“Looks like we wereworried for nothing.” Damian leans against a tree, staring at the cabin across the clearing wistfully.
Between the sounds of the four of them going at it, there are random snippets of laughter that bring a small smile to my face. The fact that Sabrina has found a way to be happy in the middle of the hell that our lives have become really helps put things into perspective.
Good things happen when you stop trying to control everything that happens in your life. We can’t choose what happens to us, only how we react to it, and Sabrina? She refuses to let this hold her back from living. If that’s not proof that we’ve used being cursed as an excuse to justify our misery rather than do something about it, I don’t know what is. But I do know that I was right in the beginning, even if I didn’t understand it back then.
She really is at home in the darkness that the rest of us refused to embrace. Sabrina’s better at being cursed than any of us, and that’s how I know that it’s going to be okay, even if I don’t know how. Simply being around her will teach us how to thrive where lesser men have fallen prey to something we were never meant to contain, and that comfort takes the fear out of the unknown.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Looks like it.”
After another minute, I do another scan of the woods and begin the trek back to the warehouse. Damian kicks off of the tree trunk and falls into step beside me, the awkward tension rising with every additional step away from our buffer, and as much as I’m reluctant to admit it, Hunter had a good point. While we agreed on a cease fire between the seven of us, I’ve still been avoiding Damian as much as possible, subconsciously holding a bit of a grudge. With Ash exploiting any weakness he can find, I need to figure out how to let it go and move on, and honestly, I’m not sure why I’m struggling so much.
It’s why despite the fact that I was a better choice to help the Slaughters, and how desperately I want to understand exactly how they make the drug that fucked me up so badly, how they could synthetically replicate the effects of a claiming bite, Hunter kicked me out to join Damian on recon. We needed to be sure that no one circled back to the cabin after we left or decided to riot after Kaige and Damian killed members of their packs.
And he knew exactly what he was doing, because once he planted that seed in my head, neither me nor my inner demon would have been able to focus on anything that was happening at the warehouse. All we’d have been able to picture was my brothers getting killed, of Sabrina being dragged out-
“Dude.” Damian’s fingers snap in front of my face and I scowl, pushing his hand away. “You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep zoning out in the open.”
Shaking my head as if that could physically clear it, I pick up the pace, but Damian cuts me off, stepping in front of me with a look of genuine concern that I’m not sure how to process when I’ve been nothing but a jackass to the man for days.
“Not sure how it works for you, but Boden’s tip helped me out. If your other half is being an asshole, use Sabrina as a bribe.” He shrugs a single shoulder. “Or a threat, whatever works. But it usually gets them to chill out a little.”
Pulling off my glasses, I scrub a hand down my face with a frustrated huff. “It’s not that.”
He gestures for me to go on, and the impulse to hit him is so visceral, I nearly go through with it. Releasing a slow breath, I put my glasses back in place, the simple act allowing me the illusion of putting myself back together.
“Then you want to tell me why you insist on being a damn hypocrite and keep giving me the cold shoulder?” he demands. “Not like you didn’t fuck up, too.”
“I know, alright? It’s just,” tapering off with a growl, I start walking, because anything is better than having to stare at the guy wh-
It hits me like a freight train, and all of my mounting frustration goes up in a puff of smoke. “She was upset in the beginning, but in the end, she came back to us. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have been perfect for us. We could have been happy, and I never would have had to risk her setting my other half free. But thenyoushowed up and removed the block on her abilities, and everything started to fall apart. I know correlation doesn’t equal causation, but I think I’ve been associating you with every bad thing that’s happened in my life since that moment, fair or not.”
With a terse nod, he strides away and I fall into step behind him. Keeping half an eye on the men that we pass, it looks like all of our worrying really was for nothing. They’re giving us as much of a cold shoulder now as the one Damian accused me of, and I can’t help but wonder if this was a part of Acheron’s plan; a display of Sabrina’s mate’s abilities that he can take credit for, inspiring people to back off. Layers and layers of deception packaged up under the guise of benevolence.
“I get that.” Damian’s foot sinks into a muddy patch and we both fall silent for a moment, Sabrina’s conversation with Bo and Cin turning the innocuous thing into a source of paranoia. When nothing happens, he yanks his foot free, shaking off the morbid thoughts and returns to leading the way. “Just do me a favor, okay?”
“What’s that?”
Glancing at me over his shoulder, he pins me with a pointed look. “Stop pushing everybody away.”
“I’m no-”
“You are.” Whirling around, he gets right in my face, my hackles raising instantly. “And I’m not just talking about me, Hunter, and Kaige. I’m talking about your brothers, and hell, even Sabrina.”
Shoving him away from me, I snarl, “You’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I?” Not backing down, he argues, “Because yeah, since your demon showed up to the party, you’ve let yourself get closer to her, but you’ve also picked out a spot on the sidelines and are pretending that it’s because you’re being a good mate and sharing nicely.” He scoffs. “Sabrina needs people willing to fight for her, not someone that sits around feeling sorry for himself.”
Clipping his shoulder on the way past, I storm off down the path.
“You’ve been drifting away from Cin when even I can see that he needs you now more than ever,” he continues, unfazed. “Is it because you feel guilty for what happened to him as a kid and didn’t do anything to stop it?”
Spinning on my heel, I cold cock him in the face. Shaking out my hand, I glare at him as he rubs his jaw with a victorious grin. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“That.” Gesturing at my eyes, he cants his head. “Even when you’re pissed off and I deserve it, you’re still trying to keep your other half leashed. I noticed it in the fight outside of the warehouse the other day and have been waiting to see if it was a fluke, but you’re going to get yourself killed if you keep this up, and maybe even Sabrina if she intervenes to protect you. I don’t like the loss of control either, but you need to get over it.”
Striding away, he calls back, “Hate me if you want; I really don’t give a shit so long as it doesn’t start affecting Sabrina. For the record, though, when Hunter was ready to slit you and your brothers’ throats and leave you behind, I was the one that spoke up in your defense. Even back then I could see that if you could get out of your own way, you’d be a hell of an asset. But you’re your own worst enemy, Reid. The rest of us have accepted that we can’t outrun our demons; it’s time you made your peace with it, too.”
Damian’s right; ceding control is difficult for me. I don’t...hatemy wolf, per say, but discovering that he’s actually a demon was possibly the easiest revelation to accept. We both have Sabrina’s best interest at heart, but the problem stems from the fact that we want to go about things in very different ways. I want to get her as far away from everything shifter related as possible, settle down somewhere just the eight of us where she can be happy. If it were up to him?
