All That Is You

Chapter 6

I awoke to a relentless pounding in my skull. My eyes refused to open, weighed down by my lack of energy. I could feel a slight pressure on my hand, a strange comfort I hadn't had in years.

I struggled for a few moments to pry open my stubborn eyelids only to be greeted by an unfamiliar room with white walls and a white ceiling. The bright lights burned my dry eyes, an aftermath of the tears I had let loose after holding them in for so long. I pushed my body up until I was sitting upright and made note of the strange wires taped to my pale skin and the marks that he had left behind. My body felt weighed down by the strange gown I was wearing. It covered more than the rags my father had given me, but I couldn't understand why I was given clothing when it would only be taken from me. I trailed my eyes along the white scars scattered across my arms until I stumbled upon the man whose hand held mine, the man who had taken me.

The room was silent except for his quiet snores. I was paralyzed. I had never seen someone so beautiful before. The guards who had been assigned to watch over me had always been attractive as all werewolves are but never had a man given me such warmth. His burning skin and glowing eyes rivaled that of the sun. The gentleness of his touch as though I was something precious, something worthy of protection, something he was afraid of breaking. But I knew it was an illusion, this man had taken me and the more I stared at him, the more I could see my father. The hard planes of his chest, the calluses on his palm, the weight of his hand in mine, a reminder that monsters are not who they seem to be.

His hand tightened around mine and I flinched. Startled by the sudden movement, his eyes burst open and I gasped. Staring at me were the eyes of my father, but I couldn't bring myself to look away. He clenched his eyes shut and gripped my hand as though it was his lifeline. It seemed as though he was trying to calm himself down, and I shivered at the thought of what it would be like if he snapped.

Now that he was awake, I could see just how beautiful he truly was. He was beauty in all its chaos, the scar that ran over his eyebrow and traveled over his eye until it reached the middle of his right cheek only made me more drawn to him. I couldn't help but wonder how he got it. His brown hair fell in waves, sweeping across his forehead, and I wanted to run my fingers through it to see if it was as soft as it seemed.

"It's rude to stare, you know," he murmured, opening his eyes.

And yet another gasp escaped from my lips, unable to hold in my shock at the intensity he was peering at me. I was drowning again and I had forgotten how to breathe. There was an unfamiliar feeling in my chest. I had only known pain and emptiness for so long, I didn't remember what it was like to feel anything else. The way he was looking at me erased all thoughts of him resembling my father. But I couldn't understand why he was gazing at me with so much affection, as though he knew me, as though he loved me.

And so I pulled away. I knew he wouldn't look at me like that if he had known what I had done. If he had known all that I destroyed. But for a moment it seemed as though hurt flashed in his eyes and I felt a sharp pain in my chest, knowing that I was the one to hurt him. I looked down at my hands, unable to stare at him any longer in fear that I would get lost in him.

Unfazed, he gently gripped my chin between his thumb and his index finger, tilting it up until we were face to face and with the softest smile asked, "What's your name, little moon?"

Silence embraced the room, filling all of its crevices, but still, he patiently waited. I struggled to come up with my name, searching through my memory to find the answer I desperately wished for. No one had called me by my name in all the time I had spent as a prisoner. And there was no need to remember something as useless as a name if there was no one to call it. My mother had been the last one to call me by my name; my name had always belonged to her. She was the one who named me and she was the last person to show me what love was before I took everything from her, and he took me.

I slowly looked up, searching for any hint of malice in the sea of caramel that reminded me so much of home. I drew in a shaky breath before whispering, "Rain."