Crave

Crave
Elara

I had been carted away unceremoniously against my will by Logan. Kendrick had doted over me. Alejandra had stood in the corner, simply watching. Kendrick would occasionally go to her, but she would swat him off and tell him that I needed more. But I didn’t understand what I needed, and that was the plain and simple fact, I needed to leave this fucking place.

I felt a chill suddenly go down my spine. My ears soon began to itch. Two legends took place at once. I chuckled to myself. They said when you got chills, someone spoke about you, and when your ears itched, someone spoke back about you. Then again, being surrounded by enemies only meant that someone was always speaking back about me.

“Clearly, we need to intensify our efforts. She isn’t going to keep herself safe; we need to do it for her. I think we need to make sure that the Alpha stays away from her, being that he has done this.”

I rolled my eyes, watching Logan mumble. She looked at me; Logan sighed. I found myself staring at his beast. That creature was terrifying and powerful at the same time.

Logan looked at me. “Be counted among the lucky that he didn’t look at you with the intent of killing you.”

I swallowed but said nothing. Of course, the beast was terrifying enough, as was the man, but even more so when I thought about it, he seemed more like a tightly coiled spring, ready to simply explode. Any small incident would just cause him to let go of all that tension within. I felt as though what I saw was just the tip of the iceberg.

Still, it did nothing to stop how I felt deep within, how my skin felt sensitive, how my lips still tingled. I wiped my mouth again, hoping it would take away the feeling, but it didn’t. Nothing of the sort. If anything, that only made it worse, almost though it would make sense, it made absolutely none. The body, simply wiping my mouth, spread the sensation of that tingly, pleasant feeling I got.

Of course, the kiss was unlike any other. That raw possessiveness that he displayed was enough to shake me to my core, and even if I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, deep down I was so fucking hot. It hurt so bad I ached deep within, and it was wrong. Oh, it was damn wrong. He wouldn’t even look at me and call me his, so why should I bother?

“No,” I mumbled out loud.

Suddenly I noticed the room was silent. I looked up and found all of them staring at me.

“There’s no hope here,” I said. “There’s no hope with me and him, in case that’s what you’re thinking. So, old man, you can go ahead and tell your accounts, but there’s nothing there. Because you’d better find a way out of this without necessarily putting me on the hot seat, you know.”

Kendrick sighed. “You know, I would think that even after teaching you our rules and the customs of this great establishment, you would understand something, at least about our nature. There’s no getting out of this, human. Your rejection of him weakens him. His control over his beast will continue to slip until, well… sadly, he is nothing more than his beast in human flesh. His human consciousness might slowly fade away as the two parts continue to fight, and in the end, his beast will just as well take over and claim you.”

“So what’s the point?”

My mouth dropped open. Slowly, I closed it. “So what is my way out?”

I looked at Logan and then at his niece. She shrugged and shook her head.

“You die,” she said. “But that will only make him get broken. I’ve never seen a broken Alpha before, but I have seen a broken mate who died eventually from the heartbreak. The pain of the loss of your mate is too much. That’s why either one goes crazy or they die. Some even kill themselves,” she said. She blinked slowly.

“I don’t want you to die, because I don’t want him to die. And I don’t want him to go mad, because, well… there’s no successor.” She cocked her head again. “Somehow we must find a solution. You, unfortunately, are stuck between a wall and a hard place.”

I rolled my eyes, imagining it long before. “Leave me,” I said, looking down at my bed.

All left without words except for Kendrick, who slowly walked over to me and crouched in front of me.

The room was dark, save for the soft glow of the lamp close to the bed. But even with that, I could see the details on Kendrick's face, the color of his eyes, the way his irises had expanded, the slight lines at the side of his lips that deepened even more as he stretched or pressed his lips into a thin line. He smacked his lips together and opened his mouth.

"Are you all right?"

I shook my head. "No," I said honestly. "I don’t think I ever will be, and I don’t think everything is ever going to go back to normal for me." I looked away from him. "Am I supposed to just accept that this is my new normal?"

I looked at him and found him nodding.

"Unfortunately," he said softly. "I don’t think you ever will. But I think it’s wise and safe enough to know that maybe, just maybe, you can find some semblance of home here."

I scoffed. "As if I would ever be home in a place surrounded by enemies."

"No," he said. "I’m not your enemy. No one in this house is your enemy. There are some, believe it or not, who actually sympathize with you. No one wants to be taken from everything they know and thrust into a new place. I know, and even they do. I’m sure they wouldn’t like it if they were suddenly taken from here and thrust into the land of the witches, those who actually find us to be deplorable, or permanently kept as second-class citizens in the lands of the Fae. Either way, no one would wish the same fate upon their worst enemies."

He shook his head again. "I’m sorry you’re going through this. But I’m not your enemy. No one here is your enemy."

His voice was slightly soothing, making me smile softly.

"Let’s say you’re right," I said. "Let’s just say that by a wild stretch of imagination you are right, and I’m not going to dispute that. But what then happens when the person who is somehow the one who should ease you into this doesn’t care enough to actually accept you or see you as anything worth fighting for?"

He said nothing.

"I’ve seen the way you look at her," I pushed a little further. "You look at her as though the sun rises and sets on her, as if she is the center of your world, of your universe. I might never say this out loud aside from this point in time, but I want that. Maybe not him, someone else. Someone who actually is fine and normal and who doesn’t mind accepting something like me. Something human, something less."

I shook my head. "I crave that too, you know."

He pursed his lips together. "If you didn’t," he said softly, "then I would think you were mad."