Curves & Courage

by Christin Lovell

  My heart swelled, my soul pranced with delight as he captured me, enraptured me with his touch. It was like every stroke of his lips placed a bandage on an old wound, hoping to heal it. His kisses had healing power in them. He stoked an inner flame within me; he was evoking confidence, awakening my inner strength. He was giving me what I hadn’t realized I needed until now.

  It was humbling to realize I trusted him with every part of me. I trusted him more than I trusted myself right now.

  As he broke away, he tenderly brushed his lips to the bruises on my face. His lips were feather light.

  I looked up at him. His features were soft, his eyes shimmering with incandescence. It was both of them, he and his wolf. They were both capable of patient passion, an unusual combination, especially in the supernatural world. It left me speechless, speechless and dazed by their generosity.

  They were so kind. They were serving their hearts up on a platter to me while I was plotting a way to leave them. I’d never felt so low, so undeserving.

  Tears sprung abruptly. How easily I said I trusted him more than myself, yet I wasn’t doing that. There was no such thing as partial trust. It was an absolute intangible entity. It was an all or nothing thing. Yet, here I stood, guilt riding me hard because I wasn’t doing that. I wasn’t trusting him.

  I held back the tears, waging a mental war with myself. My chest was tight, my heart heavy as I gazed up at him. He wanted to be my knight in shining armor. He was trying so hard to be everything that he thought I needed. He was being more, doing more than I ever earned. He made me feel so special, like I was actually worth fighting for.

  I didn’t believe I was worth fighting for though. That was the real issue. I didn’t feel worthy of being saved.

  As much as my dad had done to me, I had to admit my fault in it. I’d invoked him. There were times when I could tell he wasn’t in a good mood, yet I lingered, I stayed longer than I ought to have. There were…

  I sighed. No. There were no excuses. I’d tried for years to blame myself for his actions, but I wasn’t at fault. Wanting to be with someone didn’t earn you capital punishment. Dom wanting to protect me shouldn’t earn him expulsion from my life. In a way, I was becoming my father.

  My father knew the error of his ways, but was too afraid to admit them. Rather, he took it out on those around him, which happened to be me.

  I knew, deep down, that I wasn’t entirely invaluable, but I was too afraid to admit it. I was afraid admitting my worth would create this overwhelming pressure, this overbearing burden to live up to invisible standards, to achieve impossible goals just to justify Dom’s good deed. I would feel like I owed him something. I would feel indebted to him far more than I already did.

  Truth was, it was easier to continue to fail my father than to risk disappointing Dominick. I cared about him; his opinion mattered to me. He mattered to me.

  “Please don’t run, Sophie.” His voice was a soft plea that tugged at my heart.

  “I don’t think I can be who you need me to be, Dominick.” My tears teetered, on the verge of falling.

  “I just need you, Soph. I just want you here with me, safe with me, sweetie. Nothing more.”

  I shook my head negatively, biting into my bottom lip. “For now.” I swallowed hard. “Maybe longer, but at some point, you’re going to need me to be more. You’re going to be an alpha, Dom. I’m not cut out to be an alpha’s mate though.”

  “I’m not asking you to be anything more than yourself.” His dimples indented as he smiled at me. “Plus, you’ll be head over heels in love with me by the time I’m alpha. You won’t be able to walk away from all this sexiness.” Leave it to him to cut through the tension at exactly the right time, just before I broke down from the magnitude of the circumstance.

  I expelled a sigh with a bit of a chuckle on the end of it. I shook my head in dismay as I looked up at him. Nature definitely knew what she was doing. So why was I still questioning her? Why was I still defying what was obviously right?

  “I was planning to run,” I admitted.

  He dragged his fingers through my hair, moving it away from my neck. “And now?”

  “I want to, but I don’t know if I can.”

  His pulse sped up as he stared past me. “Why?”

  He deserved the truth, but I didn’t know if I had the guts to share it. Fate had a way of working things out for you though.

  “Dominick.”

  We both turned towards the voice, his father’s voice. There was something in his tone that had unease knotting my insides immediately.

  Dom exchanged a heavy glare with his father. He nodded his head once in understanding of their nonverbal exchange.

  I swallowed hard, looking to my mate for explanation, praying he wouldn’t deny me.

  “A few of the other pack young spotted your dad at the school.” He met my gaze. “He’s looking for you.”

  I knew I should be afraid. I knew, logically, I should be flying into to action, going to meet him halfway in an effort to appease him. But I was in Dom’s arms. I felt safe cocooned against him.

  And I would be an idiot to leave safety for the storm.

  I was a pathetic Ping-Pong ball, barely lingering on one side of the net before flying back over it. Why was I so indecisive? Why was I so confused about a clear-cut path? It was known that when you met your mate, there was no running. Once their scent crossed your path, your wolf became obsessed; where your wolf slacked, your own instincts kicked in, driving you towards your destiny.

  There hasn’t been a single wolf to avoid fate. One way or another, you ended up with your mate…for life. We didn’t believe in divorce. We didn’t argue with Nature, Fate, God, or the gods.

  I knew one way or another I would end up with Dominick. I suppose my true conflict was whether to be with him now, dumping my issues upon him, or later, when I had a better grip on my life and far less baggage. I would feel selfish either way. Either I would selfishly burden him or I would selfishly abandon him. I say selfishly because he made it clear he didn’t want me to go.

  It was hard dealing with adult issues, future prospects, at such a young age. I wasn’t complaining about my lot in life; I’d accepted it for what it was. More so, I struggled with balancing my hopes with reality, and yet, somewhere along the way, I’d given up hope altogether.

  I felt my brows furrow. I wasn’t even making sense to myself. Perhaps I was panicking and didn’t realize it. Maybe I was just dumbfounded by the changes shaking up my life. It wasn’t a pretty life, but it was mine. I’d created a routine. Regardless of where we lived, I had an unchanging schedule. It kept me sane. It gave me stability when I otherwise wouldn’t have had any.

  “You’re gonna give yourself a headache.” It was a chide, but he said it with a smirk, almost teasing me for my obsessive thinking. Somehow he’d managed to regain complete control. I knew he was upset about my dad, but I didn’t see it. His smile faded as he stared at the worried expression I knew I wore. “You need to let go, Soph. You can’t change what’s happened. You can change what happens next though.” He swallowed hard, tension claiming him. “Let me change what happens next for you.” He met my gaze with purpose. “I’m going to change it somehow anyways.”

  I knew that. I knew he would be in my life in some capacity before he claimed me for forever. I remembered how Fate worked with wolves, yet, I was still struggling to accept it. For some reason, I couldn’t let that last wall fall. There was some part of me that was still afraid, of what I didn’t know though.

  “Do you mind if I go lay down for a bit?”

  He assessed me. He glanced at the table, at my plate of food. “Doc said you need to eat.”

  I snorted. “I’m not going to dwindle away to nothing.”

  He growled. “Yeah, you are. Just because you’re bigger than the other girls doesn’t mean you aren’t starving.” His eyes glowed as a snarl curled his lips.

  This was the second time I regretted climbing into my little
inner cocoon with my wolf. I didn’t know what my dad had done to me and I didn’t know what the doctor had said about me…because I was afraid to know.

  I was living in a hell I’d never accepted, yet never ran from either. How was that possible? How had I existed in pain for so long? How had I avoided the hurt for so long? Thinking back, I didn’t experience a quarter of the excruciating agony I knew I should have from my dad’s abuse. Somehow, I’d blocked it out. I lived, but I wasn’t alive. I walked, but I didn’t walk away. I was here, with my mate, yet I wasn’t here.

  I might as well have been a zombie. Dom was trying so hard to revive me, to breathe life into me; he wanted to share a life with me, he wanted to share his life with me. But I was denying him; I was rejecting happiness. Why? Because then I would have to face the past for what it was, then I couldn’t just say I’d been through hell, I would know the pain of the hell I’d been through. All my cubbies crammed with the truth, the painful truth I’d been avoiding, would burst open.

  “Listen, Soph, I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to, but I’ll be pissed if you drop one day because you didn’t do what you should have.” His face was an unreadable mask. “From here on, anything you do is your own doing; you have an out from your dad. It’s up to you whether or not you take it though.”

  With one final cursory look, he stalked out the front door, leaving me standing there. And, just as I’d suspected, knowing I’d upset Dom was a million times worse than with my dad.

  Guilt assaulted me, ramming my chest repeatedly until I felt bruised and broken. My lungs felt water logged, weighed down, and struggled to expand; I felt like I wasn’t getting any air. Dom had taken my air when he walked out the door.

  I was finally being forced to face reality. I was finally having to take control. I was finally being required to choose what I wanted, to admit what I wanted.

  The tears fell silently as I sat back down at the table. I methodically ate the steak, barely tasting it. He was right. From here on, what happened to me was my own doing. Where I ended up was my own choice, and that was hard to accept.

  Chapter 30

  Dominick

  Shit! I was such an asshole. The girl had been through hell and I just put her back against the wall.

  My frustration had exploded in a split second. I hated seeing her as a victim, but worse, I hated when she treated herself like a victim. Yes, her situation sucked. Yes, I was fucking pissed that her dad had done that shit to her, but he wasn’t here anymore. I was giving her an opportunity and she was just staring at it. I couldn’t figure out why.

  What was the hard choice? Hell or heaven? Go back to an abusive dad or live with your caring mate…who’d just gone off on you and stormed out.

  Dammit! I was such an idiot! Dr. Charles had warned me; he’d told me she would have a lot to work through and wouldn’t be confident in much. I didn’t listen though. Worse, I’d just walked out on her. She’d even told me that I would. She’d said that she couldn’t be who I needed her to be; she’d even alluded to the fact that I’d tire of her.

  And what did I do? I got tired of her shit and left.

  Dammit. That wasn’t even the truth. I wasn’t tired of her; I wasn’t even upset with her. I was angry at the whole situation. It’d built inside me, quicker than I’d wanted it to, thanks to my wolf, until it burst at once, unfortunately on her, just like with her father. Shit!

  I’d probably just fucked up any chance I had at being with her. Why would she stick with someone who’d just acted exactly like the guy he was telling her to leave behind?

  Kris appeared at the end of the corridor. I’d been stomping through the halls of each floor in the building, trying to work off some steam. I think I’d even scared my wolf, who was surprisingly quiet.

  “You gonna tell me why you’re beating the floor?” He leaned against the doorframe to his apartment. His arms were crossed over his chest. His body was relaxed, but his expression held all his concern.

  “No,” I barked. Shit. I stopped, huffing out a sigh. “I mean yes.”

  His brows slid inwards. He grunted. “That bad?” His smirk clued me in to his amusement over the whole thing.

  “Screw you, man.” I didn’t have time for teasing. “I may have just completely screwed up any chance I had with my mate and you wanna fucking laugh about it?”

  He sobered immediately. “Shit.” He dropped his arms and stepped back, clearing the doorway. “Sorry, Dom. Wanna talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  He took a deep breath, observing me. I hated when he did that. He saw too much. He always saw too much. “You’re better off groveling now than later. Take too long and her choice will be set in stone.”

  He was right. I knew he was right. The longer I walked, the more certain I became that I was an irrational idiot.

  I looked at him, hating how he came out with these insightful sentences sometimes. “Thanks.”

  “Just make sure I don’t hear the make-up sex.”

  I shook my head in dismay, frowning at him. “You just had to ruin it, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged his shoulders, turning and closing his door. It was a period to his point. That was Kris’ way of giving my ass a kick in the right direction.

  I shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts. I’d been roaming the halls in only my shorts. It was safer that way. I couldn’t walk the streets of the city without shoes. This kept me inside. This kept me near her. This kept me from going after him.

  Chapter 31

  Sophie

  I carried our empty plates to the sink and set them in. Using my good hand, I set about awkwardly washing them. I was mid-scrub of the second plate when Dom walked into the kitchen, looking forlorn.

  He didn’t say anything. He merely came up behind me, turned off the faucet and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed the back of my head, pulling my back into his chest.

  I closed my eyes, tilting my head forward a bit to curl deeper into him. He was warm and comforting. He was reassuring. He gave me the confidence I needed to decide my own fate.

  We stood there like that for a while. My hands came to rest atop his around my midsection. He’d obviously memorized my wounds because he didn’t touch even one.

  There, in the peace of being near him, I felt his heartbeat in rhythm against the back of mine. I felt everything he wasn’t saying. I knew he regretted walking out; it was written all over his face when he came in. I didn’t know if my face read the same or not though. I didn’t know if he could see how sorry I was. Because after wallowing through my food, which he’d cooked for me, something my dad had never done, I realized he was right. He was giving me an out. And from where he was standing, I’d be stupid not to take it.

  And now, from where I was standing, in the safety of his arms, I would be stupid not to take it.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice was low, but thick with emotion. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  He spun me in his arms. “Soph, I would never be disappointed in you for choosing what you thought was best, even if I disagree.”

  I studied him, uncertain, yet hopeful. “I’ll leave my dad, Dominick.” I swallowed hard, meeting his intense gaze. “But I don’t want you to fight him.”

  He chewed his lip for a bit, watching me closely. He tucked my hair behind my ears, studying the bruises on my face as he did so. “What kind of wolf would I be if I didn’t defend your honor?”

  My heart sped up, fear summoning adrenaline. “The better wolf.”

  He shook his head negatively. “No, sweetie. I’d be the cowardly lion.”

  “What if something happens to you?” I knew I was grasping at straws, but I didn’t care.

  “What if he isn’t taught a lesson?”

  Damn my tears for returning then. What was wrong with me? I hadn’t cried this much in years. “I don’t think he’ll retain it.”

  He smirked. “Retain? Such a big word for a little girl.”

 
“Dom, please. I’ll give everything up if you’ll give up that one thing.”

  He pursed his lips, mulling over my offer. “Doesn’t matter if you stay or go, I couldn’t let him walk knowing what he’s done to you.”

  My heart crumbled into a thousand despairing pieces.

  I blinked my eyelids profusely, fighting back the tears. This wasn’t the time to fall apart. This also wasn’t the time to retreat. No, I was being forced to choose, right? Dom said anything I did from here on was my own doing. Well, I was choosing Dominick. Only, I was choosing to protect him, not to be with him.

  I looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I know what he did was wrong. It was hell living through it. But, unlike you, I just want to walk away from it, not relive it in hopes of teaching him a lesson he’ll probably never learn.”

  I went back to the dishes. Dom took them from me, shooing me out of the way to dry them and put them away.

  I went in search of my shoes. I found them in Dominick’s room. My book bag was absent; I idly remembered leaving it in the car, with Dom and Kris’ in the trunk. I would have to leave without it.

  I put on my tennis shoes, thankful they’d been slid off of me still tied. I stood, wincing as a flash of pain worked through my right side.

  I spun towards the door, coming to an immediate stop at the sight of Dom leaning against the frame. A single glance at his hard, yet obviously tortured expression was enough to shatter my confidence, shaking my determination. I looked away, unable to see him like that.

  Love is a choice, a chance, a dare;

  Love forces you to live without fear.

  “I’ll give you your shirt back tomorrow,” I said. Every second I stood here was somehow more painful than any hit from my dad. I wanted to be with him. God. I wanted to just run to him and hug him and fall into him.

  But it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t do that knowing he was set on risking himself for me. I couldn’t do what I wanted because then Dom would definitely do what he wanted.

  Life was about choices. We chose what was worth the sacrifice. We chose what was worth losing and what was worth fighting for. Dom wasn’t worth losing, but I wasn’t worth fighting for. My dad wasn’t worth the effort of a battle.