Salt to Her Sea ✔️

15. curse and regret

AKESIS

"Clear out," Jack shouted to the wolves who's murmurs progressed from behind muffling hands. "You're all dismissed." 

"How did- I don't-" the female sputtered, staring at her leg.

Tide continued to stare, his eyes boring into me, ripping back each layer of my skin until all that was left was the hush of my spirit. My soul. There was no recognition on his face. Hurt was so evident in his features.

I was full of regret.

I couldn't go back. 

My hands were reaching for him as I stumbled up. Yet with every step I took forward, his resolve hardened, his eyes darkened. I was the stranger.

"Tide,"

"Kennet, let's go."

I stopped and stilled, Kennet stood a few feet away, trying not to stare at me but failing horribly. The big male was torn, he wanted to stay and figure it out... But why would his loyalties lie with me? The female who was dropped into their lives only a month prior. He backed away until he turned and met pace with my mate who was leaving.

Leaving me.

"Thadal," I cried, stumbling after him. My legs felt uncooperative, blood dripped from my left nostril. Throat was thick, head was spinning. His pace was swift, primitive. This wasn't any side of him I knew, it was the face of stone that most wolves cowered from.

The grasp I got on his forearm wrenched free when he spun on me. I noticed the fine tremble to his body when he got in my face with gleaming teeth exposed. His anger could be felt in the air, scented in the waves that came off of him. This temper to him had yet to be exposed to me, until then, I fell back in fear.

"What do you want?" He snarled, continuing to step into my space.

"Thadal," his father warned uselessly, earning him a snap of teeth from his son who had begun to tremble harder. His skin was tinging gray, the color of an impending shift. It must have been painful, the horrible in between, but he showed no signs of pain. Physical pain, at least.

"I- please, just let me-" my tongue was fumbling and he had no intention to listen close.

"No, you're a liar." He spat, getting in my face again, so close I could see the blonde tips of his thick, dark eyelashes and the deeper gold to the interior of his irises. "You knew everything. You kept this away."

"Tide, please," I put my hands on his wrists, begging him not to walk away. He didn't shove me away from him but his breathing grew more shallow, I took my cue to continue. "I wanted some time to be a normal wolf, to be a wolf... I didn't want to tell anyone-"

"We're mates," his tone was colder than the sleet that was soaking us. Pain, pain, pain. His pain was my pain was ours.

I noticed my hands still had the female's blood on them, my own wrist was still weeping. Thadal's wrists were smeared with red from my hold. "I know, but-"

"Kennet get in the truck."

My mouth remained open but no words came out. My male left his heart back on the training field where he saw me expose myself. I could see the pain in his eyes, it killed me. The scream was building in my belly, the terror of him leaving, the ruin I had made for myself; it was stacking.

He turned away from me and stalked towards the truck.

"Tide," tears ran down my cheeks, the words were a sob.

Thadal flung the door open and climbed in without a word. The slamming sound of the door shutting made me jump and nearly dented the frame.

Regret formed a heavy weight deep in my belly, it became a monster. It was hungry, feasting on my intestines, sucking the energy from my marrow. The demon it became forced me to my knees in the slush, blood covered hands covering my rain-soaked face as the truck sped away.

Alpha Jack came and picked me up, no questions asked. He would wait until things calmed. He was even-tempered like that. But I was heartbroken, unseeing, desperate.

This gift was a curse.

THADAL

"We should postpone this trip," Kennet spoke up as the road turned from gravel to asphalt on our path North.

"Why?" I growled, knuckles white on the steering wheel. There was a muscle jumping in my shoulder, a small side effect of an incomplete shift.

My mind was gone, far away, back at the field watching my mate tear into her wrist and pull skin back together. She saved a life, was it magic? She was gifted.

I imagined the banquet, the subtle scent of her blood had been tainted but perceivable in the air. The vial of deep red came into mind; it was her blood.

Anger boiled deep within me, I felt cheated, lied to. How could she keep something like this from me? The questions were making me insane, I needed a shift, badly.

"You need to go back," Kennet spoke cautiously, how he did when he walked the fine line of my temper and sanity.

"No." I snarled back in finality. "She wants to-" I had to pause as my jaw extended and then snapped back into place. "If she wants to keep things from me, so be it." I swerved the car back into the right lane.

"She's a smart wolf, there's a reason-" he began.

"Stop. I can't fucking think," I cut him off. One of my hands held the wheel while the other held my mouth as if what was inside of me might come out if I didn't pay close attention.

I should have turned around. Maybe it was my ego, my nature, it didn't matter. Chest aches held my foot over the gas pedal. Visions of her running to the scene and saving the dying female were replaying in my head. Mind at war, it waged ceaselessly with neither side gaining ground, only casualties.

Akesis was a gifted wolf, the money to Romanov Labs, the secret ingredient to his concoction. Her betrayal stung. Could she so easily give herself to that motherfucker, but not me? Her mate? After everything we had been through, everything I showed her. I opened up and the deceit so easily slipped inside.

The trees flew by in a green blur outside the truck, they created a tunnel that encompassed the winding road. The sleet pummeled the windshield and the wipers scraped relentlessly. A dull static emanated from the speakers from a lost radio connection that neither Kennet or I bothered to adjust. Things seemed so normal, but they were far from.

I wondered what else my mate was hiding from me.

As much as I loved my female and wanted to return to her. I couldn't, not at the time. Our priorities fell into lines that did not merge. I had the pack to take care of. With the Alpha ceremony quickly approaching, I needed to focus in.

I should have turned around.

short taste of a chapter for an emphasis on this crucial point in their lives....

what do you think? 

also thanks to those of you who nominated and voted for me in another one of @UndiscoveredWolves's monthly contests. you are all endlessly kind to me.

all my love, LS