by JJ King
Bash was hurting and I'd taken his mental health for granted. I'd been wrong about so many things, but being wrong about my mate’s well-being, that was unacceptable. Even if he'd tried to hide his true feelings from me, I knew he would have done it to save me from an additional layer of guilt and stress. He was a good man and I thanked the Old Ones for the blessing of him in my life. I dragged in a deep breath, finally steadying my racing heart, and put my trust in my mate. Immediately, the storm of confused voices and images dulled and faded.
The fight went on forever or, at least it seemed to. It drew a crowd, complete with frowning professors and grinning students. Someone mentioned campus security and ran off to find help, as I stood between Rory and Daniella, accepting their offered hands and support, and waited for Bash to do what he needed to do.
Eventually, the sounds quieted, and my heart caught yet again in fear that someone, either Bash or Connor, had gone too far. I knew Connor was the better fighter, he'd been training his entire life, but technical ability didn't necessarily trump passion and Bash had been furious beyond reason. I squeezed my friends’ hands tightly and prayed.
"You'd know," Rory murmured next to me. "If anything happened to Bash, you would know."
I tore my gaze from the tree line and looked down at her, not fully comprehending what she meant. As it sunk in, I breathed out a sigh of relief. Bash might have blocked the connection between us at the level that let us share thoughts and emotions, but I still felt him out there, still knew he was alive. I let my eyelids flutter shut and pushed my awareness past the line of faceless whisperers to search for him and, when I found him, pushed everything I was into our bond in the hope that he'd feel my love, support, and regret, and come back to me.
My shoulders sagged and relief when I saw Bash, battered, and bruised, bloody but not completely broken, step out of the forest with a grin on his face. The tension in my shoulders released when, a moment later, Connor stepped out of the trees with an identical grin on his face. As I watched, Bash reached out and casually punched Connor on the arm, laughing when Connor cursed and cradled the appendage.
"What the fuck…" I muttered, glaring at the two of them as they picked up the pace and jogged back to us, apparently all buddy buddy now.
"Men," both Rory and Daniella murmured at the same time. I agreed wholeheartedly with their assessment. Men were weird creatures.
When they reached us, Connor grinned at Bash and tilted his chin up, then looked at me without a hint of the coldness that had sapped away any sign of the boy I used to know. His husky blue eyes were lit up with a laughter and lightness that had faded a long time ago.
"Your mate has a mean right hook," Connor said with a chuckle, rubbing his arm again. His gaze moved past me, past Rory, and settled directly on Daniella. "Hey," he said with a sideways grin. "Does that mean you've got a good arm, too?"
Daniella eyed him with raised eyebrows, dragging her gaze over him from head to toe, then looking him straight in the eye as she shrugged. "Guess you'll just have to find out." She smiled, glanced down, then looked back up at him through her thick lashes.
She was flirting with him, I realized, with a start. I wanted to poke Rory, who was watching them with narrowed eyes and the barest hint of a smile on her lips, but there were more important things to do right now. We'd talk about the flirtation later. I turned away from my friends to face my soulmate.
"Are you alright?" I whispered, not sure what to say. I opened and closed my hands, scrunching the fabric of my jeans, as my emotions churned.
He nodded, never taking his intense gaze off me, and took a single step forward, bringing his body close to mine.
I tensed all over, not afraid of him, but afraid there was still hurt inside him, caused by me. I squeezed my eyes shut and lowered my head.
His forehead touched mine, gently resting against the slope of my head and rocking up until our noses grazed, then shifted more until his lips brushed, ever so gently, over mine and inside my mind, the connection he purposely blocked, opened like a flower in spring.
I'm so sorry. I love you. I heard his words and felt the truth of them echo through me and back out, completing the circle between us.
I folded into him, bringing my arms up to wrap around his neck as we clung together, ignoring the crowd around us that were quickly dispersing now that the fight was over.
"I guess I've been burying some stuff," Bash murmured against my ear.
I shifted back just enough so I could look up into his eyes. There was still sadness there, mixed with hurt, and pain, and remnants of grief. I recognized the emotions intimately. They were the same ones I saw every day when I looked in the mirror.
"I guess we're not perfect." I freed my hands from the back of his neck to wipe a dribble of blood from his hairline. "We have a lot to talk about." I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, coming to terms with the fact that I'd finally have to tell him and others the truth or risk losing my mind completely.
In his arm, my heart ached, but the voices seemed to quiet, just a little, as if they understood how devastating a decision that was.
Chapter 18
I sat in front of my laptop screen facing Sylvie and held my breath, convinced I was about to get yelled at. I forced myself not to look away, I’d done something wrong and now I needed to face the consequences.
Sylvie tapped her lips with the tip of her finger and said nothing for a long moment. "And you think Benson is involved, after all?" Her gaze stayed steady on mine, unblinking, giving away no hint of her reaction. It was incredibly unnerving.
I nodded. "Definitely. Benson takes every opportunity to boast about his family and he hates me more than most women, which is saying a lot because he's a misogynistic asshole." I cut myself off there because I was digressing, babbling because of nerves. "Daniella agrees. We think he knows something but, whether or not it's involved with the attack on The Sisterhood, there's no way to tell."
"Yet," Sylvie said, arching a single brow. "There's no way to tell, yet." She lowered her hands and smiled. "You can breathe now, Elena. I'm not going to kick you out of The Sisterhood because you spoke to Benson."
I blinked slowly. "But you told me not to do anything about it. Aren't you mad?"
Sylvie chuckled. "I might be your Alpha, Elena, but I'm also a mother of four. I don't think I could count the times my children specifically did something I asked them not to do. And, it isn't as if you broke my instruction. From what you've told me, you and Daniella orchestrated a casual run-in that just so happened to result in information useful to our investigation. I think you two handled it very well. Men like Benson, like his father and grandfather, assume they're smarter than everyone else around them, especially women. I doubt he even registered what happened."
Relief flowed through me, like cool water on a hot day. It calmed my heated cheeks and settled my stomach. "Still," I said, lowering my eyes for a moment in a show of respect, "I'm sorry. I wanted to help and didn't know how else I could contribute."
Sylvie sighed. "Oh child, I didn't even think about how hard this would be for you. You've been through so much this past year. It always surprises me how well you seem to be coping but, perhaps, you've grown too good at disguising your weaknesses. You know," she added, once again tapping her lips. "Being strong doesn't mean not having weaknesses. Have you ever heard of Kintsukuroi?"
I shook my head.
"It's a Japanese art form and method of mending broken pottery. You see, even the most sturdy or beautiful pieces of pottery eventually break, that's just the nature of their existence. But, instead of throwing away the broken shards when they do break, practitioners of Kintsukuroi, which I believe translates to golden repair, reassemble the pottery, using gold and lacquer to mend the pieces together. After, despite having been broken, the pottery is made even more beautiful not in spite of its weakness, but because of the way it acknowledges it was once broken."
She left it there, not spelling out the parabl
e or proverb or metaphor or whatever the hell it was, and just trusting that I was intelligent enough to understand what she was saying. I did understand. It was our imperfections, once acknowledged and mended in some way, that made us more than we were before. I didn't have to be perfect to be strong, I just needed to stand up and admit that I needed help.
I licked my lips and took a deep steadying breath then confessed all my weaknesses.
♀♀♀
I stayed in my room most of the day, working on assignments, adding a few hundred words to my novel in progress, meditating from time to time or just ignoring the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Bash and Daniella were off campus for the day, visiting with their parents who had flown in for an impromptu visit. Bash had been frustrated when I'd refused to go with them, he'd hoped to finally tell them he'd found his mate and introduce us. The fact that they still hadn't met me in person and didn't know we were soulmates was yet another guilt that rested squarely on my shoulders. With everything that had been going on, I just hadn't wanted the stress of dealing with parents, mine or his. The only people who knew, really knew, that we were bonded, were our closest friends and mentors.
I knew he was close with his parents and wanted nothing more than to share his joyous news with them but the thought of it overwhelmed me every time and he respected my feelings. I wasn't sure how much longer he’d continued doing that on this particular front, especially since I knew it made him feel like a liar.
I'd kissed him and looked into his eyes this morning before calling Sylvie to confess and made a solemn promise to stand by his side tomorrow and tell his parents. I'd also wrangled a promise out of him to stand by my side while we told my parents immediately after.
When a knock came at my door, I wasn't surprised. After my confession to Sylvie, which had filled her eyes with worry and pinched the skin around her mouth, she'd admonished me for waiting so long, then consoled me while I teared up and tried to explain how afraid I was that I was losing my mind.
But she hadn't sent men in a white van to collect me and throw me in the loony bin. Instead, she told me to expect a visit from Dalia and to know that she and Katherine were thinking of me. She'd stayed on the video chat with me for over an hour even though I knew her time was incredibly valuable, especially in the midst of this terrorist attack against The Sisterhood.
Dalia stood in my doorway, dressed in old faded jeans, hiking boots, and a thin leather jacket with her hair pulled up in a messy bun. She looked effortlessly beautiful and fresh, despite being over five hundred years old. I only hoped I'd look half as good at that age and felt my youth intensely in the moment.
"Come on," she said, flashing me a smile filled with bright white teeth. "Let's go get some fresh air."
She waited while I pulled on a similar outfit, choosing sneakers over hiking boots because I hadn't brought my battle-scarred boots from home.
Like me, Dalia didn't quite fit in at Alpha Wolf Academy. She was far more in tune with nature than with snobbery and fancy education. That was probably why I liked her so much. Still, I knew that, like Sylvie, she wouldn't be pleased with my omissions. She'd warned me about the whispers, told me how afraid and alone she'd been when they'd started, then grown out of control. She'd offered me help and guidance and I'd still held back. Now, I had to face her and ask for her help. I grabbed my cell phone, tucked it into my back pocket, and took a deep breath to steady myself.
"Dalia," I said, turning to face her where she sat in my reading chair, casually flipping through my latest Sarah J. Mass book.
She looked up without saying a word and waited.
"I'm not sure how much Sylvie told you, but…" I searched for the right words to explain and came up empty. "I started hearing the voices, the whispers, after the plane crash. When you told me about them, you said, "at least you're not hearing the whispers," and all I could think was…" I lifted my hands and let them fall helplessly at my sides. I didn't know how to say this.
Dalia rose to her feet, putting the book on the bedside table. "You thought you were losing your mind and that if you told me, I would tell Sylvie, and we would pull you out of school and put you in a padded cell. Does that summarize what you're trying so hard to tell me?"
I swallowed hard and nodded.
Dalia moved to the door and pulled it open, gesturing that I should follow. "Come on, then. We've got a lot to talk about and you've got a lot to learn."
We were silent as we moved across campus but as we stepped into the forest and surrounded ourselves with nature, Dalia began to speak.
"When I left my family, I'd been hearing the whispers for years. They started so slowly, and I just thought my conscience had gained a voice, one I didn't understand, but, that's it. I noticed, after a while, that they got louder whenever I was stressed out or overwhelmed, but my life wasn't particularly stressful at that time, so it was a gradual thing, like boiling to death."
I grimaced at the simile.
"Because I didn't know what was happening, it got so bad that the line between reality and madness blurred, then disappeared completely. I grew power drunk. I would lash out with my power at the tiniest provocation, whenever I felt anxious or frustrated. It was like a really horrible coping mechanism." Her eyes were dark with memories of those times.
I took a deep breath and asked the single question that was at the root of my terror. "Am I too far gone? You told me before that you had to go away to learn how to control it, that you were gone for years." I pressed a hand against my mouth and prayed that wouldn't be my story, too.
"I lost everything." Dalia stopped and braced her hand on a tree trunk. "My children lost their mother, I became a monster to them, to Jacob, to myself. But, Elena," she pushed off the tree and turned to look at me with fervent intensity. "You don't need to go through any of that. Yes, you should've told me right away. It would've been easier on you. I could've taught you how to focus and see them for what they are."
I frowned. "What are they really?"
A ghost of a smile flitted across Dalia's face. "Natural born Alpha's are different from those created by the Alpha Council. We are born with the power, even if it spends years hidden. Our power comes from the earth, from the elements around us, from the air, the water, the earth, fire, even the upcoming lunar eclipse. If you think of the way fiction depicts witches, say, and the way they are tied to the elements. That's probably the most accurate description of where our powers come from."
Dalia started walking again, further into the forest, reaching out to touch trees and plants as they passed. "The earth remembers. So, when a natural born Alpha begins to connect with their elemental powers, those elements flow through them and bring memories."
"What kind of memories?" I asked.
"Well, it might not seem like it now," Dalia said glancing over at me as she plucked a pinecone from the ground and began running her fingers over it. "But, those whispers, which, believe me, I know, are sometimes more like shouts, are actually memories."
I stopped walking and frowned, remembering the incoherent murmurings of the voices. I'd tried to block them out, and I'd tried to understand them, but they never got clearer. A thought occurred to me. "Did you only hear voices? Or were there images, too? Like flashes on a screen, really fast but detailed."
Dalia nodded. "I saw images, too, eventually, but in the beginning, there were only the voices."
My heart sank.
Dalia noticed my expression and crossed the small distance between us to take my arm. "No, Elena. Just because your experience is different than mine doesn't mean that you're going to suffer the same way I did. For starters, you're much younger and you haven't lost control, yet." She pulled back a little and eyed me. "Have you?"
I shook my head immediately, then remembered the first time I'd used my Alpha voice. I'd screamed at Benson and Grey to stop and had ended up driving everyone to the ground in agony. I was ashamed it happened, but I was done keeping secrets. "I didn't try it,"
I confessed. "And I didn't even know I had power to begin with. It was the first time and it never happened again."
"What happened?" Dalia asked.
"One of the guys in the plane crash got mad and was about to attack me, so I yelled at him to stop." It seemed such a ridiculously simple explanation, but that's exactly what had happened. "I screamed and lost all sense of reality for a minute. But when I snapped back, they were all on the ground, looking at me…" It had been horrible, the looks on their faces. The agony I'd caused. My stomach twisted with nausea.
"Is that it? Was that the only time you lost control?"
I frowned and thought about the last few months. Slowly, I shook my head. "That was it. I've gotten mad since then, but it hasn't happened again."
Dalia patted my arm. "Then I think you're going to be just fine." She began to walk again, so I followed.
"Here." She gestured towards a small clearing, thick with spring grass. Dalia sunk down onto the grass and crossed her legs, then waited for me to join her. "Let's try something. Take my hands."
I reached out and linked my fingers to hers, connecting our palms.
"I want you to close your eyes and feel nature around you." Her voice was calm and soothing, like the time we'd meditated together. "Feel the grass and earth beneath you and the soft wind moving through the air. Smell the new flowers and the scent of wet earth."
I focused on her words and let myself sink into the moment. I could smell the sap from the trees and the scent of wildflowers nearby. In the distance, water trickled over rocks, making a tinkling sound that lifted the corners of my lips. I felt the earth beneath me in the grass tickling my legs.
"Open your mind to the voices," Dalia murmured.
When I stiffened, she repeated the instruction.
"Open to them. You spent all this time trying to block them out or focus through them, now focus on them. But, relax, and think only of the elements around you."