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“But don’t you think there’s something to all these visions we get when together? Sylvan keeps rabbiting on about how important our bond is, and I asked my dads about it. Bonding doesn’t usually result in what we have. People might see each other’s Tirians or feel like they’re in each other’s hearts, but that’s about it. That black sun, the Great Wolves, that’s not normal.”
“Of course, it isn’t,” I said, flopping against his chest.
He chuckled and stroked my hair back.
“That psychic space thing. Do you think we could try that?”
God, I couldn’t think of anything worse right now. All that was keeping me together was some kind of brave front. How did I maintain that when my mate was literally inside me?
“Nah, I guess not.”
Fuck, there was that careful, polite tone again. I shut my eyes, felt the clamour of anxiety and shame and frustration, and firmly pushed that to one side. That was for future Jules to worry about. I took a deep breath, and then tangled my fingers with his as I tried to remember how to do this.
It was a bit like diving, throwing yourself backwards off a perfectly good boat into the sea and just trusting it would be there for you to disappear into. And it was. When I opened my eyes, the landscape had changed completely. I was standing outside, and it was daytime, the sky a mass of dark clouds, thunder rumbling ominously. I looked down and saw I stood on the same powdery dry soil that had been there while Brandon and Aaron fought, and Slade was standing on it with me.
“Holy shit, is this it?” he asked, head whipping around as he tried to take it all in. “What’s with the storm?” He glanced down at me and said, “Oh.”
When I followed his gaze, I saw I was bound up tight in some kind of nightmare couture made from muddy sheets. I plucked at the fabric in annoyance, but it remained wrapped tight.
“Well, that’s gotta go,” he said, waving a hand, and I was relieved to see my favourite jeans and t-shirt were restored. “And what’s the story with this?” When he gestured at the clouds, lightning struck, stabbing the earth some distance away from us, but I feared it was getting closer. “Stroppy, huh?” He wove his arms at the sky, making for a funny sight, but nothing changed. He glanced back at me. “Shouldn’t this obey… Oh, this is you?”
I flinched at that. The clouds roiled faster under his gaze, lightning and thunder cracking across the sky as he did so.
“Fuck, Jules…” He strode over to me and put his hands on my cheeks. The wind started to whip up, tugging at my hair, the cold making me shiver. “Is this you feeling guilty?”
I wasn’t able to get out much more than a nod. I’d felt like a fucking god when I told everyone we were a pack. It’d seemed like the perfect solution to me, allowing people to pursue the relationships they felt comfortable with and giving room for others to be explored later if they wanted. But just a few days later, and I was realising I’d barely spent any time with one mat
e, let the others ostracise another, and then added more to the mix.
“Jules, this isn’t what I wanted.” I could barely hear the words as he tried to get them out, the wind really howling now, our eyes streaming from the rush of air, the lightning strikes growing closer and closer, until I could see clearly the puffs of dust they were sending up. The air stank of ozone, the electric buzz setting my teeth on edge. “Princess, come on. It’s OK, I just wanted to—”
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Lightning struck in a ragged circle around us, and our hair started to rise at the change in electrical field. I tried to pull back, to draw this volatile thing away from Slade, but his fingers dug in. “No, Jules!” he cried, the wind whipping his words, tossing them far, far away, as if they were never spoken. It tugged at our clothes, yanked at our hair, tried to drag each of us to separate ends of the earth. I let my arms go limp. I was ready to just surrender to it, let it take me, send me spiralling through the sky, take me away from all of this.
“Jules, NO!”
The silence that followed was deafening. The wind, the clouds, the lightning, all disappeared, leaving a pearl grey sky that was slightly leavened by a watery sun, its rays staining the seamless clouds yellow.
“Is this what you do? Every time something goes wrong or there’s something up with us?”
Was it? How did I answer that? I looked around the dreary landscape and just felt so, so tired.
“Yeah, probably.”
“Ah, love.”
He tugged me to him, my body as limp as a doll’s. It felt like it took everything I had to throw my arms around him.
“Jules, I don’t need you to do…whatever this was. I love you. I don’t want you beating yourself up.”
“But I fucked up. We bonded first, and then what? Nothing. Little sex, no talking, little spending time together. I’m a shit mate,” I croaked.
“And I rushed things, left you feeling so alienated, you jumped the fence to get away and run into the arms of the Doc. There’s no blueprint here, Jules. We’re making shit up as we go along and trying to do the best we can, aren’t we?”
I just stayed there inside the safe harbour of his arms, hearing the soothing words, but not sure if I wanted to take them on. If everyone kept being so bloody understanding, how was I ever going to learn to change?
“Do you love me?”
