before I'd finished speaking, Mark had started guiding him to the sliding glass door by the collar, and he now told him to hurry up. "You'll be getting an extra milk bone for your bedtime snack later if you just move your feet as fast as you can right now."
Seeming reluctant to leave me, Rocky continued moving slowly, but eventually Mark got him out the door, waved to his guards, and then closed the door, though not before I heard Rocky barking wildly, sounding excited to see four of his lion guard friends.
Four was the maximum number of guards ever in the vast backyard at any one time these days, and sometimes it was even only three. Mark had long since started reducing the number of guards patrolling the house, as he slowly began to trust me more and more, which made me feel sick with guilt at times, even while at other times, it thrilled me, because I knew it wouldn't be long before I could make my escape and do whatever I needed to do in order to get my family back.
It might only be a few days, I figured. All I knew was that the moment the yard was free of guards, and the moment I was free of them following me around everywhere in the village, I was going to make a break for it, heading north, to New Bad Axe.
As much as I knew it was going to kill me to leave Mark, Rocky, and the cats, as well as Christy and everyone else I cared about in the village, I hadn't wavered in my thinking that I couldn't not do it.
My family needed me to help bring them back to life, and I wasn't going to let them down. I'd never be able to live with myself and find any kind of genuine happiness in life otherwise. Not if I didn't at least try.
However, in the present, I was determined to enjoy my time with Mark and not think about anything else. After all, once I left, I wasn't sure when I'd be seeing him again, if ever, even though I still clung to hope that he'd take me back.
After closing the curtain across the sliding glass door, Mark rejoined me in the middle of the kitchen and took me in his arms again with his eyes twinkling in the late-day sun. "Now, where were we? I think we were on our way to the bedroom. If you haven't changed your mind, that is."
Fighting a smile, I shook my head. "Race you there."
CHAPTER 15
Less than a minute after I'd beaten Mark into the bedroom, which I'd done probably only because he'd let me, we both stood completely naked, kissing, with our hands roaming freely, teasing and caressing. It wasn't long before we tumbled into bed, and Mark rolled on top of me, hiking my legs up on his slim hips.
Feeling his rock-hard shaft against my most sensitive spot, I moaned, arching my back. "Please make love to me now, Mark. And..." I pause
d, looking into his eyes but feeling kind of bashful about it because of what I was going to say. "Feel free to be a little rough tonight."
Settling a bit of his weight on top of me, he moved his mouth to my ear and spoke in a low, incredibly husky voice. "How rough? I want you to be very clear so that I don't hurt you."
I wasn't quite sure how to explain how rough I wanted it. However, I had another idea.
"Tell you what. You be as rough with me as feels good to you, and if you get too rough, I'll say some special word so that you'll know to pull things back a little. But until you hear me say that word, I want you to be as rough as you want to be, knowing that it's pleasing me, too."
"I think I like the sound of this. And what will your special word be?"
Being that I hadn't quite gotten that far, I began looking around the room, which was illuminated by late-day sun filtering in through the curtains. After a few moments of not really spotting anything that inspired a special word, my gaze settled on a mangled National Geographic magazine atop the dresser. Earlier that day, Rocky had chewed it nearly to shreds, obscuring the picture on the front, which was of an outline of the state of Mississippi.
