The Worst Kind of Wonderful

Chapter TEN

✖️The Worst Kind of Wonderful✖️

Love is composed

of a single soul

inhabiting two bodies.

-Aristotle

Chapter Ten~

My lips burned, my stomached clenched, and a flock of birds were born in my skull. I was on fire, yet felt as though I were made entirely of air or helium. Every word in every language in every world left my head and was replaced by a thought that came so suddenly, and so without remorse, that my heart skidded to a near halt in my chest. I came to the realization that throughout my entire life I had been stumbling on as something shattered: like the breaking broken borrowed thing in the bottom or the back. I was a whole person, I was full of things; pretty things before. But I was shattered.

Just being in his presence made the broken pieces heal and the healthy ones grow and come alive; beautifully and gently radiant. The moment was so feverishly and wholly real, and solid, and sewn with titanium but so dreadfully impossible that I wanted to let myself float away. But his fingers kept me grounded. Fingers that now gripped my shoulders as if afraid that if I were released I'd cease to exist. I looked up in the darkness and let the scent of earth and rain and wood fires ignite my senses. But there was something new about his scent too.

"H-how are you here, Alexander?" I asked breathlessly, my surprise dissipating and panic setting in. "And why do you smell like wolf?" I spoke a little louder, a subtle undertone of suspicion slipping into my words.

"It's a trick of the trade: werewolf, blood, saliva, and sweat." He explained distractedly obviously affected by my presence in a similar way I was to his.

"What do you do with it?" I asked, trying to evade the silence.

"We make it into a spray, it disguises our scents." A logical part of me wanted to take a giant step back, to get as far away as possible. How did he have access to such things? That question alone made my stomach churn uneasily. I thought on his answer, he used words like "we" and "our". What did that mean? He obviously still associated himself with the hunters. Another part of me wanted to laugh at the fact that I was finally face to face with my mate and this is what we found ourselves discussing.

"You're a hunter." I stated dumbly, shifting my weight and looking away even though I knew he couldn't see me. Even with my wolf-sight I could only make out vague outlines of his features in the dark.

"You know?" Was his quiet response. He seemed to expect it but there was a hint of sadness- remorse even- in his tone. I nodded my head but when we were flooded in silence I remembered that he couldn't see me. I reached to the switch on my wall and the room was painted in a thick layer of artificial light.

I looked up into his brilliantly vibrant eyes. They seemed alive: pulsing and dancing with thriving green energy. He was awe worthy, thick dark lashes, sturdy brows, a hard defined jaw, and a straight proud nose. His skin was tanned just slightly and a soft array of tiny almost invisible freckles fell across his skin. His chocolate hair swept gently over his forehead and was perfection in its disarray. He was built like someone who spent their lives training, who spent every second they could learning to run and fight and survive anything. His eyes reflected a similar story, quietly but ferociously devouring every detail of his surroundings, instinctively checking exits and undoubtedly making an escape route in his mind whether consciously or not.

After his surveillance of my room his eyes fell back to mine. We were ensnared in each other's gazes, but the feeling was less similar to that of being in a cage and more to finding yourself securely encased in home. It was a feeling I'd not known since Lacy's disappearance and I hadn't realized how desperate I was to feel it again. But I knew that the moment I lost him that finding what I had never known I longed for would be harder to lose than never knowing it existed. However strongly I felt that he was worth it.