Truth Be Told

By the time we reached the Ferris wheel, Sienna had calmed down. I, on the other hand, was sweating bullets.

~Is this really it—the moment I’m going to tell Sienna who she really is to me?~

Sienna led me to the teenager manning the Ferris wheel ticketing booth. She reached into her purse to pay, but the kid held up his hand.

“Alpha, man, you’re good,” he said and nodded to Sienna. “Her too.”

The look on Sienna’s face was priceless. I stifled a laugh. Sienna was going to learn that being with the alpha had its perks.

The teenager took us past the line, and then we were in our own private car. “Enjoy the Love Wheel,” he said with a wink, and before I could growl at his insolence, the door snapped shut.

“It wasn’t called the Love Wheel last year,” Sienna said, her face the color of her hair. She seemed flustered, and I found it endearing.

I couldn’t give a flying fuck what the wheel was called. I was just happy that I could be alone with her.

“Maybe something’s different this year,” I said, lacing my fingers in hers, enjoying the way she nibbled her lip again as if she couldn’t quite figure out what to say or do.

The car moved, climbing over the wheel until we were right at the top. I motioned for her to look down.

“It’s beautiful,” Sienna said, her eyes planted on the view of the city spread ahead of us.

The way her blue eyes sparkled, how the soft sunlight lit up her face, curtained by fiery-red hair, she was like a stunning portrait hanging in a gallery.

“It is,” I agreed, knowing it was such a bad cliché to say that but unable to stop myself from doing so.

She was so beautiful I had to look away for a moment and regain my composure.

Embarrassed, her gaze dropped, and her rosy cheeks lit up her face.

~Do it. Just tell her.~

My wolf was pacing around inside me, growling, and I couldn’t tell if it was because I was taking too long or if it was because I was making a mistake.

There was something tugging at the recesses of my mind, an unanswered question, and it was holding me back.

~Spit it out already and stop stalling!~

“Who’s Emily?” I blurted out. It happened so fast I couldn’t even stop myself. But I think I needed to know the answer before I could share the truth.

At the sound of her name, Sienna’s head snapped up, her eyes wild on me. I hurried to explain, “I heard you say her name when you were sleeping. You kept repeating it.”

I stared at her carefully, and a crushing sense of loss made my chest hurt when I saw the way her face closed off, the sparkle in her eyes vanishing.

“I can’t…,” she said, looking away.

I sighed and looked out of the window, feeling her inching apart from me, putting her barriers back up. My heart sank as she pulled away.

~She’s still not ready to trust me.~

But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. If I expected Sienna to show me her scars, then I needed to show her mine.

Being the alpha, I’d learned a long time ago how to put those around me at ease. Something my dad had taught me when I was young was to never expect anything for free.

“Give something to get something,” he’d say, and that notion had stuck with me.

So in the Ferris wheel, I prepared myself to give something.

“I had a brother,” I began, looking out into the distance. I could feel her gaze fall on me almost immediately. “His name was Aaron.”

“Was?” she asked, stunned.

I glanced at her and simply nodded. “He was older than me. By a few years. He’d always known I’d surpass him as an alpha, said he could sense it the whole time we were kids.”

Most older siblings would’ve been resentful, angry that they didn’t receive the Calling, but not Aaron. He was so happy for me, my biggest champion.

“But he didn’t care,” I continued. “He’d tackle me and throw me around anyway.”

I smiled despite myself. Sienna didn’t need to know the details of how hotheaded I’d been as a kid, that Aaron was the only one who hadn’t given up on me. Some things didn’t need to be said.

But those memories of growing up with Aaron were some of the best memories I had. It was always the two of us against the world.

“What happened?” Sienna whispered, breaking the silence.

“He met his mate,” I said, feeling my chest grow tight.

“Her name was Jen. She was a human. A scientist. Beautiful and smart, she was his perfect match. I’d never seen him as happy as he was when he was with her.”

It was true. Seeing them together, that was what gave me the inspiration to keep my hope intact—the hope that one day, I’d meet my mate too.

But that hope was crushed in an instant.

“Then one day, in the lab she was working in, there was an explosion. It was at the station over from hers, a mix of chemicals that shouldn’t have been together.

“An accident. Human error, they said. But it was too late. She was gone.”

When I looked at Sienna, tears welled in her eyes. But she was waiting for me to finish. Honestly, I didn’t know if I could.

The words were hard to speak, but I forced them out anyway.

“You know what happens when we lose our mate. Aaron’s heart couldn’t take it. It broke into pieces, disintegrating day after day, until there was nothing left. And then he was gone too.”

Sienna took my hand in hers, pulling it into her lap. Then she looked at me, her eyes somehow providing me with some kind of relief. Like she was soothing my soul without saying a word.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.

And then she took a deep breath as if she was getting ready to stick her head into a new world. One she hadn’t been to before.

And she told me about Emily.

About how her best friend had met a boy, and how Sienna had encouraged her to go out with him. How she’d brushed off her friend’s fears that he was too touchy, too aggressive.

She told me how when she went to see Emily the next day, she was covered in claw marks and dried blood.

I felt a gut-wrenching sickness in my stomach as Sienna told her story, Emily’s story, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

“She was raped,” she choked out. “I encouraged her to go out with the guy who raped her. And I wasn’t there when she called for help.”

I wiped away her tears, feeling my chest tighten for her, for Emily, who had endured such unfathomable pain.

“It’s not your fault,” I said, grimacing. “That piece-of-shit werewolf is the one who should be crying.”

“She killed herself,” Sienna said, making my blood run cold. “Two days later.”

I was trying to keep myself from shaking. Because once she’d said it, I remembered who Emily was, remembered the grief her parents had felt at losing their little girl.

~An alpha never forgets when he loses one of his pack. That loss stays with you forever. You always wonder if there was more you could’ve done.~

Sienna looked at me as if waiting for my reaction, as if I’d suddenly think she was a monster.

But Sienna wasn’t a monster. She was just a girl who was in very deep pain over the loss of her best friend, a pain that she had never healed from.

I closed my eyes and took Sienna’s hand, bringing it to my lips.

In that moment, I felt a rush of emotions enter my body; they were so heavy I felt like I was being crushed.

~Anger. Guilt. Fear. Sadness. Regret.~

I was drowning, gasping for air, but I couldn’t breathe; these feelings pulled me under, down and down and down.

I was experiencing everything my mate felt, all the pain that she had carried with her for so long. And I suddenly knew just how strong Sienna really was.

I opened my eyes and let the darkness drain out of my system. “I get it,” I said, trying not to show how shaken I was.

“What?” she asked.

“Why you’re keeping your virginity,” I clarified. “It’s sacred, and it should be respected. I’ll respect it, Sienna,” I promised her. “I’ll respect you.”

Even if I had to die to keep that promise.

Because now that she’d told me her story, now that I’d felt her pain, everything about Sienna Mercer had become clear: her resistance, her walls, her stubbornness.

I saw her in a new light. I saw how powerful she was, and it inspired me.

She stared at me, and I wondered if she could sense all the intense emotions I was experiencing due to our bond.

She leaned in, and I held her close. Her hand was in mine, and her heart was beating softly, at ease.

What had just happened between us, it was heavy, but at the same time, I felt lighter than I had in a long time, and I could sense that Sienna felt the same.

I knew I should’ve been disappointed that I didn’t get to tell Sienna she was my mate, but now was not the time or the place.

Even so, what Sienna did, trusting me enough to tell me her darkest thoughts, her painful past, we had come so far.

I placed my head against hers as it rested on my shoulder. The Ferris wheel spun round and round, the repetition strangely comforting.

I could’ve stayed in that moment with Sienna forever.

She was finally seeing me as someone who she could be vulnerable with, and it scared me even to think it for fear of getting my hopes up, but…

~I think she’s starting to see me as a mate.~