Delicate

Chapter 37

Damon's P.O.V

It'd been months.

Months since I'd last seen, months since I last thought of her, or rather, months since I'd allowed myself to think of her. When it had all happened, I couldn't face it, the pain that came attached to the memory of the girl I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with, the one I'd thought was my future.

She wasn't. 

"I'm Amelia," She voices to Will after a moment of silence, the question clear in her eyes behind the joy she kept tight to her as she draws her eyes back to me. 

"William." He replies, his tone just as still and cautious as it'd been when we first met. 

I didn't take my eyes off Will, not when I could feel his darkening emotions running through my veins. I focus on him, my mate, on his narrowed eyes that stuck to Amelia, his discomfort palpable as it mixed itself with the varied emotions swirling around the space. 

Joy. Discomfort. Fear

The joy was Amelia's. She owned it. 

It spread from her like a live wire through the pack link and into this space as she gripped the edges of her shirt sleeves, trying feebly to transfer some of it somewhere else were it wasn't so consuming and poignant. 

She was happy, a little confused but happy.

The discomfort was Will's. He lived in it. 

He looked like he had in the early days of our friendship, skittish and ready for a punishing hand that would never come from me. His past haunting him in every part of his life, a loud, annoying presence that made him slow to trust and even slower to love.

He was uncomfortable because he didn't know who this was, fearful that she was another problem we'd have to face.

The fear was all mine. It tried to drown me. 

I was scared because I didn't tell Will about Amelia, didn't tell him about who she was and how important she used to be to me.... how I loved her. Fearful because he wouldn't understand, wouldn't see that it was different between us. He wouldn't believe that I hadn't hidden from him, he'd question us. 

I was terrified that this would make him pull away from me when he'd finally allowed himself to give me more pieces of himself.

Joy. Discomfort. Fear. The air was sour, the taste of it like acid to the tongue. 

"Will is my mate." I voice after yet another period of muffled sounds.

Part of my unease slips away at the sight of Will's doing the same, my declaration pushing any blooming doubts away for the moment as he relaxes his stiff stance from across the room. I release a steady breath that Amelia takes in as my words settle.

I take the time to look at her, to really look at her.

Something about her was different. 

It wasn't that she'd grown taller, just a little, or that her hair had grown aswell. It wasn't her eyes, they were the same. Those bright green eyes were still all-encompassing as they now grew wide, her surprise clear as she holds me under her heavy gaze. 

Maybe it was the mark that rested on her shoulder, the one that barely managed to peak its way past the fabric of her shirt. Sitting comfortably on her collarbone as a piece of her that was meant to be there.

Amelia wasn't my mate. 

She belonged to another, was mated to another. Completely and wholly linked her soul to the one that owned the other pieces of her. The fact once upon a time gutted me through and through, rendering me reeling and weak. But it failed now to deliver even a shred of sadness, it didn't bring much of anything to the surface.