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I’m always going to be willing to sit here and talk about his mate, to remember her, to learn about her.
I do, however, hope that one day soon his reason for living will stop being just to die.
I hope that he’ll choose life with me, and my pack, rather than as a means to an end.
Because that will be where I draw the line.
Cev nods as a slight smile appears on his face. It’s not the kind I’m used to seeing from him, and it’s one I love because, despite the fact that his eyes are etched with sadness, this smile is one of happiness.
“She loved the way the skies would have a greyish tint to them, the way it made everything appear so much more vivid despite the bleak atmosphere.” His voice is quiet, and his tone is wistful. I’m scared to speak, as if I’ll break this connection he’s having with his dead mate, one we’re also sharing together. “Don’t get me started on the smell,” he adds, rolling his eyes as if he’s still got to pretend that it annoys him. “The natural smells of the earth and the grass becoming so much more potent as if they’re good smells.”
I grin, and, for a brief second, he returns it like he’s not got a care in the world. But then the shutters fall back over his face, and the depression demons take hold of my mate once again.
“Rain is fucking awful,” he says, and the positive lilt to his words are now gone, and he’s angry at the world as if it’s betrayed him again. “Your clothes stick to you, your hair sticks to you, everything just ends up fucking wet, and it’s a horribly annoying sound.”
He gets up and storms over to the curtain in the corner. He wretches it closed, nearly ripping it off the bar in his anger, and glares at me. “Turn on some music, read a book, and ignore the shitty fucking weather.”
And with that, he stomps out of the room, taking some of the darkness with him. I know that I need to let him go, to let him process things.
This might even be a memory of Lainey he’s not had in a while, and he deserves the chance to figure it out.
He’s made some big strides tonight, opening up even just a little bit, and I won’t be the one to take that away from him.
I walk back over to the window and open the curtains gently—half in apology for how he treated them a few moments ago, but also so he doesn’t hear me and come back shouting—and look out at the rain.
It’s never been something I’ve loved. The sound is soothing, sure, but I’ve got a new appreciation for it now.
Now that I know how much she loved it.
We’re going to love the same man—surely loving the same weather isn’t that much of a stretch. Although… I’m not actually sure we do love the same man. The version of Cevon I have, the one trapped in an eternal darkness where he can’t fathom that he’s worthy to still be loved… I hope she didn’t get this man.
I hope her death, their deaths, is the thing that broke him. Because otherwise? It means someone else did.
“I’ll look after him,” I whisper, reaching my finger up as two rain droplets merge into one on the window. I smile, not sure if I’m believing things that aren’t actually there, but it feels like a sign that Lainey is here with us. That she’s listening, and maybe… maybe that she approves. “You might deserve him more than I do, Lainey, but I promise you, I’ll do my best to help him learn how to live again.”
There’s a crackle of thunder, and I smile as if she’s agreeing with me.
I wait for another beat, waiting for a response from her, but I get none, so I close the curtain, add another log to the fireplace, and resume reading my book.
I might not be reading about something educational or motivational… unless, well, you’re into learning about how the g-whiz position can give you some very intense orgasms.
With my heat on the horizon, I totally think it counts.
* * *
Cevon
“I’ll look after him,” my little wolf murmurs, her head raised as she looks out the window. I don’t know what she’s looking at, but she’s not angry. No, she seems… relaxed. As if talking to my dead mate is normal behaviour. Then again, she’s the first to admit she’s a bit unhinged.
I go to move away, to give them their privacy, but then she starts speaking again.
I might not deserve to be in her company as I prattle on about my dead mate, the one I love so much more than I love her, but I’m still going to stand here and take all the scraps I can get.
It’s an obsession, one I can’t deny, one I can’t move away from.
“You might deserve him more than I do, Lainey, but I promise you, I’ll do my best to help him learn how to live again.”
I freeze, the words she utters tasting like acid as she gently makes a promise to my mate. To my dead mate, as my alive mate.
