you're waiting for someone to put you together, you're waiting for someone to push you away
His Winter. The power he’d been born to. The power he never used.
Until now.
She watched him with eyes made of stone as she walked after him, her words echoing in his head softly, subtly urging his heart to beat again, dip-dying his body in a warmth of comfort—for even if he did not choose her again, she would not wish to see him in pain any longer. Not as she was.
Not as she deserved to be.
And so, as she speaks to him, a luscious warmth of drunken desire meant to ease his suffering and not as mind control, she also wills the trees to close, to bind his exit, to at least have him listen to what she has to say, for her heart cannot stand to see him run any longer.
Not while he is in pieces.
I’m sorry she says weakly. I was a jealous, stupid woman. And after the Bear… we were never the same. That one night. That Hunt. We…I was going to tell you that night about your daughter. But we never talked after. I’m sorry, she says again, sloping her shoulders forward as her claws dig deep into the ground beneath her. He is still turned away from her, but her heart is beating once more.
Warm words like honey are lathering his brain, hoping he is hearing what she has to say with an open mind—and perhaps, an open heart.
I was brokenhearted. I was drunk on power and loneliness. You had them. They loved you as I did. And I got jealous. And lonely. I thought you were slipping away.
And now, though she speaks in his mind, she is sobbing openly now, her tail tucked low, ears back. I just wanted to be wanted again.
And then, a whisper. “I know you must hate me. But please know, I have never left these woods. I am always watching them,” she says, referring to their children. “I am a broken creature. That is why I sent Enfys to Jinju. So that our daughter could be free of this madness.”
“Terra has fled, and Iasan has gone with her, to keep her safe. Heda and Jinju are grown, and have little need of a mother, least of all a broken one.” Her voice, rusty from lack of use, balls up in her throat and she cannot speak any longer out loud. I have honored your wish to stay away. But I have not left them. I just cannot let them see me this way.
And then, she gets on the ground, exposing her belly in the way wolves do, allowing the Alpha his reign if he wishes… the magic and desire to transform himself into a wolf once more if he would desire it. And then, a shadow of a thought, one that she does not even know in herself that slips through, unable to completely control her abilities anymore. For as she lays there, in the dirt like a broken thing, she would be mortified if she knew that this last thought had broken through her barrier.
I still love you.
reagan
