Chapter Eight
Rocky wanted to shift back into his human form in the worst way. He was pushing and pushing against his wolf form, but something that the darn doctor had given him was preventing his human side from coming through.
In Rocky’s head, it was simple. He’d claimed Mal – after all his years of trying to give the impression of being a super-stud alpha that other people respected, he didn’t have to do that anymore because he had a mate of his own. His sweet Mal. The only one who stood by him no matter what idiocy he got up to.
Now he needed to be on two legs, because how could he hold Mal if he only had paws instead of hands? How could he tell Mal just how important the little wolf was to him, if all he could do was bark?
Sure, they had a mind link, but Rocky wanted to use his words. He wasn’t blind. He’d seen how much his wretched curse had cost his dearest love – the worry, the lack of sleep, and endless rounds of tears – all over Rocky.
It was time for Rocky to stand up and be the man Mal needed in his life, but instead he was stuck on four paws.
Amy, the young nurse who seemed to like smiling at Mal at every opportunity, wasn’t much help. “I’m sorry, there’s not a lot else we can do right now. Doctor Nelson was up all night last night working on your case, and that poor man has to sleep sometimes. I know he will be keen to see you when he comes in tomorrow, so just enjoy some quiet time until then.”
Mal was nodding, but Rocky was snarling inside. For goodness’ sake, it was the doctor who convinced Mal to bite him in the first place. That was done and the doctor wasn’t even around. Rocky needed to be back into his two-legged form – needed to feel normal again - so he and Mal could enjoy some of the benefits of being mated, even if that was just holding the man in his arms.
“It’s not such a bad thing,” Mal said, when Amy left the room after taking Mal’s dinner order. “At least we have a mind link now. We can talk to each other and that’s got to be better than days and days of silence watching you lying on a bed fully sedated or worse, having you awake and watching you screaming for cake. This is a huge improvement in my mind.”
Now Rocky felt bad because it was Mal that had gone through all that. Rocky hadn’t known how bad he was. He just knew things weren’t right in his head. When he was in the throes of his addiction, cake was all he could focus on, so he had no idea just how bad things were.
Even when they were in the hospital, it was Mal who had to travel with him, Mal who kept him sedated, Mal who had sat by his bedside for days, trying to find the answers to make Rocky well.
Mal patted the bed. “Hop up here, my lovely. Come on, let me rest my head on your shoulder for a bit. I’ll use you as a pillow. It means a lot to me that we can just be close to one another again. Then perhaps you can tell me how we ended up here, how you ended up leaving your pack in the first place. I’m hoping you’ll find it easier to talk about it through our link than out loud with words. You must’ve been very young.”
Rocky did what Mal asked, settling down, making sure Mal was comfortable, before he sent through their mind link. I don’t know what it is you want me to say. You know I hate talking about bad things.
“I know,” Mal said simply - he was saying his words out loud. And that was fine. Rocky understood. Their mind link would take a bit of getting used to and Rocky liked listening to Mal’s voice.
“The thing is, you never talked about what happened to you when we first met, right from the start. You’ve always kept it from me. Was it because of the curse or was it because you just didn’t want to think about it?”
I think it was a bit of both. Rocky thought for a moment. His human side’s brain was a lot clearer than it had been in a long time and Mal was starting to smell really good to him – which was distracting.
It was my mom that shoved me from the pack. I think it was about eight or nine at the time. I’m not sure. We didn’t celebrate birthdays in our pack. But I wasn’t a teenager yet. I hadn’t gone through my first shift at that point and didn’t know what sort of wolf I would become. I just know that dad…my dad had died a few months before, and it wasn’t pretty. I was their only child.
Rocky still didn’t want to think about that time. He’d left his pack in a state of confusion and utter terror, and there were nights he still didn’t sleep well because of it. But he rushed on because he knew Mal deserved to hear the story.
My mom was insistent, packed me a little bag. She gave me all the food in the house, a few coins, and she told me to run. She said to sneak out and run as fast as I could, and that I could never look back and never come back.
I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t come with me, but I remember her saying that if she did, the alpha would look for us, that the alpha would see it as an act of betrayal if she left, especially so soon after her husband had died. In hindsight, he was clearly saving face even then.
“You must have really loved your parents,” Mal said quietly, stroking down Rocky’s fur.
I suppose so. I didn’t really know what love was. They were just there, and I know now that they cared for me. But in those very early years I was just like any other pup. I think…I think my mom assumed that if I wasn’t on the pack grounds then I wouldn’t be affected by the curse. But that’s not how things happened, or we wouldn’t be here now.
“So the curse was in effect when we met,” Mal said. “You were what, eighteen or nineteen then?”
Rocky did his best approximation of a shrug without dislodging his mate. I’m really not sure. As I say, we never kept a count of birthdays. And by that stage, when you and I met, I had been looking after myself for about ten years. At the time I was just grateful to find another wolf who didn’t shun me, try and bite me, or push me away.
That wasn’t enough and Rocky knew it. He tried to put his feelings – how seeing Mal for the first time had made him feel.
I saw you and something in my heart changed. I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to protect you. I knew I wanted to be with you. I knew that you were going to be important to me. And you are, and you have been all that time.
But I just… it was like there was a wall there, too. An invisible wall between us. It used to frustrate the fuck out of me. It was like I was on the brink of some great revelation, and I just didn’t have a clue what it was. You’re going to think this is really silly, but I didn’t even know about fated mates until we met up with Ra and the others. I’d never been taught that stuff in the pack, but then looking back, I was still a kid so...
“Oh, Rocky, I’m so sorry.” And Rocky’s wolf knew Mal meant it. It was as if he could see how Mal was thinking – about the hardship of being a kid alone in a big bad world and how scary that would be. About how Rocky put up such a front so damn often through his life. Forever making out he knew stuff when in fact he was just waiting for an opportunity to go and find out what his friends were talking about.
How often Rocky would be terrified his friends would realize how much there was in the world he didn’t understand, because he’d never had the time to learn those things or had someone to teach him. Concepts like mating, pack behavior, being a good friend, even hookup behavior – Rocky learned about all of those concepts by being with Mal and watching his friends interact.
Mal wasn’t wrong in any of the things he was thinking, not that Rocky would ever say so. He’d never wanted anyone ever to feel sorry for him. He focused on the moment. His mate was stroking him, and Rocky’s wolf appreciated the attention, but his human side really wished that Mal could be touching him in his human form, and that he had hands so he could touch Mal back.
“All those times you went out, I would hide in my room, crying, drinking, and making an utter fool of myself...”
I never saw that , Rocky sent through their bond quickly. I never knew you felt so bad about me doing that.
“I wouldn’t let you see it,” Mal said. “You were a perfectly normal, everyday alpha wolf in my head. That’s what I saw when I met you, that’s what I thought all these years we were together. I honestly believed that if you and I were mates, you would make an approach one day. And instead, you used to go out.”
The pain in Mal’s voice was enough to slay any wolf stronger than Rocky and he whined, wishing again that he had hands. Paws couldn’t hold Mal the way Rocky wanted to, which meant he had to rely on words instead.
I was just trying to fit in with what everyone thought I should be, he admitted . I knew from the way Ra, Liam and Lucien, everybody we knew really, were talking - You remember what they were like back then, always sleeping around and hooking up. And I just felt if I didn’t look like them and act like them, then people would think that there was something wrong with me.
“They never thought there was anything wrong with me.” Mal wiggled a bit probably getting more comfortable. “They just accepted that I wasn’t interested in that side of things. In fact you, Liam, Lucien, Brutus, Simon, Ra, all of you. You all saved me from unwanted attentions many times, well before we arrived at Arrowtown, and I was grateful to all of you for doing that.
“I don’t know why I never got the urges that everybody else did. I always believed that I’d never change. I even went to our doc thinking something was wrong with me. Although, Doctor Nelson seems to thinks I was just wired to wait for my mate.”
Rocky could hear the hopeful note in Mal’s voice and while it lifted his soul, knowing Mal was definitely referring to him in that department, he realized that this might be the one time he had to say something that he’d never had the courage to put into words before. Something that had been holding him back as much as the curse.
I know we keep harking on about it, but you remember the night we met, yes? Everything that happened?
He felt Mal nod against his shoulder.
Those men, what they were doing to you... I never asked if they... if they... Fuck! Rocky couldn’t even get the words out. Not even in his wolf form, not even through their bond. He couldn’t say the words. He could only trust that Mal knew he was asking because Mal was good like that.
“They got close to it, the words you can’t say and that I refuse to consider,” Mal said at last. “That’s all I’m going to say on that matter, because like your past, it’s just something we move on from, isn’t it?”
Yes, I know, and I’m the first one to say to hell with the past and let’s jump into our future together. But remember, that was the first time I saw you and… and… Rocky willed Mal to understand. I never wanted you to think I was anything like those…fucking assholes. I would have approached you. There were so many times when I went off making a fool of myself, and all I really wanted was to have the courage to come into your room and say, hey, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m really attracted to you.
“Shit, Rocky. We’ve both been idiots.” Mal sighed. “It’s really weird isn’t it? I thought all these years we were so close, and we were. I’m not saying we’re not, but there was just some things we wouldn’t or couldn’t talk about.
“If you think about it, the one thing this curse has done is probably broken down those barriers. Not probably – it has. It’s hard not to see that in a positive light. Although I will say, it’s going to be a while before I can see you within ten feet of the bakery without worrying you’re going to relapse.”
Rocky sniffed along Mal’s hair and then licked up the side of his face.
I don’t think I could do that to you. In fact I’m sure I wouldn’t do that to you. I don’t know. I’m trying to be all zen and think along the same lines as you, but that’s not easy for me. I guess things do play out for a reason, and whatever those reasons were, the ups and downs, the good, the bad, they got us here, they brought us to this point.
We’re mates. That’s the biggest positive in all of this. I know damn well as soon as Doctor Nelson removes that blocker that he injected me with, the one that’s stopped me from shifting back, all I want is to do when I’m on two legs is take you in my arms and hold you close. That’s all I’ve wanted for so many years.
Rocky’s wolf got an extra scritch for that, and he could sense Mal was pleased.
“Where did you go when you were going off all those different times?” Mal asked after a long minute. “What were you doing with yourself? Not even Mrs. Hooper could work that out and we both know she knows everything before anyone even asks the question.”
Ouch. Rocky’s biggest shame, but Mal deserved to know. Before we moved to Arrowtown, I used to go for a long ride on the bike. I would go and sit somewhere, missing you, being stupid, but knowing I’d have to stay out all night or my story wasn’t plausible.
And then when we moved to Arrowtown, sometimes I’d go into Jackson, dance a bit, whatever. It really didn’t matter. I just, yeah, I, it’s not that I didn’t have opportunities and I’m not trying to hurt you by mentioning that, but anytime anybody got close to me like that, I felt sick.
Mal chuckled. “Me too. It’s funny that. It’s almost like we were mated all this time and didn’t know. We’ve got a lot to thank Doctor Nelson for.”
Well, I’d thank him a lot more if he hadn’t gone home to sleep when we needed him. Rocky was still miffed that he had to wait until morning.
But Mal was still chuckling, and he was stroking Rocky’s fur in the way that made Rocky’s wolf feel all the more special. So really, it wasn’t like Rocky had a lot to complain about.
Life would be better if they brought me a burger when you get your meal, instead of that chopped up steak.
But realistically, that wasn’t really a complaint either. Food was food. Heaving a huge sigh, Rocky and his wolf settled down to wait for the darn doctor. I hope he’s having a good sleep. He’s probably got a real bed instead of this hospital thing. And yes, Rocky’s wolf could be as sarcastic as his human side at times.