Just Another Crack in the Wall

Just Another Crack in the Wall
Nathan

It still smelled of smoke. Even this deep in the mountain. My skin carried it too, smoke and blood, dried stiff across my arms and chest, caked along the scrapes I hadn’t bothered to clean. Some of it mine, most of it not.
My clothes hadn’t survived the shift. Wolves didn’t care about nudity, especially not after battle. But I wasn’t thinking about modesty anyway. Not when the only thing pounding in my chest was her.
Ruthanne.

I found her standing in Kane’s kitchen. Her frame was half-swallowed by shadow. She leaned against the stone counter like she was holding herself up by sheer will, arms wrapped so tight across her ribs it looked painful. Her chin was tucked low, hair dragged forward, hiding the scar she never wanted me to see.
The moment she sensed me, her head snapped up.
Relief cracked across her face, raw and unguarded, before she could school it. The breath I hadn’t realized I was holding broke free, sharp in my lungs.
That look...it hit me harder than claws. Like the world had ended for her the second she thought I hadn’t made it back, and started again the moment she saw me alive.

“You’re...” Her voice caught. She swallowed, her gaze skimming over me, lingering longer than it should have on the breadth of my chest, the smoke-stained lines of muscle, before jerking away. Her throat worked, but the words still came out in a whisper. “You’re alive.”
I forced a grin, cocky, lopsided, the only shield I had against the weight pressing down on me. “Still kicking,” I said, though my ribs ached with every breath. “Not much to look at, but give me a wash and I’ll be handsome again.”

Something twitched at the corner of her mouth, not quite a smile, but close. Close enough I wanted to chase it.
For a long moment, silence stretched between us. She shifted against the wall, pulling her hair forward again like a curtain. Hiding. Always hiding. That scar… she treated it like a wound still bleeding, instead of the mark of someone who’d survived. It made my wolf bristle, a restless growl building in my chest. She wasn’t broken. She was the strongest she-wolf I’d ever laid eyes on, and it killed me that she couldn’t see it.

I took a step forward. Then another. Slow, careful, as if I moved too fast, she’d vanish into the stone itself. Her eyes flicked up to me, wary, but this time she didn’t look away. Not immediately.
Her gaze caught on my chest, still streaked with soot and blood. Lower. For a heartbeat too long, her eyes lingered. Heat shot through me, fierce and sharp. My wolf surged, wanting to bare teeth and claim, to press her against the stone and prove the bond that tugged between us.
But I held him back. Barely.

She jerked her gaze away, color rising in her throat, and wrapped her arms tighter around herself. My pulse thundered. She’d looked. She’d wanted to.
The pull between us stretched tight, electric, like a thread wound tighter and tighter. I couldn’t ignore it anymore, couldn’t ignore the way her presence steadied something in me, even when she fought it tooth and nail.

My voice came out lower than I meant, rough with restraint. “Ruthanne…”
Her head tilted, just slightly, like the sound of her name in my mouth stole her breath.
I swallowed hard. “Can I....” I stopped, tried again, softer this time. “Can I get closer?”

Her chest rose on a sharp inhale. For a long, stretched-out moment, she didn’t move, didn’t speak. I thought she’d tell me no. Thought she’d turn her back and wall herself off again.
But then… slowly, carefully, she nodded.
The thread between us pulled tighter. I moved, crossing the last steps until I stood over her, the stone floor cool under my bare feet, the weight of her scent threading through the smoke in my lungs.
I lifted my hand. Stopped short of touching her, waiting. Her gaze darted to my fingers, then back to my eyes. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t look away.
She let me in.

My fingers hovered at the edge of her hair, not quite touching, just waiting for her to stop me. She didn’t. Her breath came quick and shallow, her eyes locked on mine, wide with something that wasn’t quite fear.
“Ruthanne,” I whispered, so she’d hear her name in my voice again, softer this time. “Let me see you.”
For a moment, she didn’t move. Then her chin tipped, just enough. Permission. My chest tightened.

I brushed my hand up, slow, careful, until my fingers slid into the yellow strands she used like armor. I pushed them back, baring the scar she hated, the jagged mark that cut down her cheek. She flinched, only a twitch, but she didn’t pull away.
She was beautiful. Not in spite of it. With it. Because of it. That scar was proof of her survival, proof she’d fought and lived when others would’ve been buried. My wolf rumbled low, aching with pride, with need, with the urge to bare her to the world and snarl at anyone who dared call her less.
Her breath hitched. “Don’t....” Her voice cracked, breaking on the single word.

I bent down before she could finish, before she could shove me back into the same distance she always kept. My lips brushed the scar, soft, reverent.
She went still. Every muscle in her body locked tight, as if the air had been stolen from her lungs.
I pressed again, firmer this time, dragging my mouth slowly along the line of her skin. A kiss not of pity, not of gentleness, but of claim. Of worship. Of every ounce of want I’d buried since the first time I saw her.

Her hand trembled as it rose, like she didn’t know what she was doing until her fingers curled in my hair. My heart kicked hard in my chest.
“You don’t…” Her whisper shook. “…you don’t have to do that.”
I pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. One tear slid free, catching on her lashes. I caught it with my thumb before it could fall.
“I wanted to,” I said simply. My voice came rough, certain, because there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t mean it. “Every scar. Every mark. They’re yours. And they’re mine now too.”

Her lips parted, like she wanted to argue, but no words came. She just stared at me, the walls she kept so high cracking open.
My chest ached with it. I leaned in again, pressing another kiss to her cheek, then lower, the corner of her mouth. She shuddered, caught between pulling away and pulling me closer.
“Why?” she whispered, broken, like the question clawed out of her without permission. “Why are you doing this?”
I smiled, soft and fierce all at once. “Because you’re mine.” The truth rumbled low in my chest, steady and unshakable. “Always will be.”

The bond pull between us tightened, throbbing. Demanding to be finalized.
I felt it drag at my bones, at my wolf, at every part of me. She felt it too. I saw it in the way her body leaned into mine before she caught herself, the way her fingers still curled in my hair even when she tried to let go.
We hung there in the quiet, the air thick with smoke and something else, something hotter. I wanted to claim her mouth, to taste the yes trembling on her lips. But she pulled back first, blinking hard, tearing her gaze away.
Her hand slipped free. The wall slid back into place.
But not all the way.
Not after that.

I stayed close, close enough she could still feel the heat of me, close enough to remind her the scar didn’t scare me, didn’t define her. That nothing she carried would ever make me step back.
Her eyes darted once more to my chest, to the blood and soot still staining me, then up again to my face. Something flickered there, something she tried to bury, but it was too late. I’d seen it.
I grinned, slow and certain, because I knew. Knew I was winning her. Knew she felt it, even if she’d never admit it out loud.
And when the time came, when she finally gave in, there wouldn’t be a force in this world that could tear her from me.