Myself- A Broken Creation

Chapter 22: Alex's P.O.V.

Blake, Xander, and I were chopping wood for the fireplace. We were almost done. The sound of axes splitting wood echoed throughout the forest. It took us about ten more minutes and then we were finished. We picked up the piles of wood and took them inside the house. Xander went up the stairs and started to draw as I gathered my bag.

I needed a run to ease all the stress that was accosting me lately. Xander was still drawing when I went out the door. I jogged over to the forest. I started to transform and groaned as my bones reshaped themselves. I landed as an animal that had four paws on the ground, much larger than before.

I started sprinting past the dark trees with my paws slamming against the ground. My claws sliced through the ground. Leaves fell of the trees. Thick tree trunks rose from the ground. A dark blue sky was hidden by the tree branches. I ran for what felt like hours before I returned to Xander.

Blake put up the metal fences he had erected to protect us once I was inside. They surrounded the house completely and were quite efficient in keeping others out. Electrical currents ran up and down it. You could only open it from the inside of the house. We were all on lockdown until this situation was resolved.

I went back inside the house to find Xander. I didn't want to leave him alone for long, especially right now, in this time of danger and emotional stress. I knew Xander felt guilty, and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get him to stop thinking that.

I gently pushed the door open to see him curled up on the bed on his side. His knees were tucked into his chest and his arms were wrapped around them. His head was tilted so that his forehead touched them. His drawing were scattered all around the room. I didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that he was worried about Jane.

I walked over to him and pulled him against my body. I cradled him and stroked his soft locks. I knew that helped him relax some. I lifted his head up and saw that his blue eyes were shimmering with tears. Previous tears that he had released from his eyes had created paths of misery down his cheeks. He had little circles of darkness underneath his sad blue eyes and he desperately needed to eat something.

My hand stroked up and down his trembling form. My cold breath danced over his head. Xander buried his face in my neck, more tears trailing down the warm skin. I shivered at the coldness. I lifted his blurry eyes back up to me with firmness. I couldn't let him continue to beat himself up over this. It wasn't his fault in any way.

"Stop it," I firmly demanded of him.

I knew this was a time when he wouldn't respond to gentleness or softness. He needed firm, steely reassurance more than anything else. I didn't want him to cry. It cut my heart each time he did. I couldn't bear to see his tears mar the gorgeous skin of his face and I couldn't bear to feel his pain, like I did now.

I wiped all the tears away until they stopped flowing as steadily. A few of them still dripped off his eyelashes, but it wasn't nearly as quick as before. He sniffled into my neck with his bruised face buried against the warm skin. Xander drew the soft skin of his pretty lip between his teeth as he looked up at me from underneath his still damp, lush, light eyelashes.

"This is not your fault. It had nothing to do with you," I told him in a harsh voice.

He looked up at me with his tormented blue eyes. I tightly grasped his chin and jerked him towards me so that I commanded all of his attention. He needed to get this through his beautiful little head.

"You were nowhere near them when that happened. Stop blaming yourself for this. None of this is because of you, honey."

The tone of my voice was hard and he blinked up at me. His lower lip quivered at my statement and he bit it to still the movement. I mentally groaned when I saw his sapphire eyes fill with even more tears.