The Boy Next Door-
So sorry it took sooo long to get this posted, but it took me so long to get this chapter figured out on top of moving and everything else. I hope that you all will forgive me.
Also I’d just like to warn you guys now, I tend to lean more towards drama in my stories and that’s why this chapter is as long as it is; I just couldn’t find a good place, in my mind, to stop the flow.
If you find it confusing I apologize, I tried to explain what needed to be explained without giving anything else away, but after awhile of staring at the computer screen I just kinda wanted to get the chapter over and done with.
Eight:
The scream reverberated off the bloodstained walls, playing repeatedly through her mind like a broken record. The stench of death, of the rotting flesh she tried hard not to think about so close to her feet, had bile rising in her throat when there was nothing left in her stomach. It was already all over the clothes she had been forced into, the cold concrete floor beneath her bottom.
She curled herself into as small a ball as possible, clinging to the last shred of her sanity as the scene played out before her eyes. What she was seeing could not possibly be real. The human body was capable of many things, she knew, but the shifting; the cracking of the bones beneath his skin had to have been a result of whatever they'd laced her drink with. A hallucination that felt too damn real.
Pitch black, soulless eyes latched onto her as the too thin, sickly pale form fell to his knees, an inhuman howl echoing throughout the abandoned building. The movement of his bones beneath his skin had her gagging, watching in rapt horror as hair sprouted all across his naked body.
Claws tore through his nail beds, screeching loudly across the concrete floor his body convulsed on. His bones contorted as his body writhed, limbs pulling spasmodically against the chains that held him against the wall across the room.
He twisted, arms unhinging from their sockets as he fell forward, bones snapping as they reformed. Brown fur, the color of the hair atop his head, grew in mere seconds along his forearms, paws flailing wildly against the chains that had, only moments before, encased his wrists as the rest of his body contorted and convulsed.
His face elongated, canines drawing blood from where they pierced his lip when they grew into wolf like fangs. A low, chest constricting whine slipped free of the muzzle that suddenly dominated his features, lips drawing back from his teeth when his jaws snapped together.
Laughter bounced off the walls around her when the animal lunged towards her only to snarl when the chains restricting his movements prevented him from reaching her. Samara shook, wrapping her arms around her knees when the black, black eyes of the wolf latched onto her gaze.
A gun was tossed at her feet seconds before a door slammed and a lock clicked home. The wolf lunged at her again, pulling furiously at the chains that kept it from its prey of choice. Metal snapped, cracking beneath the amount of pressure the animal forced upon it. Before she even realized what she was doing, Samara held the gun between shaking hands, clutching the weapon to her chest even as her mind railed against the thought of using it. She had never used a gun before in her life despite the fact that her father had made it a point to teach her how.
When the animal lunged for her again the chains ripped free of the wall, the clang of metal against concrete the only sound to be heard in the dead silence of the dingy basement. The wolf stalked her, spittle dripping from the fangs of its teeth as it paced before her, coming ever closer with every step.
She shrank back against the wall, the gun shaking desperately in her hands. Her breath stuttered in her chest, heart hammering so harshly against her chest she was positive the animal could hear it.
“Daddy?”
* * *
Samara jolted upright in her bed, staring blankly around the room as one of her hands shakily lifted to the faint, nearly invisible scars that marred the right side of her neck. A sob hitched in her throat as the echo of that single gunshot bounced around her mind. She buried her head in her hands, trembling despite the humidity in the air.
Floorboards creaked beneath her feet as she slipped from the bed, freezing her in her tracks. Her heart thrummed a staccato against her ribcage, goose bumps rose along her arms. “I’m losing my mind,” Or had she already lost it?
Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she continued on her way to the bathroom, holding her breath every time a sound-other than the racing of her own heat-reached her ears. God, she had thought she was over being too afraid to even walk around her own apartment. Nevertheless, even two days after the “incident”, as she’d deigned to call it, in the hall she was still jumpier than hell.
And she hated it. She had tried convincing herself that she’d imagined the whole-hell, for all she knew she had imagined. That maybe she had suppressed her fears for so long that they had finally come back to haunt her. Colton was probably as normal, as human, as a person could be… she was just too afraid to find out. And that was all there was to it. She was just as afraid as she had been two years ago-there was no other excuse for why she had hidden in her apartment for two days.
She was staring at her reflection in the mirror, wincing at the black circles beneath her eyes when a hard knock sounded on the front door. Frowning as she stepped out into the hall her eyes sought out the clock on the hall wall. Four in the morning. Another knock echoed down the darkened hall. Who the hell would be knocking on her door at four in the morning?
Trepidation skittered along her spine. Every horrible scenario her mind could conjure up played across her mind like a broken record. Something could be wrong, with her mother-as much as they didn’t get along the woman was the only family she had left-or Jimmy and Leanne. Or even, and she would deny that the thought had ever even crossed her mind until the day she died-Colton.
What other reason would a person have for pounding on her door so early in the morning?
It was those thoughts and the horrible sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that had her hurrying down the hall, stopping briefly to unlock the dead bolts Colton’s brother had installed the day before before she flung open the door.
Only to come face to face with Colton’s mother herself, Delia Frost.
“Uh,” Confusion had her standing silently in the doorway, blinking at the other woman blankly. “Hi?”
The corners of Delia’s mouth turned down into a frown, as she looked Samara up and down. “Well, at least he’s not the only one suffering.” Hauntingly blue eyes narrowed on her as they scanned her face, disapproval darkening their depths.
“Mrs. Frost, what are you-” Samara stopped short at the sudden anger that lit the other woman’s eyes.
“Mrs. Frost is my late mother-in-law… She tried to kill me.” She finished when Samara merely stared back at her, at a loss as to what to say or even why this woman was here.
“I’m… sorry?” Her mother-in-law had tried to kill her? Just what kind of family were they? Samara gulped, noting the satisfaction in Delia’s gaze when Samara’s eyes flickered to the door of Colton’s apartment. “Um, why are you here?”
Perfectly manicured nails tapped against the other woman’s thigh. “Well, let’s see, shall we? I’m here, dearest, because my son’s mate has decided to hide like a child rather than face what she saw… I’m here because my family dinner was short one member last night…” The more she spoke the lower her voice got until her next words were nothing more than a growl. “I’m here, young lady, because even though I know how afraid you must be my son is suffering because you refuse to acknowledge his existence and the connection between you. And that I will not stand for.”
“Look, I don’t know what Colton told you or what you heard about me but I doubt you understand how I’m feeling and quite frankly, it’s none of your damn business.” She’d never felt so angry, or so helpless. Not even her own mother had understood why she was still so afraid, how could Colton’s?
Delia’s voice softened, compassion replacing her anger. “See, that’s where you’re wrong, dear. What happens to you became my business the minute I found out what you mean to my son.” She waved her hand through the air when Samara would have protested. “I know what those men did to your father, Samara. What you had to do in order to survive.”
Horror and mortification washed over her with such intensity that she slumped against the doorframe. “How?” She croaked, but she already had a good idea.
Jimmy had probably told Colton why she had flipped out the way she had in the hall and Colton had most likely told his mother about the crazy woman he had gone out with. And now Delia was here to tell her she needed help-
“Because they were rogue Weres-” Huh? Samara’s mind blanked and it must have shown on her face because Delia sighed. “I’m not even going to try and explain-I’ll leave that business to my son-if you can get him to shift back…” She shook her head to herself, pasting on a soft smile when her gaze found Samara’s again. “Now come along. I have to be back before Richard gets up otherwise he’ll lecture me for meddling again.” She never gave her a chance to reply, instead Delia grabbed Samara’s arm and pulled her along after her into Colton’s apartment.
Why she was so surprised that Delia didn’t even bother to knock before going in she didn’t know, nor did it matter when her brain finally caught up with her gaze as it followed the pacing form in the middle of the room.
“Ah, ah, ah.” It was as though the other woman read her mind. Delia’s grasp on her arm tightened until she was positive there would be a bruise later before Samara could even attempt to flee. “If you run he’ll just have to follow you. There’s nothing a wolf loves more than a chase, you know.”
“No,” She shook her head, trying desperately to free herself of Delia’s grasp. “I can honestly say I don’t know.” She spoke as though it was normal, as though seeing a black wolf nearly the size of a full-grown horse roaming around her son’s apartment was a natural, everyday occurrence. And, Samara supposed, for the Frost family it was. “Let go of me!”
The other woman turned on her faster than Samara could have blinked. “Samara,” Delia’s hands clasped her shoulders, giving her a firm shake. “He’s not going to hurt you. Deep down you know that.”
She wasn’t stupid. She knew she was paranoid. She knew that not everyone was out to kill or torture her in some unimaginable way, but the terror was always there just underneath the skin, lurking in the back of her mind. It had taken everything in her not to flip out at the mere thought of being alone with Colton days before and now, with the memories of her father’s death fresh in her mind, it was all she could not to bolt out the door.
“No, I don’t. Let go of me.” She jerked out of Delia’s hold, stumbling back against the closed door in her attempt to get away. Fear thickened the air around her making it even harder for her to breathe as she started to hyperventilate. Black spots danced along the edges of her vision as she watched the wolf stop its pacing, cocking its head to the side as Colton’s deep green eyes stared her down.
Delia blocked her view of the animal, concern creasing her forehead. “Honey, calm down. You need to breathe. I can understand how afraid you are, believe me, it’s understandable, but you know he wouldn’t harm a hair on your head. You can feel it, no matter how much you want to deny it, can’t you? I know, I’ve been in your shoes, it’s scary as hell at first, but you can’t wish away the truth-”
Samara shook her head or maybe it was just a result of her entire body shaking, she wasn’t sure. “It’s not real. None of this is real.” It was a mantra she had repeated to herself thousands of times over the years and, so far, it hadn’t seemed to work. But it comforted her; the fact that she could at least pretend what she was seeing wasn’t really happening.
She saw, distantly, from the corner of her eye the air behind Delia’s shoulder shimmering, but her mind refused to process what it could have meant.
“Yes, my dear, it is. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can move on. Blaming yourself for what happened won’t change anything and it really isn’t healthy for you or my son. You can’t keep hiding-”
“That’s enough.” The shocking gruffness of Colton’s voice slid across her senses almost like nails on a chalkboard. Shudders ran up and down her spine even as she shrank back into the door at the volume with which his voice projected.
Delia’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t so much as turn around to face her son. Her lips pursed. “Was I finished talking?”
Colton sighed. “No.”
“Then why are you?” Either she hadn’t expected an answer or she simply hadn’t cared if he gave one. “Now, where was I…? And don’t you even think about calling your father, Colton Andrew Frost.” Delia turned and Samara barely caught a glimpse of the phone Colton held before his mother marched across the room and snatched it out of his hand. “Now, don’t you have something you’d like to say to your guest?”
Both mother and son turned towards her just as her hand landed on the doorknob. Delia sighed in exasperation, but it was Colton’s face that held her attention. His expression was as blank as a sheet of paper, but the green/gold of his eyes raged with warring emotions. Dark circles marred the skin beneath his eyes reminding her of her own expression in the mirror.
His entire body-his entire naked body-was tense, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides as though he was having a difficult time staying in one place. There was a slight relief in his gaze, as though he was glad to see her. Maybe her sleep deprivation was finally catching up to her.
“I’m sorry… about my mother. We’ve tried putting her on medications before, but nothing really helps the insanity. The voices in her head-Hey!” He smothered a curse, rubbing the foot his mother had stomped on.
“I am not crazy; your father had me tested.”
Despite herself, Samara found that she was stifling a laugh at the insanity of the situation and the normalcy in the way Delia and Colton interacted throughout it. And the look on Delia’s face as she glared up at her son wasn’t helping with her laughter either. That combined with the way Colton shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot under the force of her glare was just too comical-
The laughter bubbled unbidden from her chest and once it started, she found that she couldn’t stop. Before she knew it, she was bent over at the waist, clutching her middle as the hysterical laughter continued to spill past her lips. Tears burned behind her eye lids, her throat worked reflexively even as she continued to laugh.
She barely even heard when Delia continued speaking.
“Fix this, boy, or I may be forced to hurt you.” Delia skirted around her as she let herself out, one last sympathetic sigh filling the sudden silence before the door clicked shut behind her.
It took Samara several moments to realize that she no longer had the buffer of Colton’s mother, that he was watching her as her laughter finally died down, and that they were so very… alone.
Her nerves ratcheted up a notch, fear of an entirely different kind knotting her airway when he continued to watch her as an animal would its prey, as though he expected her to bolt at any moment. And she probably would have had her legs not chosen that moment to turn to jelly.
Colton took one very tiny step towards and every muscle in her body tensed. Her back straightened, though she kept her arms wrapped loosely around her middle. Watching him as he watched her.
“Don’t,” He exhaled on a rough curse. “Don’t look at me like that.” His voice cracked. Jerking a hand through his already disheveled hair his gaze bounced around the room as though he knew just how much his stare unnerved her. “I’m not going to hurt you… If nothing else you have to believe that.”
She did, to the very center of her being and that fact alone terrified her. She’d never trusted anyone so easily before in her life, not even her parents, but she trusted Colton. God, she really was losing her mind, wasn’t she.
“What are you?” She whispered almost breathlessly, eyes narrowing on the way his entire body tensed when she breathed the question.
“I’m a Were, a shifter, and I’m going to do everything in my power, Samara, to make you believe that I will never hurt you.” And he meant, she could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice even though she barely paid any attention to anything he said after I’m a Were.
Was she supposed to know what the hell that meant?
She was terrified of him. The knowledge left a hollow ache in the center of his chest, but it wasn’t as though he couldn’t understand why she watched him the way one would a rabid animal. After all she had been through; he was surprised she could stand being in the same room as him, knowing what she now knew.
She breathed out slowly as his vow and everything else he’d said sunk in and he was forever grateful to the Gods that even a smidgen of her fear disappeared from her eyes. “W-what does that mean exactly?”
Colton barely managed to keep from growling in frustration. He’d imagined this conversation going over a helluva a lot differently and much farther down the road. Preferably, after she had fallen in love with him. Yes, he could be a selfish bastard but at the moment, he just didn’t give a damn.
“It means that… I’m-” Christ, how was he supposed to explain this to her when he could barely understand it himself and he’d lived with this reality his entire life. “I’m not human, Samara. Not entirely. I’m more animal than man, baby.” He sighed, fidgeted where he stood and finally sank down onto the couch, butt naked.
“Obviously,” He had a sinking feeling he wasn’t imagining the bitter edge to her voice.
“That wolf you saw is who-what-I am. Hell, sometimes I think I’m better at being the wolf than the man. I’m not gonna pretend otherwise.” He raked a hand through his hair. “The beast is inside of me; always has been, always will be. My instincts are much more… savage than a normal man’s. The wolf is always at the back of my mind, just beneath the surface and it doesn’t take much to set him off.” But she’d probably already figured that out when he very nearly choked one of her closest friends to death.
She’d grown paler and paler as he spoke, he noted out of the corner of his eye. He wasn’t explaining this right, he knew, but he didn’t know how else to go about it. Growing up in his family-with their pack-he’d learned not to sugarcoat things-as Alpha that was Noah’s job. But he now wished he had paid attention when his father had tried to explain to him and all his brothers the necessity of sugarcoating the truth when telling their mate about who they were.
“You change into that-” She swallowed, “Wolf whenever you want?” At his nod, she sank back against the wall. “But, how?”
How. Hell, maybe he should have had his mother stick around for a while. She absolutely loved explaining that no one in fact knew how Shifters came to be, that they just were. There were legends in every culture surrounding Shifters, but only the Purebloods of their kind knew the true story and no one even knew if there were Purebloods left or if they’d all gone insane and killed themselves, as were the rumors. Somehow, he doubted that was what she wanted to hear, though.
“You sure you wanna know?” It wasn’t lost on in him that she kept the door within arm’s length. Despite the way she stared him defiantly in the eye, listening intently to every word he said she looked as though this was the last place she wanted to be. And he didn’t know how to make it any easier on her. He didn’t know how to ease the fear wafting off of her in waves; the shit was like a Goddamn slap in the face and it was all because he’d been the one to put it there.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.” She snapped, gaze flickering to his c0ck when the damn thing jerked to attention at the defiance in her tone. The wolf in him wanted nothing more than to take her up on the challenge in her voice, but he was also smart enough to realize that now just wasn’t the time to assert his dominance.
“Not all of us are like the men who killed your father. We’re not all monsters, Samara.”
Her gaze drifted to the floor as though she’d suddenly found the patterns there so very interesting. Raw pain emanated off of her as soon as the words left his mouth making him feel like the worst sort of ass, but pussyfooting around the elephant in the room would only work for so long and after three months of trying to get through the walls she’d erected around herself Colton was at the end of his rope.
Patience had never been his strong suit.
“I’m not stupid,” Her voice was hollow, broken when she spoke. “I do realize that, you know.”
“Do you? Because you’re still watching me like you expect me to go for your throat at any fucking second.” He didn’t exactly know when his control snapped, it could have been when her expression flushed with guilt, or even when the scent of her tears went to his head faster than the strongest whiskey.
It didn’t really matter because before either of them knew it he was across the room, gripping her arms as he lifted her off her feet, pressing her back to the wall before the shock even hit her eyes.
She swallowed. “I-I’m not afraid-”
“You’re fucking terrified of me, don’t bother denying it, you’ll only piss me off.” He bared his teeth at her, very much aware that he was, in that moment, more animal than man as he held her off the ground.
He expected her to cower in her fear, to shrink away from his gaze like so many before her had done. In hindsight, Colton admitted that he had underestimated her. Because he should have realized that, after everything she’d been through and he knew every gory little detail, his little mate would be more than capable of handling even his worst moods.
“What the hell do you expect?” She snarled at him, baring her teeth back at him in a way that would have had his mother jumping up and down in glee. “Obviously Jimmy told you everything he knows, so tell me, just how in the hell did you expect me to react? This isn’t exactly easy for me.”
He was momentarily stunned by the expression on her face, the fire in her eyes as whatever walls she’d built in her mind to keep her emotions in check crumbled and he almost gave in to the asinine urge to grin like a kid on Christmas until what she’d actually screamed into his face sunk in.
Easy for her? She thought this wasn’t easy for her?
“And you think any of this is easy for me? You think it’s easy for me to stand here with you fear filling every breath I take? Or to hear the pain in your voice when you wake up screaming in the middle of the night when I know that night you spent in my bed was the only night the nightmares didn’t haunt you? This is no easier for you than it is for me.”
Moisture gathered in her eyes, one lone tear streamed down her cheek. “You don’t understand.”
“So, then explain it to me. Explain to me why you think any of that night was your fault, why you’ve let the guilt eat you alive for the past two years.” He softened his voice. “Help me understand what goes on in that pretty little head of yours, little cat.”
“It was my fault,” The tears flowed freely now, silent sobs breaking his heart as they stuttered in her chest. “I told them exactly where we were staying.” She squeezed her eyelids shut, either to block out the memories or because she was too ashamed to look him in the eye, Colton didn’t know, nor did he care. “I led them right to us.”
“And then what?” He wanted so much to tell her to stop, that it didn’t matter either way if she ever told him what had happened, but he knew for a fact that she’d never told a soul what all had taken place that night and Colton knew firsthand just how much the truth could eat you alive if you kept it inside.
And after three months of her hiding from him he wouldn’t stand for it any longer. He wasn’t going to let her suffer in silence for something that simply wasn’t her fault any more or he’d end up spanking her ass in a way she wouldn’t soon forget.
She avoided his gaze, ducking her head when he gripped her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. “You already know.”
“Jimmy only knows what he saw on that tape, I want to hear it from you.” Even if it was killing him to feel her pain as she relived it. “Say it,” He demanded when she shook her head, eyes squeezing shut once more. “Say it.”
“Why?” She cried out, fighting against his hold. “You already know what happened, why do you need to hear me say it so badly? Why can’t you just leave it be?”
“Because,” His hands cupped her face, thumbs brushing away the tears still streaming down her cheeks. “Because, I need you to understand that you didn’t have any other choice. It’s forbidden to try and force The Change on full humans for the very fact that they lose every ounce of their humanity. That’s what happened to your dad, baby. Do you know what that means?” A sob hiccupped in her throat as she shook her head. “He would have killed you, Samara.”
“No,” The denial sounded weak even to her own ears, but she made it anyway. Her father wouldn’t have actually killed her, she refused to believe that.
“Yes, he would have and you know that, don’t you. Your father was already dead, Mara, all that was left was the animal. Whether you believe it or not you didn’t have any other choice.”
She wanted to believe him more than anything, but how did that make what she had done any better?
His lips feathered over her eyelids in the lightest of kisses, regret tinting his voice when he spoke into her hair. “I’ll drop it, for now. But you’re wrong if you think I’m going to keep letting you wallow in your guilt, little cat. I’ll tan your hide before I’ll let you go on like this.”
She couldn’t fight him. Even as her mind railed against the thought of being in his arms any longer, her body willingly surrendered to his hold. His warmth.
The sobs spilled past numb lips, shudders raking her shoulders as Colton sank down onto the floor, pulling her into his lap. His arm wrapped tight around her, rocking her back and forth as the dam broke.
The guilt that he spoke of eased marginally as he whispered nonsensical words into her hair and Samara finally noticed something that well and truly baffled her.
“Colton,” She mumbled sleepily into his chest, the emotional exhaustion sinking into her senses as she squirmed in his lap feeling his erection against her thigh. “Why are you naked?”
He groaned out a laugh against the top of her head. “It’s a wolf thing.”
What do you think?