Loss of Innocence

Chapter Twelve

To make up for the long, long wait... I tried to make it as long as possible and included NICOLAI's point of view into this chapter.

Enjoy! :D

Chapter 12

Arabella Baine

“Her name was Victoria. She was your typical dream girl with her blond hair and icy blue eyes,” he sighed, squeezing my hand gently before ushering me to take a seat onto the bed. He sat beside me, looking down at our entwined hands. “Victoria and I have gone to high school together. Everyone thought it was true love. I was cold back then, always isolating myself from other people. Victoria was always the bubbly girl, which was why she earned the title as the head cheerleader in our senior year.” I furrowed my brows at that. Cheerleader? What was that? I watched as he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Victoria managed to break through me. She would continually match my coldness with her kindness and my cynicism with her optimism. She was everything that I wanted. She agreed to be my girlfriend in sophomore year and our love just grew from then on,” I felt my heart clench at the mention of him loving another. I willed myself not to put much thought  into it. I was his present and will be his future... Hopefully.

“Many other people were skeptical about our love though. Many of them questioned her loyalty to me. One of them being my very own best friend, Nicolai. He was my Beta then. He tried to feed me lies and tried to distort her perfect image in my eyes. I just ignored him and continued on with my life. I didn’t think that he’d get that jealous… I didn’t think that he’d envy me enough to steal her away and take her elsewhere. That happened after our high school graduation; I had to take care of some pack business out of the state with my father. Victoria has settled into the pack house months before, but upon returning I saw that some of her clothes were missing. There was a letter on the bed explaining that she was leaving me for Nicolai…” Tears formed in his eyes as I rubbed his back soothingly. He let out a huge sigh and turned to me.

“I tried to confront Nicolai, but he was gone too. The bastard left with the love of my life and never thought about confronting me about it first. He visited months later and brought a little one with him.  Do you know how much that hurt me? He had the nerve to flaunt his kid right in front of my damn face! The kid whose eyes shone as brightly as his mother’s! I just…I…They really broke me, Arabella,” tears flowed down his cheeks as he hung onto me for dear life.

I laid him down on the bed and went to grab a damp towel. I wiped his tear stained cheeks and kissed his forehead tenderly. “Thank you,” I smiled.

“For what?” his topaz orbs stared at me. “I should be thanking you.”

“For telling me,” I kissed him softly. “I know it was very hard to do so. Thank you for trusting me enough with that.”

“Oh,” he shrugged and grinned slightly. “And you got to see your mate go all weak and cry like a baby.”

“Hey, I think it was very manly of you,” I tucked him into bed, and went to sit beside him, but he pulled me on top of him.

“Really now?” he kissed my lips softly, making my heart thump loudly and my insides melt. “I guess I should cry more to look very manly in front of my mate.”

“I would think that you’re a real cry baby by then,” he chuckled, causing his chest to rise up and rub against mine. He groaned lightly and rolled me to his side. “As much as I’d love to take your sexy body right now, we’re still taking it slow.”

“Thanks,” I sighed as he put his arms around me.

“Goodnight mate,” he kissed my forehead and drifted off to sleep.