#65 warring emotions

AAurora

It had been late when we finally had drifted off somewhere between midnight and the witching hour. When dawn filtered through the windows, Evander kissed my cheek before rousing “Sleep,” he urged in a whisper, “I’ll see you later.” I remembered a smile pulling at my lips before he disentangled himself. I immediately missed his warmth, he must have felt me through the bond and draped another blanket over me which was better but I still ached for his touch, his skin to mine.

As I fell back into slumber, a salt and pepper wolf filled my dreams, his ice-blue eyes mirroring Evander’s, but his heart was cold as ice and he reeked of turmoil and suppression. I would know who he was anywhere. I haven’t been told the full story, but I knew one lurked there. The jealousy and vindictive lies! lies! lies! The chip on his shoulder. This wolf had made many bad choices and was backed into a corner and ready to spring.

I awoke to a sound, the back door. The squeak in the footsteps was wrong. This person was not wearing Evander’s worn leather boots, and the movements were sharp and calculated. I gingerly moved to avoid making a sound. I inhaled, and the faint smell of a burnt match hit my nose. The footsteps had stopped. Eyeing Evander’s shirt that had miraculously landed on the reading chair I rolled ever so gently over the bed, the covers releasing me as I carefully let my feet meld to the wooden floor. I grasped the shirt instantly pulling it over my naked form. I pushed back the delicious aches of last night’s events as I traveled ever so deliberately, careful not to make a noise on the rustic floorboards that could betray my movement.

When I reached the stairs, I paused, my heightened hearing straining to map the intruder’s whereabouts. The soft squeak had me noting the mantel as I repressed a territorial growl. The only sentimental things that were not on my person resided there.

Feather-light, I descended the stairs without an audible sound, like a spirit held up by the wind, the balls of my feet barely glancing off the floor. I knew my eyes were glowing something fierce as I pivoted to my right after the last step, squaring off Dominic’s bulky form. A tense growl escaped my throat as I surprised him. He jumped back, his finger about to touch the wreath falling as his Alpha aura rose to the shock of me besting him. “You're not supposed to be here,” I grit out.” His eyes roved over my bare legs lingering up to my thoroughly disheveled hair. A cringe ran up my spine in response.

“What does a slut like you want with my brother?” he hissed. “Oh, are we taking hits here, Dom?” I folded my arms across my chest. Which could have been interpreted as a self-conscious or assertive move. His Alpha aura rose at attention, but he didn’t dispatch it yet. He waited. “Why are you and your brother targeting my family?” he accused, stalking closer. “I’m not targeting anyone Dominic,” I shot out. “I was brought here, as my brother was. This is our path, what's your problem? Jealous much?” I threw out and I could taste the anger rise in him. His rage and turmoil were that palatable. Interesting.

“What interest do you have in a band of wayward hippy wolves?” he growled out. “Both of you have properties and other witches that will fall at your feet to just be a part of anything you desire.” He spat out. Ahh, he can’t see what’s clear. "Well before I came upon Evander caught in a bear trap, I didn’t know any of you still existed. Your kind melted into societies rather than persevering on your own. I intended to flee my coven before they could get wind of what I was becoming, you know greed and all, just isn’t my thing, even under the assumed pretext that it was what I was entitled to. I just had to find a way to disappear, I planned to keep running till I found a way to preserve my father’s estates. If the coven were to get ahold of the history there mankind would suffer.” Glancing him up and down I surveyed him. He looked worse for wear, tired, on edge, on the verge of being unhinged. I bet being here and this close to something his soul called to was overloading the fact that he suppressed his nature so strongly.

“I don’t believe you,” he hissed. “Well, I patched your brother up and found out you all existed. He could enter my mind before I knew what he was. We both could have died that night, if I had left him bleeding out as he was and me of hypothermia, however, the wolf kept me warm. I took a risk because my goddess sent me to him. I don’t ask about her intentions. I’m blessed by her but I do not hold her council.”
“Your goddess wants my brother and me here as much as mine does since our mates are here.” I added. “This has got to be a bunch of bullshit witchery,” Dominic sneered.

“Awe Fruitcake can’t possibly fathom being forsaken after all of his deceptions, his lies, and treachery,” I sarcastically mushed. His frosty glare darkened pinning my unfazed form. The growl formed in his chest and I could tell he was suppressing the shift. “Don't hold back on my account, little CEO Alpha, soo high and mighty, he looks down on his gifts and causes an untold number of acts against his brother, his family, his blood and pack, his parents? How bout his mate!” He snarled, in response, K9s elongated.

“What you do to her is pure torture. I don’t know how you live with that kind of guilt, or do you hold any remorse?” I asked him. I was fishing for answers I already knew. He catapulted from his place caging me against the wall at the foot of the stairs. Oh? He did care? “Sore subject?”I snickered. He growled menacingly as I held his stare unflinchingly. I grabbed his arm and released the turmoil I had found wrapped up like a freaking fortune cookie in my friend. He staggered back a few steps and gasped for air. “Your mate deserves better, you piece of fucking shit!” I slammed back at him. Wind, shot through me, my anger rising, yet controlled as I held the powers steady, my hands hitting his chest as he was thrown back at the impact.

“Get it together and realize what’s in front of you, your time is limited. I will sever the bond that sits so precariously between fulfillment and rejection myself to take her pain away! Because as you run around fucking your secretaries and everyone you deem submissive enough that you're entitled to their bodies, she sits and suffers all of it, Your lucky my husband is so loyal to you, and has protected your bond thus far, but I'm not as formidable as he is.” He was shocked first by my ability to do as I suggested, and then panic hit him like a light searching for an outlet. My darkness snaked through me, bringing with it the turmoil and pain I had entrusted it to hold for me as I was too weak to beat her trauma at his hands. I stalked across the distance between us.

“You can’t!” he roared in my face as if he were some tiger as opposed to a wolf. I sent air back at him plastering him against the far wall. He was suspended there. “You fucking BITCH!,” he roared. “I’m not the enemy Dominic you are your own,” I chided. “Your time is short Little Alpha,” I added condescending. He gritted his teeth and stared back at me with a vengeance. “What are you?” he shot out like he was looking for doubt. “ I am Aurora McNichols and I can end you here and now whether or not you want to believe it. He physically shuddered. “Why him? Why does he always get everything?” … “What you NEED, Dominic is to realize the person you value as less than you are more than you deserve asshole!” I held him there for 5 mins an hour or 3? Time didn’t matter, his lesson did. Forcing him to relive how his transgressions affected his mate. He now lay crumpled on the floor groaning and crying like a baby. “She’s waiting for you to grow up and acknowledge what you have done. All that you have done. She's waiting for you to see her through the eyes of a true Alpha, not just a boy measuring his ego to others." I hoovered over his pathetic form until eventually Evander and Whinnie removed him from my presence and I was left staring back at my mate. “How do you allow his idiocy?” I asked.