Page 20 of The Wolf’s Bullied Mate (Moondust Hollow Wolves #2)

When I came out of the garage, having finished my evening of mending old apparatuses, Pauline was sitting in the living room reading a book. She laid it aside and gave me a piercing look.

I braced myself for whatever she was planning to say. She looked serious enough to slice through my soul with her gaze.

“I want to talk to you,” she said.

I nodded and sat down on the couch. I waited for her to speak.

After a moment, she did. “You’ve told me you didn’t mean to bully me that day under the oak tree. You meant to tease me.”

“That’s right,” I nodded.

“Why did you want to tease me in the first place? Why did you pick me—a nobody who spent her time reading books and avoiding everyone—as the person whom you wanted to ‘pull out of her shell,’ as you so poetically told me? Was I some kind of project for you?” She frowned.

I shook my head. I took a deep breath and then let it out, readying myself to bare my soul to Pauline. “Ever since I met you in my first year of high school, I have felt attracted to you.”

She snorted. “Wait, you’re trying to tell me you wanted me? You, the popular hot guy, wanted me, the shy mouse?”

I smiled at how she pictured us. “You’re still shy with me, although you’re not much of a mouse anymore—you’ve grown into a true beauty.”

She gave me a look of disbelief. “No flirting now; we’re having a serious conversation.”

My smile widened. “I’m only stating the truth. But yes, Pauline, I’ve always liked you. At first, it was a small crush, but the more I interacted with you, the more I learned about what you’re really like—a smart, wonderful girl.”

Pauline frowned. “And the fact that you had a crush on me made you want to… what, bully me?”

“Tease you,” I corrected. “I was a teenage kid. I didn’t know how to express my feelings for you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Pauline gave me a look of disgust.

My heart sank. In hindsight, she was right—if I hadn’t had so much trouble telling her how I really felt, then none of the pain I had caused her would have happened in the first place.

“All I can say is that I’m so-” I started, but she put a hand up to stop me.

“No, I’m not buying it. How could such an ugly thing originate from you liking me?”

I gave her a sad look. “I don’t know the answer either.”

She frowned, clearly dissatisfied with my response.

“But it’s not like only bad things came from me liking you,” I tried to salvage the conversation. “I liked you back then, and right now I do as well.”

“Stop, stop,” she put up her hand again. “I’m not hearing any confessions tonight—not when I’m still sorting through what had happened in the past.”

“You can’t remain in the past, Pauline,” I sighed. “We have to move forward; live in the present and think of the future.”

“I just…” She looked away, suddenly coy, all the bravado evaporating from her. “I don’t understand—how could someone like you like someone like me?”

There she went with the self-deprecation again.

“What do you mean ‘someone like you’? You’re the most wonderful woman I’ve ever met,” I frowned.

She said nothing, biting her lip. She clearly looked uncomfortable with the question.

Anger rose in my heart. Through gritted teeth, I asked her, “Who hurt you, Pauline?”

She opened her mouth, but I shook my head before she could hide behind talking about me and our classmates again.

“Besides me and the people from our high school,” I said.

“Why do you assume there were others?” She raised her eyebrows. Yet her hands fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, a sure sign that she was uncomfortable.

“Just years of reading people as a beta,” I said. “Who was it?”

Pauline gave me a pained look. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She said nothing.

I wanted to pull her into my arms and hug her, but I needed to get the uncomfortable truth out of her first. I needed to cause her some pain by having her face her trauma so that we could figure out how to heal her heart together, how I could pull Pauline from the past into my arms in the present, and how to build a future where we supported each other.

She needed to heal, and I would help her through the suffering.

“Who was it?” I repeated.

Tears welled up in Pauline’s eyes, but even so, she said nothing.

“Whom do I need to kill?”

“Nobody,” she said, but there was an edge to her voice like she almost wanted to tell me I should kill to protect her.

I wanted to cause the ones who had hurt her pain. Their deaths wouldn’t be quick. I would make them suffer as I dismembered them bit by bit.

“Was it Ray’s father?” I started with the most obvious culprit.

If Ray’s father had loved Pauline, he would have mated with her. If he had realized how much of an amazing woman she was, he would never have let her go. He had clearly failed in both areas, which was why she was raising their child on her own. What exactly had he done to her? I would find out.

Once again, Pauline opened her mouth then closed it. I waited patiently for her to speak. Finally, she sighed and spoke up. “Yes.”

The simple word settled between us, and the truth revealed. Yet I suspected there was even more truth to be shared.

“Who else?”

Pauline sighed once more. When she spoke again, it was like a dam had opened.

Her words flowed out, telling me of the enormity of her pain.

“Many others. When Jeffrey abandoned me after I got pregnant, people branded me a weak wolf. He was an enforcer, and if he didn’t want me then I clearly must be defective.

The whole community turned on me—some ignored me entirely, some only spoke to me to call me names.

Some even went after Ray. But what hurt the most was the abuse I got from my parents.

After Jeffrey, a friend of my father's, left me, my parents took almost all of my wages in exchange for letting me stay at their house, though I wasn’t allowed to do much more than sleep there.

Mother and Father belittled me every day. ”

I listened to her speak. When she finally went silent, sobs shook her frame. I got up from my seat and picked her up gently. When I sat down again, I placed Pauline on my lap and hugged her closely.

She buried her head in my chest and just cried for a while.

When she calmed down a bit, she continued speaking.

“I believed them, Oliver. I fully believed I was weak, I was broken, I was a nobody. I had one single friend—Cherry. When Ray was mistreated at the kindergarten because of me, she told me I really needed to get away. But I had no money to move out of my parents’ house, and even if I had moved I still would have been living in a pack that hated me. ”

“Then you found out about Twin Tails?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes, Cherry told me about them. There was no application fee for women. I got matched with you immediately. I’m sorry I used you, Oliver.

I really needed to get out of there, even if it meant being married to you—the person whom I knew was my high school bully. I needed to pick the lesser evil.”

“The lesser evil…” It kind of stung hearing that’s what I was to her, but I pushed down the hurt.

“N-No, don’t get me wrong, Oliver,” she lifted her head and looked into my eyes. “I-I really enjoyed talking to you via text messages. And back then, in school, I was secretly always attracted to you, too. I still think you’re the most handsome man I’ve ever seen….”

I kissed her temple. “But…?”

“But with all I have lived through until now, I’ve had trouble opening up to you. I didn’t know if I could trust you.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been suffering on your own. Why did you agree to sleep with me so readily, though, if you didn’t trust me?” I asked.

“I…” She blushed. “I think you’re really hot, and you’ve been acting so kind towards me; kinder than anybody else has acted in years. I wanted some intimacy with you. I wanted to feel something good for a change.”

I nodded. “I understand.”

The situation was even more complicated than I had thought.

“What about now, Pauline? Do you think there’s still a chance we could build a future together?”

She looked up at me with those large green eyes of hers. In them, I saw something that made my spirits rise—hope, tenderness, desire.

“I… want to try to be with you, Oliver,” she said. “As much as I’ve been trying to resist it… I think I’m still attracted to you, despite everything that happened. I want to explore the feelings I have for you.”

I smiled. “I like you too,” I said.

She frowned. “You make it sound so simple. One day, I will be able to put my feelings into simple words, too.”

“You are a complicated person, Pauline. But I like you the way you are,” I chuckled.

I leaned down and captured her lips with my own. We kissed much more tenderly this time, getting lost in each other’s taste.

“You don’t need to worry about anything anymore,” I said when we broke apart. “I will always protect you. For the rest of your life, I’ll be at your side.”

“Thank you,” she said. Tears welled up in her eyes again. “I’d like that.”

She smiled; it was the most beautiful smile I’d ever seen.

I rocked her back and forth as she cried again. I loved the fact that I could be with her as she let go of her suffering, and that she finally trusted me enough to be vulnerable around me.

I wanted to be the rock in her life, the safe port she could always return to in any storm.