Page 30 of Meeting Her Mate
No. I was done running. The universe should’ve realized by now that I was not someone to be messed with. What grave sin had I committed, what blasphemous act had I performed, that I was being punished by life so ruthlessly? It was not fair, and I was about to make sure the universe knew it.
The wolf was bigger than me, but I had the advantage of being more agile. Within fractions of a second, I came up with an attack strategy. A wolf could be as strong as they wanted, as quick as light, but if you injured them at the right place, it did not matter how strong they were, how fast they were, or how bravely they fought. A blind wolf was just half a wolf.
With that in mind, I slashed at their eyes. But the wolf swerved just in time to miss my claws, proving that they were faster than me. To my surprise, rather than attack me, he receded further into my apartment and shifted back into his human form.
“Stop, for God’s sake!”
Will?
In my disbelief, I shifted back. I went to the light switch and turned the lights on. Without a doubt, it was Will. He was soaked in water, his face looking haggard, his eyes bearing the marks of tiredness.
“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?” Whenever I was feeling overwhelmed, my hands darted to my head, tugging at my hair. I fought every impulse in my body to tug my hair and forced myself to stand still. “How did you even get here? Do you think it’s wise startling me like that? After what I’ve just been through?”
Will waved his hands at me in an attempt to pacify me. He maintained his distance as he circled around the room and closed the door so that our commotion wouldn’t be heard by anyone else in the building.
“Listen,” he started.
“No, you listen to me for a change. I already said everything I had to say back at the lab. Why are you here, then? How could you think that breaching my privacy was a good idea? I could have hurt you just now!”
“Will you calm down?” Will asked. He walked around the apartment casually, looking at everything in great detail. “I tracked you down. It’s…it’s the same way I tracked you when you were in danger. As much as I would be willing to admit that I was the one who untethered our bond, it still works in terms of helping me find you and alerting me when you’re in danger. I don’t understand it. I came here because of what you said to me in Blair’s lab. You and I have got unresolved issues. I came to talk.”
“That is not an explanation for why you broke into my apartment!” I said, trying to overcome my perplexity. “You can’t leave me alone, and you don’t want me around. What do you want?” I asked. I was just as exasperated as I was shocked. If someone were to measure my agitation and my perplexity on a scale, it’d be exactly half and half.
“I don’t know what I want!” Will exclaimed. I braced myself for more of his anger. But then he said something in a tone so mellow and unlike him that I was too taken aback to respond to it.
“I don’t know what I want, Alexis. My body is free. My mind is still in a prison of its own making. All this time, drugged and dazed, I kept thinking that your grandmother, Ariana, was still alive. That my old life was just on pause, waiting for me. And I’m not prepared for this new life I find myself in. That includes you as well. It includes the fact that the moment I came back, I had to resume the role of alpha of a pack that didn’t even know how to protect itself. It means that I get to wake up in a world where vampires roam free and haunt werewolves. I am not prepared for all of this. And on that note, I do realize that I misbehaved with you. For that, I am deeply sorry. There are many things that aren’t in my control. It seems that my freedom has come at the price of violent outbursts of rage. I apologize for bashing you out in the open, for being rude to you, for… for…everything.”
Of all the things that I had expected, I had never expected an apology. It left me completely disarmed and wordless.
Chapter 12: Will
Apologizing to her was not easy. Admitting that I was wrong, saying sorry, and being earnest were all things that made the inner beast within me mad. The more I tried to be nice, the more this alien sensation within me prompted me to lash out at her, scream at her, and punish her.
But I did not do any of that. I tried to control it as best as I could and continued providing her with an explanation. The sudden shift of her expression from exasperation to pure shock told me what I needed to know; she was just as surprised by my behavior as I was.
“I was never like this before. I was kind and never thought about resorting to anger. Not even when the Nazis decided to ransack our village. I kept a level head, and I rescued every single member of my pack. I couldn’t have done that if I were driven with rage. A hotheaded version of me would have singlehandedly charged at the Nazis, gotten shot, and died on the spot. Instead, I waited under the floorboards with the rest of my pack for the Nazis to leave, and when they were gone, we snuck to the harbor. I did all of that calmly,” I told her in as gentle a tone as I could muster.
I did not want to offend her again. She had been through enough today. Her life had been put in danger, and all because she was affiliated with me. She had banished herself from the commune, and I didn’t know how she was making ends meet, but in terms of being dealt a shit hand, hers was as shitty as it got, and it did not make sense for me to burden her any further with my irate outbursts. Those outbursts were the reason she had left in the first place.
“Something life-altering happened to me as a result of the experiments that Edward had conducted on me. They seem to have left me infused with a sense of mania, a feeling of unkempt anger and hostility. I hurt you with my words and my tone. I am sorry for that.”
Alexis paced in a straight line, fiddling her thumbs. She cast me a look, then stopped in front of me, maintaining her distance. The longer she kept silent, the more unnerved I became.
“Please say something,” I ushered.
“I never really had a boyfriend before,” she said finally. “All my life, I kept to myself. I loved the idea of having a soul mate who was preternaturally fated to me. Instead, I got you. A man who cannot say a straight sentence to me without snapping at me. At first, I thought to myself that given what you had been through, you deserved compassion. But I saw that you weren’t exactly steaming at anyone else. It was just me you had a problem with. Then you decide to make a mockery of me in front of the entire pack, rejecting me in front of the very people I grew up with.”
“I am sorry for how I’ve been,” I said. “And I know you’re not weak. That night, when you saved me, you held your own against a whole bunch of vampires. I don’t think there’s anyone else in the pack who could have stood against the vampires as you did. I know you’re strong. Ariana was strong. You’re her blood. Kenneth was strong. You’re his blood too. I know you’re not weak. And I apologize for undermining you, for treating you like you were a kid, or thinking that you wouldn’t understand.”
Alexis gradually got to her feet, approaching me where I stood.
“I’m also not unreasonable. You apologized, and I’ve decided to forgive you. Awkward platonic handshake to seal the deal?” She held out her hand, smiling a little.
Her wit amused me. I smiled back at her and shook her hand.
“Why are you being like this, though?” Alexis asked, the smile leaving her face as she broached this serious subject.
“Today, when you were in danger, I felt like I was in danger. When you felt pain, my body felt it too. I was guided by a force towards you, a force that’s bigger than both of us. When I rescued you, and when you pleaded to me to spare Blair’s life, it made me see you in a new light. You appealed to my better nature. I could have just as easily killed Blair and been done with it, but the way you appealed, telling me that I didn’t need more blood on my hands, stopped me from taking someone’s life. I owe you that.” Every word of what I had said was true. I hoped that she would perceive it as such and believe me.