Chapter 175
Nora's POV
My chest felt tight, swollen with something I couldn't name. Julian's silver eyes stayed on me, patient and still, waiting for me to speak.
"You're too good," I finally said, my voice barely above a whisper. "So good that nothing feels real anymore."
The weight I'd been carrying all day finally found an exit. My eyes began to sting.
I took a shaky breath, trying to untangle the mess in my head. "I wasn't always like this. When Kyle and I broke up, I just thought we weren't right for each other. I didn't feel... less than anyone."
Julian's expression remained steady, encouraging me to continue.
"But being with you planted something inside me." My hands twisted together. "A seed. Made up of every negative thought, every reminder of the gap between us. It absorbed everything—the stares, the whispers, the judgment."
My throat tightened. "Today, with Annabel's words... that seed finally broke through the surface. Everything came flooding out at once."
"The distance between us is massive." Tears blurred my vision. "In our little bubble, I can pretend otherwise. But the moment someone intrudes, or we step into the real world..." I forced myself to meet his eyes. "I can't ignore reality anymore."
I laid it out, piece by piece. "You're a Federal Inspector General. A pureblood Alpha from a political dynasty in Aetheria. There's probably so much more I don't even know about." My voice cracked. "And me? I'm just an ordinary reporter. No impressive background. Not a socialite. Not even a Lycan."
The tears came faster. "How am I supposed to stand beside you in the future? How do we maintain common ground when you're at Congressional hearings and elite galas? What can I possibly contribute? Do I even deserve that position?"
My hands shook. "When Annabel described what your future wife should be like, that seed wrapped its vines around my heart."
"I've been working so hard." The admission hurt. "Trying to shine bright enough, trying to get closer to your world. I thought if I just worked hard enough, I could stand beside you." I bit my lip hard. "But she's right. Your position is a height I can never reach, no matter how hard I climb."
I wiped at my face roughly. "I know she was trying to manipulate me. Trying to drive a wedge between us. I understand that." I drew a shuddering breath. "But if she hadn't said those things, I might have let that seed keep growing until it swallowed me whole."
Julian's eyes had darkened, deepened, but he still let me speak.
"What do you even like about me?" The question tore out of me, raw and desperate. "I used to think—God, this sounds so pathetic—that maybe you just wanted something fresh. A novelty. That I was some kind of... break from your real life. That eventually you'd have your brilliant future with someone appropriate, and I'd just be a memory."
Shame burned through me. "But I dove in anyway. Even thinking that."
"And after you told me how you felt, I got greedier." My voice dropped. "I wanted all of you—present, past, future. I know I can't change the past. I know you had a life before me. But I resent it anyway. I resent that I wasn't there."
The confession hung between us. "It's not about her specifically. It's about the me that isn't as good as her. The me that will never measure up."
Tears streaked down my face unchecked. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I took my anger out on you today. I knew deep down you'd forgive me. I knew you'd tolerate my tantrums." My voice broke completely. "Does that make me terrible? Selfish and awful?"
I stood there crying, feeling smaller than I'd ever felt. Every insecurity exposed. Every fear laid bare.
Julian exhaled slowly. His hand came up, thumb gentle against my wet cheek. "Want to know why I love you?"
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Julian's POV
I looked at her tear-stained face and felt my chest crack open. She thought she wasn't enough. Thought I'd chosen her as some kind of distraction.
If only she knew.
"Twelve years ago," I began, my voice rougher than I intended, "I was eighteen. My first full transformation—the rite of passage every pureblood Alpha goes through alone."
I let my mind drift back to that night. The memory was still vivid, still raw after all these years.
I began to recount this memory.
The pain had been excruciating. My bones snapping and reforming, muscles tearing and rebuilding. The instructors had warned me it would be brutal, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality of it.
Reason warred with instinct. My wolf wanted blood, wanted to hunt, wanted to let the beast consume everything human. I was losing myself, drowning in that primal hunger.
Then I heard it—a small, broken sound cutting through the roar in my head.
Crying.
I moved toward it on instinct, my newly formed wolf body still clumsy and unfamiliar. And there she was.
A little girl, huddled beneath a massive oak tree. Her clothes were dirty and torn, her face streaked with tears and dirt. She was shivering—from cold or fear, I couldn't tell.
When she saw me emerge from the shadows—she went completely still.
I expected her to scream. To run. Most humans would have.
Instead, she looked at me with those wide, scared eyes and asked in the smallest voice: "Are you going to eat me?"
Something inside me shifted. The raging hunger, the violent instincts—they all went silent.
My wolf didn't see prey. It saw someone who needed protection.
I lowered my massive head and made a soft sound in my throat. Not a growl. Something gentler.
She blinked at me, confused. "You're... not going to hurt me?"
I shook my head slowly.
Her lower lip trembled. "I'm lost. I can't find my way home. And—" Her voice broke into sobs again.
I moved closer, carefully, and nudged her hand with my nose. She hesitated, then placed her small palm on my head.
"Can you help me?" she whispered.
I couldn't speak in this form, but I could act. I turned and started walking, glancing back to make sure she followed.
She did.
For hours, I led her through the forest. When she stumbled over roots, I'd wait. When she was too tired to go on, I lowered myself and let her climb onto my back.
She was burning with fever. I could feel the heat radiating through my fur. Her small body was so light, so fragile.
"Thank you, big doggie," she murmured against my neck, her voice fading. "You're so warm..."
By the time I got her to the highway just before dawn, she'd fallen asleep on my back. I waited in the treeline until I saw headlights approach—a trucker who stopped when he saw the small figure by the roadside.
I watched him pick her up gently, wrap her in his jacket, call for help on his radio.
Then she was gone.
That night changed everything for me. I understood then that my wolf wasn't a weapon. It was meant to protect. To guard.
And the one I was meant to protect... was her.