Chapter 8 - Alisha
Brad’s arm tightens around me, and I feel him take a deep breath and hold it. He’s expecting me to drop a bomb, and in a way, that’s exactly what I’m about to do.
My feelings are a raging storm of confusion. I can’t believe I let him kiss me, or that I let it go on for as long as I did. My resentment for him rose like a sickening cloud, and I had to push him away, and I even felt guilty and dirty for a while after.
But now, I just want him near me…and all I can think about is that kiss.
Even though we’re pressed up against each other now, I’m not feeling any lust. The idea of sleeping alone just felt too terrible to contemplate, and now I just feel warm, comfortable, and safe.
There was something so gentle and vulnerable in his voice when he asked me to come back with him. Maybe I should share my burden…
Fear and a deep, echoing sadness make my chest tighten, and a hard lump forms in my throat.
I’ve never told anyone.
“Alisha,” Brad murmurs. “It’s okay. You can tell me anything, and if you don’t want to, that’s okay, too.”
His soft words make hot tears well in my eyes, and I can’t keep it together. I sniffle a little, but I don’t want to break his grip by sobbing and moving away, so I just snuggle deeper against him and take a deep, shuddering breath.
“I want to explain why Mitchell’s comment hit me so hard today.”
“You don’t have to explain,” he says firmly. “It was completely out of line. He shouldn’t go around saying things like that.”
“Most wolves respond the same way to a wolf who can’t shift. Believe me, I know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Brad answers. “Even though I do think he might have intended it as a friendly warning, I won’t have anyone talking to you like that.”
I sigh, squeezing his hand in mine where they rest across my chest. The solid warmth of him at my back feels so good, and I’m glad that I can’t see his face.
This will be easier, like this. When I don’t have to look into his eyes or read his expressions.
“I’ve never told anyone about this,” I say softly. “But I left my pack when I was barely eighteen, for this very reason.”
I feel him jerk in surprise. “Alisha—”
I shake my head. “No. Just let me talk. This is going to be hard enough for me to say. I just need you to hold me.”
“Okay,” he says softly. “I can do that.”
I have to take another deep breath and blink hard against the stinging tears before I try again.
“I was only six when I went out on my first full moon ceremony. It was customary in my pack that when a shifter showed signs of their first shift, we would take out a small group on a full moon, and then the kids would shift, one by one, as they responded in different ways to the moonlight. Some needed coaching, others didn’t.
They would run out into the woods, immerse themselves in their wolf, then return for a party.
In the first few years, we’d only shift on a full moon until we were more mature and experienced with the change, so there was often a big group of kids running together and forming strong bonds. ”
I pause for a moment, but Brad doesn’t say anything, just strokes my hand with his thumb, keeping our fingers laced together.
“My first ceremony, I didn’t shift. I didn’t feel a thing. My body wouldn’t react to the moonlight. The elders said no problem, this has happened before. You just need a few more years, and you’ll shift. Sometimes it takes time. But years went by, and I still didn’t shift.”
A little sob echoes in my throat, and Brad tightens his arms around me.
“I tried to make myself useful in other ways. I did great at school and helped with all the extracurricular activities. I took care of the new pups when they shifted, and I didn’t. But none of it helped. People began to turn their backs on me and act like I wasn’t even there when I spoke to them.”
“Oh, honey,” Brad whispers.
I sniffle a little, rubbing my nose. “My teachers didn’t look up when I handed in assignments.
My parents didn’t notice if I didn’t come home.
I don’t have much extended family, but they ignored me, too.
It got so bad that I felt invisible walking down the street.
I even began to wonder if I was actually invisible. ”
“Jesus Christ,” Brad mutters.
“There was a little garden I liked to go to. It saved my sanity, because I knew that in turning the soil, tending the flowers, and looking after the little creatures, I mattered. I was real. One night, I just got up, turned in the opposite direction of home, and kept walking.”
“Heading out into the wilderness without supplies seems to be your thing,” he mutters.
Despite myself, I have to grin. “Well, I had a pack with a few things in it. But I didn’t have much trouble, honestly.
I’d find edible berries to eat. I could follow lines of greenery to fresh water.
It was peaceful. Eventually, I came to a town and found some work.
It was much easier getting along with humans, even antisocial ones, than it was with shifters. ”
“How did you end up in Vegas?”
“I decided I wanted to see a big city. Worked at little truck stops and stuff as I traveled. I found Vegas itself to be a bit intimidating, but on the outskirts, I discovered a nice little house and a bar I liked to work in.”
Brad moves a little behind me, and when he speaks, his voice comes out husky and soft. “How did you even end up working there?”
“I met a nice girl at the flower shop who told me they had good cocktails, so I went in one night. Hit it off with the manager and started working. It was a lot of fun.”
“You know it was a shifter bar, right?” he says. “It was practically a hub for all kinds of creatures.”
A little tingle of uncertainty trickles through me. “I didn’t know you went in there that much.”
“Only a couple of times,” he says. “When I was in Vegas, I stayed nearby.”
There are volumes to unpack right there, and I’m tempted to wade right into it, even if I end up in over my head. I’ve always wanted to know what he was doing in Vegas, why he kept such strange hours, and why he bailed without a trace after just a couple of months.
If I get started on that, I may never finish my story, and I really want to tell him everything.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, sighing. “Well, maybe it does, but I don’t want to talk about that part right now. I’m trying to explain how I ended up in the woods where you found me.”
“Your ex,” he mutters, anger rising in his tone.
“Yeah. After…you, I met Paul at the bar. He took me out for ice cream after work, and it was such a trip.”
I laugh softly, remembering my delight at ordering a stacked sundae at an ice cream parlor and playing the silly games you find on the back of placemats.
“It was so different from anything anyone had ever done before,” I say. “All these guys are trying to get me drunk or take me to a fancy casino, and this guy takes me out for ice cream.”
Brad’s arms tighten on me a little, but he doesn’t speak.
“Anyway. We went on a few dates like that, until he started staying over. I was still fairly bruised emotionally, so it didn’t get too deep, but before I realized it, I was changing myself for him.”
“Insidious,” Brad whispers.
“Yeah,” I answer. “A real light touch. Slowly, I got separated from my friends, and all of them started to act weird around me. I didn’t realize what was happening for a while, and by the time I did, the damage was done.”
“You broke up with him, though?”
“Yes. It didn’t go well. He got completely unhinged and said some crazy things. I just slammed the door in his face and thought that was the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No. I tried to get back into full-time work, but the owner of the bar started acting weird toward me. Paul had gotten to him, told him some lies. I ended up quitting and then couldn’t find another job. Meanwhile, my friends wouldn’t answer my calls. Paul had gotten to them, too.”
“And that still wasn’t the end of it.”
“Not by a long shot,” I answer, feeling the old helplessness and misery flooding my chest again. “It felt so much like what happened to me at home,” I mumble, feeling tears streaking down my cheeks again. “I felt so lost. That’s when Paul really upped his game.”
“Oh, no.”
“He started stalking me. I’d be waiting for a bus, and he’d be there watching me. I’d run into him while I was grocery shopping or running errands. Without fail, I’d freak out, and he’d blink innocently, like, I’m going about my business, and this crazy bitch is going psycho on me .”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Now I really was gaslighting myself,” I whisper. “Just like back at home, except there, I’d thought I was invisible. Now, I thought I was too visible, a wreck in full view of the world, and I couldn’t decide which was worse.”
“Did you go to the cops?”
“Are you kidding me? Paul would have had them eating out of his hand. He’d already convinced several people I was unhinged and had evidence of me losing it in public.”
“Fuck,” Brad growls, and I can practically feel his anger radiating through his skin.
“So, I didn’t know what I was going to do. It was getting hard to sleep at night, and I was still having trouble finding a job. I thought the situation was going to go on like that indefinitely, and I’d have to move. I was planning on doing just that when I woke up to my house in flames.”
He growls again and tightens his hold around me. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Yeah. I was trying to get out when Paul found me and dragged me out. I was torn between thanking him and being upset he’d obviously been hanging around my house when he tried to shove me into the backseat of his car.”
Brad’s arms tighten on me again, and I get the feeling that if Paul were standing in front of us right now, Brad would rip him to shreds.
“He said it was fun playing, but he was done with that now, and it was time to get serious. He admitted that when he lit the house on fire, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill me or not.”
“This guy is completely fucking nuts!”
“Don’t I know it. He told me that while he was watching the flames, he decided he wanted me alive after all. He had this really weird smile and said, ‘Sometimes you don’t really know how much you want something until it’s taken away.’”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. He tried to shove me into the car, and I managed to get away. I thought he’d get me for sure, but I ended up in this little garden with thick trees and bushes, and somehow, he went right by me and didn’t stop.
It threw him off the trail enough that I could put some space between us.
I moved a lot at first, and every time I got comfortable, I’d just get this instinct that I had to move.
In Caliente, he almost caught up with me. ”
“And that’s how you ended up in these woods,” Brad says. “Running from Caliente. Did you have any idea where you were going?”
“None,” I admit. “Nature always seemed to be my refuge, though. I told you, when I first left home, I did pretty well by myself. It was as if the trees themselves called to me, and said I’d be safe out here.”
“Well, they were right,” Brad says. “Because you found me, and I’m going to keep you safe.”
I chuckle. “If trees really could talk, I’m not sure that’s what they’d say.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they would. I’m grateful, though, whatever the reason is that you ended up here.”
“Brad, I—”
“No,” he whispers, holding me tighter. “I have always wanted an opportunity to take care of you, to try to make up for what I did. The universe gave it to me, and that’s all I really care about now—keeping you safe.”
I try to swallow the lump in my throat, and it just fills my eyes with tears again.
“You don’t have to carry this alone,” he says. “I’m going to share every burden with you from now on, and I’ll never, ever, let anything happen to you again. I promise.”
Even though I lean back against him and let the warm press of his body comfort me, conflict still rages inside.
I want to trust him. All I want is to believe every single word and give him my heart.
But I can’t. No matter how safe and protected I feel right now, I can’t forget that he abandoned me once, and he can easily do it again.