Home -- Wolv book 3

I still love you

Author's note: mild intimacy ahead. You've been warned

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For the life of me...I couldn't figure it out. There was only one question floating through my mind, and I couldn't dig up an answer no matter how hard I tried.

Why?

Why did she do that to me? Nadie was supposed to be sharp--surely she'd seen that she was hurting me. So why the heck didn't she lay off? Did she want to see me cry? Did she want to see the weakling I'd become?

Because darnit all, if that's what she'd intended, she'd got everything she'd wanted.

I was lying on the floor of her den, silently brooding to myself. I still couldn't shake the remnants of the icy rage from my mind; the memory was, once again, all too fresh. It was like poison, dancing in my subconscious, happily reminding me that it was still in there.

Thanks, Nadie.

The one part of me I'd hoped to conceal from her had been brutally flung out into the open. I was sure that everyone else in the pack had heard us screaming at each other--at the very least, everyone at the den certainly had.

She wants me to move on. How can I? An' how am I supposed to talk about what's happened? It just takes me right back to the moment!

I scowled down at the dirt, resting my muzzle between my paws. I guess she did get me to talk after all. Maybe  that's what she wanted.

Well, she got that, too.

Outside, dried leaves crunched, and my ears perked. Nadie stood in the den's entrance, looking down at me calmly. "So apparently, Hutch caught a goose."

I sighed heavily, feeling a new wave of tears beading in the corners of my eyes. My brow furrowed into a frown. "Nadie, I just want to be left alone--"

"I didn't fall apart."

I looked up at her, wiping the tears from my eyes. She'd replied in a small, quiet voice, and her face looked almost timid.

My ears flipped back against my skull. "You got lucky, believe me," I croaked. "You don't want what I have."

"No. You're right, I don't." She padded forward, and placed a paw on my forehead. Slowly, she dragged it down my neck, ruffling my fur gently, and ending with a little scratching beneath my chin. "And I know for a fact that you don't either. Humfrey, I don't blame you for what happened. I don't even blame you for what you think you became."

I huffed. "You should."

"And why is that?" She pushed my chin up, forcing me to look up at her. "I didn't lose my entire pack, Humfrey. I still had Tara and Hutch--even Sarah helped, too. I had family. You didn't. You thought that the only people that still mattered in your life had all been killed. I think I would have gone a little off the rails if that were me, too."

I fidgeted with my paws nervously. "You saw me back there by the lake. I didn't just 'go a little off the rails,' Nadie."

"I know."

"Than you know that I'm dangerous! I almost killed Norman--and Machk! I slaughtered Scott Abrams, Nadie. I took a life. I never should have let myself get this way." I curled my claws into the dirt, and looked away. "I wish you'd just let it go. You shouldn't have pushed me, Nadie. I didn't want you to see me like that."

"Like what? Angry? Wounded? Broken?" My ears twitched as she slid down into the den. She didn't curl up next to me like she'd been trying to for the past two days; instead, she respectfully kept her distance. "Any normal person would have done the same. You don't scare me, Humfrey." She waggled one of her muscular limbs across my vision, blatantly flexing. "I'm sure I can handle you. I'm a lot bigger than you now--at least for the moment. Although I'm sure we'll get some meat on ya yet!"