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“No, I understand that,” he says. “But your relationship with your wolf is a big part of how you’ve been feeling. In fact, didn’t that trigger this particular episode?” I nod, the shame burning in me once again. “So, that is likely a big factor in this.”
“In what?” I say, confused.
“In how you’re feeling right now.” I must still be confused because he gives me a patient smile. “With the way that your wolf is balanced, and you don’t want to kill yourself. It seems to me like they’re correlated.”
“But how does that work?” I demand. “I hate my wolf for doing this to me.”
“Maybe you do, but maybe you don’t,” George says. “It’s a hard place to be in this. These feelings with your wolf are confusing, and the way you’re both struggling doesn’t help matters.”
I shrug, hating how good he is at hitting the nail on the head.
“I know you shifted when you first bonded with her, but have you shifted again?”
“I shifted back into my human form almost immediately when the others turned up,” I say, casting my mind back to the clearing. A soft smile appears on my face. “But a little bit later, I shifted back because she wanted to get a look at our mates. She spent some time becoming familiar with their scents.”
Before Atticus made us come inside, and I had to face the firing squad.
“So, I think the first bit of homework that you need, Nora, is to go and shift. I think you and your wolf need to spend a little bit of time together going on a run, going on a hunt, digging a hole in the garden—whatever you and your wolf would enjoy doing while you reconnect. I think you need to try doing that every day, to try and mend the disconnect within you both.”
“But I don’t know if that’s what I want to do,” I say, tears already building up in my eyes. “I don’t know if spending time with my wolf is what I want.”
“Why?”
“Because… what do I do if she hurts me again?”
He frowns, and I know immediately that he understands. I hate that he sees what’s wrong with me. Hate that he sees under the layers I’m trying to keep built up to protect myself.
I hate that he sees the real me.
“There’s a lot to unpack there,” George says, and I nod. “Therapy is hard work, Nora, you’ve got to put in the effort.”
“I know,” I murmur. “I just hate that there’s so much to unpack.”
“That’s not your fault, though. You have done amazingly well working with a therapist over the last six years, working yourself to the bone to survive, but you worked with a human, and there is a whole other part of you that needs to be processed now. You’ve got yourself here, Nora, you have survived for six whole years on your own, literally, with no pack, no friends, no family—but least of all? You had no wolf. And, yet, you are alive. You faced the worst thing a shifter could face, and you didn’t give in. You are the strongest woman I know.”
“Strongest woman?” I ask, and he winks.
I’m not sure of the joke, but I love how easy and comfortable we are able to be with each other. We’re in the unique position of being family, but also not, and he manages to toe the line so perfectly.
“What else is bothering you?” he says. “I feel like you’re still keeping things back.”
I’m probably always going to keep things back. But I don’t say that to him.
“I feel like Atticus and I aren’t in a great spot,” I say.
“How come?”
“Is this not one of those things that maybe we shouldn’t talk about?” I ask, twiddling my hands back and forth. He frowns. “Well, it’s not like I’m complaining about Griffin. But is this really a boundary we should have in case it becomes Griffin’s turn?”
George smiles. “When I said that I would be your therapist, when we sat and had this conversation, I knew that eventually relationship problems would probably come up. Whether that’s relationship problems with my son, or my Alpha—”
“I don’t know which one is worse,” I say, cutting in.
“Both of them are equally bad,” George says. “My alpha could kill me. My son will probably be mortified, knowing that I have intimate details of his sex life.”
“No!” I squeal, a high pitched kind of sound, as the scent of my embarrassment fills the air. I cover my face with both hands, groaning.
Fuck Griffin being mortified.
