I felt the table cracking underneath my hands but I couldn’t give a fuck in that moment. Her words swam through my head on a constant loop. Hung naked from manacles….. tortured… it got bad…. 26 days. My lion was roaring in my head for revenge against whoever hurt her. It was taking all of my control to hold him back from marking her as ours to warn off other males from attempting to hurt her ever again. But, I knew if I did such a thing without her consent, it would be tantamount to rape.
Mark her. Kill the ones who hurt her.
If we mark her, we’ll be no better than those rogues. She’d never forgive us. We’d lose her forever.
All I got was a huff in reply as my lion realised the truth in my words. I heard her speaking but it took me a minute to realise what she had asked me.
“Am I your mate?”
I stared at her in shock. I’m not sure how long I stayed like that. All I knew was my lion had stopped roaring in anger and was instead purring like a goddamn kitten at her words.
“Well, I-I, urm, yes.” I managed to finally stutter out an answer to her question. “Yes. You are.”
“I see.”
I see? What kind of answer was that? Her expression was soft as she looked at me, but the closer I looked, the easier it was to also see the sadness in her eyes. My lion was pushing at my skin to comfort her. Did she not want me, or was she disappointed I was a shifter?
“My last question.” I leant forward a bit in my chair to try and catch her eyes. What’s going on in that head of yours? “Could you accept me, even as a shifter?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice was small.
I fell back against my chair, rubbing my chest at the pain in my heart as thoughts of her rejecting the mate bond flooded my brain. I was lost in my thoughts until I felt her hand gently rest on top of mine. I could see tears start to form in her eyes, and being unable to help her made the pain in my chest worse.
“They broke me. I hate being touched. Every time someone tries to touch me, I’m terrified they are going to hurt me. I have nightmares every night about what happened. I wake up screaming, fearing that I’m blind once more. I have scars that even Archangel Raphael and Flint together couldn’t heal. They stole everything that made me… me. I can’t relax, can’t do my favourite past times any more because I have this unending desire to keep training and get stronger.” A single tear slid down her face as she finished in a small voice, “I’m broken Alexander. How can I accept you if I don’t even know myself anymore?”
Comfort our mate.
I slowly got up from my chair and moved until I was kneeling in front of her. I reached towards her face with painstakingly slow progress, letting her make the decision on whether I could touch her. When she didn’t move away from my hand, I cupped her cheek and swiped away the tear that had fallen. Leaning forward, I once again gave her a chance to back away. I gently pressed my forehead against hers. I don’t know how long we sat like that. It could have been seconds or minutes.
“I can help you put yourself back together... if you give me the chance.” My whisper was almost inaudible. “But, if it helps. I don’t think you’re broken.”
I felt a shudder go through her body at my words, before she slowly leant forward and hesitantly wrapped her arms around my neck. That small action meant more to me and my lion then any words she could have uttered.
Ours.
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