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Emotion burned so hot in my face that the wetness in my eyes stung. My shoulders quaked, fractures spreading through my usually stoic façade threatening to erupt with everything that had built up inside me. I couldn’t move for fear of her seeing this side of me that I’d never revealed to anybody else, but I was so broken and low that it was too much.

If anybody had to see me fall apart, I wanted it to be my fated mate.

Aislin just held me and kissed my cheek, granting me the love I’d deprived myself of for so long.

Chapter 21: Aislin

S

eeing Eastpeak in shambles changed my entire perspective of the mountainous pack. I once thought the wolves of Eastpeak were stoic, composed, strong of both body and mind, like Everett. They resisted help and kept to themselves, so much that even I found them intimidating, like they were so above the simpletons of Grandbay and Dalesbloom that they didn’t need to trouble themselves with our affairs. Only now I saw them for what they truly were: just people content with their solitude, and they crumbled under pressure just like the rest of us. 

Between bouts of gentle weeping and shell-shocked errands, the Eastpeak wolves were grateful to Gavin, Billie, Muriel, and I as we tried our best to help throughout the evening. I still couldn’t fully comprehend how this had happened. It didn’t even feel real when Everett first told me over the phone. The sight of his bloody and tattered packmates was evidence of the dragon attack, but it wasn’t until I traveled back with him and the Mythguard to the site of the massacre that the devastation was driven home. Seven bodies were lined up in the grass and bared to the early September sunset, the stench of acrid oil and coagulated blood hovering above them. We had brought tarps to wrap them up and carry them back to Everett’s place in. There was a graveyard the shifters used on the mountainside to the furthest east of Eastpeak territory where they were destined to go. Together, Gavin, Billie, and I, as well as four of the Mythguard helped Everett and his packmates collect their dead. By nightfall, we had them home, and shortly after midnight, we had buried them all in a row, makeshift wooden crosses standing in place of the gravestones that would come later.

In the earliest hours of the morning, my packmates finally left. “I’m going to stay behind with Everett,” I told Gavin. “It just feels like I should.”

He understood. The fated mate bond was stronger than the disagreements that pushed us apart in the first place, and I knew the best thing I could do for my fated mate was simply be here for him. His pack needed him, but when that was all said and done… who else could give Everett what he needed but me?

His injured packmates remained in the house. Two of them occupied his two spare bedrooms, and the other two shared the sectional couch downstairs. A few healthier packmates stayed to keep an eye on them, camping out in sleeping bags on the floor. I had brought a change of clothes just in case and kept my bag on the floor of Everett’s bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, and I carefully sat down beside him, searching his face for unspoken thoughts.

Everett finally sighed. “Thank you for your help today.”

“Of course. I couldn’t just leave you to deal with this alone.”

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to be here.”

The roughness in his voice betrayed the difficulty of his day. Underlying frustration brought an edge to his words that could have been directed at me or himself, but from what I knew of Everett, I suspected it was the latter. He heaped all the blame of this attack upon himself, and not just the attack, but my anger at his plans to use me, too. He blamed himself for everything that had gone wrong these past few days and it wouldn’t surprise me if he wanted to push everyone away so he could fester in his guilt. It was probably how he coped with all of his shortcomings, but I wasn’t going to let him isolate himself and suffer alone anymore.

I scooted closer until my knee brushed his. “I want to be here with you, Everett. I know things between us have been rocky, but we just never got a chance to understand each other. It’s happening, however slowly… even if it takes a terrible fucking tragedy for me to see parts of you that you normally wouldn’t show anyone else. But I need to see these parts of you. Just like you need to see parts of me I usually keep locked away. So, to me… it’s okay if you feel like you’re a mess, like you ruined everything, because you need to give me a chance to see that and accept that about you. Does that make sense?”

Everett stared ahead, processing what I said. Earlier, I had witnessed a moment of vulnerability in him, where he locked up and trembled as I held him, and even now I could tell he was trying not to let it happen again. Slowly, he replied, “That’s very sensible of you.”

“I can’t take credit for the idea.”

He glanced at me.

“Muriel said something that got me thinking,” I clarified.

“What did she say?”

“That people should be understood and loved alongside their flaws.”

Everett furrowed his eyebrows.

“It’s just that these imperfections you talk about, that’s what makes you human. It’s what puts us on the same level… makes it easier to relate to you,” I said. “If you think you fucked up big time, well… it’s okay, we all do. Especially me.”

“Not badly enough to get your packmates killed.”

“Maybe not, but you didn’t do it on purpose. Everybody fucks up. Recognizing that is the first step to forgiving yourself, I think, and when you can forgive yourself, you can forgive others.”

Everett drew in a long breath and looked at the wall again. The gears in his mind kept turning, his mouth tightening as I watched him grapple with finally allowing himself a touch of forgiveness. For nearly a minute, I was left in the suspense of not knowing if he would accept my advice or not. Then, instead of a verbal response, he turned to me and lifted his fingers to my cheek. Not expecting the touch, I stiffened and met his eyes—or rather, fell deeply into them, seeing myself reflected back in his wounded greys. The slightest pull of his fingers coaxed me closer until his lips cradled mine. He kissed me once—gingerly—and then a second time, more fully and for longer. My heart blossomed with elation, unsteady though it was.

When we broke contact, Everett rekindled it by pressing his brow against mine. “I think, in a way, you’re much smarter than me when it comes to other people,” he said softly.

A nervous chuckle blurted from me. “Maybe in a way, yeah. But probably not for long.”

“Why?”

“Because now that you’ve gained this very important knowledge, you’re gonna start applying it.”

“You mean treating others like they’re human?”

“Yeah.”