by Ellis Marie
No.
“You don’t deserve her and you know it,” he taunts with a venom in his voice that I’ve never heard before as he steps towards us. “That’s why you hate yourself,” he continues, his eyes like knives in Trent’s back as he climbs to his feet.
Trent’s grip around my hand tightens, almost painfully.
“That’s why you haven’t completed the mating bond, isn’t it? Because you’re still hoping that there’s a chance for her to escape you?”
I gasp and pull myself out of Trent’s hold, which is my automatic response to the feeling of pain throbbing through my fingers. I hadn’t meant to do it, but I’m so fixated on Cam’s words that I don’t even realise his clenched fist is getting uncomfortable until it’s too late.
Trent doesn’t want me to be with him?
His face turns to me with horror-filled eyes as he looks down at my cradled hand, the distress like a beacon for his emotions. For the first time in a while, I see a glint of pure gold in his irises.
“Elle,” he whispers. I almost faint at the sound of my name passing his lips. “What—”
He gently takes my hand in his, turning it over and scanning it, searching for the pain he’s caused me as he struggles to hold onto his thoughts. I can only watch with pure happiness as I see the flickers of the sweet boy returning to the person in front of me, but when his eyes narrow in on something, it’s as if all the blood has gone from his body. His complexion turns a sickly pale colour as he steps away, breaking the calm in my thoughts.
“Did I do that?
I’m confused at first. I’m completely aware of the fact that he has only been holding my hand and that he hasn’t really hurt me much. My body just reacted to the nip of pain instinctively, so when I follow his gaze and see the crescent moon indentations on my forearm—the skin around them red and furious—a nauseating feeling washes over me.
“I did that, didn’t I?” His body begins to fold in on itself. He shudders with the effects of his guilt as he moves back, already the blame so overwhelming that he needs to flee. His worst fears are being confirmed right before his eyes.
“No.” I shake my head and reach for him, desperate to stop the tortured look on his face.
“Trent, you didn’t.”
“I’ve hurt you,” he whispers, his eyes closed and twitching. He recoils from my touch. “I hurt you.”
“Trent, no,” I try, begging for him to look at me. “You didn’t.”
“I can’t control myself. Not now, not ever. He’s right, I—”
“Alpha, that wasn’t you!”
Lee’s shout stops everyone from talking, from breathing in fact. The weight of them is evident in the way that the air suddenly feels clammy and the slap of water against the sand sounds so far away.
“What?” The word is hoarse in Trent’s throat, like it’s painful for him to speak. Or painful to believe that it could be true.
“Those marks aren’t from you grabbing me,” I confirm, my eyes drifting over to the ginger hair that’s blowing in the wind. The figure is locked in place, regret so visible that my heart lurches as my mouth opens, the truth choking me.
“They’re from Cam.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he defends, his fists shaking as he stands tall. “I would never—”
“Never what! Do anything?”
The eruption should have been expected; it’s not as if I assume Trent is going to take the development well, but I could never have prepared myself for the downright blood-curdling voice that echoes around us, the fury in it igniting that familiar feeling of fear so intense that it’s as if someone has dragged a knife down my spine.
“You’re right.” It laughs. I step away from the body that’s beginning to convulse at my feet. “You don’t do anything.”
It rises up slowly, limbs twitching and head rolling as the muscles across its back begin to shift and stretching under the skin as if they’re trying to break free. The grotesque figure grows unnaturally with a demonic and guttural growl echoing from its core.
“You stand there and preach to me that I’m not good enough for her yet what have you done?”
I can’t take my eyes away from the pulsing creature that’s ripping at its own skin. Its ungodly snarl makes me flinch back as I struggle to comprehend what I’m watching.
Clearly, someone has a deathwish because my stubborn mule of a best friend finds the courage within him to bite back, his own body itching to be free while the other three around him growl, warning him to stop.
Of course, he ignores them.
“How dare you, I—”
“How dare I!” The words are a roar across the beach, the world seeming to freeze in its wake.
I can’t breathe.
Slowly, a dark snicker begins to echo and his head vehemently shakes like there is some amusement to be found in the question. Somehow, this is more terrifying than him screaming.
“You spend years sitting there,” he leers, putrid words dripping from his tongue. “Standing there, watching her be hurt by people who are meant to love her. Seeing how much she is in pain, and you?”
He scoffs, turning to look at his target. The whimper escaping my mouth is involuntary as my muscles clench in preparation to flee.
“You dare to sit there and try to tell me that I’m not good enough for her, as if you are?”
My heart is like a hammer as I finally see his face in the sunlight. Morphed into a creature that seems to be half-human and half-beast, the man before me has lost all signs of Trent’s soft expressions; his eyes are like two black holes that may swallow your soul.
“You, who even when you were gifted with the powers to defend her, to protect her, still did nothing.” He raises his voice with every word. His suppressed anger breaks free with every syllable, turning words into monstrous sounds that scratch my skin.
“You who has hidden away, in fear and in shame, pretending that you didn’t have the strength to overpower the monsters in her life? Ignoring her silent cries for help that you could so plainly see with your own eyes. Like you had to wait for her to not be in love with someone else before you tried to help.”
There’s a tearing noise as his shorts begin to rip. His thighs bulge as his feet twist and dig into the sand, the strain overcoming him as he hunches forward while dropping to his arms with a scream. Even Cam has stopped trying to speak, to defend himself, in the wake of the sight before us.
He’s shifting.
“You, who just chose to wait for her to beg for your help,” he roars between guttural moans of agony. “Who hung around until the day that you could swoop in and save her like some hero you’ve convinced yourself you are?”
I want to look away, to stop witnessing the unravelling of the man that I’ve come to adore, but his words hold me; the passion that they’re said with beckons me to pay attention as they growl.
“As if you don’t know what you could have done years ago if it wasn’t for your own damn selfish desires.”
Silence.
An unsettling feeling creeps it’s way over me, like a spider slowly weaving a web. Trent’s words dig at the pit in my stomach. The eerie realisation that his words aren’t being rebutted, that his scathing view of our relationship is nothing short of the truth.
I never expected my friends to put themselves at risk for me. I never wanted to put them in harm’s way. That’s why I never told them what was going on, why I tried to contain it myself, so that I didn’t have to watch anyone around me suffer. So I could shield them from the horrors of my home life. I’ve always made excuses for him, for the little boy who had cried to me when he was bullied and who I defended when even he began to turn against himself, ashamed of the woman who had brought him up and his lack of a father.
I’ve tried to protect Cam because I still see him as that small boy who cowered in the playground but . . . Cameron has power. He’s had it since we were sixteen, since the first time that he changed.
I understa
nd that maybe he didn’t know what to do at first, didn’t know his own strength or the limits that he could push himself to, but now? If he feels strong enough to challenge Trent—who he knows is an alpha—then he had to know that he had power that could have overcome a human.
I look at Cam in tears, my throat closing up with agony at his refusal to meet my eyes. The shame radiating off him like a flag being waved in the middle of a war.
He could have overcome my father. A painful breath. He could have overcome Matt.
“You think that you deserve her more than me?” The voice is like gravel as it breaks apart, alerting me to the fact that the human side of Trent is about to disappear. I rip my heartbroken gaze back to him and witness the beginning of the black patches of fur sprouting through his skin.
“I’ll show you what you deserve.”
Trent’s body seems to explode and retract at the same time, his physical being elongating as if someone is pulling him apart while his human body seems to shrink and is being replaced by a coat of pure darkness. It’s almost unbearable to watch. He seems to be in pain as he cries, his wolf tearing through his human form with zero regards for the torture it might cause.
His nails turn to claws. His teeth turn to fangs.
I’ve seen Trent’s wolf once before, although I didn’t know that it was him. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that it was him. That wolf had been cautious but made me feel safe. His eyes never looked at me as though I was in any danger. If anything, a sense of peace had overcome me.
But now, I’m beginning to feel very different.
Scarlette, Lee, and Cole begin to howl, a chorus of battle cries that somehow don’t feel strange coming from the mouths of people that look like ordinary humans but have the eyes of animals. I’m helpless, watching as Cam stands with a wild look, unafraid to back down. His pride stops him from running.
Do I hate him? Do I want to scream and shout at him for never helping me, for never stepping in and stopping Matt over the years of pain that he’s inflicted, even though it wasn’t his fault?
Yes. A small part of me blurts out before I can stop it, the honesty like a slap in the face.
Everything slows down around me as Trent’s wolf completely breaks free. The animal before me is fully formed as it stands tall, lifting his neck to the sky. It joins the howls around it—its own much louder and deeper than any other I’ve ever heard before. Its eyes drop back to the ground and zero in on the figure across the sand. I don’t want him to die. He’s still Cam.
Off to one side, I stand alone witnessing what could very well be the death of my best friend. It’s clear that that’s the intention whether anyone wants it to be or not. It’s as if I’m sitting in a theatre, watching the play unravel in front of me but completely separate from the act.
It’s like I’m forgotten.
I thought that I had gotten through to Trent; I thought that his wolf was listening to me.
I watch as he pulls back his shoulders, his paws finding their support to push off from the ground at a pace which seems almost impossible to catch.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he didn’t listen to me.
My ears ring as I remember the way he looked at me.
No.
Trent heard me. He heard me through the fog of his wolf. He managed to control it, to become equal with it.
I saw it.
A voice whispers to me from my soul, its soft tone barely audible but there.
But only when his wolf felt comforted.
“It is scared,” I whisper, the tingles through the veins telling me that I’m right. “That’s it.”
I take off with sand falling behind me as I stumble to Cam, begging my legs to get me there before the animal charging at him does.
I don’t know what I’m doing. Every part of my head is screaming at me to stop, to accept that it’s too late, to flee from the path of destruction that I’m beelining straight for, but there’s this flicker of hope. Like a dying lightbulb that’s echoing for me to move, telling me that I can help despite the plummeting of my heart and the hopelessness nipping at my heels.
Trent is so afraid of showing me his true nature. He’s so caught up in the past and the mistakes that he’s made because of his anger that he never lets anyone see that part of him. He tries to keep it hidden away, as if admitting that he needs help is shameful. He has never let his wolf free; he’s always held it back when it would beg to be released or listened to. He’s so afraid of what he might do that he’s never realised what he is doing.
Trent’s wolf races for its prey, bloodthirsty eyes zoned in on the threat.
Threat. That’s what it sees us all as, other threats waiting to pounce on him, to hate him the same way that Trent does.
If it’s treated like a beast, then it’ll act like a beast.
Cam’s eyes widen in horror when he glances to see me running at him. My legs burn as they scream at me to stop while he also tries to run to me to get me out of the way.
Even Trent’s pack are no longer howling. Instead, they are following my movements with bated breath, their fingers reaching for me, but it’s too late.
Trent doesn’t trust his wolf, and the wolf trusts no one, but I do.
I throw myself forward, right in the line of the wolf’s prey, holding my arms tightly to my side as I slide across as my knees scrape in the sand.
The fear that I felt, the panic that overcame me as he changed, the horror-filled expression that I didn’t even realise I was wearing—they weren’t real.
It’s Cam that he wants to hurt, not me.
Never me.
Because I know . . . I know that he can’t hurt me.
Not Trent.
The world seems to be silent as I breathe all the air out of my lungs. My body deflates as I stretch my head to the side, brushing back my hair as I close my eyes. The last thing I see are the sharp canines of the wolf that’s leaping towards us.
“I trust you,” I whisper, pulling myself away from the fear. “Every part of you. Completely.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A rush of wind.
Sand sprays over my legs.
But nothing else touches me.
The feeling of hot breath on my skin lets me know just how close he is, how easy it would be for him to sink his teeth into me or fling me out of the way. In the darkness of my closed eyes, I can only imagine the scene unfolding, witnessing my own death like a replay in my head with Trent losing all control . . . but he doesn’t.
There’s a gentle brush against my neck, the feeling parallel to running your hand across a rug in front of a warm fire—a deep prickling heat but a softness that soothes at the touch. I feel it as it trails down my shoulder and across my collarbone before it makes its way back to my face, this time prickling the skin on my cheekbone.
A noise breaks the silence. Like a whine of a puppy, it calls to me and pries my eyes open, letting me finally look at what’s in front of me.
Black fur, protruding canines and a terror-inducing stance make up the creature but it’s eyes . . . it’s eyes are Trent’s.
My chest heaves as I break from my position. My hands automatically thread themselves into the fur along his neck as he leans into me, nuzzling me with the same affection that Obi would often show.
I’m in awe as I bring my hand to his head, tracing the sharp edges of his jaw before stroking his long muzzle that’s barely an inch from my own face.
He’s beautiful.
He dips his head forward, following my touch. I gently lean into it, pressing my mouth softly into the crown.
I’m freaking out internally, my thoughts so scattered and bewildered by what’s just happened, but there’s a deep comfort that’s settled in my stomach as if it’s telling me that I should have known all along.
Soulmates.
“Mi reina?”
It takes a moment for me to understand what it means to hear those words, my ears taking their time in letting my brain register
in what they’re hearing, but when I do, I bolt up in shock. My eyes widen as I realise that the wolf is no longer there. Instead, a very handsome, bare-chested man has taken its place.
“Hi,” I squeak, the anticipation inside me bursting as his astonished eyes glance over me. “How are you?”
He lets out a bewildered laugh as he stretches his hands out in front of him, seeming to not quite believe that he’s sitting in his human form.
“How am I?” He chuckles, shaking his head. His grin spreads over his face as he grabs my hands. There’s an emotion in his eyes that makes the gleam seem even brighter—the feeling is foreign but indescribable.
“How am I?” he howls, moving into me. “I’m completely and utterly in l . . . naked. I’m completely and utterly naked.”
His entire body seems to cringe as he takes his hands out of mine and covers his lower region, his face bright red as he looks anywhere but me. Sand begins to get patted onto him awkwardly in the hopes that it will cover what it lands on, but it doesn’t.
I bite my lip in an attempt to hold my laughter, my sight staying locked on his face as I try to not let them wander anywhere I’m not ready to see.
Maybe you are ready.
My face ignites, and I’m now grateful that he’s refusing to look at me so that he can’t see the physical sign of my unholy thoughts as I shield my eyes.
“You have a pair of shorts in the truck.” Cole’s voice brings us out of our own little bubble, making me jump as he speaks, which only serves to bring him more amusement.
I’ve completely forgotten we aren’t alone.
He looks between the two of us in confusion, as if trying to figure something out, but there’s a fondness as he does that settles my paranoid nerves.
He gives me a quick smile before he grabs Trent’s shoulders and pushes himself in front of him, blocking anyone’s view of his body as he pulls him to his feet.
Very ungracefully, I might add.
“We, uh—” Trent’s head peeks around Cole’s torso with an apologetic grimace. “We will talk. I just need to . . . yeah.”