Chapter 14: Win

I'd seen what happened in his head. The things that crossed through, the things that were there. I realized pretty quickly that even he didn't see what was there constantly. He said to try to stay on the most conscious levels, but I hadn't gone further than that. It was like he didn't even realize he was constantly thinking about those things.

I couldn't help but go over what I'd seen, the terrible, awful things. So much blood, so much horror. I wasn't entirely sure exactly what I'd seen, but I'd sensed the emotion, the sheer waterfalls of it. The pain, the will to die that was stronger than anything I'd ever felt. The humiliation and horror. The anger, the frustration, the helplessness. The shame, the self-hatred. I wanted to hug him, I wanted to tell him that whatever had happened to him once upon a time, it wasn't his fault.

But he pulled away again. He stood up and he left, the blood of the mark staining the shirt, ruining it. It occurred to me that I was still covered in his blood, my entire face. I could still taste it, and nearly threw up. I'd never tasted someone else's blood, never this strongly, never this much. It was a side effect of having never fought beyond light training.

I stood up and rushed to the bathroom, what was left of last nights dinner coming up into the toilet. I brushed my teeth twice, trying to get rid of the coppery taste, and once it seemed gone, I decided to change. I had an aversion to the substance that I'd never actually realized, and I wanted it gone.

The silence of the room, the mussed up and bloody sheets, they made me miss him. Something wild and instinctual had taken over, and right up until I was thrown into his mind, I'd been ready to go further. To make him mark me, to consummate our pairing, as my mother might put it.

I sighed and began to rummage through the drawers, smiling slightly. Minnie had put my clothes, and the new ones, right on beside his, like some little married couple. It looked normal, functional.

Minnie seemed to understand my style quite well, and I appreciated it. A mixture of casual and feminine, and I assumed all the nicer gowns would be in the closet. I opted for a pair of black pants and a rusty orange shirt, changing quickly and, deciding that we needed to talk about this, that bottling up all of this pain wouldn't go over well for either of us, I slipped out of the bedroom door.

I trailed after his scent, not quite running but certainly not walking. I tried to look casual and confident and Alpha-like every time I passed someone, and every one of them looked at me funny. I wasn't sure if it was because of the ordeal earlier, or the fact that I was covered in bandages, or because Nick was running around smelling like me.

I trailed it down the stairs, right into the dining room, and I stopped short as I entered.

It wasn't full, like it had been at dinner. Maybe twenty people, in small clusters around the room, finishing up their lunch. The only two people at the head table were Nick and Jasmine.

He sat, looking exhausted. Hunched over, hands gipping his head, staring down at the white tablecloth. She sat beside him, arm slung over his back, head on his shoulder, her gaze soft and sympathetic and tender, like she was staring down at her mate, not a marked male.

I couldn't help the anger and jealousy that sparked within me. Perhaps it was childish, surely they must be friends after knowing one another their entire lives, but this wasn't a friendly position. This was the position of a woman who was trying to be there so that she could be there.

Her gaze landed on me and her eyes immediately narrowed, raising her hand to give me the finger. I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to flip my shit. Be a good girl, Darcy. Don't be irrational. Violence is for the uncivilized. I walked toward them and he raised his head, a mixture of relief and anxiety in his eyes when they landed on me. I felt my brain seep into his for only a moment before pulling it back.

She still smells like me. Those pants look great on her. She'll hate me one day. I'm disg-

I closed down the link as quickly as I could, knowing the thoughts only got darker. Instead, I swallowed the anxiety in my throat, frowning at him.

"Nick, we need to talk." I said quietly, doing my best to ignore the dirty looks Jasmine was shooting me.

"No, you don't. You need to stay the fuck away from him." Jasmine interjected, standing up and moving in front of him, arms crossed and leaning to her hip, as though she had some right to speak for him, to interject herself into the conversation. Ruin her, the animal chanted, and I did my best to ignore it.

I took a deep breath, trying to be the big girl. "Jasmine, I don't know who you think you are, but you're not me. And you're not Nick. So piss the fuck off and let me talk to my goddamn mate, because I'm trying really hard to be civilized and I'm getting very close to the edge." I bit out, unable to help the anger and hatred that made it's way into my eyes.

She rolled her eyes, chuckling. "Oh? What're you going to do? You're five years younger and a foot shorter than me, I could crush you, sweetheart."

She wouldn't shut up. She kept going and going and I was almost tempted to swing right then and there - but that would be inappropriate. I'm a big girl. I'm a big girl. "Jasmine, I didn't choose this. I didn't choose Nick. He was given to me on a silver platter though, and I'm going to give it a shot. Now if you want to keep on fighting like a child, then swing at me. If not, then shut the fuck up and let me talk to him." I did my best to be a big girl. I didn't want to fight her, not particularly; I wasn't the fighting type. But at this point, if it would shut her up, I would.

"Fine." She said, and instead of turning and stomping off, she did swing. Hard and fast, her fist hit my cheek and I was stumbling backwards from the sheer weight behind her swing, my frame significantly too small.

In an instant, my sanity was thrown to the back of my mind and the animal propelled forward, all instinct and training. She didn't want to cry from pain, she wanted it. The pain fueled her, gave her a fire, made her faster, stronger.

It was over just as quickly as it had begun. I was small, but I'd been taught to end fights, not play around with them. I swung and hit her throat, her eyes widened as she gripped it. My hands flew to her shoulders and I brought her down, my knee slamming into her stomach. I then brought my elbow down on the back of her neck, and she was on the ground, choking on the air.

She'd be fine.

Eventually.

I glanced up to see a crowd had gathered, and even Nicholas stood, looking shocked. Pride flowed into me that wasn't my own and he stared at me with this bewildered, amazed look, as though he'd just seen me take down a full grown man.

It's what I'd been taught, of course. I was small and fragile, I was never taught to be a warrior like Candy and Tyler. So, while they were trained to shoot and be offensive, I was taught to get very large men on the ground very quickly. So a relatively large woman was a step down.

I opened my mouth to ask Nick if we could now go, but I was interrupted by cheering. It took a second for me to realize that the handful of people in the dining room were looking at me with pride and delight, cheering for me. Nick's words from earlier caught up to me, and it occurred to me that a show of power was exactly what they wanted. They wanted to see that I was some big bad Alpha female who didn't take shit.

If believing that would keep them from hating me, then I'd let them. Maybe I could convince them I wasn't some savage, but for now... it was easier.

I turned my eyes onto Nick once more, but he was already on his feet and walking towards me. There was something dark and hungry and dangerous in his eyes. Something that made me dizzy and weak in the knees. His mind was pushing at mine, trying to pull me in, and it took all I had to keep him out, knowing I wouldn't be able to maintain a will of steel with his desire in my mind.

He grabbed my wrist and began to tug me along, and I stumbled after him, high on the sensations pulsing through the wall between our minds. It wasn't all him, I managed to sort out. His desire was hot and hard and passionate, I realized, and my own was... hungry. The animal was tired of waiting, it wanted everything out of this bond. Everything out of him.

I wasn't sure where we were at first, certainly not the bedroom. All I could process was the feeling of his hand on my own. He shut the door behind us, and before I knew it, I was pressed against the wall, his lips on my neck, his hands roaming. I moaned, unable to keep it in, gripping onto his shirt and pulling him closer.

It's the thrill of the fight, I told myself. You're all excited from winning. But I knew it was bullshit. Maybe the win got me excited, but he was keeping me there.

Just a few days, but normal mates were already pregnant by now. We were biologically programmed to go fast and heavy, because we were always threatened by death. It was so easy to die in our world, it was so common. We were made to fall in love at first sight to skip the little things, the dating, the falling.

I realized then that I loved him. In some fucked up way, some way that I wasn't given any choice in, I loved him. I would always love him. He could be all sorts of fucked up, he could kill children for fun, and the way I felt wouldn't change. I was designed for it not to.

"Nick," I said, pulling his head away to stare into his eyes. There was an urgency in his expression, a wildness in his eyes, but he immediately stopped, meeting my gaze. "Nick, I'll never... I'll never want anyone beside you. I want you to mark me." I told him, feeling very sure about my decision, despite it being a bit... sudden.

But he didn't jump on it. He didn't start tearing clothes off and growing fangs. He just stopped, staring at me.

"Darcy, you're not thin-"

"I am." I told him, feeling very sure of it. "I'm built to love you, Nick, whether I want to or not. And I’m tired of fighting our nature. Whatever we come across, we can fix it, you and I. We can get through anything." I told him, nodding, as though a bob of my head would assure him of my choice.

He sighed, letting go of me, stepping back and rubbing his face. I dared to cross the barrier of our minds, and I felt a flood of emotion. He was conflicted. He was scared. He was suddenly very sure.

"No." He said finally, glancing back up at me and crossing his arms. "Darcy, I don't want you to love me because of nature, I want you to love me because you fell. I want that titanic sort of shit for you. I want you to keep your optimism, your fairy tales. You've seen what's in my head, you've seen the darkness - I want you to keep that spark, that light, I want that to keep going. I want you to want me to mark you like human girls want a proposal."

I frowned, then. I'd thought he wanted to mark me - it had been the first thing we'd fought about. Our first interaction. And now, the tables had turned, and I... didn't like it. I was trying to be realistic, I was trying to see the world as it really was, and he wouldn't let me.

I frowned at him, crossing my arms and shifting onto my hip. "Fine. What will it take to convince you?"

He didn't seem to like that. He gave me this bewildered look for a moment, before slowly shrugging. "I don't know. The fairy tale shit. What did you always dream about?"

"Romance." I muttered, glancing around. His scent coated the room, along with a few other less prominent scents. Pack, strangers. Book cases lined the walls, a massive desk in the center - I realized quickly that this was his office, and from the strength of the scent, he'd been sleeping here lately.

"What does romance entail, Darcy? Do I need to buy some white horse? Candle lit dinner?" He pressed, but he didn't sound frustrated. Desperate fit it more. I settled on the idea, finally, that he really did want the fairy tale, for me at least. It was a sweet thing, though I'd decided it was unnecessary.

I let my arms fall down, hands folding. I stared at them, the heat dying down and I suddenly felt much less... horny. I was in my senses, I didn't want to rush into anything. My thoughts raced to the first time I'd been in the house, hanging over his shoulder. I'd been so frightened and uncomfortable and-

"I want flowers, Nicholas." I said, chewing on my lip as I stared up at him. "Real flowers, not the fake ones. And dates. I don't know, the movies, a picnic - something that eighteen year old's do."

He stood there, this look of deep concentration on his face that made him seem terribly old and wise, before slowly nodding. "I can do that." As though it was conclusion enough, he turned and grabbed the door handle, moving to walk out. At the last moment, I reached out and grabbed his shoulder, causing him to stop and look at me.

"Thanks for... letting me come to my senses." I said, and after a moments hesitation, cleared my throat. "Bye?"

He stared at me for a moment, and the emotion on his face was a blur of feelings. I probed into his mind, but there was a steel wall up that wouldn't let me through, wouldn't let me in.

"Yeah, your welcome." He said finally, turning back, walking out, and shutting the door.