Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-seven
Cross
My wolf snarls louder with every step I take away from Genie but I don't care. I'm angry. I did what she wanted. I was in the room. I was on the bed. I was ready and willing to give her what she asked for. He can keep snarling.
I know what he wants, what he's always wanted.
But shouldn't what I want matter? Are we nothing more than instincts and traditions?
I never wanted a real mate once I understood that Parker would never be that for me.
I rejected Eugenia because I wanted happiness with Parker more than anything else and I still want that.
I can withstand the pain of separation from her.
I can handle it. It's just getting a little harder to breathe with her being so close.
My wolf is becoming more and more difficult to deny; to the point that I'm even more afraid to shift than I was before I got here.
If I give him control, he won't give it back until he takes what he needs. He's resentful and desolate and angry.
And…I think he's starting to hate me.
The thing that I have been terrified of since I was seventeen years old is now a strong possibility. I'd go so far as to say it's a definite likelihood. My wolf could abandon me. I can feel him pull further away every day that I force his separation from his mate.
Our mate, he reminds me.
Every moment I spend maintaining the distance between Eugenia and me, or standing by and watching her suffer without doing anything about it makes a break from my wolf more likely.
Every touch or kiss between Parker and me pushes my wolf one step further.
How many more steps do I have left? And then what?
What will happen to me and my family line once my wolf leaves me?
Selfish, he growls. She is in pain, and you are causing it.
I'm not leaving Parker. I just got him back. I love him.
You don't have to leave him. You can have both. You know that.
I shake my head, physically denying what he says. I won't hurt him.
And you have no trouble hurting my mate.
I don't want to hurt her. But I love Parker. Can't you understand that? Can't you feel how I feel?
His silent retreat speaks louder than any words or impression he could give me.
I can feel the pain staying away from Eugena causes him every minute of every day and I expect him to give a shit about how my heart will break if I lose Parker.
I am selfish. I'm selfish and my pride is going to be the ruin of all of us.
Parker is sitting on his bed with a book when I step into his room. He looks up at me with a dull expression and snaps his book shut. "I thought you were going to stay with Genie?"
I fall onto the bed next to him and drop my head against the headboard. "She told me to leave."
"What?" he snorts. "She got what she wanted and then sent you packing?" He sniffs the air, his eyes narrowing in confusion.
"Something like that."
"What happened, Cross?"
I sigh, reaching up to scrub the heels of my hands against my eyes. "I was waiting for her, exactly like Alpha Tinsley said. She came in, took one look at me, and told me to get out. So, I left."
Silence stretches between us until Parker stops the sprawl of it. "Do you know what she did with the money?" I shake my head, and he continues. "She gave it to Walker's family."
I crack open my eyes. "She hates Walker." Everyone hates Walker.
"He told me she won it for his sisters. Amie told him when she gave it to him."
Won it for his sisters. Seven hundred and thirty dollars in the Middle Ground pool and she gives it to him. "He could have won his own money if he wanted to."
Parker scoffs. "No, he couldn't have. He's ambitious but not strong enough to change anything. Genie actually is strong, and she proved it. You saw her. She wasn't winning the money. She was winning you. So, what really happened?"
"It was just like I said. She walked into the suite, looked at me, and told me to leave."
"She didn't say anything else?"
I sigh again. "She said she was tired, and she just wanted to sleep. Then she told me to get out."
"That doesn't make any sense, and you know it. She fought too hard to just give up both prizes."
I shrug. I don't understand any more than he does. I did what I was supposed to do. I don't know why she changed her mind.
"Want to sleep here?"
We're supposed to be here to learn how to function together, not be together, but I'm too broken tonight to deny myself the comfort of his bed. It's not like we've put all that much work into not being together since we've been here, anyway.
Selfish.
I wake up hours later with sweat and terror clinging to me from the nightmare I can't quite remember.
Parker's arm and one of his legs are draped over me and for the first time in our life together it feels oppressive.
Like I can't breathe. It unsettles me more than the residual fear leftover from the dream.
"What's wrong?" he grumbles when I shift my weight.
"Nothing," I murmur. "I'm going to get a drink. Go back to sleep."
I untangle myself from him and quietly leave his room, not bothering with a shirt or shoes.
I start walking in the direction of the fridge in the lounge area, but I somehow find myself back at the suite where I left Genie.
Fuck. I try to turn around, try to leave; but pure, masochistic curiosity keeps my feet planted.
I take a breath and slip back inside as silently as possible.
I'm here, I might as well find out what I came looking for whether I meant to or not.
The bedroom door is open. I won't wake her, I won't go inside the room. Just one peek, then I'm leaving.
Instead of a human female huddled under a pile of blankets, there is a dark brown wolf curled in on herself in the exact place I was laying earlier.
I want to leave. I need to leave. But this is my wolf's first look at what he knows to be our mate in her shifted form and he has no intention of leaving.
His defiant growl vibrates inside me every time I even attempt to look away.
Every few seconds she has a full-body tremble, almost as if she's having the same kind of nightmare I had earlier.
A small, soft whimper sounds, but she doesn't wake.
Another pitiful sound escapes her and she flinches, her body jerking into a tighter ball on the bed.
She jolts awake after another, much louder, whine.
She doesn't seem to have noticed that I'm near. Until she does.
She slowly lifts her head, pinning me with a deep amber gaze. No aggression, no acknowledgment other than that solemn, sad stare. It's worse than any glare she could have leveled me with. Hopeless. She looks hopeless.
Look what you've done, my wolf rages, his anger only barely contained by his sorrow. You did this to her.
I didn't mean for this to happen.
She lays her head back down on the bed and tucks her nose into her fur, still looking blankly up at me through the doorway.
You did this, my wolf repeats. Then he turns inward so suddenly that I stagger.
I blink into the female wolf's eyes once more before I back away from the door.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. I don't know if I'm apologizing to her or to my wolf, all I know is that I am truly and horribly sorry.
Parker is still sleeping when I crawl back into his bed. I don't deserve this comfort. Not after seeing the state of Genie. But, just like my wolf said, I'm selfish. And weak. So, I curl into Parker's side and cling to his warmth when everything in me twists and shatters.