The Waitress and Her Alpha

| XXII - Travels Home |

Our car ride is quiet. A deadness taking over the space. He drives smoothly through the cities, only stopping for breaks and snacks, "It's about a five-day drive. We will stop at hotels as needed throughout the trip." He seems nervous, a weird apprehension leaving him.

"Okay. Need me to drive at all?" I scratch at the small rash developing on my neck. Jess assumed it was from stuff the mud in the collar, but no matter how it happened, it's pissing me off. I'm having trouble avoiding scratching it, especially when it's the perfect amount of itch. The worst is when I scratch one part, and then another part becomes much worse. I look like a maniac trying to scratch my entire neck at once.

"I'll take care of it. You should sleep. Best to take care of yourself after everything that happened." A blinker clicks through the awkwardness of the car, I try to seem normal, but him acting funny sends me into a weird tone. Once he was able to read my thoughts against, he'd requested to see everything James had done. It hadn't mattered that he was dead. Ares still wanted to have confirmation that my body wasn't touch sexually. When I originally declined, it was pulling teeth to get him to leave me alone, but I finally gave in realizing that I can't hold that to myself forever. The sooner I show him, the sooner we can both work through it and attempt to be normal. Whatever the definition of normal is between us.

"Are we going to talk? At all?"

His shoulders slump, "What questions do you have?"

"I need you to start explaining. As much as you can get into one car ride. Because fuck babe." I catch myself turning to look through a window, "Ares. I can't be kept in the dark."

"How could you just leave with him? You just assumed it was perfectly safe to leave with your ex that had a wild obsession for you?" His words seem angry. Rightfully so. I had expected something like this.

"I figured it was safer than pissing him off. He always was rash when I hadn't listened in the past. I didn't want to harm the other humans. Him being a wolf, total surprise to me as well. This fear of him being able to overpower me, just like you can, took over." I drop my useless hands in my lap, "I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do."

"Why not call out for me? Our mind link? Tell the servants to call me from my work. Anything but leave with a male that has plans to re-mark and rape you." His fingers turn white on the steering wheel, a crack snapping at the plastic breaks apart. My lungs fill with air and hold it. He cusses at his handy work, "Still drives."

"You don't think I tried? I screamed for you over and over in my head! I hadn't know about the flowers. The entire time I drove off with him I expected you to break through the forest and save me. Imagine my surprise when that didn't happen. He had a gun, Ares. I didn't know what else to do. I know I made the wrong call, but I'm not strong enough to fight you wolves. The only thing I could come up with is my better chance of living included going with him. Some part of my human brain knew you would come for me. I'd just hoped it sooner."

"I worked hard to protect you and yet I failed. I didn't know..."

"Tighten your head on or something and fucking listen." I shift my entire body to him scratching at the rash once more. I can sense the anger seeping from him. I know that he's mad at me, swears there was something I could do differently. He's probably right, he's probably telling nothing but the truth, but that isn't what happened, "There isn't any avoidance of this. I love you and don't know how to handle that. I don't know how to adapt to your world of chaos or comprehend these info bombs that keep getting tossed on my plate. The only thing I know how to do is take the hit for the other guy because shoot me if someone I care about gets hurt. I'm ignorant to the strength you have, and I need you to teach me how to handle it better next time."