Howl Silently My Love

Rough Choice

Chapter 30

“What?! No! I won’t let that happen to you! I don’t care what Nature says you are not dying and especially not from child birth” Damen exploded. When he saw the doubtful expression on my face he went mad.  “No I can’t accept it and neither will you.”

“Calm down, Ryder and I haven’t accepted anything,” I turned slightly and smiled down at Ryder, “he showed me that the future isn’t set in stone so I’m working hard to change it.”

I could see that Ryder was about to respond but then something caught his attention in the distance.

“Um Maia, you might want to fake a few tears right about now.”

I gave him a puzzled look. Damen, however, caught on more quickly to whatever it was that Ryder was hinting at. He pulled me into his arms and began caressing my back . . . what the hell . . . ?

“It’s okay Alex; we’ll get through this together. I know that it wasn’t your fault,” what? “No one ever asks for what happened to you but I just want you to know that I will always be here.”

“And so will your Mom and me, Princess.”

I flashed around, still barely able to move because of Damen’s strong arms. My eyes searched Dad’s and I saw unnecessary sympathy. This was all so wrong. I shouldn’t have had to lie to them like this but I guess I had no choice and so, of course, to make the act more convincing again I had to put on the water works. I turned and buried my face in Damen’s chest. It was going to kill me to have to cry in front of Damen and it was going to give him some kind of ultimate satisfaction but it was for a good cause so I would have to swallow my pride and let the tears fall—God I was getting tired of this. Surprisingly enough though instead of the expected subtle chuckle he held me tighter and gave me a kiss on my forehead.

“You have nothing to worry about.” He mumbled. Somehow this was all beginning to seem less and less like an act. I pulled away slowly, not sure what to make of it all. This wasn’t real or anything like that so they really needed to stop acting like it was. I was the only one required to put on an act, they simply needed to follow it up but Damen was going a bit overboard with his sympathy—way overboard.

I had to put a temporary end to it all because it was slowly driving me nuts.

“Thanks for having my back and still caring for me.” I muttered up, looking from Dad to Damen and back. This too had to be convincing. “I’m glad for people like you guys but can we just drop it I really don’t want to spend the rest of the day or the rest of my life reliving that incident.”

“Sure thing.” Dad said, pulling me into his own hug. “Let’s go inside, your Mom made your favourite. I smiled up at him, glad for the change.

“Come on Damen.” I said as Dad and I made our way back to the house.

“I’ll be there in a minute.” Came his distracted reply. I was tempted to wonder what had occupied his thoughts but I thought better of it and simply let it go. He was a big wolf after all and he could take care of himself.

---Damen’s POV---

As I watched her walk off I realized that she probably took everything I had said as a part of mu act. Granted, I really was only trying to be as convincing as she was but then I realized something. When she started crying in my chest something told me that the act had turned reality. She might have actually broken, if only for a second and I couldn’t help but feel that I just had to comfort her. She may not have wanted to admit it but she had hit her limit. She had run out of her own fire and was depending on Ryder’s fuel. At surface level that might not have been such a bad thing but hardly anything stayed at surface level and I knew for a fact that she was beginning to tax her reserves-seriously. Ryder should have seen that too and eased off instead of pushing her further. Couldn’t he see that her bravery only went so far? When she told me that Nature had said she was going to die giving birth I saw complete, unadulterated fear. She might have been telling herself that she was fine and that things would turn out fine but I could tell that she still didn’t completely believe that.