Moon Bound (Glorious Darkness Book 1) (18 page)

(34) Revelations

|Regan's POV|

Will she remember this night  with a smile on her lips? Will she think of me, of the moment we shared when I'm no longer by her side? Will she miss the warmth of my body?

There's only hope that someday she will. 

"Why did you bring me out here, Regan?" she's questioning, sitting on the ground, watching the fire I've just started.

Hugging her knees to herself, it's not enough to warm her. With spring in full bloom, the days have become bearable but the nights are still cold, the remaining chill yet to give in to the warmth that's on the way.

Coming to sit beside her, hugging her to my side, giving her the warmth of my body, it takes a while for the words to tumble out. 

"I wanted a moment for us. Away from the house and the pack. Just the two of us," I tell her snuggling closer to her. I want to bury my nose in her, inhale everything that she is, lose myself in her. My lips are burning for the taste of her, just a taste, the smallest nip on her skin. Will she allow it? Or will she push me away like she's been doing?

She's silent. Just staring ahead at the dancing flames. I can feel her worry through the bond like a nudging at the back of my head. "What is it, Scarlet?"

Reluctant to open up, she tries to move away from me. My hand's grasp tightens.

"Please," my voice sounds broken. The beast is pacing inside, restless as she withdraws further inside herself. She may be sitting next to me, body pressed to mine, but she feels so far away. Nothing but a stranger to me. A stranger who doesn't know the truth in my heart or the burden I've had to drag with me all my life.

Always a price to pay. Always consequences. This is what it means to be an Alpha. Every decision, every one of the small acts you are forced to do day after day, it all comes with a price and there's not another choice but to pay it - either you do or someone else, someone you care about.

It's only now that I've come to the realization that I've been selfish. For twenty-six years, I've let others pay for what I was doing. First my friends, then my pack and at last - my mate. I was never the one who faced the consequences of my own actions and now I will be the one to do that. But will I be alone in my punishment, or will I bring others down with me?

Will I bring her down?

"You need to talk to me, Scarlet. You need to let it out," I say quietly, only the crackling of the wood and the soft breeze lulling nature to sleep audible.

The woods are so peaceful it feels like the nightmare of our situation is not real but just that. A nightmare you are supposed to wake up from. Nothing and no one exist in our secluded world now. Just the two of us, the night and the Moon watching over. Like a dream come true.

Only if she would talk to me, it would be even better.

"Scarlet?"

She turns her face to me, her eyes now looking like a liquid silver, a reflection of the Moon herself. I can fall into these swarming pools and lose myself and I want to. I wish I could stare at her until my eyes hurt, that she would let me do this, but I know it's too much to ask from her.

She's not ready. She won't tell me the words I long to hear.

"I'm scared," she says instead. "I'm afraid I'm turning into a monster, Regan."

I know how hard it is for her to admit it aloud, in front of me. I can hear the shame and guilt in her voice. I can feel them resonating inside the bond, making it sing like an out-of-tune string of a broken instrument. Is she that string or is it just me imagining things that are not there?

My hands go up to cup her face, the touch to her bare skin making me shiver in delight. My heart is racing, like the heart of a love-sick juvenile who can't control his reactions to the one who's haunting his dreams. 

She is my dream. She has been my dream for a long time. I was just too late to realize it was her and not another female.

"You are not a monster, Scarlet. You will never be a monster. Even after everything that happened to you, everything I did to you, I can see that you're pure. You are brave and headstrong. You are so much more than that. You just need to give yourself a chance to see it." I am leaning toward her, the words bitter on my tongue, a contradiction of everything I've once believed about her.

It's hard to admit to myself that she changed me so deeply that I forgot my father's lessons, that I no longer have that hate for everything that's different. You can't hate your mate, you can't hate the best thing that happened in your life just because it's different than what you've been led to believe is normal.

"I wish I could be just normal. An average wolf, not this... half-breed. 
Aberration
," she says the last so softly I'd have missed it if I was human. My heart clenches at the word. It's what I've called her. So many times I can't even remember all of them.

"I was the one who called you that," I admit. "And I was wrong. It doesn't matter what you are, Scarlet. In the end of the day, all that matters is what is in your heart and your heart is good. You are loyal to the people you love. You protect them even if it hurts you to do it. You still do it."

As much as it pains me that she's protecting monsters, I can't lie about this. I can't tell her she's wrong. They brought her back from the darkness that was eating at her. They turned her into the woman she is now and this counts for something.

"Tell me something, Regan. Would you have told me this if you didn't know I was your mate? Would you have changed your opinion about me?"

It is a good question, the answer to which hurts too much, but she is right. I wouldn't have changed if I didn't find her. I'd have probably stayed the same reckless man I was. I'd have followed my father's lessons to the letter, perhaps until I turned into my father.

"I don't know but I hope that I would have."

Hearing me say it, she turns away from me, the bond festering with her pain as small tremors rake over her body. I can almost hear her sobs but, in truth, no sound comes from her, making me wish to wipe that pain away from her.

I can't. Once again it's been me who hurt her.

(35) A Kiss To Remember

|Scarlet's POV|

I have been summoned. After the fiasco with the healer this had to be expected, however, it is far from an experience I enjoy even if, in fact, I am being 
problematic.

"Even I can see it, Scarlet - you're not holding up to your end of the deal," Cole scolds quietly, probably afraid of being overheard by the wolves inside the house.

"How am I not holding up to my end? I am sleeping in the same room, 
in the same bed
 with him, am I not? How is that not holding up to his terms?" I question, scowling at him.

"Fair enough," Cole sighs. "But you are also holding yourself back, defying him every step of the way, openly being 
hostile.
"

"Holding myself back? Hostile?" I spit out, tasting the words on my tongue. How can he say that? How can he blame me for something that's not my fault? 

"Did he come to cry on your shoulder last night?"

"That's not it, he didn't-"

"Then why do you say that, Cole? What do you want me to do? Do you want me to lay myself out for him, let him do whatever he wants to me and just forget all that was already done? I'm trying, Cole. I'm really trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, that chance he was speaking about but he's just... He keeps hurting me. Everything he does, every time he's around, I'm drawn to him and it hurts so much I can't breathe, Cole. Is that not enough for you?"

"Not for them," he mumbles, then looks up at me, fixing me with his midnight stare. "What if they rise against us, Scar? Where are we going to find protection from the wildlings? Who's going to risk it and hide us?"

Shame washing over me, I can feel my shoulders quivering with an answer to his question. I don't know. I can't find the solution he needs. He was the one who brought them to our doorstep. He is related to that wildling. It shouldn't be my responsibility to protect us. 

"No one, that's who!" he snaps angrily, raking a hand through his messy ringlets in frustration. "I wish I could switch places with you, Scarlet. I really do but I can't."

I arch a brow at his declaration. "So you want in Regan's bed? Is that you finally coming out of the closet, Cole?" I joke instead of facing the truth of what is expected of me.

He wants me to do more, to become that proverbial lamb. Can I really do that? Am I too selfish to see past my own pain?

"You know I didn't mean that, Scar."

"All I know is that Adam has been right all along about your tastes," I chuckle, the words from last night ringing in my head.

Your heart is good.
 Is it really?

"Shut up, that's so not the point here," he says but, despite his weak protest, I can't help but notice his slightly flushed cheeks.

"So you really are gay?" I tease. I don't feel like a good person. What I feel is like I'm sinking, deeper and deeper until there's so little left of me that I can no longer recognize myself.

"Shut up!" hissing at me, I can see him intently listening for any sound that could hint of someone being in close proximity and eavesdropping to our conversation.

I groan, skip to the door, flinging it open to reassure him. "See? No one's around listening to us. Even if they were, they wouldn't care about you being a bender."

"I'm not a 
bender,
" he grits out after I shut the door and return back to him only to give him a mean grin and a pat on the shoulder.

God forbid someone from seeing his sensitive side. He has that side. Despite his harsh words and expectations, he's a gentle man. Someone who cares so much about those close to him that he's willing to push me towards my tormentor just to protect them, if not to protect me. 

I can't close an eye and pretend I don't see what he's doing.

"Keep telling yourself that and you may end up believing it. But let me tell you something, Cole. Being gay doesn't make you less manly. It's nothing to be ashamed of," I say when I want to say so much more, words that hold another meaning altogether, words of truth and forgiveness.

Hating him for what he's doing to me, I forgive him because of his reasons.

"We're not talking about me, Scarlet, so don't try to change the subject." Now that he's reassured there won't be any witnesses he's calmer, his voice an octave lower.

"Of course not," I agree. "We are here to talk about me being 
problematic
. And I can see your point, Cole, but I don't know if I can do what you are asking for. You don't get how hard it is for me to act like nothing happened when I'm hurting so bad, Cole. More than you can imagine."

His eyes glaze, his pretense slipping as unshed tears fill their midnight beauty. Mine are full of tears too. They sting, feelings burning my insides as I fight for the next breath I probably don't deserve.

The healer did nothing for me - her healing couldn't help me, instead, my touch burned her, but this - being this open with Cole, is doing things to me I never thought it will.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, not trying to get closer to me, to hug me to himself. He knows that his touch won't make it right. Nothing can make it right.

"I wish you weren't this hurt. I wish I could make it all disappear..." he trails off, choking on the words. Shallow, meaningless words that change exactly nothing. "Sometimes I wish that we've found about you sooner."

But they didn't. It is a miracle they had even managed to find me. To heal me. Some.

Yet I am still broken. Even if I'm no longer alone in my pain, I'm not cured. However, it's not his fault. It's no one's fault but mine and Alpha's.

"I'll try, Cole. I'll really try," I promise him, hurting myself as much as I'm probably hurting him. "For you and the guys. I own you that much."

Even if that means to break that part of my heart I've barely been able to rebuild.

I will bleed. For them. My debt will be paid.

"Thank you," he says, a second, a minute, an hour later. There's nothing that can measure the time of our silence, just looking at each other as our hopes crash down to nothing.

'
You will be a part of this family, one of us
,' he has promised, they have. '
We will protect you
.'

Today, we both know, he won't. He can't. He may have tried to make me one of them but I'm not. I am the one being sacrificed and no matter how hard he tries he can't change what fate is forcing upon us. None of us can.

"I just hope you won't hate us when this is over." There's something in the words, something different in him when he says this. Almost like it's a different man saying them and not the one I know.

His hand reaches up for me, cupping my face in his palm. He's leaning closer, lips brushing against mine, begging for understanding of something he never told me, something I don't know.

A kiss that means more than words. A kiss to remember when we get old. If we get old.

"Let's go," he breathes out, taking a hold of my hand.

"Where?"

He turns back, glancing through the window, his eyes lingering on the woods surrounding the place. Shadows are breaking over the daylight, the Moon only hours away from spilling out Her grace once again. The never stopping cycle that keeps us sane enough from turning into monsters, that gives us - the people who are not supposed to live in a close proximity together, a shelter in the form of a family, of a pack.

Is it all a lie? Is it real? Is he hiding yet another truth from me?

I don't know and he won't tell me.

"Let's run," he says. "Let's forget just for tonight." 

I smile at the wistfulness in his voice. "Sounds like a plan."

I can only hope this is real.