[COLES POV]
She's here. I can feel her.
"You okay?" Connor asked.
"Yeah, perfectly fine."I say through grit teeth. I shouldn't have come. I knew she'd be here yet I came anyway. No. I came because I knew she'd be here. But I don't want to think about that.
"Dude what's the issue? I know you, and there's something wrong." Connor has worry laced in his voice. He's like that now. Charlie left and now he worries. About everyone.
I open my mouth to reassure him that I'm fine when I'm hit with a mouthwatering smell. Vanilla and cinnamon. I snap my head to the source of the smell and am met with blue-purple eyes. But only for a second before she snaps her head down. She's here.
"I-is that Charlie?" I ask Connor, not-so-discreetly pointing across the room.
"Yeah." He's mumbling. And he won't look at her.
She's here.
She's blossomed over the last two years. She's gorgeous. She was gorgeous before. But now she glows. I- she's the kind of beautiful that isn't even just physical. Something in me wants for her, and it makes her and everything about her all the more beautiful.
"Dude?" Connor's looking at me now. More worry.
"Sorry. She just...she looks...... different."
"She looks hot." I hear Mike's voice as he comes up behind me. Mike is a good friend of ours. Sort of. He's an idiot. An idiot with a slight drinking problem. "Not that she wasn't hot before. Not that I was looking at her before. I mean-."
I feel a great amount of anger, possessiveness, and jealousy at his words. I shouldn't, I have no right to. But I do. I almost start shaking with the anger I feel.
But then I hear a melodic sound. My mate's laughter. I am instantly hit with a wave of calm. Calm and longing.
"Maybe one of us could hook up with her." Mike should seriously shut his mouth. I clench my fists and try to breathe.
"That's my sister. Neither of you are hooking up with her." Connor throws Mike an exasperated look, then fixes his eyes on me with the same expression.
"What? Me? No- no. I mean, of course not. But I am going to go say 'hi'." They both throw me the same raised-eyebrow-look. I scramble for an excuse. "You know. Welcome her back. I am going to be Alpha in only a few weeks."
It looks like Connor is going to say something, but I walk away quickly before he can. First, I stop by the drinks table, blindly pouring something into a cup without looking at what it is.
I drink the contents quickly, and walk towards her slowly.
Her back is to me now, but the closer I get to her the more she tenses. She knows I'm here. Her friends see her tensing too. Slowly but surely, every person in the group, except her, sets their glare on me.
As they're glaring, someone approaches them, someone I've never seen before. He's pale, incredibly pale, and Charlie seems to know him. Her friends don't.
"This is Tyler." Her voice. Her voice is like air floating into my lungs.
Tyler shakes hands with each person of the group in turn, before facing Charlie again. "You okay?"
She turns and whispers something in his ear. They start arguing in whispers. Even with my good hearing- not as enhanced as the stories think- I only pick up pieces of the conversation.
He pokes her side. "Won't stop 'til you laugh."
"Tyler." Her face is blank, but it's obviously forced. I can only see half of it, she's turned towards Tyler, her left side to me. Wow she's beautiful. Even just the half of her. "Ty. Cut it out." Finally, she lets out a laugh and shoves him away playfully. "You're such an idiot."
"Not the only one, Birdie." He playfully shoves her back. And even though it's playful, and even though I gave up all my right to be, I'm jealous. I'm wickedly jealous, and again I have to clench my fists to keep myself where I am. Speaking of, I'm just standing here, watching her. Christ, this is creepy.
"Birdie? Is that a nickname?" I hear one of her friends ask. Andrew. I think.
"Well, there's a story to that."Â They're all smiling. I bet Charlie's smiling.
The back of Charlie's neck turns red. She turns her head towards Tyler again, and I can see that her cheeks are red too. "Don't. Tyler, I swear I will hurt you. Don't." She's adorable.
Sighing, I move to the table on my left, I'm still within earshot but at least I don't look like I'm pointlessly stalking. And I am pointlessly stalking.
"Well, I could do what you want me to, or I could tell them anyway."
"She fell down the stairs her second week at school- very graceful, you should've seen it, and she cut her arm on the way down- somehow her face was okay, hard to believe looking at it." Tyler pauses to laugh as Charlie bats her hands at him. "Okay, so to do her stitches, she had to get doped up. Really doped up." Werewolf metabolism burns through things quicker than human metabolism. "It was hilarious. When we got back to school, she started telling everyone that she was a bird. I was the one watching her in the dorm, her parents were working, but every person who came to see her, she would tell them that she was a bird." He's having a hard time continuing, he's laughing so hard. "At one point, I went to get her more ice, came back and there she was at the window. Shouting at me and out the window at the same time that she could fly. She almost fell out. " Everyone's laughing now, and she's got her arms across her chest. Part of me wants to laugh, it is a funny story, some other part of me wants simply to smile, something new about my mate, and a smaller part of me is practically sick at the thought of her hanging out of a window. "And that's the Birdie story."
I need to talk to her. Taking a deep breath, I walk up to her and tap her shoulder. I continue on, ignoring the tingle in my fingers when I touch her shoulder.
"Cole." She says it as she turns. She felt the tingles too. She knew it was me.
"I was, um, wondering if maybe you wanted to talk in private?" The look she gives me tell me that she in fact does not want to talk in private.
"I don't really think-." She's cut off by her friend reaching his arm across her to me, his hand extended.
"Hi. I'm Tyler." His grip is tight as he shakes my hand.
"I'm Cole. I'm Charlie's-."
"From what I've heard, you aren't Charlie's anything. But she'd love to talk to you." My toes curl in my shoes. A growl rises in my throat. I'm about to release it when Charlie let's out one of her own. Tyler smiles as he turns to face her, and I'm left trying to ignore how seriously hot that growl was to me. "Look, I'll beat the shit out of him if he tries anything."
Even she sees the humor in that statement, she cracks a slight smile. "He'd kill you. And I don't-."
"He would not kill me and I think you should."
"Do not try to pressure me into this."
"You wouldn't have turned around if some small part of you didn't want to talk." Tyler raises an incriminating eyebrow, and Charlie sighs in defeat. "Consider it a chance to make him suffer."
She's still glaring as she turns back to me, but she sighs out a reluctant, "Fine." She throws her friends a slightly apologetic 'I-don't-want-to-do-this-but-I-have-to' look.
I walk to the back dining room, the small one that everyone leaves alone during parties. There are a lot of breakables. Maybe that will keep her from trying to hit me. Two years ago I'd say she'd hardly have the guts to try anything, but I clearly didn't know anything then and know even less now.
I don't look at her, even when we've made it into the room. The walls are painted green, and as I keep looking at them, they start turning into a puke color and I start feeling sick to my stomach.
There's a large, black, wood table sitting in the middle of the room, and mirrors, paintings, and China cabinets line the walls. Breakables.
"What do you want Cole?" I don't know what I want. I want her to keep saying my name. I want to get rid of that edge to her voice when she says it, like its the worst kind of curses. I want... I want her.
"For starters, I wanted to welcome you back." I look at her, but there's no change in the set of her face. She just looks pissed. "And then I wanted to apologize. You know for-."
"For essentially breaking my soul into twenty-thousand pieces and then telling me to never talk to you about it again? Yeah, why don't you apologize for that." Her chin quivers slightly as she snaps her mouth shut again. Anger or tears? I can't tell, but I wish I didn't have to try and figure it out.
"Look I just- I want to talk about this whole... mate thing. I really-." I don't get far.
"If I recall correctly, you never wanted to speak or hear from me involving that matter. I let it go. Well," she corrects herself, "maybe not entirely. I'm still angry, but you shouldn't be angry. So maybe you should just let it go and let me be the only one who thinks about it. I don't think I want you as a mate." There's a crease between her eyebrows, and she's sitting here telling me she hates me and I still can't help but think it's cute. "Goodbye, Cole." She pauses for a minute, waiting for me to say something, maybe. But I can't, I'm in shock for a moment. Her look gets even angrier, if possible, and she turns on her heel to leave.
I shoot forward and lightly grabbing her arm, turning her around. I'm not letting her go that easily. I don't know if I meant to say anything like this when I asked her to talk to me, but I need to say it.
"You don't- you don't want me as a mate?" That is not what I'm meaning to say. No. Big romantic speech, come on, something other than a stuttered question!
"Why would I want to be tied to someone who doesn't want me? Why would I waste my time and my energy and my love on someone who is so concerned about being 'great' that he doesn't care about being good? Why would I want to be with someone who would choose 'popularity' or whatever it was over the one thing on earth made specifically for them?" She raises an accusatory eyebrow at the hand I didn't realize I still have on her arm.
Snatching my arm back, I try to explain everything. "Listen, I don't know what I was even thinking. I'm pretty sure I want thinking at all. I don't- I can't- I'm hurting. I need you. I need to try to work this out." I'm trying to reach something in her that I'm praying I didn't kill.
"You're hurting?" Oh thank the Great Wolf.
"Everyday." And it's true. Letting her go was the most idiotic thing I've ever done. She was made for me and I pushed her away. I can't even remember any good reason. Well, not one that I gave her. The truth is I was scared. I was scared of letting her down or letting my pack down or having a mate not being everything I've ever dreamed of. I was scared and she suffered for it.
"Good." Her face is made of stone. She turns and marches to the door. She risks one more glance at me, and suddenly my mate is leaving me for a second time.