Chapter 34 Cottage In The Woods
When Raina started to lose energy, Kian had immediately transformed into his large wolf. She nodded her head in understanding. She stooped down to grab both his clothes and the picnic basket before she crawled on to the back of him when he lowered his body to the ground. She hated how whatever was going on with her had weakened her, just like it had in the old days when he used to be Mia’s.
Once she was on top of him with her hands secured into his fur, she felt him lift his body up off the ground. The picnic basket was wedged between her body and his, using her thighs to keep it in place as well as her arms to block it from sliding off. He trotted on, not once breaking into a run.
She clung to his fur as he continued on until a cottage came into view. Her eyes widened at the familiar sight. Her eyes swung about, surveying the area. She remembered this place when she was a child.
When he lowered himself down again to the ground, she quickly slid off of him with the clothes and the picnic basket in her hands. He transformed back, showing off his muscled physique. Her eyes couldn’t help but wander in appreciation. He only smirked when he gently tugged his clothes out of her grasp.
She flushed, turning away from him as he got dressed. Instead, her eyes observed the cottage and the unkempt flower beds. She remembered when they were filled with her mother’s favorite flowers. There used to be beds of vegetables and fruits to the side of the cottage. She and Sterling would help their mom fill up the baskets with homegrown vegetables and fruits.
Tears filled her eyes. She never knew where this little precious cottage was. They had all been young when both of her parents had died.
“This cottage belonged to your parents,” Kian told her, drawing her focus.
She looked over at him and nodded. Tears escaped down her cheeks. “Oh, for Moon Goddess’ sake, I don’t usually cry this much, but all I ever do now is cry.”
He walked over to her and she allowed him to embrace her, wrapping her up in his warmth. All this suppressed emotion was now returning to the surface. Things she never thought would have to deal with were things that she now faced. She never thought she’d ever lay eyes on this place again. She often wondered if she had just made it up in her imagination, creating memories to ease her pain.
“You don’t have be brave all the time,” he whispered inside her hair as her head tucked beneath his jaw. “What kills me is that you had to keep this buried for so long.”
She didn’t know if she was talking about her parents or if she was talking about the fact she spent years knowing that she was his fated mate. She was too scared to ask him what he was referring to, because she want to talk anymore about her feelings.
She knew that it would happen and it would happen soon, but for right now, she just wanted to be held by him.
Kian had started a fire in the fireplace. She had waited on the sofa, allowing the warmth to finally settle into this place. Her eyes surveyed the small little home and her heart surged with bittersweet joy as all the memories of this place started to return.
“I thought I had imagined this place,” she admitted, blinking back the tears. He sat down next to her as he started to unpack the picnic basket. “Sterling stopped talking about it. Mack never said a word about it. For a long time, I really thought I just made it up so I stopped bringing it up.”
He handed her a plastic container of chicken and spinach Alfredo pasta. Sasha knew it was her favorite dish. She bit her lip when he handed a pill bottle and she knew it had been Sterling that added that in. She glanced at the pills inside. They were her scent suppressants and she was due to take one. Ever since she stopped taking her contraceptive, she took only her scent suppressant and all the other things that Sterling recommended.
Her eyes slid to Kian, who was eyeing the medicine bottle warily. She sighed, knowing it was better to just tell him what they were, because she knew he’d eventually find out. He always did.
“They’re my scent suppressants.”
His eyes immediately went to hers. “They are?”
“When I had been taking my contraceptive, my scent suppressant was usually already in the dose,” she confessed, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Now, I take an individual dose every day.”
His eyes narrowed in on the medicine bottle. “How long before your natural scent comes back if you stop taking them?”
“Right away after the dose wears off.”
He took a deep breath in before he released it. “Have you thought about not taking it?”
“Of course not,” she gasped, shaking her head. She wouldn’t do that to him. “I wouldn’t have done that to you. I wouldn’t force you to...”
She trailed off, realizing what she was saying. Kian’s eyes flicked up to hers, pinning hers into place. Tension strained his body and she knew he caught on what she was referencing. It was humiliating to admit that she suppressed her scent so he wouldn’t be influenced by it. She didn’t want to force him to be with her so she did what she could to do right by him.
“Force me?” he repeated. Her body stiffened. He shook his head at that as if it was the most ridiculous thing ever. “Do you still think that way? That I’m being forced?”
The way he looked straight into her eyes made her feel like he was peeling back layers of her heart and soul. She didn’t like the way his eyes studied her as if he was chiseling away stone from a masterpiece yet to be carved in stone. She didn’t understand why it felt like he was dissecting her like some biology experiment.
She knew he’d know if she was lying. He had become insanely good at detecting lies. With his eyes glued on her, she knew it would be stupid to try.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I think this bond is enslaving you.”
His eyes narrowed at her response. “Okay. Why would you say that?”
“You’re an Alpha, Kian,” she reasoned. “Why would someone like you want someone like me in the real world if it hadn’t been forced?”
She quickly glanced down at her food and dug in. She wasn’t going to have this conversation on an empty stomach. If she was going to be dragged through this nightmare, she was going to have her last meal and she would thoroughly enjoy every bite of it.
“You honestly don’t think you’re attractive at all?” he asked in surprise.
She tried not to find so much pleasure in delicious food, but she couldn’t help but savor it. Sasha had outdid herself. She was not one to shy away from eating. She would never be one of those stick thin girls that looked like runway models. She wasn’t on the calibre of slender beautiful creatures with beautiful hair like the Mias of the world.
She swallowed down her bite and forced herself to peek over at Kian. “I have scars that haven’t healed. I’m more muscle than softness.”
“You have the right amount of softness,” he muttered as he watched her take another bite. His eyes followed her fork as her mouth overtook the skewered food. She watched them darken even more as her body warmed in approval. “Damn it, is that your favorite food or something?”
She chuckled. “Why would you say that?”
His eyes burned into hers for a moment. Silence breathed between them before he licked his lips and caused her heart rate to spike.
“I can feel you,” he confessed.
What in the world did he just say?
No, it wasn’t true. He hadn’t just said that.
She just imagined he just said that, because there was no way he just admitted that he could feel her… like that. It would mean one thing and she was afraid of the answer, because it meant something that she couldn’t believe was true.
Her denial couldn’t get the best of her, because her anxiety seemed to spiral out of control. “What do you mean exactly when you say you can feel me?”
“I can feel your pleasure,” he chuckled as her breathing became erratic. He could feel her like she could feel him? Her body began to shake. His eyes narrowed for a moment, studying her. “How long have you been able to feel mine?”
She swallowed, putting her fork down. “Since I was eighteen.”
His eyes flashed in warning like lightning streaking across the sky. She knew what it meant. It meant that she had accepted their bond the moment she found out. She had accepted him as her mate from the very beginning without question.
“Damn it, Raina,” he growled. His eyes became watery as he regarded her. “Why didn’t you just tell me? You accepted me from the very beginning. Do you know how dangerous and reckless that is?”
“Because you looked at Mia like she was your world, your moon, and stars!” she gasped. Her panic rose as thoughts and emotions rushed through her. “And-And you were everything I could ever dream or want so I just…” she trailed off. She was so pathetic. She couldn’t believe she was about to admit it to him. “I-I grew addicted to feeling you get off and I dealt with the pain, because without hell, there is no heaven. I knew I could never have you like that so I…”
He slammed his fist down on the armrest of the sofa. “For fuck’s sake.”
It was pathetic. She knew it was pathetic and he obviously knew it was pathetic.
She was pathetic.
Trying to blink back her tears as she attempted to get ahold of herself. She had revealed too much. She was too weak. She should’ve just had him reject her from the beginning. This was torture for her like pulling teeth out of her mouth and peeling nails off of fingers, admitting that she was sick in the head.
“You can reject me!” she finally cried out. Her pain had ricocheted. Why would a wolf like Kian ever want a weakling like her? “You should reject me!”
She couldn’t accept his rejection like a normal person then. She had to hide away, because she knew if he ever found out, he would’ve rejected her right away. What wolf got off on another wolf’s pleasure that would normally wouldn’t give them the time of day?
That was sickening and disgusting.
She was sick and disgusting.
“Stop it!” he growled as he grabbed her arm, pulling her unto his lap. “Raina, snap out of it!”
She could feel his arms, winding around her. She barely registered she had been fighting him off until her hands fisted into the fabric of his shirt. Her heart raced in her chest as she leaned forward, breathing in his scent. When she breathed in his scent, she felt like everything would be okay. It calmed her and grounded her. It eased her pain.
He tucked her head into his neck and chest and she continued to breathe in his woodsy scent, centering her mind, her heart, and her soul. Her body relaxed against his and she felt the tension in his body slowly subside too.
“Raina, you said you fell in love with me, right?” he whispered in her hair. She only nodded. “I think I fell in love with you when I first saw you. You — this young but stupidly fierce, wild creature standing tall against this brute of a beast — and you didn’t even flinch. You took him down without precision and elegance that it left me speechless.”
She frowned at that. “But you met me when I was eighteen.”
“I know,” he whispered.
Confusion swamped her.
“I don’t understand.”
He sighed. “Didn’t you ever find it strange that I personally trained you and gave you special treatment?”
“I-I just thought you saw potential in me,” she stammered.
He had feelings for her since she was eighteen, but that didn’t make any sense. None of it made sense. When she was eighteen, he had been with Mia and loving her so devotedly that it broke her heart.
“True,” he agreed. “I did see potential in you. Of course I did, but I never met someone like you before that could stand so fearlessly like an Alpha. You wanted to take on the world and I wanted to help you.”
She licked her lip as she searched her mind and thoughts. “But you were with Mia. How can you say you fell in love with me?”
“I didn’t even know it was love,” he admitted with a sigh. “Looking back on it now, I realize what it was. That fascination with you. I could never truly understand why I was so drawn to you, but I knew I needed you to be close to me.”
Her heart ached, because she understood that. She wanted to be close to him as she possibly could without drawing too much suspicion. She had greedily took whatever attention and focus she could gobble up. It was then that she noticed that Mia’s treatment of her had started to be less kind and less welcoming.
She believed that Mia figured out how she felt about Kian. Throughout the years, the beautiful blond’s eyes had studied their interaction closely. The kindness in her eyes had given way to hostility, but Raina believed she deserved it. What girl wouldn’t be furious over how foolish a girl was to throw themselves at another girl’s territory?
“You didn’t believe in fated mates though,” she reminded him softly.
He chuckled. “Oh, I did. In fact, Sebastian and I made a pact to wait for our fated mate the day before I became strangely infatuated with Mia.”
“Wait! What?” she gasped, pulling back to look him in the eyes. How was that even possible?
“Are you ready to listen now?” he asked softly, leaning over and dropping a quick kiss on her lips. She watched him as he reached over and grabbed her container of food. He gently returned it to her and she accepted it from him. “I need you to listen as both my Beta and my fated mate. Can you do that for me?”