Lightning & Thunder

Chapter Twenty-Two

She was nervous.

Somehow it was already night time, and somehow Olivia and Raiden were laying next to each other in bed.

Fully clothed, of course.

With a pillow fort stuffed between them. Regardless of the protection, nerves still fluttered around within her. After her shower they went to the small, privately owned Wolf-mart that was just down the street of the pack house.

It gave Olivia a chance to see her full surroundings for what they were. Her and Raiden had passed through some public sections of the pack-house, allowing her to briefly nod and wave to some of the people strewn about.

All of them were nice enough to give her a small smile and wave back. It calmed a little bit of her nerves, and she was able to focus on grabbing some small items for a few days before they could do the bigger shopping.

Raiden pressed on her to grab more and more items when he saw how little she had grabbed, and it made her cringe when she heard the final total.

$1,305.

For "small" shopping.

She tried gauging his expression-tried seeing if he was secretly mad or anything, but no, he seemed happy about it all.

It only made her feel guiltier inside.

Not to mention that time passed too quickly and finally, it was time for bed.

Where they currently were.

Olivia's back was towards Raiden, her body snugged tightly underneath the sheets. She tried to fall asleep, tried to will her mind and body to relax, but it wasn't listening.

All she could feel was the body heat radiating from the man beside her.

All she could think about was their future, their future wedding, Bessell's reaction, the pack's reaction-all of it racing inside the small brain of hers.

Next to her Raiden shuffled.

She heard a whisper in the dark. "Olivia." Raiden said, his words feeling close to her even though she knew there was a pillow fort separating them.

She should know, she was the one who built it.

Raiden was sweet enough to let it happen.

Olivia waited a second to see if she had mis-heard Raiden, to see if maybe he was dreaming, but when he called her name again, she knew he wasn't. She turned around to face the fort pillow.

"Yeah?"

"Can I turn on the light?" Raiden asked. Confusion swam through Olivia.

"Why?" She answer-whispered back.

"Something's been bothering me."

Oh goddess. There it was. He was probably going to force her to do something-or worse, pry into her past.

Suddenly, next to her, a lamp switched on with a flick. Olivia swallowed nervously, her eyes squinting with the suddenness of the light flooding the room.

Slowly, she sat up from her position in bed. Raiden's eyes met hers. His brown hair was all dishevelled up from laying down on the bed, and some of the sheets were still wrapped around him on the other side of the fort.

"Uh-what's been bothering you?" Olivia asked.

Raiden looked down at the bed, running a hand through his hair. "I just..." He started.

Olivia nervously held herself still, her legs tensing slightly in anticipation of hearing a complaint, an insult, something that he found wrong with her.

"...I don't know. I just can't stop thinking about what you said. About how you didn't feel anything between us at all, even though I do."

Oh. oh. He wanted to talk about feelings.

Somehow that was almost worse than an insult.

She did not want to talk about feelings. She did not want to talk about how she felt to this stranger of a man that she-coincidentally-was also sleeping next to. Olivia stayed quiet. She waited for him to elaborate on his words, to continue spilling his thoughts.

Maybe if she just listened, then he wouldn't ask her to open.

It was okay if he was the only one opening up.

"Maybe..." He started again. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, again. "I don't know, maybe-maybe it was dulled or something. Because of your past marriage. I mean, you did mate with him. Did he mark you? Maybe it changed something." He was frowning by the end of his words.

Olivia shrugged. "He did mark me, yes. But I don't know if that has anything to do with it." She was doubtful.

"Well...can I see it?"

Olivia looked at him sharply. "My mark? You want to see my mark?"

"I mean-I-" He stammered. "-we are going to be married. Part of that is placing a new mark and..." His words trailed off.

Surprise, surpise, the atmosphere was awkward.

Olivia was surpised at the heat that pooled within her at his words.

He wanted to see her mark.

She raised a skeptical, suspicious eyebrow at him. "You're not gonna...try to mark me, are you?"

Immediately, Raiden put his hands up. "No! No-not until you're ready. I don't want to force anything on you."

"Okay, well that's good. I'm not comfortable with showing it right now, though."

"Okay! Okay, that's-that's uh-that's fine." His tone was a higher pitch, like he was trying really hard to be friendly and non-invasive. He gave her an awkard little smile.

"Okay, goodnight." She said. Then she immediately slumped back down on her side, pulling the covers atop her head in panic of the situation, and the awkwardness, and everything.

It was quiet for a moment before she heard rustling, and the lamp clicked off again. For a while, all she heard was breathing. Eventually, she thought he drifted off to sleep. It took her a long while, but eventually she started to drift off too.

"Hey Olivia?" A quiet, hesitant voice said.

"Yeah?" She muttered through her sleepiness.

"Can I remove the pillow fort?"

"No."