Chapter 21 #2
I shook my head and gave myself one last look before slipping into my clothes, surrounding myself with darkness. Still, my eyes were sparkling with energy as I looked at myself.
Black hoodie, black jeans, my silvery hair peeking out from under the black hood. Levi had once called my clothes my armour, and he wasn’t wrong. Like this, I looked ready to fight.
If you don’t want to, you never need to fight again, Gray had told me yesterday. No matter how valuable a mage was in a battle, he hadn’t hesitated for even a second to keep me away from the action if it was what I needed.
Because my personal needs trumped the pack’s needs.
I laughed and shook my head.
Another foreign concept, another detail that made this pack unique.
Usually, the needs of the pack trumped everything.
At least with the packs I’d visited. I’d seen it time and time again.
The pack’s needs trumped everything. And the Alpha was the pack.
So, in the end, the Alpha’s needs trumped everything.
Was this pack really the exception, or was it the norm and I’d just not known? I’d never decided which packs to help. My coven had. They’d gotten the payment, and I’d gotten my marching orders.
But… had the price been the only deciding factor? Or had there been more criteria the packs had to meet? Criteria I hadn’t known about.
What if… what if they’d only ever sent me to bad packs. To packs they knew I wouldn’t want to stay with. Packs I couldn’t ask for help.
My mind started spinning, my eyes watering as I looked at myself in the mirror.
Would I have been able to have this earlier if I’d asked for refuge in a closer pack? Was everything I’d learned about packs all my life a lie?
I heard Gray turning in the bedroom and took a deep breath as I wiped my eyes. I needed to calm down, or my emotional turmoil would wake him and… too late.
“Sweetheart?” he called out, voice heavy with sleep. “Where are you?”
I swallowed, opened my mouth but closed it again, slapping a hand to it to keep a sob from escaping as my thoughts started spiralling again.
What if the only thing that’d kept me from my freedom was me and a web of lies that’d turned my mind into a prison?
Gray wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against his warm, furry chest.
“Hey. What’s going on? Talk to me.” He kissed the top of my head and gave me a sad smile through the mirror. “Whatever it is, I’m here.”
I blinked, tears still spilling from my eyes as I swallowed. “Just… thoughts.”
Gray barked out a laugh and turned me within his arms so I could look into his face, not just his reflection.
“It’s not just thoughts if they hurt you so much,” he said, his thumb brushing my tears away again and again. “You can share your pain with me.”
There was so much compassion in his eyes, so much hurt for the way I was hurting that the words spilled out before I could think about it.
“I was wondering if there are more packs like yours and if my coven purposefully kept me in the dark about what packs really are like, so I wouldn’t see a way out.”
For a second, Gray’s face glitched, compassion turning to rage, his eyes clouding, but then the warmth was back.
“Oh, Nix,” he whispered, pulling me against him again, his arms tightening around me as I was squished against his pecs. I closed my eyes and breathed in his earthy scent, let his steady heartbeat calm my own racing one. “That’s a loaded question,” he said eventually.
I let out a wet laugh. “Yeah… I’m sorry I woke you up with my freakout.”
“No.” Gray shook his head. I couldn’t see it, but I felt his muscles moving beneath my face and his hair swishing through the air.
“You don’t have to be sorry for something I want to be there for, okay?
I’m your mate. I want to be there for your freakouts because I want to hold you through them.
I want to be the rock by your side. Always.
I don’t think you realize how amazing you truly are.
You went through so much, but you made it to the other side.
You made it out. And now I’m here. I’m here so you don’t have to do it alone ever again, okay?
You’re a warrior, and warriors have wounds and scars.
They’re proof that you survived, but they’re also a burden.
And I’d love nothing more than to share that burden with you. ”
The tears started again, my throat clogging up as his words hit me. Not just his words, though. It was the honesty in his eyes, his love radiating through my chest, ringing true in my heart.
I reached out, pulled him down, and smashed my mouth to his. There were no words in my mind that could match his, but I had the urge to show him just how much I appreciated and fucking loved him.
Gray smiled against my lips, then carefully lifted me up, never breaking the kiss as he cupped my butt, holding me tight as he carried me down the stairs and gently lowered me to the couch.
“Give me a minute,” he whispered against my lips. “I don’t have a problem with nudity, but this feels like a conversation best had clothed.”
I snorted. “But we’re good at doing things while you’re naked. Think about our first kiss.”
Gray chuckled but pulled away. “True. Still, let me at least grab a pair of sweatpants.”
He was back in less than a minute, putting on a shirt that did nothing to hide his muscular form.
“Okay.” He nodded, then grabbed a blanket off the wooden shelf next to his TV. “You were wondering if there are more packs out there that are like this one?”
I nodded, even as my stomach knotted and a part of me wanted to shake my head. Did I really want to know whether I could’ve had my freedom years ago?
Gray spread the blanket over us and reached for my hand.
“We don’t have to do this. We can just watch a movie, if you want.”
“I need to know,” I whispered.
Gray took a deep breath and nodded. “Packs come in all colours and sizes. There are packs like ours, packs we’re friends with.
Some are close, some are far away. But we’re few and far between.
I wish I could tell you most packs are run the way I run Cedarwood, and I truly believe there are more good packs than bad ones out there, but I can’t deny there are still plenty of bad packs.
I would know, since we get plenty of members from bad packs. ”
“So…” I swallowed.
Gray shrugged. “The answer is, I don’t know.
Did your former coven purposefully send you to packs that were the worst possible places for a mage to be to keep you from running?
Probably. Would you have found a good pack if you’d run earlier?
I don’t know. I mean, those packs your coven sent you to…
they are real. No matter how many good packs there are, those bad ones are real too.
There’s no guarantee what kind of pack you would’ve encountered.
And while I would’ve loved to meet you under different circumstances, you can’t imagine how happy I am you found your way to me.
And I’m so incredibly glad our woods provided you shelter. ”
“Even though I was a secret intruder?”
Gray wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
“I was an asshole that first night. Maybe the next day too. I still wish you would’ve come to me right from the start.
But I understand now. I’ve been thinking about your situation a whole lot over the past few weeks, and I understand why you didn’t.
You didn’t know us. You didn’t know what kind of people we were. ”
I nodded, thinking back to that last night in my tent. Barely half a month had passed since then, yet it seemed a lifetime away.
“Did I ever tell you that I was planning on turning myself in?” I said, playing with Gray’s fingers.
“What?”
I nodded, not looking at him, but at our interlaced hands, his so much bigger and broader than mine.
“Levi had messaged me to tell me he was back in town, and I… honestly, I was at the end of my rope, so I asked Levi to meet up. I was going to tell him everything and then ask him to set up a meeting. I was desperate. I wanted one last night of freedom before I gambled it all away, and that’s when the barrier started going off, alerting me that there were two injured pups, and the rest is history. ”
For a while, Gray didn’t say anything, and the emotions echoing in my chest were changing too fast for me to really grasp. His aura was swirling too, like a tornado was surrounding him, until the storm eventually passed and he gave me a crooked smile.
“I kind of wish you’d had the chance to come to me,” he said, his eyes filled with pain.
“I’d like to believe that I would’ve reacted to the revelation of you hiding in my territory better.
I would like to imagine I’d have listened to your story right from the start.
But I can’t regret the way things went because it means Connie and Nick made it to us.
And it means you got to save their lives. ”
I nodded, squeezing Gray’s hand. “I’ve forgiven you, you know? I’ve forgiven you for the way you reacted to seeing me. And while I would’ve liked to reveal myself properly and on my own terms, I agree with you. Connie and Nick are special, and I’m so glad I was able to help them.”
“They like you,” Gray said with a snort.
“I don’t think they trust anyone in the pack the way they trust you.
Especially Connie. He’s almost an entirely different person when he’s with you.
With me or Paul or even Oak, he’s this meek little thing.
But I’ve heard you two talking. He’s not like that with you. ”
I thought about the first real conversation with Connie. The anger he was harbouring. “We bonded over a shared dislike of shifters.”