The Burning Claw (The Grey Wolves #10)(17)

“I want you to feel comfortable and safe, Bethy. And I’d prefer to sleep between you and the front door.”
He wanted to protect her, Bethany realized. Jen had been right; these werewolves took protection to a whole new level. Assuming any argument would likely be fruitless and only stress him out or cause more problems, she consented.
“Alright, if that is what you want,” she told him, staring up into his eyes that, though some might call grey, she saw as a shimmery silver color.
“Sometimes what we want and what we need are miles apart,” he told her. “I want to be able to give you space so that you don’t feel smothered. I know that you are probably still very confused. But I need to know you’re safe and I need to be near you. That is not something that I can change. That is an instinct that is controlled by the wolf.”
Bethany could tell that those words had been difficult for him to say. She felt through the bond that Drake was ashamed.
“Is it really shameful to need someone?” she asked him, truly wondering. Because if so, then she should feel ashamed too because she was rapidly coming to understand that she needed him as well. He made her feel wanted, safe, and cared for. Those were things she had not felt in a very long time. Drake gave her somewhere to belong again—a new family, a replacement for her family that had been ripped away from her. She didn’t want to feel ashamed of needing him.
“No,” he answered quickly and pulled her closer to him.
She could feel the warmth from his body seeping out of him and into her. She wanted to get closer, so she did. Bethany took another step, closing the gap between them so that their bodies were now touching. Drake froze. She didn’t even think he was breathing. Had she done something wrong? She started to take a step back but Drake dropped his hand from her neck and wrapped both arms around her waist and pulled her even closer. She held back the sigh of relief his embrace brought, but just barely.
“There is no shame in needing someone, Bethany.” His voice was rough with emotion and that same emotion filled his eyes. “I am ashamed because I feel like I am taking your choices from you. I don’t want you to feel like you went from one prison to another. I fear that you will one day resent me if I don’t let you go and experience life before deciding to commit to me.”
She blinked several times as she mulled over his words. She understood what he was saying, but she also thought that there could be a way where they could both get the things they needed. 
She took a breath before looking back up at him. “If I want to go back to America, would you come with me?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
“And if I want to go to” —she thought about the few countries that she could remember learning about when she was a girl— “China, would you go with me?”
“Yes.”
“And if I wanted to get my first cell phone, will you help me get one?”
“Of course,” he answered.
“And if I decided, after all the time we’d spent together, to leave, to live a different life than this one, would you let me go?”
His answer did not come as quickly this time. “I” —he swallowed— “I would if I could. If you didn’t want to be with me…I would let you go.”
Bethany believed him, but she could tell that there was something he wasn’t telling her. “But?” she coaxed. “What are you not saying, Drake?”
He closed his eyes. “I love it when you say my name.”
“Don’t try to distract me,” Bethany said dryly.
After several seconds, Drake opened his eyes. “I would let you go, but…” He emphasized the word. “In order for that to happen, I would have to request that my Alpha put me down.”
“Put you down where?” she asked. Her brow furrowed deeply and her lips thinned. She didn’t like the sound of that.
“I don’t want this knowledge to sway you, love. I want you to make whatever decision you feel is best for you, not based on my actions or reactions.”
“Please, Drake, tell me what that means.”
Drake sighed. It was heavy, as though he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. “It means he would have to kill me.”
She jerked back out of his arms. “What?” Her voice rose an octave and filled up the room.
“We are not human, Bethany. We do not respond to things as humans do. We are Canis lupus and we have our own ways. I know it’s hard to understand them if you’ve not grown up with them your whole life.”
She didn’t even know what to say. She literally held his life in the palm of her hands. “So, if I choose to walk away—” She took in a quick breath. Bethany’s hands were shaking and she didn’t understand why. “That would mean the end of your life? Just like that?”
Drake’s shoulders were tense and his mouth drawn into a hard line. He looked as if he’d rather eat nails than have this conversation. But Bethany wasn’t going to let it go. It was just too important.
“We should probably sit down for this conversation.” He motioned to the large, and suddenly inviting, couch.
She sat on one end, turning her body so that one leg was pulled up on the side while the other dangled. Drake sat, but he didn’t lean back. Instead, his elbows rested on his knees as he leaned forward. His hands were clasped together and his chin rested on the fist they made. It took so long for him to begin speaking that Bethany was kind of worried there would be a vampire apocalypse before she got the answers from him, but after several long minutes, he finally spoke.
“When a wolf finds his true mate, he has found the one woman he will spend his life living for or dying for—the only woman. She holds the other half of the male’s soul, and he holds hers. We mate for life, literally. If a mated pair has completed the Bonding Rites, then their fates are tied. If one dies, so does the other. We cannot live without our mate.”
That last sentence was said as if Bethany had asked him to live without air. And maybe she had.
Chapter 6
“How does someone survive in the dark once they’ve been shown how beautiful it is in the light?” ~CostinThree days missing.
Costin was a mess. There was no other way to put it. Before Sally, he’d been getting by, living behind the smile and the jokes, but deep down the darkness was creeping further and further into his soul. Then she’d come, and like the first rays of the sun in the morning, she’d lit him up from the inside out. Sally had replaced all of the loneliness and pain. She’d brought him the hope that comes with having a true mate. And just as quickly as she’d appeared in his life, quicker actually, she’d been ripped away.
“Can we go outside, Daddy?” Titus asked. It was midafternoon and he knew the little boy had to be getting restless. He’d gotten to play and walk around the mansion, but he’d been cooped up inside, and Costin knew that fresh air would do them both some good.
“Sure, buddy. We can go out.”
Peri had been kind enough to bring Titus some clothes and a jacket, shoes, and socks. Though Spring was upon them, in the morning the air was still cool enough to warrant a light jacket. Costin helped Titus pull on his jacket and slip on his shoes before taking his hand and walking them out of the large house.
“There’s a lot of steps to take before you can get to a door to go outside,” the little boy pointed out.
Costin smiled. “Yes, there are a lot of steps to take.”
“Will we always live here?” Titus asked.
Costin thought about it. He’d always planned to stay in the pack mansion, though not everyone in the pack lived there. But he guessed that could change, if Sally wanted. Although even if they didn’t live in the pack mansion, they would need to live close since she was healer to the Serbia pack.
“It depends on what Mommy wants,” Costin told him.
“I think she will want to stay.”
“Do you want to stay?” he asked his son. For some reason, it wasn’t hard at all to think of Titus as his son; it was like the boy had always been his and Sally’s.
“It feels safe here,” Titus admitted. “Safe is good.”
“Yes, I agree,” Costin nodded. “Safe is always good.”
Once they were outside, Costin let Titus take the lead. They walked up toward the forest that lead into the mountains. Though he wasn’t in his home country of Romania, the huge mountain range was the same, and the forest brought back so many memories—some good, some bad. It was where they’d fought Desdemona. It was where they’d battled the warlocks, who happened to be battling trolls at the time. It was where the males of the pack had been taken and banished to the In Between. Some would say those were bad memories, but for Costin they were bittersweet. Yes, they were memories of some very dark and difficult things, but they were also memories that included his love. He would take any memory, no matter how painful it was, if it included his Sally in some way. 
“I like the being outside,” Titus said with a smile in his voice. “I like the sun and the way the forest smells.”
“You didn’t see either of those things for a long time.”
He shook his head. “Nope. Only the black.”
Costin knew that he was speaking of the darkness that was underground. “Were you scared?” Costin asked the boy.