Chapter Thirteen
Cross
I have been shifting since I was eleven years old.
The first time it hurt so much that I cried through the whole thing.
I still haven't decided if the pain of each bone breaking, each joint realigning, was worse or if it was the sound of every crack and pop of those changes.
It got easier with time, but that first shift dampened the magic I had built up around the experience.
To think that I could lose it, though? I can't fathom the idea of a world in which I can't shift.
My wolf is abandoning me, breath by breath, moment by moment, because I have denied myself and I have denied him.
By rejecting the blessing given to me by our Goddess, I have rejected what it means to be a wolf.
Our packs are everything. Our families are everything.
Our mates are everything. Eugenia Barrett isn't just my mate, she's my Goddess-blessed mate.
Fate chose her for me. I rejected her, and as a result, fate.
My wolf has spent years trying to drag me to her physically.
Every single rut, every one of her heats, he leans into the pull.
He doesn't care about human preferences.
Sure, he's enjoyed other females in the past, it's only natural.
He even enjoys spending time with Parker.
But no one other than Eugenia will ever satisfy him.
He has gone from insistent to angry, and now he's sullen. Almost silent. Disappointed. Ashamed.
He's going to stop coming to me soon. I can feel it like a dark, oily stain of loss growing inside me.
“Cross,” Parker whispers as we wait for the lead counselor team to finish introducing themselves.
“What?” I glance at him and it's enough to see that his entire demeanor has tightened.
“She's here.”
No. Not possible. Not really. “Who?”
“Who the fuck do you think?”
Why? Why is Eugenia here? “Where?”
He sighs. “You sure?”
“Where is she?” I could search for her scent, but I'm a coward. If she's here, I'll be overrun and probably overtaken with it soon enough.
“There,” he says, lifting his chin to the left. “Behind you. Brown hair. Blue shirt. Trying to hide behind some guy.”
I turn my head slowly, almost reluctantly, terrified of what I'll find in her eyes when she looks at me.
My gaze lands on her instantly, snapping to hers like a magnet.
My entire body freezes, tightening with too many feelings.
Surprise. Regret. Pride. Want. Shame. And she looks at me with.
.. nothing. There is nothing in her eyes.
I wanted reproach. I needed anger. But nothing?
How can she look at me and feel nothing? Unacceptable.
I take one step toward her and two things happen simultaneously. One of her brows arch, and Parker grabs my elbow.
“Later,” he hisses. “If you're going to go to her, do it later. Just wait.”
“Why?” I hiss back, my lip curled into a snarl as I stare into the blank abyss of her eyes.
He sighs again. “Do you really want another audience for this?”
“I don't care.”
“Maybe she does.”
I don't think I care about that, either.
“What's wrong with you?” he asks, still whispering.
“She isn't angry.”
He scoffs. “That's a good thing.”
“She should be angry. She should care. She should want to –“
“To what, Cross? Come to you? Talk to you? Get your shit together. You're an alpha. An important one. People need to see you strong, not having a tantrum because you don't like how a girl looks at you.”
“She's not just a girl,” I grit through clenched teeth.
“You're right,” Parker says quietly. “She's the girl you rejected. I don't know what you expected, but do whatever this is later.”
Eugenia blinks at me and looks away, a clear dismissal that causes rage that I have no right to feel to crawl through me.
I pull away from Parker and cross the courtyard.
People move out of my way, parting and giving me a wide path.
The superficial welcome speech dyes out, or I just can't hear it over the rush of blood in my ears.
Within seconds I'm standing in front of her, breathing heavily, demanding her attention.
Her first words to me do not improve the situation.
“What do you want?”
What do I want? What do I want? I don't know. For her to look at me? For her to see me? To see something other than a blank stare when I look into her eyes. She's my mate, for fuck sake. My Goddess-blessed mate. She should feel something.
But why? My shoulders slump when it occurs to me that she has no reason to look at me, much less feel anything when she does it. I banished any reason she would have.
What is wrong with me?
“I...” I falter.
“You what?”
I take a very long, very deep breath, filling my lungs with her scent and making the turmoil inside me sizzle. “I don't know.”
“Well,” she sighs, “Go do whatever this is somewhere else.” She looks past me to raise her brows again at someone behind me.
“Come on, Cross,” Parker says. “Don't make it worse.”
Don't make it worse. How could I make this any worse? I let him pull me away from her, but every inch of distance feels like miles of dissonance.
Parker drags me back to my room. Part of the arrangements for my stay here is that Parker and I maintain separate rooms. It doesn't matter. I'll sleep where I want, and so will he.
He shuts the door behind us and flops back onto my bed. “What is wrong with you?”
He can keep asking, but I don't think I'll have an answer.
“She dismissed me.”
“So what?” he asks. “Why does that matter?”
“Because she's...” I trail off. I can't finish the sentence. She's not mine. I have no right to her. Her dismissal is even more valid than it would have already been.
“Look, Cross. It doesn't matter that she's here. You're not here to fix things with her, right? You're here to fix things with you. You're here to heal the path to your wolf because your pack depends on it. Don't make this about anything else. She dismissed you. You earned that. Move on.”
I lean against the back of the door and slide down it. “Why is she here?”
Parker sighs. “Probably the same reason you are.”
Guilt slams into me. She's here because of me.
“You can't help that she's here. Ignore her and do the work you came here to do. That's what she's going to do. She isn't here to mend things with you. Whatever the reason is that she's here, it isn't you.”
I close my eyes against the truth. “I can't.”
“Can't what?”
“Ignore her.”
He laughs. “Well you better figure out how, because that scene you caused just now can't be repeated. People are here to heal, not watch an alpha make a fool of himself.” He's quiet for a while as our breathing swirls the air in the room and I calm myself, then he asks the question again.
“What's wrong with you? Why did you go at her?”
The answer is simple when I take my own bullshit out of it. “Because I'm her alpha. Or I'm supposed to be. She dismissed me. It made me angry.”
“What do you want to do?”
I crack open an eye. He's laying on his back staring up at the ceiling. He isn't the same person he was before he left. He's quieter. Still. Very still. “About what?”
“Genie,” he says.
“Genie?”
“That's what people call her. What do you want to do?”
Nothing. I don't want to do anything. I can't force her to want me anymore than I can force myself to not need Parker.
My wolf stirs and I reach for him, coaxing him forward with my desperation.
Just as he's almost close enough he stops and pulls away, teasing me with his presence.
He's close enough that I can feel him. Where I'm desperate, he's desolate.
We just met our mate for the first time and she dismissed us because of me.
He's disappointed in me and that hurts more than anything else.
Then he melts back into the darkness of my subconscious and I feel it like a flood of ice in my veins.
“I don't know what I want, Parker. I want my wolf. I want you. I want my pack to be okay. I want to be everything I'm supposed to be.”
“That's why you're here. To find your way back to that.”
“But she's here.”
“She can't stop you from finding yourself.
If she's here, she's struggling, too. Nothing about this needs to be about what happened between you.
You're both here, but you're here separately.
Don't put more weight on yourself than you're already burdened with. She made what she wants clear enough. Respect that. Work on yourself, Cross. So we can go home.”
I want to go home. I already miss it so much that I'm sick with it. I've never been homesick before. I've never had a reason to leave home long enough to feel it. Parker did, though. “What was it like? When you were gone?”
“Bad,” he answers bluntly. “Empty. Lonely.”
“Why did you stay away?”
“To help you, Cross. I wanted you to claim Genie so the pack could be whole. I want peace for all the packs. I want you to be full. The only way was for me to step aside so you could do what you needed to do. I was going to come back after it was settled.”
Anger flickers inside me again. “How could you possibly think that I could be full without you?”
“She was your mate. She was your Luna. That was what needed to happen.”
“It didn't.”
“I know. And now we're here. So I ask again, what do you want to do?”
I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what the best thing is.
Obviously, doing everything in my power to convince Genie to become my Luna is the best thing for my pack, but it may not be the best thing for her.
Or Parker. If it was, I'd already be on my belly before her, groveling in the dirt and begging her forgiveness.
My wolf stirs again, faintly, and a weak sense of agreement flits through me. Relief at the shared opinion makes my eyes water.
But my heart can't let Parker go again. He's been too important to me for too long.
He's been my partner in every sense of the title.
Regardless of what happens with Genie or anything else, Parker will be my Second and our relationship will remain what it has always been.
I won't give him up. I'll have to find another way.
My pack needs an alpha who can protect and provide.
I can protect them, but right now all I can provide is instability.
Time won't still for me to work it out slowly.
My father didn't mince words. He is Alpha but his time is coming to an end and my time is rising.
I should have been figuring this out all along instead of following my individual, selfish path.
“I don't think this can be about what I want anymore,” I tell him. “I can't give you up, though. You are not a want, Parker. You are a need. I can give up anything else to fix the things I've broken, but I can't give you up. I can't be without you again. I don't know what to do.”
He turns his head and I feel his eyes on me. “Okay. We'll figure it out. That's why we’re here, right?”