43. Healing

Marley very orderly placed her last book on the hardwood shelf and then stepped back to admire the colourful pattern of her collection. She felt extremely proud of her work.

"It's fun seeing you fuss about your eroticas," Eden commented, breaking into her gleeful state.

Marley snapped her attention back to her mate, who was lazily lying on her bed with his hands behind the head. "They're not eroticas." She protested, scowling at him.

"Oh yeah, you keep those under your bed, right?" He snickered.

Marley narrowed her eyes. "Why are you even here? Don't you have your Alpha duties to do rather than being a lazy lump?"

"My dad has decided to give me a small vacation to spend some quality time with you. So, this hot and sexy lazy lump is all yours." Eden flexed his arm's muscles seductively. To this Marley gave out a small defeated sigh, but also very discreetly admired the small movement of his buff arms.

The werewolf smiled, and propped his head on the palm of his right hand, facing his mate's sulky form. "Come here." He ordered, patting the unoccupied space on the bed.

"It's 12 in the noon, and unlike you I'm not in the mood to sleep when it's brightly sunny outside."

"Who says we'll be sleeping?" Eden smirked, seeing a light shade of pink on her cheeks. He loved the effect that his words had on his human. "We'll be cuddling. Get your mind out of the gutter Marley." A short chuckle slipped past his lips.

"My mind isn't in any gutter." Marley grumbled, her voice and red face giving away her embarrassement. "It's yours that always come up with some kind of innuendo." She grumped, but proceeded to join Eden on the bed.

As she lay down beside him, brawny arms immediately surrounded her waist and his face buried itself into her hair. She too drowned herself into the familiar warmth and fuzzy tingles that always came whenever they held each other.

"I missed this." Eden kissed the back of her neck, making Marley curl her toes in excitement. She too missed spooning with him.

She hummed in agreement, leaning more into his chest. Neither of them broke the comforting silence, and chose to enjoy the calmness inside their small blissful bubble. They both loved the little moments of affection like this. It not only let them to bask in each other's scents and tenderness, but also helped the couple to fleetingly forget about all the hard realities of life surrounding them.

*But sometimes real life wasn't that easy to ignore.*

"Marley, are you alright?" Finally Eden spoke, popping their little bubble. "We never really had a talk about all the things that you've seen when Odis took you."

Marley unconsciously fiddled with her fingers, and Eden's sharp eyes caught that as a sign of her agitation. "What do you mean? I did tell you about everything."

"Yes, you did. But we never discussed how that all affected you."

Marley kept silence. She too had no idea what effect did it all have on her. During the days, she always found some ways to keep her mind occupied with usual stuff, but the nights served as a reminder of all the bloodshed that she had witnessed.

The first night after her return she slept like a baby, maybe the exhaustion of spending sleepless nights at Odis's place took a toll on her tired body. However, the second night wasn't that generous. The nightmares portraying the mutilated bodies of knights tormented her, jerking her out of the sleep almost every hour. Marley didn't know if it was a short-term consequence, which would fade away with time, or if these traumatic images be forever engraved in her head to haunt her till the end.

The thing was she could deal with the night terrors, or at least she liked to believe that she could. But Marley didn't know how to deal with the guilt. The guilt of killing a person.

"I guess you don't want to talk about it." Eden deduced with a frown when no words came out of his mate.

"I just don't want to relive it all over again." Marley finally replied, her frown matching Eden's. If she didn't think or talk about it, maybe it'd all go away.

"Baby, bottling things up is never the answer." He pulled her around, making her face him. "I get it if you don't want to open up to me." Even though he tried to school his emotions, his voice came out hurt. "Maybe, you should talk to Suzanne. She's pretty good at her work." Suzanne was their pack member, who also worked as a professional therapist.

"Eden, if the one person that I'll ever open up to, it's definitely going to be you."

"Then open up." His gentle tone tugged something inside her, and she no longer wanted to close off her feelings from the man who was holding her.

"I've killed a person," Marley said, before tucking her face into his warm chest. A prickling sensation in her eyes warned her of the tears that were about to follow. Eden rubbed her back soothingly, knowing where this was headed. "It just feels so horrible."

"Hey, you didn't kill a person. You killed a vampire. There's a difference. It was already half-dead," He said. "Didn't you say that it was going to kill that lycan friend of yours?" To be honest, Eden wouldn't mind if that lycan was dead, but he also knew Marley's guilt would be far greater if she had let him die.

"I know, but it's not just that. I slit her throat... and watched her die as she coughed blood-" Marley paused as the flashbacks of that dreadful night played in her mind. When the knight had taken her last breath, she saw her bland white eyes turn blue, back to their original state. Those eyes were so human. "She was back to being human... and in pain, caused by me. "

"You need a different perspective to look at it." Eden cupped her face and made her look at him. "You freed that knight. You released her from Dimitri. Maybe death was the only way for her to achieve that."

Marley nodded. His words did make sense, but it'd obviously take time for her to let go. To recover from it all.

"If you want, you can talk to Suzanne. She has helped many warriors to recover from PTSD, even my father." Eden offered. As an Alpha of one of the strongest packs, his father had seen some gruesome days. Although the packs of the modern world considered the violence as a last resort, some of it with rogues was still unavoidable.

Being biologically designed to hunt and prey did make werewolves less prone to trauma, but their other-half was still human and some brutality could leave its mark on their brain. Eden had hoped to never witness this ruthlessness, but the way things were going, he was going to see it... a lot of it.

Marley shook her head. "I want to deal with it myself first. I want to heal myself." She hoped she would.

"Okay, but don't ever bottle it up. You can talk to me about it anytime, and if you ever change your mind about Suzanne, don't hesitate to tell me."

She gave a small nod, another guilt rising in her chest. The guilt of keeping something crucial from her mate. The burden was becoming heavier with his every kind act and word.

"You're so strong." Eden pecked her forehead lightly and pressed her more into him, wanting to give her as much comfort as he could.

"You think so?" She asked in confusion, with a small sniffle. "I'm here bawling my eyes out."

"Yes." He smiled and wiped tear stains on her cheeks. "It takes a lot of courage to expose yourself, and confide in others. Believe me, I've seen people boxing it all up, even from their mates, only to let it all out in worst possible way."

Marley once again rested her head on the crook of his neck, breathing in his musky fragrance.

"You're also incredibly cuddly," Eden added playfully, making her let out a small chuckle.

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