Inhumane

023

PAIGE

His words were still ringing inside of my head even after we had gone inside and stripped of our furs. I plopped down heavily on the couch while the Wolf coaxed a fire into the fireplace. I stared at his wide back while he did so, subtly admiring the ropes of muscle visible even through his thick thermal shirt he was wearing. 

"I love you," his face was an unreadable combination of emotions. I hadn't heard the words since before my mother died. She was the last one to tell me such a thing.

I pulled my knees to my chest, there was an emptiness in my stomach. It was a feeling that came with pain and secrets and the looming feeling of something important that had yet to be done. It was a haunting sensation. I figured I ought to feel something when he told me that, and I did, but it was quickly drowned by everything else. That night would be the night that I would sneak out and go to the place where Tye had commanded that I go. I was inexplicably terrified.

"You don't have to say anything," his face softened in a sort of understanding. He never expected anything of me. All I could think was that I am a terrible, evil person.

"Alright, that should be good for a bit." His mood was fair and he seemed lighter, like his confession had lifted a small weight from his shoulders. He plopped down on the couch beside me, leaving a fair amount of distance. The Wolf was always giving me choices. "Oh I almost forgot," he stood up once again and crossed the room to the CD player where he put on an old album that I knew was his favorite. It was a scratchy, melancholy alternative track.

"I just needed to tell you that. It's the truth." He gave a small smile, just a sliver of an upturned lip and a dimple poking through the flesh of his cheek. "Let's go inside."

Leaning my head on the back of the couch, I closed my eyes as he came back over and took up his previous spot. We sat in silence, listening to the CD humming lowly in the background of the room that was slowly heating up. Our bellies were full of the soup and bread that Rhia had made and the weather was cold enough to make sitting inside easy. If it had been a normal night, if I had been a normal girl, I may have been somewhere close to happy in that moment. But things were far from normal and the night was far from over... Anxiety was eating me alive beneath the stoic face I held. The urge to hold his hand, find some semblance of comfort, was overbearing. I managed to push the feeling aside, but as the days carried on it was increasingly hard to keep the want to sink my teeth into him at bay.

I wanted to curse the world for giving me this life. The endless track I was running on provided only horrifying turns and death. I couldn't escape it, no matter how hard I tried. It felt like I was destined to be this girl; lying, cheating, killing, repeat. The hole inside of me threatened to swallow my body whole right there on the couch. I couldn't remember the girl who had heard the words I love you come from her mother's mouth. What would she have done?

However, as always, the Wolf was there to subconsciously pull me from my thoughts. "My mother really likes you, she thinks you are one strong female."

It was a nice thing to hear, even though it made me somewhat sick inside. I was lying to her too, a second-chance mother.

"When I was younger, she would prepare me to meet my mate." He laughed this short little gruff noise. "She taught me how to cook, clean, be polite, and how to communicate."

I opened my eyes to stare ahead at the fire, listening to his story.

"My mother always said that the only way to make a bond work is to communicate. It's how wolves work best. Whether its over small things or big issues." The Wolf sighed softly. "Do you think we communicate well, Paige?"