She wraps her arms around herself and turns on her heel to walk away. And it’s enough for me to realize how stupid my plan was. Because it’s one thing for her to think I’m an asshole, but another for me to hurt her. Every instinct in me roars to stop her and I need to know how I can make it all better. Because it feels so damnwrongto let her walk out thinking she’s nothing.
I want to reach for her, but that seems inappropriate. So instead, I step around her before she reaches the door so I’m in front of her.
“Why do you think that?” I ask gently. “Why do you believe you don’t have strengths?”
“Because I don’t, I’m not good at anything,” she whispers, still looking at the damn ground. She seems so sure, and my chest aches knowing this is how she perceives herself. How can anyone be so beautiful and have such cripplingly low self-esteem?
“Did you have any jobs in your old pack?”
“Um, well yeah, I guess I’m good with numbers, so I did the accounting stuff for the pack. But, like nothing that involved physical strength,” she says as she continues to look at the ground. I can smell her shame intensifying, but I can’t understand why. Does she think physical strength is the only thing needed for a pack?
“So… you were trusted with the entire pack’s financial records, but that doesn’t count?”
She shrugs like it genuinely doesn’t matter. Like it’s not a valuable or impressive skill.
I want to wrap her up and make everything better. Something my wolf has wanted since he first saw her. Changing tactic, I ask, “How did you get out of the Blood Moon?”
“I ran. Aidan was away for the weekend, so I thought I might get a longer head start. But I didn’t get far before the Beta realized and he sent the warriors to chase me. I made it to the ravine and jumped into the river so that they wouldn’t be able to track my scent.”
“That was smart.”
“Yeah, it was smart until my leg got broken in three places and I had to limp on it for weeks and ended up septic and near death,” she says while cringing slightly.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, it was rough.”
“And you got through it,” I say, not trying to hide how impressed I am. There’s no sign or scent of deception when she speaks. I’m starting to see what’s been obvious since she got here. She’s not a threat. She’s just a beautiful and traumatized girl in need of help and a safe place to find some of what she has lost.
Her eyes lift slowly to meet mine, and I don’t miss the flash of surprise. Like she didn’t expect me to say that.
“You’re stronger than you think,” I say, reaching up and gently tucking a strand of her icy blonde hair behind her ear. She leans into the touch for half a second before her brows furrow.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I mutter, stepping back before I fuck this all up. “Okay, let’s work on getting out of holds and afterward we’ll try dodging hits. We’ll work on human form first and assess your wolf another day.”
Emily
The sudden shift in his demeanor leaves me confused and unsteady, wondering if I’ve done something right or if mood swings are always so common for Jackson.What the hell just happened? Still, I’m not about to waste the opportunity. And I’m eager to get started and make the most of him not hating me for however long it lasts.
“Okay, sounds good,” I say, trying to muster up some of that belief Sofia has in me.
“You’re fast and you have excellent endurance from what I saw yesterday on your run with the warriors,” Jackson explains. His genuine compliment surprises me. His positive assessment offers a small flicker of hope amidst the crushing weight of my self-doubt. He's probably just saying it.
“You need to keep that up in both forms. I want you running daily, alternating between forms every second day once Doc clears you.”
“I can do that,” I say, feeling a smile stretch across my face as my wolf preens at his praise. “I love running. It always helps clear my head.” I don’t mention that I only got to run in Blood Moon when I managed to sneak out. He nods and the ghost of a smile flickers across his face so quickly I would have missed it if I wasn’t staring straight at him. We get started with training by stretching and my cheeks burn when he comments on my flexibility.
During the next forty-five minutes, Jackson shows me how to recognize weaknesses in several types of holds. He starts with showing me how to break away from single-hand grabs by using the spot where the attacker’s thumb meets their fingers and rotating my wrist toward the thumb, using a sharp pulling motion.
He talks me through everything before he slowly moves into position, following the steps exactly as he describes them. No surprises. His touch is feather light. He releases me at the first signs of resistance. I’m sure it’s not how he usually trains and the idea that he is adjusting for me has butterflies erupting in my stomach.
“That’s it, Emily, excellent. The faster you move, the less time your attacker has to figure out what you’re doing.” His praise lights me up from the inside out and I’m surprised by how comfortable I am as he builds the realism of grabbing me, using more speed and force as I gain ability and confidence. I’ve never associated physical closeness with safety, but Jackson is… different. Not just in how he touches me, but howhe doesn’t. He asks, even with his body. He waits. I’ve never been given that kind of space. That kind of autonomy.
However, it gets much more difficult as the holds begin to feel more intimate. I hold my breath when he moves his body close to mine. It’s easier to focus on what I’m meant to be doing when he isn’t pressed against me.
We move into dodging. He explains how to pivot, to keep my balance, how to use an attacker’s momentum against them. He moves faster as I begin to get the hang of it. More deliberate, and he combines more than one move at a time. I listen. I learn. And then, somehow, I’m the one knockinghimoff balance. He lands hard, and I stand there blinking like,wait… did I just do that?
