Chapter Ninety Four
I stared at the ground, sitting in the dirt with my arms wrapped around my knees and my chin buried comfortably in them.
Wind rustled through the forest, cold and uncomfortable and nondescript and real. I felt like crying, not knowing if I was doing the right thing.
After all, this wasn't my fight.
It wasn't my right to criticize him, but I hadn't been able to help it. Talking to the kid hadn't been smart of me, true, but he was a sweetheart and it sucked what he was going through. I'd just wanted to make Jak fully understand the consequences of his actions so he would regret hurting Horst.
If he regretted his actions, he would stop them, right?
Maybe... maybe not.
I didn't know him enough to say.
Plus, I was still in mild shock after seeing Sebastian acting so violent and cruel. Even if it had been for my sake, why did it always have to end in violence? Was aggression really the only way for werewolves to get their points across to each other?
I felt like crying because I didn't know what to feel about it. Mad, sad, angry, proud, glad, happy---it was a maelstrom that wouldn't stop spinning.
A chill went through me and I shuddered heavily, finally moving my hands so I could pull my hair around me like a blanket. I sighed through my nose, wondering if I should go back and talk to Sebastian about all of this.
Should I confront him?
Thank him?
I didn't know what to do, but more than anything in the world right then, all I wanted was a hug.
A big, tight hug.
I saw a flicker to my left and looked up in confusion, but to my surprise I saw a familiar silhouette standing near a tree.
"Bash?" I asked, squinting at the shadow's stoic amber eyes. "Um... hi..."
I heard a snort and he slid out of the dark, coming into view. He was still stark naked and covered in healing scratches and bites, but he looked like he was in better condition. His face was unreadable as he stopped beside me, looking down at where I was sitting wrapped in my hair.
"Hello," he said quietly, folding his thick arms. "Eavesdropper."
I didn't flinch or wince, merely looked up at him sadly.
"I came out here looking for you because I needed you around me," I said bleakly. "You were going at it... I didn't know what to do, so I just ended up watching."
"I will not apologize for brutalizing him," Sebastian uttered, sinking down to one knee and setting a heavy hand on my cheek. "However... when it comes to you and your safety, I will not tolerate someone like him trying to harm you, ever. I made you a promise."
I leaned into the heat of his hand with a sigh.
"This whole meeting thing is turning into a nightmare," I told him. "I just want it to be over already... just back to you, me, Woody, and Tiff in the cabin."
"Eventually," he promised, scooping me into his arms before settling back and folding his legs; I curled up against the heat of his body as he held me, stroking my hair. "I can see you have a lot on your mind after everything that's happened. You have my ear should you need to vent."
"I don't even know how to vent right now," I muttered, shaking my head. "I don't know what I'm feeling... but its a lot."
"You'll survive," he said, but when he spoke his voice was husky and strangled sounding. I looked into his face to see him staring back at me with a fiery intensity that I was fairly certain was going to set the whole damned forest alight. "I am... sorry... that you have had such an upsetting evening. I will do my best to take responsibility for the hardship you've endured."
I felt my heart speed up and internally groaned for it to settle down because I knew too well that he could hear every frantic flutter inside my chest.
Fuck werewolves and their superpowers. Fuck werewolves and their fucking smells.
It was like an aroma bomb had gone off in our general vicinity; a burst of heady Sebastian-scent flooded my senses all at once and it was all I could do not to close my eyes and enjoy taking it all in. I knew it was flowing off of him because it clung to his body and all of his belongings.
I felt my heart speed up and shifted in his grasp, righting myself so I was straddling his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and brought our noses together even as the sadness inside me welled up.
Oh... that's what I was feeling.
I was sad. Extremely sad. Upset, unhappy, dismayed.
"What are you doing?" Sebastian asked and now his voice was strained, like he was on the verge of getting very angry - or he was holding himself severely in check.
"Looking at you," I muttered, doing just that despite the tears welling up. "Can you promise me something, Sebastian?"
He blinked, then uttered a low but guttural, "if I must."
"Promise me you won't ever kill anyone who can think and rationalize between right and wrong," I said firmly, and he stiffened, eyes sharpening as they flitted across my face. "If you have to fight... fight. If its a vampire that won't stop and there's really no other way... fine. If it's somebody like Jak, who's just... angry, and wrong, and can't see that he's wrong... don't hurt people like him, okay?"
"I cannot promise that I will not hurt people like him, especially if they dare to try harming you," he said quietly, leaning forward and brushing our lips together; his eyes sank down to a half-lidded state, burning into my mind and memory even as they softened. "I could not let him get away with what he did."
"It was already over," I chided. "You didn't need to beat him up like that."
"I will not... defend myself... or say that I was in the right," he hissed against my lips, soft touches of heat and breath misting against my mouth, "but he put... the same looks on your face... that I once did... and I got angry at both him and myself. So, I subjugated him."
There was a part of me that understood that his behavior stemmed from many reasons... wolfish possessiveness, the self loathing he carried for our rocky beginning perhaps, and maybe even the fact that he had a moral code and might have wanted to right an obvious injustice.
I decided to let it go.
"Please don't do it again unless its necessary, or unless I'm literally in danger," I mumbled, closing my eyes as his scent rose up even stronger. "Oh... wow."
I inhaled, brows raising at the pleasantness filling my nose.
He instantly pulled back and I heard his breathing halt; I shifted my weight, feeling a rigid protrusion against my rear, but I hardly noticed since it was like I was drowning in an aphrodisiac of some sort. I could smell him literally everywhere, his aroma, his musk... yikes.
"What are you doing?" he asked, growling low in the back of his throat. "Are you... smelling me?"
I snorted, cracking an eye open.
"How can I not?" I drawled. "I mean... you're... its... uh... strong. Way stronger than usual, it's like a cloud of your body's smell is surrounding us. I mean, what am I supposed to do, not smell?"
"You're smelling my victory," Sebastian said in a slow, concise sentence, as though he might just lose his shit if he happened to raise his voice even the slightest bit. He raised a brow at me, calculating his next move before making it, then leaned forward and stuck his nose right in the crook of my neck without even so much as a 'how do you do?'
He forced me backwards and I hit the dirt, hair pinned beneath me, and I felt him loom over me, placing one knee between the 'V' of my legs and both hands on either side of my head so he could hover over me. He looked down into my face with a slow, curious once over.
"Your... victory?" I asked, and he smirked. "Seriously? Please tell me you're not the sort of guy who gets overly sweaty when he wins at something."
"I cannot, because I am. All werewolves are. When an alpha fights against another alpha and wins," he quietly explained, "the victor's body secretes a powerful aroma almost automatically. It has to do with endorphins that are triggered by the instincts in our minds. It's uncontrollable, but powerful and potent."
"I'll say," I chuckled, breathing deeply. "Why do you smell so good...? It's so weird!"
"Hn... what do I smell like to you right now?"
I paused mid-inhale, closing my eyes as I thought about it.
"You smell like... burnt wood," I said a little dreamily, "and also like a forest after it's rained... and something... earthy, and sweet, and heavy. It's... like the smell I got before, but..."
I trailed off when I noticed Sebastian's breathing getting more laborious above me. Maybe it was totally creepy that I could tick off a half-dozen things that he smelled like without really thinking about it. His eyebrow quirked a bit when I quit naming things.
"Is that it?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
"Uh... no, not really," I said, shifting underneath him, "but y'know, at this point I couldn't sound any weirder so I think I'm about done."
His knee slid between my thighs.
"Aerin," he said huskily, eyes darkening slightly. "I want you. Now."
I felt my stomach flip.
"Here?" I asked, raising my brows. "Really?"
"Right here," he whispered, leaning down and setting his forehead against mine. "Right now. I'm barely holding back. It's been a struggle all night."
After everything that had just happened? No... no, not after all that, at least not right away.
"Not now," I sighed, and his eyes slowly fluttered open. "You and Jak still have to get through the meeting since everyone is waiting on you guys. After that, we have the movie night... but once they leave... okay. Plus, I need time to wind down, okay?"
Those eyes staring down at me flashed brilliantly orange and I saw a flash of pointed teeth for about a half of a second before he was on me, all lips and fang. I could have said that I was shocked but at this point I'd lost the ability to be surprised by anything Sebastian did.
He'd gathered some prickly stubble that grazed against my chin and upper lip, but it really didn't bother me. I relaxed into the kiss even as my werewolf lover pressed a big hand against the side of my face, his thumb somewhere near the vicinity of my left eye. In my peripheral I was fairly certain I saw an elongated fingernail sitting dangerously close to the soft tissue that was my cornea.
In a second or two it was gone, so I could have imagined it.
Sebastian's lips softened after a moment, became less aggressive, and he took a deep breath.
Calmed himself.
He pulled away, eyes smoldering at me with wicked promises.
"I... won... against myself just now," he said softly, kissing my forehead. "I will wait."
That being said, he pulled away, picked me up, twisted, and crouched low. With a heave of his legs we went flying into the sky and soared way above the treeline. I let out a gasp and clung to his neck as my hair was blasted out of my face, staring with terror at the grounds of the plantation manor over a hundred, and maybe even two hundred feet below us. I couldn't stop myself from screaming when we started going down.
I buried my face in his shoulder, clinging to him in terror as my stomach flew up my throat.
With a jolt that made my bones jerk, he landed and sank down into a crouch, powerful legs rippling as they absorbed the impact of the landing. I shuddered as he rose, peeking ahead to see that he was carrying me up the porch stairs.
Jak was waiting for him just inside the front door, arms folded and still completely naked save for his leather jacket; he glared at us when we halted.
"Do you have any spare trousers, mon?" he lowly demanded, Jamaican accent coming thick. "I believe it would be awkward for everyone if we went back in naked as the day we were born."
I instantly patted Sebastian's arm to get his attention and said, "put me down for now. I'm gonna go head back into the movie room and try to relax until later, okay? Come tell me when its time to do the movie night."
His eyes searched my face, then he nodded and kissed me on the lips; I returned the gesture with an equal amount of gentleness, even going as far as stroking the back of his head. He seemed to like it whenever I did that, I was beginning to notice, since he always let out a deep rumble of contentment every single time.
Then we pulled back and he set me down, stroking my cheek.
"Again," Sebastian told me, looking somewhat subdued all of a sudden, "I am sorry for how hard tonight has been so far. I promise to make it up to you."
"It's not over yet, we can turn it around," I sighed, nuzzling his warm palm. "Now, go get dressed and get him some jeans before somebody sees you."
Sebastian nodded, then cast a glare at Jak and gestured with his head for the man to follow before sweeping down the hall at a somewhat abnormal speed. Jak did so without a word after a long look at me, disappearing around the corner just as quickly.
I stared after them both, dazed and disheveled, until I simply couldn't do so anymore and wound up wandering mindlessly down the halls, moving like a dazed robot toward the theater hall. I didn't really have any sort of mindset about the freakish hell that had just transpired. I didn't know what to think.
All of the muddled thoughts going through my brain vanished, however, the moment I found myself standing in the doorway to the movie room, where Woody and Horst were tumbling across the floor with each other and... wrestling?
"Whooo! Come on, Horst!" Tiffany cheered, clapping and throwing her hands around. "You got this, little man! Give my hillbilly a run for his money!"
"He's too big!" the kid wheezed, kicking his furry legs; his feet hit the carpet-coated wooden floor with several muffled clumping noises as he was pinned, yet Woody merely grinned and let him get leverage, allowing them to roll yet again. "Ugh! Why is he so fat?!"
"Oh, that's all muscle, baby!" Tiffany chimed, winking at him with a wide grin. "Trust me."
"Ewww, don't make it weird!" he snapped, straddling Woody's hips and attempting to keep his wrists pinned. "Ha... I'm... gonna... win... FACK!"
They struggled back and forth for a long time, but eventually Woody started leaning back, shaking arms slowly sinking to the carpet by his wrists. I could tell by his movements that he was intentionally letting Horst win, that this was all a show, but the kid was buying and enjoying every bit of it.
He let out a scream of joy when he managed to pin the man's wrists down and jumped upright, throwing his fists into the air with his elf-like ears lifting towards the ceiling
"I did it!" he screeched, laughing hysterically and pointing at the silently chuckling redhead. "I won! I won! I beat you! HA!"
"WHOOOOOO!" Tiffany screeched, jumping into the air and kicking her legs out; she landed lightly and started clapping, feeding his ego. "GOOD JOB, MUSCLE GUY! YOU'RE SO TOUGH!"
"Uh huh," he preened, flexing his skinny arms and wriggling in triumph. "Fuckin' right, yeah?"
Woody turned his green eyes on me and blinked when he saw me staring at them, but his smile broadened and he shrugged before signing, 'he makes me want to have my own kids.'
I blinked, glancing at Tiffany before looking at Horst, who was having a blast. I had no idea when the mood in this room had changed so drastically, but hey, I wasn't opposed to it.
'You'll make a great father someday,' I signed back, and he positively glowed.
Then he blinked and his face softened; he lifted a finger, then two, and gestured, 'if and when that day happens, I intend to have you become the godfather."
My mouth dropped and I stared at him, eyes welling up. A godfather? Me, the godfather of Woodrow Mason's kids? It was an honor, but we hadn't met that long ago and it truly shocked me how much he seemed to trust me. Horst finally noticed that I was there and turned, blinking rapidly as he lowered his arms.
"You're back," he said, frowning. "What are you waiting for?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean, get in here, Fang Face!" he bluntly ordered, waving me over. "I'm challenging you to a wrestling match. Should be quick. You look easy to beat."
I snorted and instantly made my way in, watching as he rose and helped Woody up. The redhead flopped down on the couch, patting the cushion beside him with his brows raised at Tiffany, who leapt across the room and crashed into him instead.
She giggled when he caught her, kicking her legs. I rolled my eyes at their playful antics and looked at Horst, who was smirking.
"You ready?" he asked, leaning down with his arms up. "First one to pin the other's wrists to the ground wins!"
"Okay," I said, shrugging. "Let's go!"
I started moving forward, intending to grab him gradually, but to my surprise he flat out lowered his head and charged me like a bull. I stiffened only a split second before his shoulder hit my gut, and I let out a startled exclamation as I was brought careening to the floor.
I hit hard, hair flying in every direction, in my face, everywhere, and I felt something like rabbit's fur fall on me through the fabric of the skirt on either side of my hips. Two big hands latched on my wrists with surprising strength before I could react or get my bearings. I struggled, wriggling and kicking my snared legs, sandals beating uselessly against the floor as I pushed and bucked and writhed.
"Fuck!" I squeaked, tossing my hair out of my eyes so I could see him; my neck bulged with exertion and I tried, man, I really tried. I saw him smirking at me, eyes glittery and full of triumph as I fought to get him off my belly, but he had me pinned pretty good. "Agh! Shit!"
"This is all you got?" he deadpanned, snickering when I scowled. "Come on, Fang Face, I know you can do better than that!"
"I'm... trying," I hissed, frustrated about not being able to move. "God, DAMN! SHIT!"
"Hehe, weakling," he snickered, sticking his tongue out as he put pressure on my wrists--
A crunch filled the air.
He froze. Woody froze. Tiffany Froze.
I screamed.
"OWWW! FUCK!" I wailed, squeezing my suddenly burning eyes shut. "All right, let go! Ow!"
"I-I'm so sorry!" Horst yelped, leaping off of me as if he'd been scalded; Woody was beside me in a second, holding my right wrist and carefully prodding it. "I-I didn't mean to!"
"It's okay, it's okay," Tiffany soothed, looking at my arm. "Aerin, you all right?"
"I think," I hissed out, even though I most certainly was not. "Maybe its just a fracture?"
Woody's face turned green and he shook his head when he applied pressure on the exact spot I was feeling the most pain.
I felt the grinding of bone and almost passed out.
"Ohhh nooo..." Tiffany moaned, covering her mouth with a sick expression. "I heard that."
"Well, it is what it is," I hissed through clenched teeth, trying to fight for some minuscule shred of optimism, "time for another splint, I guess."
Woody looked at me and signed, 'do you want me to set the bone and go get the necessary materials for a makeshift cast?'
"Go for it," I muttered, trying not to move. "Just hurry. It hurts."
He instantly got up and hurried out of the room, and the blonde woman quickly followed him, but when they were gone I glanced to my left to see Horst looking at me in horror, eyes reddening as tears welled in them. I didn't like that. It wasn't his fault since I'd intentionally had his father run a strength test on this very same wrist earlier just to prove a point.
I'm so stupid, I mentally uttered, but aloud I said, "I'm fine, okay? It wasn't your fault."
"Did I really just break your wrist?" he raspily asked me, sounding numb. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I hurt it outside earlier so this was my fault," I reassured him. "It's going to be okay."
He sagged, gripping his horns in frustration.
"No, it's not," he said, voice strained. "Everyone keeps saying that but it's not."
"It will be," I insisted, "okay? Just trust me, things are gonna get better, I promise."
"And what if they don't?" he asked; the quiver in his voice made my heart sink. I reached out with my uninjured hand and gently took his in my own. I expected the kid to pull away, to shout at me, but nothing happened.
"They will," I repeated, quiet but firm, and after a second he relaxed in my hold. He bowed his head to hide the tears that were welling up in his eyes.
"So fuckin' sorry," he muttered. "I really didn't mean to hurt you."
"I know... but, I'm tough. I'll be healed in a few weeks."
His head flew up and he looked horrified as he squealed, "a few WEEKS?!"
"Yeah," I said with a started blink. "I heal pretty slowly. My body isn't like a werewolf's. I don't just insta-regenerate like you guys do. It's a bit faster than a human's, but not by much."
"Fuck," he whispered, and there was a moment of silence as Horst held his breath, fighting back his tears. I squeezed his palm reassuringly before letting go and leaning back.
I stared at the ceiling, exhausted.
"Let's just have a movie marathon already," I muttered. "I hope they finish soon. It's been a long fucking night."
Too long if you ask me.