Chapter 14 - Sophie
Staying away from Damian is easier when I have the local pack clinic to keep myself distracted. Even after two days, it’s hard to accept what happened the other night.
I’m avoiding him like the plague, but my body doesn’t lie.
It responds to him being nearby; it also responds to him being far.
When he isn’t at home, or at the clinic, or in the valley, there’s an ache in my heart, like an empty void in my chest that can’t be filled unless he’s close.
My hands itch with an intense need to feel his warmth under my palms, the texture of his skin under my fingertips, and the scent of him in my airways.
“Hey, is everything alright?” Dianna asks as she holds out a coffee.
I take the mug from her, clutching it with both hands, but even its warmth isn’t enough to fill the void as I hold it to my chest. I purse my lips, the truth hanging on the tip of my tongue, where I have to bite it to keep it from spilling out.
“You need to stop doing that,” I scoff at Dianna, rolling my eyes.
She frowns at me and shrugs. “Doing what? What am I doing?”
“Always treating me like I’m something fragile, like I’m gonna break or something,” I snicker as we take our coffee outside while the clinic remains quiet. It’s only a matter of time before the next rotation of trainee wolves fills the clinic, battered and bruised and requiring small fixes.
I gulp when I realize how quickly I’d learned the ins and outs of the Red Moon Pack as if I was one of them—a wolf born to the valley. Mentally rolling my eyes at such an absurd thought, I take a sip of my coffee.
“I don’t think you’re fragile, Sophie. I witnessed what you’re capable of, and I think you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
“I’m not strong, Dianna,” I murmur, trying to resist going back to that night when it reminds me of what happened after.
I’d been driven by adrenaline, hot from seeing Damian defend me in front of his friends, and I wasn’t thinking. I don’t want to think about what any of it means, anyway.
If only things could go back to the way they were…
“You need to stop selling yourself short,” Dianna replies with a sigh. “You can’t run from your destiny.”
“Does that mean I don’t have a choice in any of this?” I shiver as a cold wind passes through me.
“I believe that the choice was made before you were born. Your soul knew what it wanted, but your ego, on the other hand…”
I arch a brow as I turn to her. “Are you blaming my ego for this?”
“Well, it’s not your heart that’s being so stubborn.”
My eye twitches as I stare at the woman I’d once resented for being Damian’s sister, and who has now become my closest friend in the valley. Well, my only friend. It’s like she can see right through me, and it’s a trait she shares with her brother.
I can’t decide if I hate it here or not, especially when the patients start filtering in, and I naturally gravitate toward a duty I’d imposed upon myself. No one asked me to volunteer at the clinic, but it remains the only thing that keeps me sane.
As the day drags on, I pick up on the whispers every time I call the next werewolf into the first aid bay. Words like “fire-bringer,” “demon-slayer,” and “destiny” fill my eardrums with an incessant ringing that has me slightly disoriented by the afternoon.
I take a moment to pause, reflecting on the way each patient I’ve seen today watches me as if I’m something special.
I’ve never done well with being in the spotlight.
I was always comfortable being in the shadows, especially after my parents died.
Being a nurse allowed me to stay in those shadows, help patients heal, while fulfilling a deeper yearning from when I wished there was something I could have done to help my father first, then my mother.
Watching them wither away before my eyes was tough, and it’s what prompted me to chase my dream of becoming a nurse.
Perhaps that’s why I’m at a werewolf clinic, treating patients like this is what I signed up for, even if I was sprung into a different role entirely, with being a wife and wielding magic.
It comes so naturally, but now the werewolves are looking at me as if I’m their savior, while I’m just a human who has every reason to feel like the outcast here.
And maybe that’s why I can’t accept that Damian wants me again. He’s the leader of these wolves, the king of this valley, and I’m just plain old me.
Gulp.
I thought I hated him enough to hang on to the part where he broke my heart, but now I’m struggling with accepting that he might just see me the way the others see me—like I’m something special.
I can’t be seen like this. There’s nothing special about me. As I feel my insecurities coming up to the surface like acrid bile rising in my throat, panic sets in, driving me out of the clinic before the next patient walks in.
The world tilts around me, and everything becomes a blur as I feel a panic attack about to consume me. Fresh air won’t cut it, and that’s why I’m running back to Damian’s cabin, in search of solitude, in search of seclusion where no one can see me.
But instead of finding that solitude, I crash into a solid wall of heat, a pair of strong hands gripping my arms to steady me on shaky feet. My knees continue to quiver, my vision blurry as I look up to see the haze of Damian’s face in front of me, his brows furrowed with worry.
“Sophie? What happened?” he asks, but all I can manage is to shake my head fervently, my voice stuck in my throat when I try to speak.
Damian catches on and pulls me into his arms, leading me to the porch, where he guides me onto the first step. As I’m seated there, he doesn’t let go, allowing me to crash and face the extremity of what's been going on.
Every inch of me shakes, while my mind forces flashes of moments I've been refusing to remember. That night outside the cabin, that night on the opposite side of the valley…
I'd turned into something I don't recognize, something with so much power that it frightens me.
And suddenly, I feel trapped. By everything. By what I'm becoming. By Damian's arms.
I snap, pulling away abruptly and glaring at him with so much ferocity that he frowns as he stares at me, perplexed.
Panic quickly turned to fury, but it's the only thing that makes me feel like I'm in control.
That's when I storm into the cabin, in a haste that even surprises me, rushing to my bedroom to grab whatever it is that I need—whatever I consider mine, like the handbag I'd been snatched with, and a cellphone that hasn't even been turned on since I arrived here, as if I couldn't just call for help.
Why haven't I? What kind of spell have I been under?
“What are you doing, Sophie?”
I snap around to find Damian filling the doorway, watching me with a frown.
“I'm leaving. I'm getting out of here,” I say firmly. “I can't do this anymore.” I grab my handbag and lift it over my shoulder. “I want a divorce.”
“It's not so simple,” Damian sighs. “I thought we've been over this. I thought you understood that—”
“I don't understand anything!” I roar, throwing my arms up wildly, crazily, like I'm losing my mind. “Nothing makes sense here, and I don't want it anymore!”
“Sophie—” Damian attempts to reach out toward me, but I hold up a hand in front of his face, my anger explosive now.
“Don't!” I warn. “Don't touch me, thinking it's gonna fix anything, because it won't!”
“Is that what you think the other night was about? You think I don't know that it won't fix things between us? I know—”
“You know nothing, Damian! You don't know what's going on with me, and I'm sick of feeling like this! I want out!”
“I know what's going on with you, Sophie,” he sighs. “Just give me a chance to explain.”
“No! No more chances! You had your chance, and you blew it, and now you think that you can trap me here with ritual and fate and whatever else you werewolves believe in! I'm not falling for it!”
I try moving toward the doorway, but Damian stays rooted there, blocking my way.
“Let me go, Damian.”
“I can't do that, Sophie. It is dangerous out there. I'm not letting you walk into danger.”
“I don't need you to protect me,” I growl, glaring at him, but he refuses to relent.
“I know you don't, but you're safer here than you are out there.”
“You keep telling me that, and I don't believe you,” my voice trembles as I say this. “I don't trust you, Damian.”
“Then tell me what to do to make you trust me again.”
His voice is so sincere, so sure, that it stuns me how much my heart wants to believe him. But my mind is at war with the parts of me that want to believe him, and I snap again, “I want you to leave me alone.”
“You know I can't do that,” Damian argues, and I blow a frustrated breath through pursed lips.
“I just can't deal with you right now. I'm leaving, Damian.”
“No, you're not.” Damian takes a step forward, towering over me. “You know that's not what you want. You're afraid, Sophie, and I get it. I do. You don't know who you are.”
That last sentence strikes me harder than it should, and I shove at his shoulders with enough force to push him out of the way.
“I know who I am!” I roar as I step aside, halfway down the hallway, when I hear his voice echoing from behind me.
“You don't know what you are, Sophie.”
Those words stop me, something vibrating in my chest as if in response to that sentence, and I gasp. My eardrums are filled with a ringing sound that has me panicking again, and I turn around slowly, frowning furiously at Damian.
“What do you mean by that? What am I, Damian?”
Damian gulps, dropping his eyes and shrugging. “Nothing. It didn't mean anything.”
My nostrils flare, my body blazing with heat that frightens me—heat reminiscent of the heat that consumes me and turns me into something I'm afraid of.
And what's worse is that I can feel where it's being directed, at the person I'm most angry with, the man who is solely responsible for all of this.
There's a part of me, deep down, minute, that warns me to walk away before I do something I might regret, so I spin on my heel and put distance between Damian and me, throwing the door open and stepping out into the evening air just as the sun is setting.
Dusk is approaching, casting beauty and serenity over the valley, but I can't appreciate the scene.
Not when every part of me burns with that frightening heat I've been trying to run from. I race all the way to the river, lugging in deep breaths in an attempt to cool down.
I feel the tug, the pull that stops me from being impulsive, but it also whispers to me that I can't leave. I realize that it isn't a ritual or marriage that has me feeling trapped.
It's my own instinct, and my heart, that keeps me attached to this place—this place that should have felt like a prison, but instead feels like home.
As tears spill freely from my eyes and I sink to my knees, the ground cushions my fall, embracing me, silently holding me in welcoming arms I can't see, but which I can feel closing in around me.
The earth withers around me, like a circle that burns, before it erupts with new blooming life, surrounding me like a sacred circle of protection.
That's when it hits me that there is no escaping from this. Who I am, what I am becoming, is all a part of something I have no control over.
And not having control is the part that scares me the most.