Chapter 30: Chapter 30

Beck

The look she gave me proved she didn’t believe me. I’d fix that too. When I said something I meant it.

I walked out, turning off the light and shutting the door quietly. I turned on the radio for extra assurance she wouldn’t be eavesdropping.

Misty let out a breath from the kitchen as I emerged, watching me quizzically as I flipped on the radio.

“It’s the wolf pups that are giving her a hard time,” I said quietly.

She closed her eyes and sighed, immediately berating herself. I walked over to her, placing my hand on her shoulder when she looked up at me.

“You can’t save her from everything; she is going to learn to navigate other shifters in the world her entire life, but I can help with this. You just have to put me on the paperwork so I can get her on Monday," I informed.

“How's that..”

I shook my head at her, stopping her words. “I’ve got this,” I insisted, leaving no room for argument.

Her lips pursed. “I dunno,” she started.

“I’ll meet you on the field trip or take her, you’ll be safe with Valentina if I go, it’s the only way we can ensure she is safe,” I continued trying to quell another fear.

Her mouth opened and closed before her eyes became stern. “I barely know you, Beck. I’ve trusted you because Adelaide trusts you, but I don’t really know you,” she pointed out.

“What do you want to know?”

Her forehead furrowed as she thought. “Let's start small. How does a badass guy like you quote ‘the lord of the rings’?”

I snorted. “Bears tend to be loners the older we get, as kids we have to find ways to entertain ourselves. I’ll admit to being a bit of a nerd,” I said.

Misty smiled and shook her head. “I want to show you something.” She walked over to a bookcase in the living room and pulled out a book and walked back handing it to me. It was a worn, dilapidated to be more correct book of ‘Lord of the rings’ artwork when I went to gently flip through the pages I found several bits of paper tucked into the pages. I pulled one out for inspection. It was of the dragon resting amid the treasure trove. A similar image with the artist’s own flare of style.

I held it up to her. “What’s this?”

“Whenever I got grounded because my parents couldn’t handle my rebellious streak, drawing got me through the ‘unfairness’ of it. I babysat for an entire month of weekends to buy this book because I loved the story so much.”

“You drew this?” I said holding up the picture for her to see again.

“I did,” she confirmed.

“It's good,” I said, with a grin.

She offers a small smile, her eyes warming slightly. I flip through the pictures of elves and hobbits, and I find that an unbidden smile has found its way across my features.

“You are a nerd, aren’t you?” Misty teases nudging me with her shoulder. I feel a sheepish expression spread across my face and all of sudden I feel like an awkward teenager again. Her shoulder leans against me as she reaches across and tugs a folded piece of paper from between the pages and the back cover. She gently opens it, leaning it against the open pages in my lap. Her cheek resting against my arm as she looks at it. The warmth of her against me, causes me to let out a breath as I feel… connection. Something my humanity recognizes but has been starved for for far too long. I blink and look back at the page she opened up. It’s a page layered with all the important characters layered with images of harvest for the hobbits, and forests for the tree people, a spire protruding out in the middle for the wizard’s tower. Delicate lines depicting elves and harsh one depicting dwarves sketched into the side of a mountain.

“I got grounded a lot as a kid, this is how I blew off steam,” she said. It was my mom’s book and I saved up to read the volumes but this is how I chose to spend my time once I became accustomed to the story.”

I marveled at the art in front of me, and found myself softening as I learned something new about her.

“Why didn’t you become an artist?”

Her eyes glanced down the hall. She had sacrificed it to raise her daughter.

“Tell me about your mate,” she said quietly, avoiding my question. She rested into the couch’s cushions, her arm still resting against mine in our proximity. “I don’t mean about the hard stuff, just, who was she and why did you love her?” she asked quietly, almost demurely. That tone was out of character, and its softness demanded an answer. She waited patiently as my throat bobbed. Not even my parents had asked about her. In our small town, only a few clusters of shifters resided. The lynx, a few stray wolves and us bears. We had lived around humans and when the mating bond had shown itself, our people on both sides were horrified.

“Alley defied her pride in the name of our love,” I explained. “She was steadfast and full of life to the point we left home to carve out our lives alone when our parents protested. She was as ruthless as she was soft. She loved music, and we would go camping often to let our animals out on our way to one concert or another,” I found myself rambling as that ache for her loss built in my chest. “She loved to ride, but she also loved gardening. She would have loved you and Adelaide," I found myself saying in a whisper. Misty gave my arm a squeeze, before her head fell against my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, hooking her arm with mine. Her arm was resting against my forearm. The ache in my heart that I defined as loneliness eased a bit, and I shifted my hand and squeezed hers resting on my forearm. “Alley was full of life, and I defined mine as hers until she was gone.”

“So how do you define your life now?” she asked in a whisper.

“By the lives I save in her name, because I failed to save hers as I should have as her mate,” I admitted. She looked up at me, and where I expected to see pity in her hazel eyes, only sadness met mine.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, holding up the artwork to change the subject.

“My parents refused to support an art degree. They thought it was just a hobby; they didn’t take it seriously, so I tried for a marketing tech degree, after Cricket, though, even with Adelaide’s help, I couldn’t keep up, and I dropped out.”

“So you just gave it up?”

“Yeah, I haven’t had the headspace to draw since Cricket’s dad,” she said, dropping her eyes. He had really fucked her up in the head. “You should still try; your dreams are worth striving for,” I said.

“I don’t have the luxury of dreaming anymore. I have bills to pay, a kid to support, and I’m better at hacking anyway.”

I realized I still held her hand as if my subconscious was holding onto the small connection. What was getting into me? It was like something that had been taught within me for so long had suddenly loosened and relaxed into the simple gesture, drawing something from it. What exactly it was I wasn’t sure. I forced myself to let go, but she didn’t remove her arm from mine. Talking about Alley was hard but I now realized in order to honor her memory, I was doing a disservice to her by not speaking about the woman who had shattered me to my core. The woman I took for granted and paid the ultimate price for doing so.