Chapter Eight: Torin

Torin watched as the Little She-Wolf clasped the glass of water so firmly between her hands that he was afraid it might shatter. If she hadn’t been so small and slight, it likely would have. But there it was. She was tiny, as she had explained moments earlier to him, and in pack rank this made it clear that she was an Omega, the lowest of the low in the wolf pack hierarchy. He felt rage building in his chest as she gave this explanation, her expression blank as she said each word.

For werewolves, as for certain other types of shifters, the eighteenth birthday was an important day. It was the day when she might find her mate. And Briar had done just that. Midway through her day she had realized who her mate was. It wasn’t just any wolf, it had turned out. It was her Alpha, a young man who had taken control of the pack despite his young age, after his father’s untimely death the previous year.

At this news a sense of foreboding passed through Torin, a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach, but he pushed the feeling of dread away with some effort. He needed to focus on the girl’s story. It was important.

She approached her mate after school ended. Apparently he was so wrapped up in his own little world that he hadn’t noticed her at all. Her mate had a girlfriend, she explained, her eyes watering now, although she managed to keep from crying. They’d been together since middle school and they’d told everyone that they were sure that they were mates.

Briar looked away, finally wiping her eyes, although he still didn’t see tears running down her cheeks, and for a moment he was distracted as he worried again about how dehydrated she actually was.

If it wasn’t dehydration, then Torin suspected it was that she was doing a good job of hiding her tears, which had likely come from years of practice while she suffered at the hands of her pack. Her words had hinted at the treatment she’d received, without going much deeper into it, but he had the distinct feeling that what she’d survived was much worse than what she was telling him.

Her mate’s girlfriend had been furious.

The girlfriend had told Briar’s mate that Briar had insulted her, insisting that Briar had muttered an insult under her breath. Of course Briar hadn’t said a thing to the girlfriend, but it had been too late. The larger She-Wolf had attacked, beating the girl until she could no longer stand. Then she had insisted his warriors hold Briar while she continued her attack, although knowing her place as an Omega, Briar had never defended herself.

Again he felt that same rage well up in his chest.

How could her mate have stood there and watched while this happened? He wanted to rip the man limb from limb and this girl wasn’t even his own mate. She didn’t belong to him, he had no right to her and yet the blood in veins was practically on fire hearing what she’d gone through. Yet her coward of a mate who was supposedly an Alpha had sat by and done nothing while she’d sustained the injuries that he’d seen when he’d found her?

Her mate had walked away and she’d been taken to the prison cells where the girl had beaten her again and told her she would be rejected, raped by every one of his guards, and then killed in the morning. But before the morning had come, someone had unfastened the chains on her wrists. She still didn’t know who had helped her.

She did know that it wasn’t her mate.

It was a scent she recognized, but she had been so out of it, that she couldn’t make the pieces of memory fit.

Briar had stumbled through the forest, not even sure how she made it to the edge of pack lands to cross the border. She kept running and running, gradually regaining her strength as her body slowly began to heal. As she ran she kept expecting someone to find her, to hear the sound of paws chasing after her.

She couldn’t shift, not at first, because she had breaks that had not yet healed, but some time near morning she’d forced her body to change so that she could move more swiftly. A short while later she had come to the meadow and realized that no one was behind her.

“And then I collapsed by the river. Thankfully you found me.” Briar’s voice trailed off. Her eyes closed for a moment. She swallowed hard and he could tell that the retelling of the story had cost her greatly. “If you hadn’t I don’t know what would have happened to me. Maybe I would have frozen out there during the storm. Or maybe they would have come after me eventually. I don’t know. I guess he probably thinks the forest will finish me off and then he won’t have to deal with rejecting me. I just don’t know. Maybe he’ll get lucky and she’ll be his second chance mate.” Her head dipped and she sounded utterly resigned as she said the words.

A shudder passed through her body and he wanted to gather her up in his arms and hold her. As soon as the thought occurred to Torin he was surprised by it. Sure he’d been carrying Briar around the house because she was weak and kept fainting but the thought he’d just had was different. He kept feeling the need to protect her rise up inside him, which was something that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

He heard the sound of soup bubbling on the stove and quickly turned around to lower the temperature.

“Sounds like it’s hot enough now.” She smiled at him shyly, apparently having snapped the “everything is fine” mask back into place in next to no time. He made a note to remember that about her. After all she’d gone through, there was no way that she was already fine, or anything even close to fine.

“I’m sorry that they did that to you.” He shook his head. “If you were my mate I would have died before I let anyone hurt you.” He wasn’t sure she’d even heard the second half of what he’d said, he hadn’t really meant to say it loud enough to reach her ears as he stirred the hot liquid on the stove.

“Does your kind have mates?” she asked suddenly, and when he turned to look at her, her head was tilted to one side and she was watching him carefully.

“Yes. Yes we do.”

“So for my next question-”

“No. That’s not fair.” Briar gasped, her eyes wide. “Torin. That wasn’t even an answer to a whole question. That wasn’t my question for the game.”

“It sounded like a question to me, Wolfling. Let’s see. ‘Does your kind have mates?’ That is definitely a question, Sweetheart.” Asked and answered. You can’t go back on it now.” He smiled at her, his grin growing wider as he watched the adorable way she stuck out her lower lip and pouted.

“Wolfling. You have to play by the rules. No cheating. You just have to ask better questions and think before you speak.” Her eyes narrowed at him and he felt a small thrill run through his body, pleased that she felt comfortable enough to show at least a glimpse of her true emotions around him. He loved that she wasn’t cowering or locking down every thought, that she had actually reacted when he teased her.

“Now, for question number two. Speaking of mates.” He sighed and dropped his gaze to the table. “Can you tell me why you keep passing out?”

Briar had a lovely olive complexion but as his words she grew pale, her hands gripping the counter, hard. For a moment he was afraid she might faint again. But instead she closed her eyes for a few long moments and he could hear her taking slow, even breaths.

Finally she opened her eyes and met his gaze for one long moment before she returned to staring at the glass of water sitting on the counter in front of her. She took a long slow sip, before glancing back up at him again.

“You know a lot about my kind?” Briar’s eyes were fixed on the glass, the tip of one finger circling the top, and she didn’t ask the question like she expected him to answer. “It’s just not many wolves would know to ask what you’re asking. So I’m curious how you know. I guess it doesn’t matter though. And it’s just as well that I tell you if I’m going to keep going through this. I guess I probably am, until he puts me out of my misery. Whatever that means to him, either by rejecting me or killing me.” Her dark eyes were filled with tears this time when she looked back up at him.

“Do you know that about fifty percent of the time wolves who are rejected don’t end up making it? I never understood why the Moon Goddess does that to us. It just never made sense to me. Anyways.”

“I already knew that my mate was fucking someone else. For years. But when I was younger it was more like really, really, really bad cramps. It hurt, but I could deal with it. It started when I was about sixteen. It sucked but what could I do? And I was waiting for my mate, I mean, even if he wasn’t, but a lot of people don’t these days, you know?” Her eyes were back on the glass of water, her finger tracing the edge as if somehow she could focus on that instead of the awful things that she’d gone through.

“But once the mate bond was recognized, once we saw each other and we both knew, it was like the floodgates burst open. I didn’t know it would be like that. I mean he hasn’t marked me. We haven’t mated. But it doesn’t matter. Now every time he fucks someone else it’s like I’m being murdered. I feel like I’m being sliced to pieces. I feel like I’m dying. And then finally I do pass out from the pain. Which is a mercy, when it finally happens. I guess the real mercy is that since he found out I’m his mate he’s gone from a two to three times a day guy to a once a day guy.” She tried to laugh but the noise she made came out sounding much more like a sob.

“Fuck Wolfling. I’m so sorry.” He’d rounded the table to hold her against his chest, his hand stroking her tangled hair, his mind imagining tearing the scrawny Alpha bastard limb from limb. It wouldn’t be the first Alpha wolf he’d killed. Hell, maybe it wouldn’t even be the last. She looked up at him, through her tear filled eyes and he realized that all he wanted to do was make all of this better for her. Cupping her cheek he was a heartbeat away from promising just that when her stomach growled loudly and she winced in embarrassment.

“I guess I better get you that supper I promised you ages ago.”

“Thank you.” she whispered as he wiped away a tear from her cheek.

He filled two bowls with soup and placed one in front of her and then buttered an enormous slice of bread, before settling down right next to her, so close that their knees touched. For a moment he thought that perhaps he should scoot back, but the beast inside him wanted to be near enough to this small, fragile creature that he could protect her. And he couldn’t help but agree.