Pack Mentality
Page 23
“Right. Okay,” Silvia said and turned the doorknob and walked past the threshold but turned back to Gwen.
“Gwen…”
Gwen waited as Silvia seemed to lose her nerve. “Yes?”
Silvia swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in her throat and grasped at whatever courage she still had left. “I need you,” she all but whispered.
Gwen held her gaze, a deep fire burned within them that made Silvia shiver despite the summer heat. It was a flame that was both cold and hot. It seemed to blaze in Gwen’s blue irises. It danced and twisted into something more hideous than the scar that ran down the center of her face. Silvia wondered, for a moment, if the woman standing before her was someone else, someone monstrous, someone that could kill as easily as Silvia would kill for her brother. For some reason, that thought made her tremble and terrified her because for all intents and purposes, she, through her self-serving actions had created the monster that now stood before her. Gwen shifted. The moment passed.
Gwen opened her mouth, “I know,” she said and smirked in a way that was both cruel and beautiful and Silvia had her answer. She knew that even if Gwen had become a monster, she would still love her because, for the first time since the land battle, her heart ached in a good way, in a way that both brought tears to her eyes and filled her being with a warmth. As Silvia had been so cold, too cold, frozen in regret and self-hatred. At the moment that Gwen smirked, that horrible, beautiful, dangerous smirk it had breathed heat back into her frostbitten body. Gwen gestured behind her. “Shall we?”
Silvia nodded and turned around. Gwen followed her in and closed the door with a resounding click. A click that seemed both final yet also the beginning of something terrible and wonderful at the same time.
Gwen stood on the back porch of Jezebel’s backyard. The clan had decided, at Gwen’s instance, that they spend some of their full moon festivals with Jezebel’s family to better incorporate them into the clan. Jezebel was very much still a Vega, a proud future alpha of her pride, but she was working on accepting that her pride was now meshed with a pack of werewolves. Gwen felt warm hands snake around her waist and a chin rest on her shoulder. She smirked as the scent of jasmine entered her senses.
“Hey you,” she said and felt the vibrations of the woman’s chuckle run through her.
“She looks in her element, doesn’t she?”
Gwen looked back at Jezebel as she made up a plate of food for Cole and Cierra. The two children happily laughing and pointing out what they wanted to eat. Jezebel patiently listened as Mary was talking nonstop and following behind her sister with her own plate of food. “They are her family.”
“So are we.”
Gwen hummed and leaned back further into Silvia’s warmth. “Are you jealous?”
It was quiet for a moment then she felt Silvia’s grip tighten slightly. Gwen smiled. “You shouldn’t be. There’s enough place in her heart for everyone, Vi.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
Silvia adjusted her hold so that the palm of her hand was resting on Gwen’s stomach. “I love you both but we are all so divided. How are we going to make this work? I have Nathan, and I need to teach him how to lead the pack under my father now that he has decided to take the position and stop running. My father has allowed me to reclaim the Cain name and be part of the pack again as Nathan’s mentor. Jazz has her siblings and you have your clan.”
Gwen quietly considered what her mate said idly playing with the bone colored lotus flower that hung from a gold chain around her neck. Her wrist jingled with each movement due to the two interlocking bracelets, one green the other gold, that carried the Vega coat-of-arms, a sun being impaled by a dagger. Silvia reached up, tucking a blonde strand behind Gwen’s ear, a matching bracelet adorning her opposite wrist. She suddenly spun around in Silvia’s arms and held her face with both of her hands. Gwen held Silvia’s gaze steadily. She ignored the wince Silvia tried to hold back as well as the guilt that crossed her face. Gwen had been working on that with her. Honestly, both women knew she hadn’t forgiven them yet. The wound that their betrayal left often burned in a deep rage but they were all working on it, together.
That was how this was going to work, that was the only way this was going to work, so Gwen ignored the winces and the guilt and she ignored the self-hate both of her mates were filled with even when they found comfort in each other. Gwen loved them despite it all and yet her heart had yet to forgive them. Love was never so simple and mating bonds were permanent. They had to make this work, or her inner wolf would go insane from the denial of its mates, and Gwen would truly be lost. It was the way of a monster. Truly, to love so intensely that it could destroy her and yet to hate so fully that she would be forever lost to them. It was her way and it was her birthright as a werewolf who had met her soulmates.
They would make this work even if they resented her for forcing them into this bond and even if her heart bled and burned in rage and hurt. It wasn’t pretending. This was love. It was a twisted and horrible love and yet it held a beauty that made it so much more real. Gwen truly loves her mates and she knows that they love her even when they winced, even when they hated themselves, they shared their love in whatever way they could, a cup of tea as they settled in to watch a movie, a brush of a warm hand on a thigh, a quick kiss on the cheek, a gentle hand through soft hair, they showed their love even as their hate and regret burned along with it.
Gwen wondered at times if this is what love was supposed to be like, then she would laugh, because love is whatever you make it out to be. There was no one way to love someone nor only one kind of love. She loves them and they love her. That’s their reality and that’s all that mattered.
“Vi, don’t worry about it too much. We will just make it work between the three of us. I promise you that we will. We are mates. There’s room for all of us in each other's lives. We will make the room. And babe, we aren’t going to leave you.”
Silvia whimpered softly, “You always seem to know what I’m really trying to say.”
Gwen wiped away a stray tear traveling down the woman’s cheek and smiled softly. “That’s because I know you and you’re horrible with words, to begin with.”
Silvia pouted. “Rude.”
“Fact, babe.” Gwen suddenly spun around and grabbed Silvia’s hand. “Now, come on, Jazz is getting worried about us.”
Sure enough, when Silvia looked in front of them, keen green eyes were trained on her in concern from where their mate and her siblings were sitting. Somehow, Gwen seemed more in tune with both her’s and Jezebel’s emotions then they were. Gwen just always seemed to know what to say, of how to touch them, or when to listen and when to speak her mind. She would give little caresses here of there. A touch of a hand, a ghost of a kiss on her cheek, a slight shoulder nudge.
Gwen was an affectionate person even if it was never taken beyond that. Yet, Silvia never felt like she was unloved. Gwen had a way of making her feel wanted and needed through innocent but intimate words and gestures and with Jezebel added to the mix everything between the three of them just seemed to work. The love was undeniable. The loyalty, respect, and commitment to each other were ever present despite their insecurities and despite all that had been done.
Gwen was sure that they could make this work. As she took her seat, Gwen looked around at the laughing children, the grumbling older men and she felt like the thing that had been missing from the beginning had finally found a place right in the center of her chest and she thought to herself, this is what home feels like. This is where she belonged. She had every intention of protecting it to her last breath. That is what it means to be an omega. That is what it means to protect the clan.
Afterword
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