Poison

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

                Melanie and Talon had stayed up late the previous night talking about the situations in which they were raised. Melanie hadn’t thought of the hunters as horrible parents, and she certainly thought Talon had it worse with a physically and mentally abusive pack alpha, but as she listened to his story, she realized that the hunters had been similar in some ways to Talon’s former alpha.

                By the time it was her turn to share, she found it far more difficult to tell than she had expected. She didn’t think her situation was worse than Talon’s, but she was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that her adoptive parents had been bad and had mistreated her. She ended up in tears by the time she had finished, and Talon had held her until she fell asleep.

                He had left for work by the time she woke up. Usually, she heard him walking around and was awake to say goodbye. She didn’t like waking up to an empty apartment, although Talon’s scent surrounded her, which was comforting. She tried to read like she usually did to pass the time, but she had a hard time focusing on her book.

                Instead, she found herself thinking about what Talon had said the night before. It wasn’t anything about his childhood that had her attention, but instead about what he had said about the people who raised her and how they made her feel about herself. Everything he said was true – her entire life, she’d felt like a monster, some dangerous creature that could go out of control and murder people without warning. She knew werewolves weren’t as bad as they would have her believe, but she couldn’t help but still feel like there was something wrong with her.

                Talon had shown her time and again that werewolves were just people, but the last time she had seen Talon as a wolf, she had still felt uncomfortable. He hadn’t shifted since moving into the apartment, and Melanie was glad for that, but she didn’t want to make him suppress that part of himself anymore. It was a part of him, and a part of her as well, even if she couldn’t shift.

                When Talon finally came home that afternoon, Melanie nearly jumped on him when he came home as she couldn’t hold in her excitement, even if what she was about to ask made her nervous. “Hi Talon,” she said, smiling as she held him tightly.

                “Hey,” he replied, shocked by her behavior. Of course, he wouldn’t complain if she wanted to show affection. He’d been restraining himself from touching her, but he assumed it would be okay to return the gesture. “Everything okay?”

                “Yeah,” she said, pulling away from him slightly, but not before taking in a deep breath of his scent. “I’m just glad you’re home.”

                “Me too,” he said, wondering what had gotten into her. He didn’t want to say anything in case it made her become less affectionate, but he had to wonder if something really was wrong. Everything looked and smelled normal in the apartment, so he knew nothing had happened. At least not anything he could sense.

                “I also wanted to talk to you about something,” she said, starting to feel her heart rate increase. She worried about what Talon would think of her request.

                “Yeah?” he asked, hoping it was nothing bad. He had a sinking feeling it was, though. Like she might want to go back to the mountains. “What’s up?”

                “I was just thinking about us and well, living together. I, um…” Melanie was having difficulty getting her words out, even though she had practiced it over and over in her head before Talon came home. But with him standing in front of her, she couldn’t remember what she wanted to say.