16. The Alpha’s Game
Haera
Haera pressed her palm to her mouth, immediately horrified by the direction the conversation was trending in. Her heart was pounding along in a staccato – missing one beat then racing along for the next four. Missing three then racing along for the next eleven. Bile was rising into her throat. What would she do?
Theos’ expression was dead set on her, red eyes narrowing and darkening the longer she hesitated – the longer she sat, frozen in the request to admit the truth.
“Go on little darling. No more withholding. ” Just the memory of his words sent chills raging along her skin. She was through. It was over. Her free hand tightened in a vice grip around a bundle of the sheets. And even through the fear, the bond tried to reassure that he was right.
She did have enough evidence to know for certain that he was nothing like the men she had been unfortunate enough to suffer at the hands of before. Continuing to withhold from him was only adding stress to her heart; to their bond. She wanted to tell him. She could feel the desperate need to confide in him, to let him comfort her, bubble up more and more from some deep abandoned part of her soul. He was going to find out eventually. She would need to say it at some point. Why keep putting it off?
But what if he rejected her? What if she was too broken to love? She looked up from the point on the bed in front of her that she had been staring at mindlessly, directing her attention to Theos. He was still standing at the foot of the bed, his hands at his sides though he looked like he wanted to cross them over his chest…or…do something else with them. She could see his rope like veins flex and ripple under his skin as his muscles tensed, then relaxed. His face was still set, though she couldn’t read what emotion he was feeling.
As she looked at him, she checked the bond in her heart, trying to figure out what he was feeling. Was he angry? Disgusted with her for being so weak? She focused her attention on the small gurgle of energy that connected their souls. She could feel its presence. But she couldn’t feel any of its emotions. The seed of doubt in her heart widened into a raging torrent, and while she watched, Theos’ expression shifted into something soft.
“You can’t feel me.” He said matter of factly.
Haera nodded, pulling her lip between her teeth to try to stuff down the fresh tears that were springing up. Gods. She hated that she cried so much. Always crying. Always weak.
“I don’t want you to feel the anger that is currently raging through my body.” He ground out, obviously trying to keep the emotion from also showing up in his voice.
“But why would you withhold what you’re feeling from me?” she asked tearfully, the gaping absence of emotion in the bond making her feel empty even though he was standing across from her.
A low frustrated groan rumbled out of Theos. His fists tightened until his shoulders and back visibly strained. “My primary concern is for your safety, Haera.” He answered, his head raised to the ceiling and his eyes closed. “My anger is the least safe thing I could introduce you to in this moment. I don’t want you to think that my anger is directed at you.”
“But I’m your mate.” She responded quietly.
His head lowered, and he stared at her. Something like desire settled in his expression, but she couldn’t feel it in the bond. For a segund, he didn’t speak, and his eyes fluttered closed.
“Fuck, it feels so good when you call me that.” His chest expanded with a deep breath. “You are my mate. But you are a mortal, and I am a seething, raging, ball of unstable creative force that right now, has appetite only for destruction.”
“You don’t…look angry.” Her words were nothing more than a whisper.
“The thrills and whims of wild winds destroy everything in their path, and yet, you have never seen the wind.”
Haera swallowed, then choked as the sudden shrieking of wind arose as it bolted past her windows. The cottage trembled and shook, its stacked stone walls suddenly under the uphill battle of withstanding the storm force winds.
“And the Earth, it pushes back up at your feet when you stand, and yet you never feel it move. ”
The hand that had flown up to cover her mouth at his initial question had slowly made its way down to the bed. But when the ground beneath them roiled, a deep treacherous groan like the anguish of a man in pain rising from it, both her hands turned into fists in the sheets. As soon as the wind and the shaking began, it died down, leaving in its place a strained silence.
“Now, tell me Haera, what did he do?”
Shame threatened to cut off her air entirely. She was trapped. There was no way to get out of this conversation without telling the truth. Her eyes closed, trying to focus on breathing. The heat of Theos’ crimson gaze moved over her face, and the longer the silence dragged on, the more shame tightened its grip on her voice. She tried to make her lips form the words.
“Look at me.” Came Theos’ commanding voice.
She was trembling again, her mind separating itself from the present. She was back in the pack house, standing in the long hallway that led to her room. She could hear footsteps coming down the hallway behind her. She forced her feet to move. She ran, but the steps behind her started running too. She was desperate to reach her door. To lock herself inside. She was almost there. Three more steps. A hand was tightening in the back of her shirt. She was slipping. Falling.
“Haera. ”
The dissociative spell was broken as soon as Theos said her name, and his voice pulled her back to the present. Every muscle in her body was trembling from the vividity of the flashback. She could never catch a break. As soon as she had recovered from the weight of dredging up one of her horrible experiences, she was falling apart under the weight of the shards of another. The words were spilling out of her then. Her soul heaved up its shame and torment into the air around them.
“The alpha of my pack wanted to…” her throat closed around her words. The shame of it was too much.
Theos’ expression darkened at the mention of him. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and the muscles in his arms flexed again. His eyes smouldered like hot coals as he coughed up the words as calmly as he could manage. “What did he want, my love?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, begging herself to say the words out loud. She needed to say it. She hadn’t said it to anyone. Not even to Alanis. “Me. He wanted me. He tried to mark me by force. He tried to make me his mate. And when I refused, he…he raped me.”
The sobs came wracking through her fast on the heels of her confession, and Theos strangled curse set the ground shaking and warping beneath them .
“Fuck .”
She was falling forward, sinking into the bed. His voice was closer. He was moving. And then the bond surged with emotion from him. Grief. Sorrow. Regret. Heartbreak. Sadness. Rage .
His voice sounded desperate, barely there, rough as it grated into her ear. “I need to comfort you. Tell me I can touch you. Please fucking tell me I can touch you.”
She managed to nod, and then she was swept into his arms. Though she hadn’t thought it possible, her heart shattered even more. Because for the way her entire body shook, she may as well have been the Earth, dissolving in the face of its maker’s anger. Theos held her close while she shook from her cries, all the suppressed shame and rage flooding to the surface like a bubbling spring. He said nothing when her sobbing turned into screaming, but the tightening of his arms meant everything. The rejection she’d expected was nowhere to be found. All she found in his arms was safety.