Adam’s head snapped around to look at her, mild shock on his face. “I thought those two moments were… sequential.”
Emily shook her head before stopping abruptly. “I mean, technically they are. It’s just that Point A happened, and then some other things, and then Point B.” she shrugged, not really sure of a better way to put it. “I know it sounds confusing out loud, but I promise it’ll answer your question. If you’re willing to listen, I’m willing to explain.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Well,” Emily began slowly, “I should probably begin with the crash, huh?” She suppressed a shudder, silently cursing her lack of reactionary control. To combat the pain of the memories, she often adopted a blunter manner than people were used to hearing her speak. It would be a great coping mechanism, if it didn’t make her feel completely miserable in exactly the same way.
“So, as you know, it happened. And it sucked. A lot. I was in school, and getting that news was…” she let the words trail off, unable to find a proper descriptor that wouldn’t send her into a fit of tears right out of the gate. “Anyway, so I was basically homeless after that. Parents paid all the bills, so with no parents… no money.
“I suppose this is the part where you originally thought I joined your pack, right?” she asked. Adam nodded, not daring to speak. She was grateful for his consideration; if he tried to converse now, she knew she’d likely lose her nerve to continue. “Well, now, as you well know, this was not the case,” she restated.
“Six months. That’s how long I went without a home,” Emily revealed, willfully ignoring the shocked expression on Adam’s face as she spoke. “You see, my pack was a small one, just two parents and a daughter. Only, we didn’t have any relations with other packs strong enough to be called valid connections, so we didn’t even have a title. We called our pack ‘family’. To anyone who cared at the time, they referred to us as ‘The Chevaliers’. And yeah, our life as shifters was as boring as you could imagine, in case you were wondering.
“But yeah, we were really small,” she repeated. “Small enough that when two-thirds of a three bear pack end up bloodied and dead in a freak accident, not too many people noticed.”
“Emily,” Adam began, but she shook her head sharply, silencing him immediately.
“So I just left,” she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “After receiving the news, I didn’t even return to class. I didn’t go to my locker. I didn’t pack my school things. I didn’t say goodbye to my friends and colleagues. Nothing. I was just… gone.” A sharp pain pricked her hands, and she looked down to see them balled into tight fists, the nails of her fingers biting deep into the soft meat of her palms. Shaking them loose, she continued.
“I think David told you guys that he’d rescued me from a nearby town, like some sort of lost puppy,” she said, chuckling weakly. “I guess it’s technically true, but that town wasn’t my home,” she told. “I’d become a wanderer by then. The day my parents died, I just left everything behind with nothing but the clothes on my back.
“I had no one to call. No one to fall back on or to seek guidance from.” She cracked a small, humorless smile. “As a kid, I used to complain about how lonely it was to live like we did, so secluded from other packs and just shifters in general that it was literally impossible for me to feel normal. Back then, I thought I knew what loneliness felt like at such a young age, and I kept thinking that until the day I turned seventeen.
“Again, I know you probably assumed that I was already seventeen when my parents died, but I wasn’t. I was still sixteen; my seventeenth birthday wasn’t for another three months after the crash. And when those three months had finally passed, it gave birth to what was easily the worst day of my life.”
******
As Emily spoke, a calm descended over Adam that he had never before encountered. Her voice and plight captivated him in such a way that he was lost for words and inundated with emotion – he remained silent and continued to listen to her without interruption. To learn that she had spent months alone with no one to call upon made the hair on the back of his neck rise. His bear riled protectively in complete agreement with Adam’s emotions. As she spoke he could see the story’s physical toll on her body in the way she clenched her hands, the way her shoulders tensed and especially in the way her lip quivered. It pained him to see how hard she worked to hide it.
Many times, he wanted her to discontinue; he felt that it wasn't worth it and that it was going to hurt her too much. She would not; she just wanted to carry on as if it was some kind of cleansing of the soul. Her voice would grow stronger and clearer when she covered certain points, and threatened to fail at others. Though it always looked like she was in pain by simply speaking of her past. Yet, somehow, it was almost as if finally getting it all out into the open, and telling someone the whole truth was therapeutic. So, Adam opted to remain silent for the remainder of the story, hoping beyond hope that when she was done spilling her soul to him that it would help her grow and overcome this most difficult chapter in her life.
"Seventeen’s a weird age, you know," Emily finally said after a short pause in her story. "You’re nearly an adult, but not quite yet. Still learning about life and yet you think that you know everything." Adam watched as her bottom lip trembled yet again, seeing a flash of anger flair in her eyes as she willed the display of her sadness to cease. "The thing is, when I was 17 and there was nobody around to tell me what was wrong, I truly was just like every other 17-year-old. I was alone, I had no one to tell me what to do, and I had no one to tell me when things would hurt me or make me cry or make me wish I wasn't alive." Adam wrestled almost immediately at her confession. The very fact of her not being here with him, right now, making his chest rumble with the beginnings of an angry growl.
Tossing him a quick glance, Emily gave him a sympathetic smile. "Don't worry, it doesn't get much worse than this. I promise." She turned back to face the way they were walking before continuing. "I wasn't abused or assaulted or anything overly dramatic like that," she said. "My life on the road was a fraction as interesting as all of that."
She inhaled deeply, letting out the anxiety. The action seemed to release a bit of that tension in her shoulders. "I was just… lonely. And it doesn't sound all that bad at first, and it doesn't sound all that bad even a month or two later, but three months pass and suddenly it's your birthday. You wake up in the morning and you're suddenly a year older and you have no one there to celebrate with you. You don't hear a single happy birthday, there's no one singing songs, no one surprising you with a cake or balloons, and there’s no one there to tell you: my how you've grown.
"There are no party hats, there are no streamers, there are no annoying relatives to pinch your cheeks, to pat you on the head and call you a good girl. There are no annoying siblings to bother you - It's just another shitty day, like every other, only that this one’s worst because it’s your birthday and you are all alone. At that moment, you think that your life will never be special again. There'll be no more events, no more celebrations, no more moments that take your breath away. And in that moment, that's when I truly knew loneliness."
The emptiness in Emily's voice shattered Adam entirely, right down to his bones.
"Even the word loneliness doesn't really begin to describe it," Emily continued. "It was a problem, a problem I couldn't fix. I'd wake up every day sad and alone, like with every other problem, I would search for a solution. But unlike being hungry, or angry, or sad there were no people in this world that could fill the hole that loneliness had burrowed deep inside of my heart. I couldn't go see a movie, I couldn't go eat a meal and I couldn’t watch a funny play. Hell, I could not even cry. Both action and no action reminded me that there was no one to join me. No one to dab my tears away when I cried, no one to sit down at the table with me when I ate, no one to buy tickets with me at the theater. There was no solution to this problem. There was… just no one."
Slowly but surely, Emily’s story sta
rted to finally answer the question that Adam had asked: how it had felt like 1 million years ago? At this point the question wasn't even important to him anymore. He just wanted to be there for Emily as she finally exorcised the demons from her soul. This was her moment, her opportunity to move forward and beyond once and for all, and Adam was honored that she trusted him enough to him pull into the fold. Watching as she wrestled to finish the story, he hoped that one day, he could repay her in-kind with the same trust that she had instilled in him in that moment.
"So there we go. That's how it was for a young shifter girl, wandering the streets from town to town in no discernible direction as she wanted for nothing and needed for everything but knew that her fate was already sealed. She would live the rest of her life in loneliness until something happened that stopped her from living at all. There was no feeling, there was no doing, and there was barely any breathing. I didn’t notice my feet bleeding or when I tripped on the sidewalks and scraped my knees. It didn't matter anymore. I just kept walking. My stomach would growl but I didn't care enough to eat. My body would ache with fatigue but I didn’t care enough to sleep. It went on like this for months. That is, until…"
"David," Adam answered automatically.
"Ding ding, you got it," Emily announced. "I was wandering about this desolate town that had been ravaged by thugs and criminals long before I arrived. It seemed like the perfect place for me because it was forgotten and abandoned.” For the first time during the entire story, a small smile imperceptibly tilted Emily's lips upward. It made Adam’s heart lurch – it was genuine. "Who knows what would've happened to me in that town full of users and abusers if a certain bear had not sheltered me from the crimes of humanity that chased after my every move, as I blindly turned my back upon them.
"Remember, I was 17 at the time. I thought I knew everything. I thought I'd lived all that someone like me could ever live. So when an older gentleman with kind eyes and an outstretched hand asked me for my name, 17-year-old me had already figured it all out." She laughed dryly. "And let me tell you, though 17-year-old me was already too tired of life to put it into words, she certainly was not ready to be handed over to the likes of an old guy with deceptively kind eyes."
Knowing that Emily was talking about his father was almost comical, but it wasn't hard to keep from laughing. As she began speaking about David, a light lit up in her eyes, burning away all of the shadows that he had seen hovering within them only moments before. He knew that this would be the turning point, and the answer to this question finally revealed after an entire tale of loss, loneliness and a life that was otherwise hardly worth living.
She looked up at him, that genuine smile making her eyes sparkle, and continued. "But David was never like that, was he?
Adam shook his head, the beginning of his own smile starting to form.
"I know that now, but you would've had a hard time telling me that five years ago. I was hardheaded angry and…scared as hell. But he..." Something in her throat caught, halting the story as she worked to compose herself.
"He didn't give up on me,” she finally finished, her voice heavy and watery with unshed tears. "He kept trying until I finally was able to trust him, you know, it was the happiest day of my life."
Adam didn't know if there was any more to the story as Emily dissolved into a fit of tears, but it didn't matter. She'd answered his question well enough and now he fully understood her motivations for wanting to help others as much as she did. She had lost everything so young, living in complete solitude from both human and bear for six months. When she had needed help, no one other than his father had done anything about her plight. For this reason, she didn't want to see anybody else in that position ever again.
Adam looked down at the crying Emily, and though it pulled on his heartstrings to see the sadness spill from her eyes, he knew that they were different tears this time. They weren’t born out of stress or strife but of relief. The story had taken a toll on Emily, as talking about her past always did, but when he looked at her shoulders, they were no longer tense. When he looked at her hands they were no longer balled into fists. She stood there crying, face contorted as she sobbed, but the rest of her body remained completely at peace, and that was the best outcome that Adam could have hoped for.
He opened his arms and almost instinctively Emily threw herself into them. She cried against his chest, holding him close. As he enveloped his strong arms around her, he realized that this was the life he wanted forever. He wanted to be there to comfort her when she was sad and to build her up until she was happy again. He wanted to back her up when she was being reckless and dress her wounds when she got hurt. He wanted to be everything that she didn't have. He wanted to eradicate that six months of complete loneliness, so that she would never feel that way ever again.
He tilted her face up to his locking gaze. He stared into her reddened and puffy eyes deeply. Before she could stop him and remind him of the strictly business only policy, the steel covenant that ran between them, his lips crushed upon hers.
Emily hesitated for a millisecond, before almost immediately melting into the kiss. Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck in an almost feverish embrace. Passion loomed like a flower in Adam's belly. His hands held firmly to her waist, as he pulled her even closer as if their bodies fused together and became one being.
In a moment that got him by surprise, Emily pulled away long enough to push them against a nearby tree before pressing her lips to his again. She held herself firmly against him, her lips warm and wet with the whisper of shed tears. The sheer need wafted from her like the most heavenly sense ignited something in Adam.
His bear rose to attention scenting the air as he kissed Emily Cabral, rolling low in his throat as instinct threatened to take over. Without a word he pulled away spinning around so that he could step away long enough to grab Emily's hand and pull her deeper into the nearby forest.
He didn't take her far, only to a park just dark enough that no unsuspecting eyes could spy, before he had her against a tree in a similar fashion that she had him pinned only moments ago. The kiss seemed even more intense than before, his breath coming in pants of desire and need. Emily moaned softly against his lips. It sent a shudder of excitement through his entire body.
Removing all doubt from his mind, Adam slowly began to inch his fingers up under the bottom hem of Emily’s shirt. Her skin felt white-hot under his fingertips and she shivered against him as their bear pelts met. Slowly, Adam let his fingers trail up the soft warm skin of Emily's torso, playing in light circles as they went before stopping just below the wire of her bra.
It was in this first moment of hesitation when doubt filled his mind almost immediately. He didn't want to move too quickly and spook her, but his fingers ached to continue exploring in a way that he had never experienced before.
"It's okay," Emily sighed against him. That blush that he loved so much had returned to her face in full force almost illuminating her cheeks with a vibrant shade of pink. Her breath was coming quickly as her chest kept rising and falling to the beat of her frantic heart. "It's okay Adam. Please don't stop."
That was all he needed. In a flash his lips were back on hers, as he explored her entire body as thoroughly and completely as his heart desired. The emotions that he didn't have labels for swelled in his heart and mind, relishing the way her body reacted when he ran his fingers over the top of her bra before dipping behind the fabric, eliciting a little squeal of contentment on her part. She instinctively thrust her chest outward, seemingly begging for more.
Adam’s bear growled deliberately within him as if urging him to keep going. Adam didn't need to be encouraged any further. His hands worked quickly to lift the thin clothing above Emily's head before she knew what he was doing. In one swift motion, both her shirt and her bra lay limply up on the forest floor.
He stood back, marveling at Emily and all of her beauty. The look of shock and surprise on her face only adding to the attraction and lu
st that already swirled tornadoes and typhoons in his stomach.
"You are so beautiful Emily Chevalier," Adam murmured, into his delight, that radiant blush across her cheeks glowed even brighter.
He kissed her lips softly. At first, leaving a trail of feather-light kisses down her jaw. The path continued as he passed her collarbone, dipping below even further. He laid a gentle kiss upon the soft mound of her breasts before giving the very tip of her nipple the slightest hug with his teeth.
Emily's body jolted with ecstasy, her breath gasping in a lost word that metamorphosed into a sharp inhalation. Desire rolled off of her like a waterfall that Adam wished to drown in every day of his life
Taking her breast firmly in his mouth, he allowed his hands to explore once more, this time traveling south. They played lightly along the waistband of her jeans before undoing the button as quickly as he had dispatched her top. Only Emily's hands had stopped him from continuing to undress her
"Wait," Emily gasped. "Please, let me."
"Emily you don't…" Adam began, but a shake of her head cut him off.
"Adam I have wanted this for so long," she confessed. "I have wanted you for so long."
"You have?" He asked, his heart speeding as incredulity claimed him. His feverish attraction to her had been a new, manifesting after he saw how truly strong she was when aiding Forest Haven. Had that not been the same time Emily realized her attraction for him?
Emily nodded. "About five years to be exact." The confession nearly floored Adam. Five years? The entire time they’d known each other? How hadn’t he noticed?
Emily grinned as if she could see the questions written upon his face. "I've gotten really good at hiding it so don't feel bad if you didn't notice. It's just as well; I don't think either one of us were ready for this relationship back then."
Adam tilted his head, a loving smile of his own playing along his lips. "And are we ready now?"
Crush on the Alpha Bear (Alpha Bears Book 4) Page 11