Broken Mate, Unbroken Bond

CHAPTER 2 - DOM

How could she not know? How could it be that her true nature had remained hidden from them, but most surprisingly of all, from herself? I wasn't sure that I could believe it. This tiny girl had defied my Voice. One look from her had Colin’s eyes darting downward in the closest gesture to an act of submission I’d seen the irascible man do outside of the company of the pack.

I could smell her power. It was not possible that she was unaware of it.

“You are Mac Tíre, Aislinn O’Connell. You are a wolf,” I informed her. I still did not believe she was ignorant to this. The realisation that if she truly was unaware of it, then what I was trying to do to her was immensely cruel hit me like a ton of bricks. Shame and guilt created a heavy weight in my stomach that I tried to ignore.

“I work with wolves.” She blinked those impossibly green eyes in quick succession. She stayed silent for a few long moments, then began to move back to the bar. I raised my hand, reminding Colin and Dante of my earlier order to stay back. She eyed me and my movement, then her gaze flickered towards the other two, before she began moving again. I knew she was fast; I’d seen that for myself. “Despite the ‘jokes’ from my former classmates,” she raised her hands automatically to air quote as she spoke. “I am not an actual wolf.” She reached down behind the bar, bending over it again in the process. “Or part wolf, or a werewolf or secret canid skin-walker.”

Her voice was irritated, her words mocking. The fact that she was angry with us and not running from the bar screaming for help was really all that I needed to confirm my suspicions. I watched her move, eyes hungrily taking in the sight of her peachy, pert bottom as she bent over, and I wondered what kind of noise she’d make if I gave those red locks of hers a playful tug.

Get a hold of yourself, Dom. Colin’s watery-gray eyes were fixed on me as his affluent South Dublin accent permeated my thoughts. I can hear your hard-on.

From the corner of the room, Dante snorted a laugh. Aislinn, unaware of the private exchange, speared him with another stare as she pulled out a bottle of whiskey. It had crossed all of our minds that she could be going for a weapon, but none of us believed she could pose a threat to us alone.

In response, Dante averted his eyes, though they gleamed with some mischief. I ignored them all and began to advance again toward the bar, slower this time. The girl was already unscrewing the cap on the bottle, but she watched me like a hawk. Or rather, like a wolf, hunting senses activated and locked on a target.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I told her, for a moment deeply disliking that look of mistrust she was giving me, “I just want to show you.”

“Show me what?” Aislinn was frowning and her body was tense. I could see that her nerves were frayed, and that her instincts were caught between fight or flight.

“Me.” I reached out, slowly, offering my hand. Her stare was so intense, so completely captivating, but I didn’t back down or look away. I wanted her to see. I needed her to understand what was happening.

She hesitated. With one hand wrapped around the bottle she reached out with the other, then paused, fingers shaking a little in mid-air. But while she appeared uncertain, maybe even a little nervous, the fingers around the neck of the bottle clenched and her knuckles whitened. She was getting ready to fight if she needed to.

My hand closed the distance. Gently, my fingers enveloped hers. I was conscious of overwhelming her. While the idea of chasing her if she fled was a most appetising one, I knew that I genuinely did not want to harm her. I began slowly.

Instead of hammering my Voice at her like I had before, I wielded my Alpha gift with a scalpel in place of a brick.

Let me show you.

As soon as she heard my Voice, gentle, and encouraging, she stepped closer. I laced my fingers through hers, then with my other hand, I took the bottle from her and put it down.

“That’s mine.”

I grinned. I was no longer shocked by her natural resistance to me and was beginning to find her overall attitude as amusing as Dante seemed to. I’ll give it back.

She looked at me, for a split-second her face betraying the uncertainty, the fear. I did not believe she was afraid of me. It was something else. It’s okay.

There was resistance. I hadn’t felt anything like it before, not with another wolf. With my gifts all that was usually needed was one word in my Voice, and I could get what I needed. Those within my pack shared a unique bond, broken only by two life-altering events, one being death. We knew a great deal about each other, and it was hard to hide from your Alpha. Aislinn was neither pack, nor was she human. What she truly was remained to be seen, and I really wanted to glimpse it.

She was frowning. She knew something was different, that there was someone else reaching toward her. Don’t fight me, Aislinn.

Her frown deepened, a line appearing between her eyebrows. I stepped closer again, my hand reaching up to cup the side of her face. Our eyes locked. “I’m not,” she whispered. My thumb slid across her cheekbone, I was close enough now to count the freckles brushing her fair skin. I realised that she was telling the truth. It wasn’t her, it was something else.

There was something; presenting like a wall in his mind’s eye, erected around her. It was at once both protecting her, and trapping her. Anger rose like bile inside of me. Someone had tampered with her. Her mind, her self. What she had within, the raw power and potential, hidden behind a powerful wall of magic. She was being obscured from his world.

I was struck. The audacity of whatever creature was responsible for this. The cruelty shown to Aislinn. How dare they keep her like this. How dare they keep me from seeing her.

I would never be able to knock down this wall alone. I knew it like I knew what was hidden behind it - it was clear. Inwardly, my animal self roared.

Aislinn grabbed me, her fist clenching around my t-shirt, twisting the fabric. Her eyes were wild, her breathing laboured. She opened her mouth to speak, and no words came out. I took a proper hold of her, hands released her face and her fingers and then I took a hold of her arms. “What is it, Aislinn? Aislinn!?” What have I done?

Behind that wall in her mind something roared back. Once emerald-green eyes darkened, changing, deepening, until her entire iris was black. Then I saw her; I saw the wolf.