The Alpha’s Forbidden Valkyrie

Chapter 13

Jax’s POV

The hot steam slowly blanketed the dark-tiled bathroom, fogging up the massive mirrors. The roar of the water pouring from the shower was loud, but it couldn't deceive my acute wolf hearing. Every single tiny sound, every hiss and ragged breath echoed in my head as if whispered into a megaphone.

I clenched my jaw and stubbornly stared at the marble edge of the sink, turning my head away.

I was trying to give her the minimum dignity she so desperately craved. I knew my mere presence terrorized her. She was a prisoner whom I was now forcing to stand naked before her enemy in her greatest vulnerability. But my inner wolf practically tore my chest apart, wanting so desperately to break free. It wasn't driven by desire, but by some much more ancient, overwhelming instinct. The bond pulsed like a dark golden thread in my mind, screaming at me to turn around. To step over to her, take the painful burdens off her, and bathe her myself, like some fragile, precious treasure.

I heard the quiet, stubborn sound of the metal zipper at her back. Freya's fingers were too weak. Her raw, blood-chafed wrists couldn't bear the strain. A stifled, pained groan left her lips, and then I heard the friction of heavy, wet velvet as she tried to push the dress down.

I dug my fingers into the marble. My knuckles turned completely white from the grip. Don't look, Jax. Don't scare her even more, I commanded myself.

But her suffering caused me physical pain as well. Through the bond, I felt her exhaustion, her shame, and that deep, suffocating terror that accompanied her every move. I could almost see her in my mind's eye, struggling with the filthy fabric with her tiny, trembling hands. I could barely stop myself from stepping over to her and tearing those damn rags off her with a single motion.

"Should I help?" I asked hoarsely, my voice barely more than a tense growl over the splash of the water.

"No... I can manage," came the quiet, panting reply.

The dress finally slipped off her shoulders. I heard the heavy velvet, soaked with mud and dried blood, fall to the floor right around her feet. The hardest part was over. Now she just had to step out of it.

Then disaster struck.

Freya tried to lift her leg to step out of the dress's grip, but her thoroughly exhausted muscles failed her. Her bare foot slipped on the heavy, wet fabric, and her knees simply buckled beneath her.

A desperate, stifled scream tore from her throat as she lost her balance.

Every rational thought evaporated. I spun around in a split second. With the reflexes of the beast, I threw myself forward and caught her before her naked body could hit the hard, cold tiles. My arms wrapped tightly around her waist and under her chest, using my own body as a shield to break her fall. We crashed to the ground together, but I cushioned the impact. My knee hit the stone with a dull thud, while she landed safely in my lap, half on the floor, half leaning against my chest.

My hands touched her bare, ice-cold, goosebump-covered skin.

Before I could even ask if she was okay, Freya's body began to tremble violently. Not from the cold. From pure, visceral terror.

Instead of feeling relieved at avoiding the fall, she instantly curled up on the floor, using her arms to protectively cover her head and bare upper body. She wanted to make herself as small as possible.

"I'm sorry!" she gasped, her voice broken and almost hysterically thin. The words tumbled out of her in a rushed, frantic blur. "I'm sorry... I swear I didn't mean to! I was clumsy, I'm sorry! Please... please, don't..."

The words plunged into my chest like ice-cold silver blades.

My heart skipped a beat, then contracted painfully. I knelt beside her on the wet floor while she cowered there, waiting for the blow. Waiting for the punishment for being "clumsy." Waiting for the pain that weakness brought her in her vampire clan, or right in my own dark cellar.

The rage that had been directed at the vampires until now gave way to a deep, crushing, and genuine remorse. A level of sorrow washed over me that I had never felt in my life. A suffocating lump blocked my throat.

God, what had they done to this girl? And how could I have been so blind?

There lay my mate, the woman who should be standing beside me as the queen of the pack leader, the one I would lay the world at her feet for... and she was trembling from me because she tripped on a piece of cloth. Her entire soul was one massive, gaping wound, and every man she had ever met had only deepened that wound. Myself included.

"Freya..." I whispered, and my voice cracked.

Slowly, as if approaching a startled wild animal, I raised my hand. I didn't grab her waist, nor her protectively raised arm. Carefully, with the softest motion my massive, rough fingers were capable of, I reached into her tresses and smoothed the wet, tangled hair from her face.

Freya flinched on the floor and squeezed her eyes shut, but she didn't pull away. Her breathing was jagged, and tears flowed in streams down her pale face.

"Open your eyes, little mate," I asked softly, dropping my voice to the deepest, most soothing register possible.

Slowly, trembling, she looked up at me from behind her arms. Her green eyes were enormous with fear.

"No one is going to hit you," I said, pronouncing every single word so slowly and emphatically, as if making a vow before the Moon Goddess. "You never have to apologize to me for being weak. I don't care how many times you fall. I will always catch you."

At my words, another stifled sob shook her body.

I couldn't bear watching her cower on the cold tiles any longer. I didn't care that she was naked, I didn't care about the tension between us. I ripped my t-shirt off and pulled her fragile body against my muscular, burning chest. I carefully untangled her legs from the remnants of the dress, then lifted her into my arms with a single motion.

She pressed against me like a frightened baby bird, her face buried in my neck. I felt her tears on my skin.

"You are safe with me," I whispered into her hair, as I slowly stepped into the hot, thick steam of the shower stall, holding her in my arms. The water washed over us softly, washing away the dirt, the blood, and the dark shadows of the past, while I just held her and vowed to spend the rest of my life healing those broken wings.