Moon Bound (Glorious Darkness Book 1) (5 page)

(7) No Love Lost

|Scarlet's POV|

Shadows are settling over my heart with every minute spent in silence. I can't help but stare at the future... in the shape and form of a man. The Moon has made a fool out of me. Giving me to him. Why?

Tears rising to my eyes, I find myself rooted to my spot, fighting every breath I have to take in. Not to take a step towards him, bury my head in all that he is, drown in his scent. Compulsion eating me from inside. 

The urge is so strong, I can't allow myself to move, making me wish I can spit out that betrayer heart, screaming at me to let go of the past and consider myself lucky I've found my mate. 

An irony of fate. A false connection that's nothing but unnatural.

"You scared the shit out of me, Scarlet," he says, just standing there, a few feet away from me in the spacious bathroom. Relief is written over his strikingly handsome face as he regards me with a strange look in his eyes. He never looked at me like this before. He's not fighting it. He's letting it drag him under.

"You should answer when I'm calling you," he states calmly, emotion present in every syllable, his voice raising shivers to my skin.

Ignoring the pull of the mate bond, everything that could be, "Alpha." I nod my head in acknowledgment and opt to sidestep him, trying to keep the distance between us intact.

His brows knitting in confusion his hand flies to my elbow, stopping me in my tracks. "Is something wrong, babe?"

Everything is wrong... babe. 
I want to scream in his face.

I slide my palm over his, carefully unwrapping his fingers, and push the offending hand away. The sparks are there - from the first moment I laid eyes on him to the last, making my already shallow breathing quicken its pace. Those eyes are drawing me in, his warmth, so close to me, saturating everything around him. It's burning the cold, desolate feeling to the ground.

I can't let myself be swayed. I can't let him take the last thing that's been left of me.

"You shouldn't be concerned with me, Alpha," I grit out, mind consumed by the red haze of my anger towards him, the bond, fate.

The bond whimpering, bending as if trying to find shelter from the darkness, there's no salvation from the pain every word passing through my lips causes me. 

Pain is something that no longer scares me. I'm used to it. I've learned to live with it. He taught me how.

"What is that supposed to mean, Scarlet? Of course, I'll be concerned about you. You are my mate for goodness' sake!"

Facial muscles contorting into a smile, one I know is not the reaction he wanted to witness when he bared his soul probably for the first time. "Monsters do not have mates," I deadpan, huffing an angry strand of stray hair off my face, letting him see it clearly.

He flinches, his forest green eyes blinking away hurt. A bitter, sultry smell is rising off of his skin in invisible vapors, wafting to my nostrils, stroking, tempting the vile, snake-like darkness inside me with a tantalizing caress until it holds me in a vice-like grip. A life-hanger. A soil to grow on. My very pores exhale the toxic out. Breathing in. Breathing out. A never ending cycle.

"If I may be excused now. 
Alpha
," I add mockingly before strolling out of the bathroom and into his bedroom.

"I'm sorry," the strangled cry comes from close behind me. This is the second time he's saying sorry to me. Doesn't he know? Not even a hundred 'sorries' will ever make up for what he's done to me.

"Sorry?" I turn, noticing he's followed me. His face is constricted into a grimace of pain. He is an Alpha after all. I can only imagine how humiliating it is for him to say 'sorry' to someone as low in the pack ranks as I am, even that person being his mate. 

I let out a small chuckle.

"Apologizing is beneath you, Alpha," I tell him, the bond wrapping around me like a shield, one that's cutting me from him, to protect him.

"Look, Scarlet," he sighs, running a frustrated hand through his messy dark strands. "I know what I did to you was wrong and you have every right to hate me-"

"A shocker." 

"But I promise you I'll do everything in my power to make it up to you. I'll change. I'll become a better man and a better Alpha. I'll be everything you want me to be but you need to move on from the past so we could turn a new page."

A past that's been just yesterday. Chuckling out a humorless laugh, "A new page? Just like that." I snap my fingers in front of his face.

"No. I don't expect you to forgive me so easily." He shakes his head.  "I know I have a lot of groveling ahead of me. What I'm asking you is to try." His voice sounds sincere, hopeful. Face matching the sentiment, guilt is lurking behind like a fire lit in the wild, yet, contrary to his words and tone, he's not someone asking for forgiveness, begging for redemption of his sins.

He's expecting it from me like a right he should be granted. Because and regardless.

I study him curiously as he stands a few tension filled inches away from me, awaiting his answer. Clad in jeans and a black t-shirt that fits tight over his big, muscular chest, he keeps his shaking hands to his sides, forcing them there, away from me as he fights the need to touch me, perhaps even comfort me.

For once, acting like he's giving me the right to make the decision.

My eyes traveling up to his chest, I can count the abs under the shy material, trace the hard planes of his torso, needless of a map. But I don't want to. It makes no difference to me.

Drool-worthy, alluring with that sensitive, vulnerable spot on his neck bared in invitation for the mark to seal the mate bond, none of it matters. It's him. Still him.

He leans closer to me, offering me his hand, offering me himself to take. "What do you say, baby? Will you give us a shot?" he coos.

Struggling against his imposed authority, neglecting the cry of the bond connecting me to him, I listen. The voice of self-preservation that's been guiding me in the darkest days is shouting at me to lay low, bend my spine, tilt my head and bare my own neck for him to do what a mate is supposed to do...

Stretching my arm toward his... 
Swallow my pride. Accept my fate.

 
Today is not one of these days. Today, there's another voice joining. Screaming louder. Deafening me with truer words. An internal chorus that chants: 
Leave... Wither... Alone...

"I say..." I draw out. Slowly, hesitantly. Shaking in my insanity. "No." 

My hand falls back to my side before any contact is made. The cruelest of jokes just like the one the Moon pulled on me.

"Why?" I shake my head, swirling away from him, from the mask of anger draped across his handsome face like a curtain, morphing it into an ugly, hard grimace, from his gaping in shock mouth, and head out of the bedroom.

"I'll return this shortly," I inform him, remembering the silk nightgown he's dressed me in that's flowing down the length of my body.

"One of your lady friends may want it back, Alpha," I add, head low in respect I don't feel what-so-ever, then tiptoe out of the room, closing the door behind me soundly without a single whispered farewell.

(8) Breathless

|Regan's POV|

Letting the beast out, letting him roam in this territory, a land claimed from the dying... I remember that night so clearly that it has now turned into a permanent horror which haunts my nightmares just like she has haunted my dreams. It's her, that faceless woman who always evaded me; now she's here. Her face is naked for me to see, her soul is bared and it's dark, coal black, tainted by my own two hands.

I let the whispering in my fur wind take me farther from the house, deeper into the forest that is now mine, farther from her. Waking up from my dream, there are only nightmares to stay and she is the new, constant part of them. Like a fragment of my fractured past, she's come back to create a new kind of misery for me to live in.

The need for her burns in my veins. Never to be chased out.

I slow down my pace, padding along the forest path made by human feet that's leading me towards the meadow. The place is quiet, only the whispers of the surrounding me nature reminding me that I am a part of a world shared with others and not nearly as alone as I feel now without her to accept the beast pacing inside me like the caged animal he is... I am.

I rest on my hind legs, the skies stormy gray like her eyes are to me. Judgmental. Condemning. 
The wolf lifts his head towards the non-existent moon on the still bright surface, muzzle opening to let out a long, pain-filled howl. Crying for a mate who isn't going to come and surrender herself to him.

Why is he lifting that song to the skies? What is he saying with no words spoken? What can he give her that she needs?

For hours, I stay at that meadow, on a grass that is no longer green but dying. The soil underneath is hardening in frost with the coming winter, fallen, dry leaves are swept by the wind, rotting under my paws after being crumbled to small particles... 

Everything will turn to dust.

The house is quiet when I return. The pack members residing with me here are missing, probably ventured outside into our territory to give us space so we can resolve the issues between us, or just to say their own farewell to the last few days of warmth before winter falls. 

Sneaking into the house, as quiet as a cat on the prowl, I go to my chambers to get myself cleaned up from my recent activities. Shifting is often a messy deal, the transition from human to wolf and then back leaving the body sticky with sweat from the exertion. Besides, I'm not ready to face her yet. I need to appease the beast so he doesn't do something we'd both regret later.

Discarding my clothes on the floor I hop into the shower, sparing several minutes to stay under the cold water, washing off sweat and anger. Her scent is faint now, barely a note fading in the spacious place, but it is enough to make my need sparkle up with a new intensity.

Someday, she will be here with me. She will allow me to wash her body, to trail small circles of passion on her skin, to drink all of what she is, but not today. Even the beast knows this is a time that wouldn't come for a while.

I feel myself growing hard by the very thought of sharing this moment with her, my body responses proving to be independent of the solemn sentiments battling against my rib cage. Another kind of moisture mixes with the water as I clasp my fingers around myself, stroking myself to release.

It's not her palm giving me this bittersweet pleasure but my own.

Turning off the water, I exit the shower and wrap a towel around my hips. After, I slide on a pair of jeans and fall to the floor beside my bed, sickened by my own actions. It's not right for me to do this when I've found my mate, when she must be the one satisfying my cravings but I can't ask her for something she's not willing or ready to give.

I let my head drop into my palms, gathering the leaking out of my eyes moisture into my hands, just like another sick pleasure I shouldn't be experiencing now, yet there's nothing and no one to stop me.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," a whisper. Her whisper.

"Scarlet?" I raise my eyes to her, wondering if my twisted mind has conjured her in the room only to find that she looks much too real. Frame slender and thin, face innocent, dark curls falling around it in a waterfall of wild ringlets. My fingers are itching to trace them, weave them around, tug on that hair as I trail small, butterfly kisses down her exposed neck, sinking into her as she moans my name...

Why is she always there to see my weakness? Why can't she stay away until it's the right time? Will there ever be a time that's right for us?  

"I just needed to return this," she says, holding up the cloth in her hands. She approaches towards the bed, placing it there. A gift she is returning.

The fire turning cold, angry tongues are suddenly grazing my insides. "You didn't need to do that," I grit out, rising from the rug.

"And that's my cue to leave, I guess," she chuckles, shrugging off my words as if they mean nothing to her.

What does she see in me? Why does it seem it's always the monster and never the man? Why can't she just accept she's mine?

"Why are you doing this?" 

"Doing what?" she echoes, turning to me, a brow arched in mockery of all that we are to each other.

"Why are you fighting the bond?" I supply.

"The bond?" she laughs. "You mean that measly, pathetic pull?"

Just so, so wrong. Damnation.

"It's not pathetic, Scarlet. It's like nothing I've felt before. I can feel it in my bones, in my head, in my heart... Everywhere," I explain remembering what I've done just a few minutes ago.

Even now, I'm forcing myself to stay in place, not going to her, not letting my hands and lips roam free all over her body.

"Delusional," she mutters, rolling her eyes at me.

I take a step closer to her, risking to let out the beast that's already stirring up inside me, anger turning all reason to mush. "Did you just call me delusional?"

"Didn't mean to say it aloud."

My hands suddenly on her, breath fanning across her skin, my voice is rising an octave with each word that comes out, "Don't you feel it? Don't you?"

No control to stop him, he's been unleashed. He's shaking her, fingers digging holes into her flesh, the hold is not gentle.

"You're hurting me," she says softly. Not a plea but a cold, emotionless statement. Her stormy eyes assessing me with calculation and just a little bit of caution. Wary of the alpha, she never even glimpses the man hiding underneath.

Howling in defeat, the beast is sinking back underneath the skin, a wounded animal that's hiding to prevent more pain. Hands fall to my sides, my feet are retreating from her. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," she clips in. "It's not like I didn't expect it."

It hurts. Her words. Her lack of emotion towards me. No feelings.

"Ah, I see it finally dawned on you," she remarks coldly, looking me straight in the eyes as if she wants me to see her for all which she is.

All I've made her.

"You won. You broke me beyond repair, Alpha. I feel nothing at all. Not the bond, not the mating pull, nothing," she says, laughing at me. "And you know what? I'm glad," she adds like the words pouring out of her are words she always wanted to say but couldn't.

I can only imagine how she did.

Whirling back, I can't watch her hand turning the knob. I want to tell her so much, I want to scream her name until she really hears my plea in it but how can I be that mate when I am an alpha? How can I beg when all I've ever done is demand?

Feet quietly distancing her from me, she's leaving me alone.

Taking the air out with her.