Chapter 13: Nick

She stared at me with this look that was part agitation and part disbelief, as though I'd just told her I was pregnant, and the father (mother?) was a goddamn bear. A polar bear. The thought of a were-bear-wolf cub-pup creature was amusing, and I almost smiled. Almost.

"We've been over this Nic-" She started, her lips tilted in a pout that I couldn't help but linger on. The animal inside of me wanted those lips pressed against me. My lips, my cheek, my neck - anywhere. It wanted those lips to part and sink those pearly white teeth into my skin and call me her's for the whole damn world to see. I forced myself to look up to her eyes, clearing my throat.

"No, we haven't, actually." I countered, unable to resist the smirk that found it's way onto my features. I'd found a loophole, if one could even call it that. "We agreed to give it time before I mark you. I mark you. We never discussed you marking me. You'll be in no way bound to me; you'll feel me when you want to, and you won't when you don't." I held my head high on my shoulders, unable to be proud of my idea. It was brilliant, really, and would solve most of the issues.

She sat there for a moment, her defiant glare melting away to a look of consideration. She was trying to find a fault that wasn't there, a hole in my idea. Finally, she sighed and had this... look. One of fear, of sadness, of anxiety. She didn't want to be thinking her thought - she seemed to do it a lot. "Nick, what if it... it doesn't work out? What if I leave, what if I die? You'll never be able to mark someone else. You'll never be able to move on, you'll be tied to someone you don't have for the rest of your life. Shouldn't we just... wait?"

My jaw clenched. I wanted to tell her to not say, not even think those things. Everything would always be fine and we'd live happily ever after and life would be good. But it wasn't reality, and part of me was glad that she'd started to see the real world. The way everything didn't fit together like a fairy tale. But I didn't want her to lose the bright optimism she possessed; it contrasted my darkness well enough to make it easier to smile, sometimes. It made the weights that hung from every one of my limbs feel less crushing.

"What will waiting do, Darcy?" I said, turning to her fully as I spoke, legs folded on top of one another, unable to help the desperation in my voice. "If something is going to happen to you, it will either way. I don't care if I can never have anyone else - I don't want anyone else. For the rest of my life, even if I live it alone, I only want you. The memories of you. The knowledge that I'll have a piece of you, even if it's only your mark."

I swallowed back the big ball of emotion that wanted to fall out. The urge to profess my undying love for her, recalling one... unfortunate fact. "You don't understand the way it feels, just seeing you. You're eighteen, you've only been feeling the mate pull for a few weeks. The pull you feel to me, it isn't shit. It's one drop compared to the ocean I feel. I'm trying to be a good boy, control myself, but every time I see or smell you, I want more. I want to take you and claim you and own you in the most animalistic of ways. Your mark would ease it. For a while."

She stayed quiet, just watching me. I forced myself to stay with her gaze, forced the animal, the Alpha, down. I had to be good, I couldn't lose her. I'd lost too many people in my life, I couldn't take another one.

"Okay." Darcy said, a shy smile playing on her lips. "Let's do it. Just you. I'm, uh, I'm going to go brush my teeth."

I chuckled at her comment as she scrabbled to her feet, all but running into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. She was so different. The females in the pack were spitfires; they were raised to keep up with the strongest, to outrun them. They were powerful, so used to having their way. They used sex and manipulation just like they used their fists.

Sure, I was into it. Feminism was sexy, powerful women were sexy. They stood up for themselves. But Darcy wasn't like that, not entirely. She was fierce, she was powerful, no doubt; she stood up for herself when it all boiled down. But she wasn't hard, she wasn't mean, malicious. She had kindness, warmth. She was caring in a way that I hadn't seen since my mother had died. She showed mercy for a woman who wanted to tear her apart, she took her mother's punishment. She didn't see the world as big and dark and dangerous like I'd been taught it was.

I smiled and shook my head, trying to dismiss the thoughts. Now wasn't the time for sappy thoughts, I had the rest of our lives to do that, provided I didn't fuck up now. Standing up, I began unbuttoning my shirt, shrugging it off onto my side of the bed. After a moments consideration, I unbuckled my pants and let them fall to the floor, leaving me in only my underwear and socks, which seemed appropriate. Marking was intimate and sexual by nature. Besides, she'd need to see all of her options on where to put it before she bit down and marked me. But the socks, I figured would lighten it. We weren't fucking, so why not have something to make it less heavy, less sexual. Socks did the job.

I sat on the bed, wiggling like a fish out of water. I wasn't sure what position to be in; I tried laying on my back, my stomach, my side. Standing, sitting, sprawled out. Finally, when the water shut off, I sat on the edge, legs dangling in front of me. The door handle jiggled and she stood there, staring at me.

She'd brushed her teeth, I could smell the toothpaste from here. She'd also put her hair down, the curls hanging around her face like a crown. She'd wiped off the endearingly smudged makeup off, gotten rid of the lipstick.

She made my heart thump faster, and I heard her own mimicking it. We stood there, staring at one another, the pull increasing with each second.

"Socks?"

"Yeah."

More silence.

"Where?"

"Anywhere."

More silence. Then, she stalked across the room, my gaze unable to trail along her legs, anticipating what would come. The heat, the fire, the passion. Instead, she stopped in front of me, lips poised to kiss me but she didn't make the move. She stood there, looking nervous and unsure, and I found it impossible to wait anymore.

"You, uh," I cleared my voice, knowing it was to low, too husky, too wanting, "you want me to...?"

She nodded, and I complied.

On my feet in an instant, I did exactly what I'd wanted from the second I saw her on that porch. One arm threading around her waist, I pulled her against me and kissed her.

It was like a bomb had exploded. Every one of my senses all but shut down, the world too bright, my ears ringing. It was more than fireworks - it was borderline tinnitus. Nothing, nothing, had ever felt this way. This insane and impossible and addicting. I wanted more, and the slow-and-soft idea went to shit in an instant.

My free hand fell lower this time and I picked her up. Just as soon as we were on the bed, something in the air shifted. Her eyes looked less hazel and more amber, her teeth beginning to elongate. She gripped either side of my shoulders and flipped us over with a strength that I'd never realized she possessed, on top of me. My brows shot up in surprise, but I didn't argue, a smile crossing my features instead as her lips moved from my own, traveling across my body.

Over my face, my neck, my chest. With each kiss, I felt a little scrape of her teeth on my skin, and it took a few minutes for me to realize that she was searching for the place to mark. The place to sink her teeth in, the place for the world to see she was mine.

Her lips trailed down my left arm, and once she hit my wrist, she stopped. I craned my neck upwards to see her looking at me, eyes dark, teeth extended. There was a look of question in her eyes. Here? I couldn't resist the grin that adorned my features at her choice; the wrist was a place for all the world to see, same as the neck, but a little under-marked.

I nodded and let my head fall back, bracing myself for the feeling of getting bitten.

Her teeth pressed against the skin like little knives, slowly increasing in pressure. It hurt like hell and I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to scream out in pain. Seconds ticked by, and finally, the skin broke, blood beginning to flow as she bit harder. All at once, the pain seeped away and ecstasy filled my entire body. I couldn't stop the moan that escaped, the warmth from my wrist spreading to every limb, making my body hum. The animal inside of me purred, wanting nothing more than to replicate the feeling by marking her. It wanted to feel her, just as it did me. I took great care to muzzle those instincts.

While I relished in the fact that she was literally inside of my mind, I could feel the hum of another consciousness behind my own, she didn't take the news very well.

She screamed, pulling away so quickly that I had to flinch as her teeth tore the skin a little. She threw herself off of the bed, her hands threaded through her hair, returning to a fully human state. There was a look of terror on her face, and it occurred to me, right then, that my mind might not be the best place for a girl like her. Shit.

I sat up, holding my arm closed to my chest as it began to heal, looking at her with worry, with concern. "Darcy, just breathe. You're getting my entire stream of consciousness right now, and I need you to try to ease out of it." I tried to coax her, slipping off of the bed and moving toward her.

She looked at me with big, teary eyes, her face so full of emotion that I couldn't distinguish them from one another. "Nick-"

"Please don't." I said immediately, clenching my jaw as the hum disappeared, as she pulled out of my mind. "Darcy, please don't ever talk about the things you just saw. To me, to anyone. We can work on keeping you at the most conscious of levels, but... there are things I'd rather not ever talk about. Things I'd rather forget."

I kept my tone low, level. Her expression was hurt, hurt that I wouldn't share these things with her, but I couldn't. The very thought of explaining every degree of fucked up my life had been brought a physical pain to me, and by instinct, I stood up and pulled my clothes back on.

I could feel her eyes on me. I could feel the confusion, the frustration, the pain. She was tired of this, of me doing this. I wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault, tell her I was just an asshole. I wanted to tell her she ought to leave, she was better off without me. She could find someone else and be happy, because I wasn't shit. I'd been taught from a very young age that I wasn't good enough, and I knew it was true. Everything he had said was true. I didn't deserve her.

I buttoned the last button on my shirt and, without even a glance at her, knowing full well I couldn't hide the shame on my face, I walked out of the room, shutting the door behind me.