The Badass Behind The Girl: The Choice of Love

Chapter Twenty-four: Book 2: The Warrior Inside

This was my thought when I left with Brian: Not one bit. He hadn't changed. Well, not personality wise from what I gathered so far. He was still totally scary. Those green eyes didn't have that spark in them that I saw when I had first met him. Well, to be honest, then I didn't know that he was a werewolf hellbent on making me stay by his side forever and literally telling his pack - which happens to be my actual mate's and now my pack. But he doesn't know that- that I was his mate and that he can't wait for them to meet them. But I had already met some of them and I was sure that someone was bound to recognize me as Damon's mate. I had to make myself scarce around the territory.

Which I have been. I had been on his territory for 4 days now. There was no sign of Damon or the rest of my family and gang. I was starting to panic. Right now I had locked myself in the bathroom of Brian's ensuite trying to get away from his advances on me. For the past couple days he's been trying to get me to fall back into our old habits. It wasn't working because one; I have a mate and two: there was absolutely no way I would ever trust him again. I slid down the door and let the tears fall.

"Avita, come on. Open the door. Let's talk about this." Brian called softly from the other side of the door.

I hugged my knees to my chest and carried on crying. Brian's knocking became a little more louder as I hiccuped and sniffed. I was crying becuase now I could still see the Brian that I knew inside of him. I saw it in his eyes. That spark that I spoke of earlier flared up when we had an actual fun moment of running around chasing each other and laughing. That moment broke when he tried to kiss me. That lead to me ripping out of his grip and breaking into a dead sprint to the bathroom and locking myself in here.

"Avita, listen, I'm really sorry I tried that. Come out and we can talk about it. Just like we use to talk about everything. Please." he starting begging I shook my head. I knew I couldn't stay in here for long. I had to come up with a plan to stall him a bit longer. I had to. For my sake. Also, he would break the door down if I didn't come out. I didn't want some poor soul fixing another door.

Deciding the best card was to put him on a guilt trip I did something that I swore I would never do: I unleashed all the bottled up emotions about him wash over and I felt rage course through my veins making my blood boil. I got up, straightened my clothing off, unlocked the door and ripped it open. Brain stepped back with wide eyes when he took in my enraged expression.

"You wanna talk about it? Fine, Brian. Let's talk about it. You attacked me in my own home and threatened me! You had this crazy wild-eyed look on your face that scared the hell out of me when you promised to get me back! You not only broke my heart you broke my trust and faith in you! Do you know what I went through when you disappeared and Jake was left picking up the peices? Huh
? Do you know what it felt like to feel like a part of you was taken for a fool? To feel that doubt that maybe your relationship wasn't actually love but rather the fact that I was used as a trophy? I was left wondering day after day and night after night if you would actually harm me and my family again. Then it hit me. Yes, you would. Do you want to know why? Because I saw someting that day that I couldn't explain and still can't. It was like I felt like a prey that you were hunting and chasing just to suffocate and kill. I saw an animalistic gleam in your eyes that made me think that death was the way to go-"

"Avie-" I cut his interruption off.

"No, Brian! You need to understand why I can't just jump back into old habits. I can't go back into it becuase I have doubts that our relationship was real. And for me especially with my history if I doubt a relationship I will be too scared to ever go back. You've been asking me to let things go back to the way it was before you left but the answer is no. I can't. You broke me. Yes, it's true that I've come out of my shell but now that I'm away from my family and friends I've turned to my natural instinct which is to close off all connections to people. I'll be constantly gaurding myself and never trusting anyone until I feel like I can without a doubt in my mind."

I let out a huge breath as I finished. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands and then crossed them over my chest, hugging myself. Brian was silent as I looked away. I could feel his gaze on me.

"I didn't-" he stopped and cleared his throat, "I didn't know that I put you through all that." I still kept my gaze out the glass windows of his balcony.

"Yeah, well you didn't exactly stick around to see." My voice was quiete.

Brian slowly stepped towards me and when I didn't move he took it as a positive sign to walk up to me.

"Wanna start over?" His voice was generally sincere and that made me look up. I won't trust him but it was worth a shot. I needed to see if he was worth saving. His eyes were red but I saw all the coldness and emotionless steal of those green orbs gone. In it I saw what was missing for the past few days: vulnerability.

I smiled. "What do you have in mind?" I asked and he smiled a bright smile.

"Let me try and override those bad memories with good ones. I know I have a hell of a lot to make up for but let me start like I did when I first met you; as a friend and someone who looked out for you. What you said was like a bucket of ice water hitting me out of this dream fantasy I had going." he pointed to the bed and I nodded. We walked over and sat on it leaning against the headboard.

"For the past few years I had that vow repeating in my head that I would get you back at any cost. Damn." he shook his head and look up at the celing.

"What?" I asked and shifted to face him with my legs crossed. He turned his head and looked at me.

"I just realized what a crap person I've become for the past few years. I have a lot to do to make everything balance again. And not just with you. With everyone else."

"I can help if you'd like?" I asked and he sat quiete thinking for a moment. Then he nodded and smiled.

"I'd like that. But... in order for you to be fully involved becuase I hope I'm not wrong in this but when you get involved in something it's never a case of doing the minimum or the easy things; you are fully involved and do the heavy lifting, am I right?" I nodded. He looked perplexed for a moment.

"Brian, is there something you need to tell me?" I asked faking concern. Okay, that's a lie. I didn't need to fake it. I was concerned. I think I might have an idea of what he was getting at but becuase everything was still new to me here it could be any number of things.

"There's something -something big- that you need to know about the people here and the way things run here if you're going to fully help out." he said slowly looking for a reaction and I masked my realization at what he was getting at was what I suspected it was about but replacing it with a look of cuirosity.

"Oh...okay. Go ahead." I pushed. He sat up and properly faced me.

"Avita, this isn't something small. It's really something big. Something that you probably won't believe."

I lifted my eyebrow at him and smirked, "Try me."

"You're going to think I'm crazy."

"Brian..."

"You're going to kill me." he added.

"Doubtful. Now go on."

"I don't think that this is such a good idea." he started to say.

"Oh no! You're not backing out. You got me hooked now spill." I glared at him.

"Fine!" He said, "Here goes nothing."

"Brian, out with it." I said shoving him on the shoulder and giving him an encouraging smile.

"Ouch, you're stronger than I remember." he said rubbing his arms with a hurt look.I shook my head. I needed to watch exaacly just how much strength I showed from now on. Alothough being slightly stronger than most girls would help. It would give me an advantage.

"Don't try and change the damn subject! Tell me. Now before I kick your ass." I threatened and he smirked.

"Nice at picking it up and doubtful." I stuck my tongue out at him and we laughed.

"Okay, fine. The reason why I'm so criptic is because we're, uhm, werewolves." There it was. The big secret. Now I had to pull this off.