Mending My Broken Heart

Chapter Seven

"Who can tell me what he did as President to cause controversy?" Collins asked the class, a question to which I knew the answer but didn't really care to make myself known as a nerd, and my attention was split slightly, favoring my mate sitting behind me on the opposite side of our table further from the front. I wanted to turn around but I didn't want to face him. Apparently the girl who'd been our fourth yesterday was no longer here, her circumstances unknown to me, not that I cared too much at the moment.

When I'd come in, I'd found my spot and Lizzie immediately. She hadn't cared about my episode yesterday and seemed genuinely concerned that I was okay. She seemed alright as a person really. It was weird but I think I'd just found my first female friend.

Mason was in a mood, that seemed to effect the rest of the pack members, but rain had started, creating a cozy feeling to the otherwise tense room, and loosening my nerves a bit. I pulled my feet up to sit cross-legged on my seat as the movie started. With every pitter-patter and inhales and exhales of those around me, I was drummed into a daze. My thoughts drifted to the previous night.

Mason's face, an inch from mine, swam into my vision. I gulped, picturing the peacefulness that had been there. How calm he'd seemed then, was a sharp contrast to the strained tension that was on his face now, as he sat across the table from me. I chose my memory of him over the present and fell into it. His arms around me, protecting me, making me feel, for once, safe.

That had been nice, but I was beginning to understand that I couldn't be safe. That was a privilege I couldn't be granted by whatever was Up There. So I chose to live in the memory of the feeling of it.

"Ava." A whisper, so light I wouldn't have been able to hear it without my intensified hearing. I jumped from my daydreams to find Mason next to me, sitting in the spot the girl had occupied yesterday. I looked to his face to find his eyes centered on me and amusement filling his features. "Think maybe you could tone down your arousal for me?"

I stopped a moment when I realized what he'd meant, faces were turned towards us. They knew. They could smell. I'd daydreamed about Mason's strong embrace and begun to get turned on by it.

If the lights hadn't been turned off, my face would resemble more of a tomato than it's natural olive color. I was grateful that Mason couldn't tell untill his hand leaned against my cheek. Technically, he was past a healthy body temperature for a human, we all were. But against my burning cheek, his hand was cool and welcomed.

The amusement was gone from his face as soon as my own hand reached up to his, slender and delicate compared to his. I ran my fingers along his weathered skin and shut my eyes again, feeling that moment of safety.

Then, I grabbed his hand and pulled it off my face. "If that can't happen again, why do you keep letting it?" I hissed at him, angered at his mood swings. They made it no easier for me to decipher my own feelings.

"It's for the best Ava, it really is," he replied before moving back to his seat. He sounded sad but I found that so hard to believe. I felt used. I was supposed to be distancing myself from him.

I walked home in silence. My eighth period was a free hour so I'd been able to ignore Lucas warning me to wait for him until after school. I don't even understand why I needed protection. If the Alpha really cared, he would protect me himself, which meant this protection was just because he thought I was weak.

Anger coursed again through me as I pulled him back to the fore front of my mind. Stupid Mason. He couldn't keep his hands to himself, that much was clear, as he fondled some other girl during lunch and then again in our gym class later in the day. Every now and then he would spare a glance my way as if to say, see, you aren't good enough for me. What makes you more beautiful than her?

And the truth was, I didn't know. I didn't know what he'd seen of my scars and welts. I didn't know what he knew of my past. As far as I knew, all my dad had mentioned was that we'd had difficulties with the Alpha. It seemed as though he'd kept my secret. And Mason hadn't ever mentioned any threat besides rogues.

I felt mixed emotions from keeping the truth from him. Part of me was relieved, if he knew the truth, he'd think I was even more delicate than he'd already considered. But the other part felt weighed down even more. It was a secret I had no one to talk about it with. Lizzie was too new of a friend to share that with her, and my dad didn't like to talk about that stuff, it just made him mad.

I was so deeply caught up in my thoughts, I barely noticed when I reached the end of the street, right in front of our house and the forest. The walls of the building we'd moved into looked about as welcoming as a morgue. But the trees of the forest. They looked like a haven.

I threw my backpack onto the porch and ran to the edge of the tree line, shifting mid-step. Running seemed to be the only way to free myself.

I was new to this area, so I stayed fairly close to our house, making a large circle around the area a few times before settling down in a small clearing near a river.

I rolled over to my side, laying in the tall grass, and looked up at the sky. It was so blue, so deep. I found myself getting lost in the chirps of the birds, the buzzing of bugs, and general sound scape of the forest, feeling relaxed finally, enough to actually sleep.

A growl had me alert and awake within an instant. Its nature was unfriendly and its message simple, I don't like you, I want you gone.

So I stood, but held myself low. My natural instinct was to fight, but I'd learned recently that running sometimes had a better survival rate.

Unfortunately, a wolf stood behind me as well, leaving backing away now out of the question. My panic spiked when I saw another pair of eyes glinting at me through the underbrush. There were at least three. How was I going to make it out of this?

I had to. I had to be strong enough, I had to fight, I had to live.

I watched as the first wolf made the first move, moving in for an instant kill. I squirmed out of reach just in time for their jaws to only scratch me. I couldn't run now, i couldn't wait, I had to end this.

This time as he moved in, I used a trick my father had taught me. Instead of using all your energy, aiming for where they are, meet them half way, aiming for where they're going to be. Then you can use the extra energy you have left for the attack.

And so that's what I did, slicing open his jugular with my canines.

I felt different as I landed. Something wasn't quite connecting in my brain. I'd just attacked a wolf, and now a wolf was dead on the ground. I'd just killed someone.

Agony flooded through me at the sight: my first kill.

I didn't register the other wolf jumping towards me or the third one fleeing as the sound of thundering paws came closer and closer. I didn't understand what was happening when the shewolf's claws bit into my flesh and tore at my fur. All I took in was that she wasn't an experienced fighter. She'd relied on the men to protect her. And she could. That was her mate. I'd killed someone's soulmate. I deserved to let her rip me to shreds.

But someone was stopping my deserved torture. Someone was ending the pain I needed to feel balanced. Someone was stopping my slice of sanity.

I hadn't realized how the world had been muted until the sound of my scream tore through the silence.