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Chapter Five
TALIA
I screwed up. Galen came home and caught me in a moment of weakness. Rather than open up to the man I loved, I closed myself off. Galen wasn’t prying. He wanted to help me, to take care of me.
Which is what people did when they were in a healthy relationship - something I hadn’t had much experience with.
My father never opened up to me about any of the important things and my engagement to Maddox had been a lie.
Which was something I had experience with.
I’d been lying to Galen for weeks. He gave me the space I’d asked for and then some while built lie upon lie until I forced his hand to use the bond to pry his way into my thoughts. I knew when he threatened to use the bond before we left for the summit that he was bluffing.
Galen wanted the truth. He deserved the truth, but he would never violate my trust or jeopardize our relationship that way.
Something happened when he’d been called away on pack business. He’d dealt with demon attacks before, but I’d never seen him react this way. Whatever it was, I felt it through our connection while he was gone and picked up on his distress when he’d walked through the door.
But he took one look at me and the state I was in and put his feelings aside - and then I called his bluff with my stubborn silence.
He tapped the bond, but I held him back, long enough for him to see through the hurt and anger I’d caused by keeping myself closed off from him.
And then he stormed out.
He was only one floor away but there might as well have been a thousand miles separating us. I didn’t know how to fix what had been broken. They say time heals all wounds. I hoped and prayed that was true for us.
Because I couldn’t imagine my life without Galen in it.
My wolf paced within me, begging to be let free. She was anxious and needed to run, but I couldn’t let her out and risk Galen finding out the truth on his own.
I needed to be the one to tell him. If only I’d had the courage to do it before I broke his trust.
The clunk of Galen’s boots hitting the treads echoed in the stairway on the other side of the door. I watched the knob turn for what felt like an eternity before he walked through the doorway with his shoulders hunched and head hung low.
“I called a pack meeting. I’m heading back now. You’re welcome to join me if you want.” He stared at the floor, refusing to look at me. “But, if you’d take your car and go on your own I’ll understand. After the way I treated you, I wouldn’t blame-”
“Of course, I’ll go with you.” I grasped the olive branch he’d extended and jumped up from the same spot on the floor I’d been sitting when he walked out. “Let me just grab my purse.”
Galen waited on the landing, holding the door open for me; his body tensed when I brushed past and bounded down the stairs.
We rode to the Long Claw property in suffocating silence; the tension building between us with each street we passed until I managed an awkward apology.
“I don’t know why I’m like this, Galen. It has nothing to do with you.” I emptied my lungs, exhaling the breath I’d been holding since we turned onto the private road that led to the property. “I’ll tell you everything when I’m ready. I promise. Please don’t let this come between us.”
“I don’t want this to come between us either, Talia.” Galen spared a glance in my direction before returning his attention back to the road. “But I also don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
“I know.” I pressed my fingers against my eyes to stem the flow of tears that threatened to fall. “It’s just, I think I’m ready to share this with you and then as soon as I think I have the courage to talk with you about it, my anxiety gets the better of me and I just-”
