14: Close

**Jasmine**

Watching Damon sleep was less eventful than I had hoped, and I found myself sitting next to my bed which he lay upon, fidgeting with a random pen in my one hand and eating a chocolate bar with the other. After a few more moments of doing nothing, I grabbed a few of my textbooks and began reading through them for my upcoming test. At some point, however, I grew so bored that I got off of my chair and began to near the bed, curious to get a clearer look at him sleeping. He was, admittedly even more beautiful up close than he was from a distance. His closed lids ended with long, thick dark lashes. His skin was smoother than I expected as I gently glided my fingers across its surface. On his head, right below his hairline was a faint scar stretching down to his eyebrow, which was strange, considering werewolves healed so quickly. I wondered how he had gotten it?
After a while I started running my fingers through his soft hair and I thought, and said out loud, "Why do you have to be such an asshole."
Suddenly he shifted his head, and his eyes began fluttering open. I immediately pulled away and just stared at him wide-eyed. Great, I was not prepared for him to wake up while I was so up close and personal with him. He stared at me confused for a while, and then noticed that his hands and legs were tied. He raised a brow at this and then said, "What the fuck are you doing Jasmine?"
I shrugged and placed my hands under my chin, "Proving to you that you were wrong. You have been living the past two years thinking that I left because I was afraid of you. That is untrue, my feelings toward you literally amount to nothing, as I said back then. I ran away, because at the time you were stronger than I was, and that meant that I would stay your captive for the rest of my life. I needed to be free. I needed to grow and get stronger as a person and find out what I actually wanted from life, and make my own choices and mistakes without anyone owning me. And now, I am much stronger, even stronger than you."
The last thing I said seemed to have grabbed his attention as he stiffened.
"Stronger? Are you fucking kidding me Jasmine? You are not stronger, you're just as weak and worthless as you were back then. Come back home with me and I can give you a purpose. I can make your life mean something..." His look was so sincere, it was frightening. The fact that he actually believed that what he envisioned as a future for me was something I could ever possibly consider purposeful was terrifying.
"After all these years, you're still only thinking about yourself and what you want. You and I both know that we would never have worked out. You are incapable of actually loving anyone, and you certainly do not deserve anyone loving you."
Up until this point, I never regretted anything that I said to Damon, no matter how much of trouble it caused. However, now, as soon as those words left my mouth, I could feel nothing but absolute regret. It was clear that I had also stirred up some emotions within him, but not the warm and fuzzy kind. He huffed, his teeth grew out in two sharp shards and his fingers began forming large claws at the ends of them. Within seconds, he broke free from my ropes- no surprise there- and arched his back as his bones began cracking and re-forming. As for me, I began backing away from him and slowly started transforming as well, knowing I had enough stamina and strength to keep up with him in my werewolf form. If all else were to fail, I'd simply need to try to outrun him. Till this day, no werewolf could outmatch my speed.
Transforming was not as painful as it had been the first few times and it only took a few seconds before I was fully cloaked in black fur and snarling at the large black wolf in front of me. We looked so similar it was sort of unnerving. The only difference was in our size and facial features. His were beastly and terrifying while mine were softer and sly, almost fox-like. He growled lowly and we circled each other in the tight space of my room; thus, our bodies were quite close together. He was the first one to make a move, attempting to pounce on me. Luckily for me, speed was still on my side, and so I dodged him and growled in response.
"*You better calm the fuck down, before I rip you to shreds!*" I mind-linked him .
He responded with false amusement. "Honestly, as if you could, Jasmine."
Underestimating me seemed to be the only consistent thing about him, and I smirked at his presumption. Of course, he was physically stronger than me, but I knew I could outlast him. My tolerance to pain was immeasurable, my stamina was unmatched, and I usually did not lose myself to rage like he did. In this way, I was stronger than he was.

I made the next move, quickly swiping my claws at him and scratching him deeply in the process. Blood came gushing from his side and he winced slightly. What happened next; however, I was completely unprepared for. He growled lowly and seemed to grow even larger in size. The aura around him grew and radiated pure rage. I had never experienced such power, and to be honest, it was quiet intimidating. At this rate, if I was not careful, I would be dead within the hour. He charged at me with immense force, and I was completely caught off guard. As his body collided with mine, I felt the wind being knocked out of me. Our bodies both collided hard against the wall, mine harder than his and the impact of the wall and his body against mine left an excruciating ache which spread rapidly throughout my body. I cried out in agony as I realised that one of my hind legs had broken.
"I told you, you can't win against me." His voice was now deep, evil and beastly. There was no longer any trace of him being Damon, nor him being the kinder version of his wolf. Before me was a beast, dark and menacing with nothing in mind but deep, violent rage. But despite his terrifyingly threatening appearance, Damon refused to actually hurt me. In fact, each time I’d try to attack him by clawing or biting at him, he’d dodge my attacks or strategically use my own movements against me and at one stage I blindly ran into the wall, painfully colliding into it again.
The night carried on like this, with me attacking both him and myself. However, it ended with him hovering over me, panting and just as exhausted and weak as I was. Eventually, both our bodies no longer had enough energy to keep our wolf forms, and so we slowly reverted back to human. Immediately, once Damon was back to Damon, he collapsed on top of me and fell unconscious. Both of us were naked and sweaty, but I made no movement to get myself away from him- I couldn't. This feeling of him so close was something I began basking in. The heat of his naked skin against mine. The feeling of his faint breath against my neck. All of this was too overwhelming considering we hadn't seen each other for so long... and considering that we were mates. I could never bring myself to hate Damon, no matter how hard I tried. Even when I told myself that he was nothing but selfish and emotionless and could do nothing but try to hurt me. I had previously assumed that it was because we were mates that I couldn't hate him, however now, having him so near me, unconscious and downright weak had me thinking that it was something else. Something which, if I delved into deeper would lead to my own demise. And so, I ignored it and told myself that I would be better off convincing myself that I hated him and hoped that one day my dislike for him would actually turn to a deep, irrevocable hatred.