23 Years Old
Januar

The wedding was so beautiful, Neema had floated down the isle in her body hugging white gown. Her hair curled and twisted into a half up and half down style.

Her skin had glowed as her eyes sparkled with unshed tears of joy, Felicity dabbing at her face as she openly cried. It had been a beautiful event. Family, friends, all together as we celebrated these two amazing people's union.

There was laughter and joy in abundance. The ceremony was wonderful and the reception was even better.

It had been a good day until it hadn't been.

Carson had me cornered in a secluded area in the gazebo, a thin flap of tent separating us from everyone else. How had I been so stupid as to be caught by this male.

A thick hand had wrapped around my wrist as I was tugged through white material. My body spinning as my back hit the edge of the gazebo and his musky scent burning my nose. His grey eyes swirling as he stared pensively at me, nostrils flaring as he crowded me in. He was dangerously close, his head bowed as lips grazed just above my nose. The ghost touch.

His large hands rested above my head as I cowered into the material at my back. It wasn't that fear that made me cower but the size of him, he was so large. Nothing like the male I had first met. Seeing him side by side Veris had taken away the size of him but now that it was just me and him alone, close like this, it was impossible to ignore. His height rivalled khans and that was a feat in itself. This male had grown into himself.

He was nothing like the young man I had first felt my heart strings fluttering for.

"I'm sorry to grab you like this but I need to speak to you" which was why he had grabbed me like I was some criminal, a woman couldn't even return from the bathroom without being attacked by unworthy males.

"Okay but can you step back first" my voice wavered at the intensity in his eyes, I couldn't recall a moment when I had seen Carson look like this. The only time I could remember him wearing an expression similar to this was that one time in my bedroom when we had been so close. So close to consolidating all those young naive dreams I had held so dearly to my heart.

The look in his eyes was so unnerving, especially as his jaw clenched at my reasonable request. Pupils dilating and flashing red flames filling his grey eyes.

"I won't take the risk of you running." He gritted, chest aligning with mine as he flattened me. His body radiating skin blistering heat into me, his presence uncomfortable.

He was too damn close -and a little crazy if he thought I was genuinely giving him an option.

"Running? I'm not that female. You want to talk then we will talk but not when you are way too close to me. So back. The. Hell. Up" my hand slapped against his chest with each ground out word. My nails scraping and tangy crimson bursting through his white shirt and filling the charged air between us.

His hands raised above his head as he retreated a few steps. The air felt so much cooler, chill wind gliding over my skin as droplets of sweat rolled down my neck. I sent him glare after glare as I readjusted my slightly crinkled dress and tried to rearrange my toppling hairstyle.

My arms folded over my chest and my hip stuck out, my lips flat lined as I waited for Carson to speak up. I swear this male ruined everything.

"What's going on with you and that male. He isn't for you. You know he's not for you, I can tell you don't even really like him." He sounded genuinely concerned as if my well being was in danger by Veris, but there was also this edge of glee at the fact that I didn't really like Veris and that infuriated me.

I wanted to rip that angled smirk from his lips but instead I shrugged dismissively, "It's really not any of your concern what males I'm around Carson."

I'll kill him with my disinterest.

"I know that but I thought- I thought that maybe we would... that in time we could..."

Ah, there it was. I would laugh if his hopeful expression wasn't so sincere. So heartfelt.

"We could what? Be together? You mean that now you aren't with anyone and I'm helping you raise Kai you assumed we would be together" I wasn't even mad, just mildly curious.

Was this man deranged?

"Well I didn't think but I hoped. I'm never going to stop hoping Vanya because the gods know that I need you."

"I know you probably think I'm lying but damn it Vanya, I can't imagine my life without you and seeing you with another male scares the shit out of me. What if you decide you don't want us anymore?"

He looked distraught, heartbroken. As if I had cheated on him and rubbed the male in his face to only go on and a marry and get pregnant by the very same male. Oh, no, that was just him.

"When are you going to get it Carson, I don't want you. I haven't in a while. I want Kai and you just happen to come with him."

"You told me that I could be his mother without being with you, have you changed your mind?"

My heart was stuck in my throat, body shaking in fear that he could be that cruel. No matter how cruelly he had treated me in my youth I refused to believe that Carson would really be that mean and manipulative.

His eyes shuttered in disgust, "I wouldn't do that to you or him, I wouldn't intentionally hurt you."

"I know I have hurt you before but it was never my intention, everything I did I tried to keep away from home. Away from you, I never meant to bring those females around you."

And for the most part he had succeeded, I had only ever really seen Carson with two females even though I knew he had probably been with quadruple the amount. He had tried to "protect me" but silly male that he was, had never understood that I always knew. Even when I didn't want to know, I knew.

People spoke and I heard, there was a scent and I always smelled it. There were bites, scratches. Just things he could never explain.

Carson always hurt me whether it was his intention or not and that's what annoyed me most. It would have been better if he had intentionally hurt me because then I could never justify anything in my mind but when I knew about his past, when I understood the man and how he had struggled. That's when it became harder for me to split my emotions.

"At this point your intentions are irrelevant. Do you not understand that there is too much between us for us to ever be?"

His face told me that he didn't understand, that with the information given he never would. Well perhaps I needed to spell it out to him.

"Then get even, get back at me. I'll sit by and won't say anything, I won't complain just please say there is a chance" His voice cracked and damp lashes flickered up at me, desperate. Disgust flickering in his orbs at the fact that he would have to beg.

My jaw dropped, I couldn't. He didn't, "What do you mean?" He couldn't mean what I thought he did.

"You can-you can see whoever, rub it in my face if you want. I won't say anything Vanya. You can hurt me back"

The look in his eyes made sense to me now, he wasn't disgusted that he was begging me but disgusted by what he was begging me to do.

This was sick. He wanted me to intentionally hurt him the way he had hurt me to get back at him. If we were even, then perhaps I wouldn't feel that bubbling disappointment deep in my pit. I wanted to dismiss it completely but there was this part of me, that part that had been corrupted by years and years of self loathing.

That part of me said yes.

Whispered lovingly in my ear as cold hands stroked my soft skin.

Black eyes and black cloak beating in the wind as a coppery breath coaxed me towards the edge. Take the leap.

Jump.

I tentatively took a step.

"How can I trust you won't get mad? You just said something now Carson, not a minute ago you were complaining about Veris."

"I know but I wouldn't say anything if you promised that some time in the future you would give me a chance to prove myself to you. It wouldn't have to be soon. I don't care how long it takes. I would take anything Vanya."

"You want me to hurt you?" I blurted, disbelief coating every word.

"I want anything that you will give me! If you need to be single or have different males for ten, twenty years I don't care. I'll wait"

He wasn't playing, he was so desperate as he grasped at straws. He would accept anything from me as long as there was hope that he could have me.

That cruel part of me giggled, dared me to do that.

To be that woman.

To be cruel

"No!" I shouted, the force of my voice scaring me but not more than how that part of me still existed. She throbbed at these dark thoughts.

Thrived on it.

I could go Years without feeling any negative emotions but the moment I felt the smallest nudge, she was there.

My cloaked friend.

She was an entity in itself, something that plagued me from young.

"I'm not that female." I cried, words shaking as I spoke more to myself. Trying to reassure myself that I wasn't that female, I wouldn't be that person.

"I won't play games with you, it may seem like I will because of today but I won't. This isn't me. I won't play tit for tat" my voice was stronger now, my aqua stone creating swirling patterns along the white tent walls as it glowed along my skin.

"Please Vanya, please" he begged, cried but I was determined now. I wouldn't let the thick black tar pollute my green.

"I can't loose you!"

"As long as we have Kai I will always be in your life but you can't hold onto this hope Carson. I wont promise you a thing." My back straightened as I stepped away from the wall. I would stand without any support.

He kept begging, fingers clenched in fists as his shoulders hunched over in defeat, but his pleading kept coming.

"I know it's been years but what you did to me...Some females may laugh at me, tell me to get over this obsession but gods Carson you hurt me so bad."

I wasn't saying this to hurt him, never that but perhaps if he fully understood what his actions did to me, he would understand why me and him just wouldn't be.

"I have never wanted to reveal the extent to which you hurt me, mainly out of shame but also because I didn't want to hash it all up, but maybe if you know you'll understand why this... can never be"

My hand gestured between us even as things became blurry between us. I had never wanted to reveal how ruined I had been because I had been ashamed of myself, how had I let a male define my life. Ruin me with his absence.

How?

I had been so hungry for love and society had taught us that the highest form of love we could ever wish to procure was in a coupling. I had found my pair and as a result all my self worth had been pinned on him. It had been too much for him and ten times worse for me.

"You ripped me to pieces, your idea of discreet decimated my soul and turned me into a withering being. I was distraught and- and suicidal. I tried to find myself in these men, anything to fill the void you left and every time I came out lacking, I sunk deeper and deeper into despair."

"My mind was a dark place, I had this black cloak over me and I tried to play it off. Laugh like I had never cried a day in my life all the while I was dying inside and silently crying for death to greet me sooner."

I wiped at my face, hands wobbling as I said all that I had never said. I had never revealed such information to anyone in my life. Not Neema, not Manal or Eliza. Cobalt didn't know and Khan would never know.

These were my own demons I had battled with and I was tired of hiding them as if they were dirty secrets. Manal had told me she could sometimes see my soul crying but she had no idea. My soul had been bleeding for years. It had been ripped to shreds and I had tried to stop the bleeding with bandage. Well they were being torn off now.

"You made me wrong Carson, love doesn't do that. Why would I go back to that love if that was all it brought me? This bond is tainted. Just let it go"

Grey eyes shattered as his body dropped to the floor, clinging and scratching at the carpet and sprouts of grass as he cried. His cries were not soundless, they were loud and carried up to the gods, they were loud and angry, resentful.

Sad

They were loud and gut wrenching as he not only cried for himself but for young Vanya. The little me who had come out of her shell with the hope of love to only realise that sometimes hope was the bringer of heartbreak.

That the lure of love was just that, a lure. A lure to bring the weak and needy crawling to her feet as she cackled at them, kicking them until their limbs shattered and their hearts barely beat. Love didn't strike to kill, she struck to maim. She wanted you limp and choking on your own mangled heart but still alive.

Barely.

His body was breaking as the howls of the hunting party carried around the tent, everyone's howls full of love and excitement.

Not his

His jaw cracked as his muzzle came forward, face to the sky as he howled.

The song mournful.

On hands and knees his body twisted as his nature fought him, hating the vessel that had caused me such pain. You see if Carson had been more wolf than man he would have never hurt me the way he did.

It was crazy that in his bid to be more acceptable in the wolf society, he had ignored that part of him. Ignored his nature.

Grey fur lined his thick body as his wolf cried, stepping tentatively towards me. A whimper with each step until he was at my feet, rubbing his thick head into my legs as he begged for my touch.

I couldn't deny this animal my love because he had never hurt me, if Carson had listened to his nature things would have been different.

Falling to my feet I petted his soft fur, rubbing behind his ears as we cried together. My face burrowed into his neck as the fur tickled my skin.

I cried hard, my body shaking because as much as I didn't feel bad for Carson I felt bad for this wolf. This part of him that he had ignored for so long. He suffered just like I suffered because though the wolf and the human were one, sometimes their natures clashed. Their desires were not unanimous.

The beast suffered and it hurt me the most because I could do nothing to stop his painful whimpers.

"There was a time I would have forgiven you anything, but now I crave a deeper love"

I craved a love like my parents.

My thirst for love had stared with them, they had loved me with everything that they were but their love for each other had surpassed that.

Their death was selfish but it was also the purest form of love. A love that would greet death with open arms and not cower. I craved that love.

They loved each other so much that they would have rather died a brutal death fighting for each other than settle for anything else and it was exactly what they had done.

They died a painful death because capture was never in their story.

Separation was not their fate, even in death they were together.

I craved that kind of love, I knew I was capable of feeling it and I wanted someone to feel the same way for me.

To love me so whole heartedly that without me life would seem bereft.

That was the only way I knew how to love, but until then, I would love myself more.

I would look in my mirror and tell myself I was beautiful, strong and worthy.

I was not lacking.

I was loved and any man would be lucky to have me.

I would never settle for less.