24. Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Dean
I listened at the window, hearing Tank make sure our mate knew what she’d done was wrong, and a dark smile spread across my lips. This was what she needed. Boundaries and reinforcement. It was going to be the most fun I’d had in years. As much as I wanted to be the one to help show her we’d always be around, I knew I wouldn’t be much good for her right now.
I was too pissed off to be gentle with her. Too far into the wolf.
He snarled in the back of mind in disagreement, but it was proof enough for me.
It wasn’t all her fault that I was struggling with the wolf, though; I was still kicking myself for letting her slip past me. I watched her walk into that bathroom and I should have waited for her to walk out. Instead, I fell asleep. Anything could have happened to her out there and it would have all been because I didn’t have the common sense to stay awake and see her for the flight risk she was. It wasn’t her fault; this was her default setting.
For her entire life, all the important people in Alyssa’s life had taught her to run and hide. That she couldn’t be her beautiful self out in the sun. We needed to show her another way. Show her that she didn’t have to be afraid of standing out, standing up and kicking ass in her own way.
The forest floor crunched beneath my feet as I followed the now familiar path down to the lake. There was something comforting about that place. It should horrify me to stare at the ground I’d laid dead on, even if only for a moment.
It didn’t.
My whole life was one fucked-up scenario after another. I’d probably spin out if normal ever happened to me. My default setting was protect at all costs. Sometimes those costs were pushed onto others, though, and the pit I usually kept myself in just got deeper.
Alyssa was the light at the top of the hole. She was the only motivation I needed to do anything. If everything I’d been through had been to get to this point, I’d never regret a thing. Maybe that was what I needed. Perspective was a beautiful thing when it didn’t end with you realising you were the villain after all.
I walked down to the water’s edge, deep in the thoughts of the people I’d hurt in life. Having the career I did, the parade of faces that flashed through my mind didn’t come with names, and I didn’t know if that made it better or worse.
For once in my life, staring out across the water’s surface calmed the storm inside me. I felt at peace here, and that wasn’t something I’d ever been able to say before. I didn’t know what it was. In fact, it was probably a combination of it all.
Alyssa.
The wolf.
A power to actually help those who needed it.
An opportunity to let myself be happy.
Nymeria had never sounded scary to me. Even when Alyssa had been trying to convince us all that we’d end up dead if we came here. She didn’t get that it was just an average working day for us. We walked the line between life and death like it was our favourite hike, and we got the same rush doing it, too.
But now we were here, now that we’d learned more about the possibilities Nymeria held, it just felt like the promise for a future I’d never let myself dream of before.
Maybe it was one more thing to add to the ‘definitely fucked in the head’ column, or maybe it was me finally finding my place in the world. Who the fuck cared?
I was here; I was weirdly happy, and I had someone in my life that I wanted to fight for. Something finally worth all the pain and the tortured memories. Fuck, I might have actually stumbled into finding a cause. It might even mean I was becoming a better man. Well, let’s not push it too far. This didn’t feel like the place where people thought miracles happened, even if all the evidence was to the contrary.
The thing with finding the someone you wanted to hold on to for the rest of your life was that in a place like this, you needed to be strong to do it. And looking around at the world we found ourselves in, where even the trees could move and swallow you whole, I knew I wasn’t strong enough.
But I could be.
I already had been when I’d last stood in this spot.
I could recall the rush of magic, the way it flowed through my body, entwining with the need to protect. It was like lifting a foot, ready to take the first step off a ledge, but then someone pulling you back just before you could fall. I’d felt the buildup, the anticipation, but not the release. And I knew that until I could figure out how to release what I held inside, I wouldn’t be any use to anyone.
So here I was. Standing in front of the biggest body of water I knew of, trying to figure out how to make waves.
And I had absolutely no idea where to start.
“Feel it,” the wolf whispered inside my mind. “Find the magic and feel it.”
“Sure, because it’s that easy,” I snarked, rolling my eyes at myself because this was a touch too close to talking to myself for me to really be comfortable with the whole thing.
“Feel it!” the wolf snapped.
“Wow, so you’re a dickhead, too. The others are going to kick us out when they realise how much of a pain it’s going to be being around us.”
“Mate would never kick us out. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and do as you’re told.”
So, the alpha was trying to alpha himself. That wouldn’t slowly drive me over the edge.
I wanted to pout, or at least do as the damn wolf was saying and prove to him that he was wrong. Of course, he wasn’t . And now I was robbed of the victory of being a failure and had to accept that he might actually know what he was talking about.
It was still there, just beneath the surface, the same as the wolf was. Now that I was thinking about it, I could recognise the changes in my body, or at least the subtle shifts in how I felt in my own skin. It was difficult to separate from the wolf because they were both so new to me, but he was more in my mind while the magic simmered and sparked deep in my chest.
Closing my eyes and trying to convince myself that I didn’t look like an idiot, I sank into that feeling. A rush of happiness surged over me and I knew it was coming from her. This was the bond. But beside it, there was something else. Something that had expanded to cover that bond like a protective layer. It felt cold, like dipping your hand into an icy lake in the winter. The coldness edged towards a hint of pain, but I knew with more certainty than I’d felt before that it wouldn’t ever try to hurt me.
The wolf smiled. His calm patience felt foreign as he nudged me to follow the feel of magic even deeper inside myself.
My eyes opened, and I lost the trail I’d been following in my mind. Cautiously looking around, I tried to figure out what had made me snap back to reality.
Cocking my head to the side, I listened, even allowing my wolf to reach out and listen in his own way. There was no one here. Nothing moving closely enough that it could be considered a threat.
Yet something had changed.
Cautiously, I sat down on the soft sandy ground we’d washed up on and waited. When nothing came, I wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Train, and stop getting spooked by your own magic,” the wolf scoffed.
If I could throttle him, I would. It wasn’t lost on me that most people felt the same way about me.
Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes again, and tried not to think of how I must have looked like a petulant child, as I sank back into the feeling inside.
It didn’t take long for me to feel like I was submerged in the cold. I could feel the touch of frost against my skin, even if I wasn’t sure if it was real or not.
“Now push it out,” the wolf said, like that was enough information.
Push it out? How did you push something that wasn’t a physical, solid thing?
The more I thought about it, the more I lost the icy feeling swirling around my body.
“Stop thinking!” the wolf snapped.
The magic completely fled me at that point, and I growled in frustration as my eyes snapped open again.
This was impossible. There was a reason people had teachers for this sort of thing. You couldn’t just figure this stuff out for yourself. Why was I even trying to do this on my own?
I stared out across the water again, wanting to feel the peace I’d had when I first got here, but finding it eluded me completely. The frustration built to anger, and I knew this was why I didn’t want to have others around me while I tried to figure this whole situation out. Because when I couldn’t do something, my first instinct was to lash out. It was better that I was alone. Alone was safe, not just for me, but for them.
The wolf laughed inside my head and I thought he was going to be one more piece of myself that I grew to hate.
“You and mate are the same,” he told me. “Always thinking alone is safe. You need to lean on your pack. Let them be your safe.”
He was right. I already knew that. It was the same argument I’d tried to give when I found my place with Damon and the others. And all these years I’d never been able to actually do it.
I was so broken I didn’t even think I had all the pieces to put back together anymore. I wouldn’t recognise myself if I did. It had been that long.
Fuck, this was turning into a pity party of epic proportions, even for me.
My gaze moved across the surrounding landscape. This was a place where what had once been the impossible for us was everyday life. So maybe I just needed to believe it enough for it to actually happen.
Maybe I just needed to believe in the magic enough to actually use it.
I needed to stop thinking of it as this strange new thing that made no sense in the world I’d been born in and look at it from a Nymerian perspective. Doubt and second guessing wouldn’t get me anywhere. If I could accept the fact that magic was real, then I needed to apply that to the way it was used.
And that was so much easier said than done.
I was starting to think it was my brain that was the problem. I already knew I was broken. Maybe there was no hope for me at all.
“Are you always like this? You’re exhausting.” The wolf sighed. “Go find our pack.”
I resisted the urge to point out that he was more exhausting.
But this wasn’t getting anywhere. My brain was telling me I needed to calm down, like meditate or some such shit. As if that was ever going to happen.
“Shift,” the wolf demanded.
“What? How is that going to help?”
“You did it last time when we shifted. Shift. Run. Hunt. Lean into your instincts to calm your mind.”
Unfortunately for me, the wolf was making sense. It also led us to an entirely different problem, and a feeling of uselessness flowed over me.
The wolf said nothing, but I could feel the fucker smiling. He was going to make me say it. He really was just another side of me.
“Fine. How do I shift?” I asked with a sigh.
His wolfy laughter filled my mind, and then he talked me through it. It was easier than I expected, and a whole hell of a lot less painful than last time. It was also something else we needed to practise. I wanted to shift in a split second in case I needed him in a fight. The moments it took now to shift, whilst not that long in the grand scheme of things, were still long enough to get us killed.
Something else to add to the list.
With that thought, the wolf shook out his fur and took off into the trees at a speed I’d never run before. I sank into the background of his mind as he darted between the trunks, seeking a scent I didn’t recognise. His joy to just run flowed around me as I turned my mind back to that feeling of magic at my centre. Might as well be productive while I had the chance.
This would make us stronger. Finally, I had something I could use to protect the people who meant the most to me. I just needed to get them all home again first, wherever home turned out to be.