Page 11 of Forcing Fate (Wildheart Pack #1)

Cole

Just a little longer. Let me have this a little longer.

I watched the sunrise this morning. I’ve observed the way the light travels across the walls. I’ve listened to the birds singing, but none of that is anything compared to the music in my soul. And all it takes is lying here with Nora in my arms.

I barely want to breathe. I’m that worried about waking her up. The second she does, she’s going to realize that she slept in my arms, and she’s going to push me away. I can handle it… but that doesn’t mean I’m in a hurry to make it happen.

She fits against my body like a puzzle piece created with me in mind. I didn’t know such quiet joy could exist. I didn’t know I was capable of feeling this peaceful. Like I found where I’m meant to be.

Now I understand so much that was a mystery to me before. What it’s like to find something so precious, all you want is to hold it tight and protect it from the rest of the world .

Something close to pain flits across my heart when she stirs. So much for that. It takes all of three seconds for her to wake up and realize where she is. The body that was so warm and supple only a minute ago goes stiff before she wiggles out of my arms and back over to her side of the bed.

“Good morning.” As much as it irritates my wolf that she’s like this, there’s something almost cute about it. She’s so shocked by what is natural to me.

“Good morning,” she mumbles. Her heart is pounding loud enough for me to hear, and I sense her conflicted feelings about what happened last night. I’ve never heard anyone scream like that without shifting first. She was a wounded animal caught in a trap, begging for mercy.

It would be mean to drag this out any longer, which is why I get up instead of lounging in bed. Her choked gasp makes me stop halfway to the bathroom and turn around to face her. “What’s wrong?”

Her eyes are as big as saucers. “You were naked the whole time?”

I look down at myself and back at her. “Yes. You didn’t know that?”

“You were already in bed, covered up when I got in.” Bright red colors her cheeks, and I have to turn away before I start laughing. It’s kind of adorable.

After quickly taking care of business, I rejoin her.

She tries and fails to keep her eyes off me—eventually, she’s going to learn she doesn’t have a choice in this.

There will always be something about me that calls out to her, no matter how she feels about it.

“It smells like someone is cooking bacon downstairs,” I muse while getting dressed. “You hungry? ”

“Very,” she admits. Yeah, I guess screaming bloody murder after having a brutal nightmare will do that.

“Do you want to go down and have breakfast? I think it’s Declan’s turn to cook this morning, so you’re in for a treat.”

Her eyes are just as wide as ever, and she shakes her head almost violently. “No.” And that’s all she says, even pulling the blankets up a little closer to her chin like she needs protection. How long will it take for her to realize she doesn’t?

After offering to bring breakfast up to her, I go downstairs, giving her a little privacy.

Tara and Zeke’s voices float my way before I’ve reached the bottom of the stairs, followed by Declan’s low rumble.

All three of them look my way when I enter the room.

Declan is at the stove, like I knew he would be, while Zeke and Tara sit at the table.

“How is she?” Tara asks, looking pained. “I heard her scream last night.”

“The whole neighborhood probably heard it,” Zeke points out before flinching under the weight of my stare. “Sorry.”

“She’s fine. Hungry. Still feeling shy.” That’s an understatement. But it’s easier than admitting I’m the reason she feels that way—well, me and Tara.

There’s a plate of French toast keeping warm in the oven. I take it out and grab some for the two of us before adding bacon and sliced fruit. Eventually, she’s going to have to get used to being around us—it’s kind of awkward, eating in the bedroom all the time.

“Listen,” Declan announces before I can leave, plating the rest of the bacon and taking it to the table.

“I’m calling a pack meeting at the end of the week.

I’m sure there have been rumors about what went down.

I want the truth to get out— and I would like Nora to be there.

But I won’t force her. I figured we’d let her know now so she can think it over. ”

“I will.” Even though I can pretty much guess what her answer will be. I can’t blame her. She has never known anything but rejection from our pack. How is she supposed to look into the faces of people who vilified her for so long?

The question bounces around inside my skull as I carry the plates upstairs. Nora is dressed and sitting on the bed, which she made neatly. “Here you go. Declan has a special touch with French toast. I think you’ll like it.”

She accepts her plate without a word, first picking up a piece of bacon and taking a tentative bite before practically shoving the rest of it in her mouth all at once.

“It’s delicious,” she almost moans, then cuts into the French toast with an urgency that almost makes me sad for her.

Such a simple luxury. How many of these luxuries have I taken for granted in my life?

Yet another question for me to think over while I eat. “When I was downstairs, Declan told me he’s calling a pack meeting at the end of the week.”

Right away, her spine stiffens, but she doesn’t slow her eating.

“He would like you to be there—but you don’t have to,” I quickly add before she can freak out.

“Why would I have to be there?”

“Because he’ll be talking about banishing that worthless family of yours and setting the record straight about what happened to our parents.

” I mean, that’s what I’m guessing. And if he doesn’t want to drop the bombshell, I’d be happy to do it myself.

I want every single one of them to know it wasn’t her fault .

“I don’t know.” She drags a piece of the fried bread through a puddle of syrup, staring down at her plate like it’s a lifeline.

“Well, just think about it, but nobody’s going to force you.” I have to change the subject. She’s getting too nervous, and I can feel the way her energy is changing, becoming a little panicked. “I was thinking about going shopping today. You need so many things. Why don’t we go out together?”

She makes me wait until she polishes off the last bite of food before setting the plate down. “I don’t need anything. Really. I’ll make do.”

It’s a special kind of punishment, wanting more than anything to provide for somebody who refuses to accept it. “I don’t want you to just make do. You’ve done that long enough. You deserve to have everything you need and everything you want.”

“But I… I mean, I don’t…”

She doesn’t want it from me. She might as well come out and say it—it’s hanging in the air between us anyway. I deserve this. It’s not her fault. I’m sure if our positions were reversed, I would act the same way.

“It might even be fun,” I suggest. “No pressure, but you could try on some clothes, buy some of that fancy skin care stuff girls like. I know,” I add when her mouth falls open, “you’re not that kind of girl.

But you could be, if you wanted to. I only want you to have everything you want. You deserve it.”

That’s the thing. I have to wonder if she believes that, if she’s capable of believing it after years of being told the opposite.

“I just really don’t think so,” she concludes, and I get the feeling that’s the end of the discussion .

“Could you please tell me one thing?” She lifts an eyebrow expectantly.

“You must have at least one favorite food. Don’t tell me there isn’t something you liked back before you lost your mom.

You housed that spaghetti last night. Is it Italian food you like?

Or maybe something else? There has to be something.

” It’s bizarre, this back-and-forth thing we have going on.

All I want is to make her happy. All I want is to understand her and give her everything she’s missed out on.

Like, why can’t she see that? Why can’t she let me take care of her?

She keeps me waiting longer than I’d like but finally shrugs. “I like chocolate. Mom used to buy bags of those truffles, you know what I mean? Foil wrapped? They were such a treat. But really, I would eat it in any form,” she admits with a faint, shy smile.

Chocolate. Not exactly revolutionary, but it’s a start. “See? That wasn’t so hard. I’m going to go out for a while,” I announce, stacking the plates before reaching into my back pocket and pulling out my phone. “If you get bored, you can listen to music, watch a movie. Whatever you want.”

“But don’t you need it?”

“I think I can live without it for a little while. But if you need anything,” I add as an afterthought, “Tara’s number is in there.

Text her or call her, and she’ll give me her phone.

” Because obviously, I can’t do this on my own.

I wouldn’t have the first clue what to buy for a girl, but Tara will.

I know she wants to make it up to Nora just like I do. This is where she can start.

And she knows it, too, opening up as soon as we’re alone in my truck, Tara unloads what’s on her mind. “I barely slept last night. I couldn’t stop blaming myself. Did you ever have that thing where your brain won’t stop replaying every awful moment you want to forget?”

“Who hasn’t? Nighttime is the worst time for that.” I’ve done more than enough of it myself.

“I just want to make it up to her.” Tara sighs. “I’m not saying we have to be best friends. I’m not trying to force myself on her. I just want to make it up to her somehow. Do you think she’ll let me?”

“To be honest? I don’t know,” I admit. “I think it will take time. She needs to learn to trust, and she hasn’t had anyone she could trust in years.” She shakes her head, her eyes going teary before she turns her face toward the passenger side window.

We pass the rest of the ride in silence, until I park in the lot behind a row of businesses and offices. “She needs… basically everything,” I explain to my sister. “Would you mind grabbing all of it? Beginning to end, A to Z. She has no toiletries at all.”

“Leave it to me.” She even gives me a little salute before hopping out of the truck. “Where are you going?”

“I want to talk to Doc about something to help Nora’s bruises heal.” The pack’s doctor has an office next door to the pharmacy Tara is headed for.

“Tell him I said hi,” she calls out over her shoulder after we part ways. The Doc has been a family friend all my life. He and Dad were as close as brothers—I used to think of him more like an uncle than a doctor. I still do, even without Dad in the picture anymore.

Molly, his receptionist, jerks a thumb in the direction of his office once I’m inside the clinic. “He’s between patients now. Go right in.”

“Go right in?” Doc’s voice rings out from behind his closed office door. “You don’t know what I’m doing in here. Maybe I require a little privacy.”

I open the door, laughing. “She knows you too well for that, and so do I.”

A smile lights his face as he unfolds his tall, broad frame from the leather chair behind his desk. “Hi there. Is everything all right?”

He’s halfway around his desk, his hand extended to shake, when he stops suddenly and sniffs the air. “You’ve mated, haven’t you? Your smell is different.”

I guess there’s no hiding anything from a doctor who’s known me my entire life. “Yes, I found my mate.”

“That’s wonderful news!” The smile slips from his face at my blank reaction. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s complicated.” I drop into an empty chair. “It’s… Nora.”

“Mhhh. I see.” He claps a hand on my shoulder, wearing a rueful smile that reminds me enough of Dad to make my chest hurt. Dad would have the answers. He always did.

“Declan banished her family yesterday,” I explain before dumping the entire story on him. Her bruises. What they put her through. What her dad did.

He sinks into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose like his head hurts before running both hands through dark hair that’s starting to go silver at the temples.

“I had no idea. And all this time… I’ve treated that family,” he growls.

“No wonder they never brought her in for any reason. They’d want to hide her wounds. ”

“She’s been hurt for so long.” There’s a throb of emotion under my words. “Bruises run up and down her ribs, across her back. They beat her every day, or close to it. And the way she screams in her sleep…” I can’t go on. It’s too much. My mate is in agony, and I only contributed to it.

Sympathy radiates from him when he asks, “What can I do to help?”

“I was hoping you could give me something to help her with the pain until her wounds heal.”

Nodding slowly, he stands, pulling a keyring from his pocket. “I have an ointment that will go a long way toward speeding the healing process. But it can only do so much.” As he speaks, he unlocks a cabinet and pulls out a small tube which he hands over.

“What do you mean?”

Again, he touches my shoulder. “The trauma you described will take much more than an ointment. It will take time.”

Time. I have all the time in the world. I can wait—and while I do, I can listen and understand. I can show her there’s more to life than what she’s suffered.

It’s just that I don’t know how long it will take before she wants me too.