Marry the Beast, I Want the Alpha

13

Jake Pov

The sun was shining with great ferocity, its rays radiating over the leaves of the overhead canopy. Shadows moved on the garden pathway, shimmering as if agitated beings. I braced myself against the contorted oak at the edge of the pasture, crossed my arms, and stared at her.

Morticia.

She sat on a low wooden stool near the center of the garden, her back to me. Her head inclined marginally while she looked at the white paper in front of her. There in front of her lay a row of paintbrushes neatly to her right, with the brushes organized according to size. Her fingers hovered over them, tapping lightly, indecisive.

Her hair was free today, golden tresses shimmering and catching the sunbeams as strands of silk. [She] From time to time would slip a loose curl of her hair down behind her ear and for no specific reason I saw it many times. Her movements were deliberate, but precise, as if she adhered to a different time scale than the others of us.

I knew I should look away. Should walk away. But I didn’t.

At last, she selected a brush, filled it with a very small bottle of ultramarine blue pigment, and began a brushstroke on the artwork. With the brush gently spiraling in effortless sweeps her shoulders relaxed and her body's knot of stress started to loosen.

This wasn't the first time I've seen her like this. Painting was one of the few times she appeared. Unburdened. No mask. No hollow smiles for her dad or pretend concern for Jacob's lack of interest. Just Morticia, alone with her colors.

I liked her best like this.

A breeze swept through the garden, with the herby aroma of lavender and the soil underneath. The leaves rustled, whispering secrets I’d never know. Her head turned slightly like she’d heard it too, but she didn’t stop painting. Her eyes remained focused, her lips pressed together in quiet concentration.

I experienced a change in my chest region, a tug I did not want.

I’d been around powerful alphas and cunning betas. I'd all too personally experienced battling, bleeding, and suffering because of the need to stay alive. I knew how to fight bad guys, I knew how to stay away from things that might pull me into the gravitational field around bad guys.

But Morticia?

She wasn't supposed to be a threat.

And yet, I felt like I was being pulled in.

Itching in my extremities, that tingling urge to move, to act, buzzed under my skin. But I stayed still, watching her brush blue streaks into the white canvas. It wasn’t clear what she was painting yet some kind of swirling shape, maybe water, maybe sky. It didn’t matter. She knew that that was where it was going and that was okay.

I envied her for that. If it's to be focused upon (on anything that lies outside the pack politics, upon the obligation of the pack, upon the creature who has it).

Her voice broke the silence, soft but sharp.

So, you gonna keep stalking me like a ghost or you gonna say something?

I blinked, my posture shifting against the tree. She knew.

Her brush moved in slow, measured sweeps but she didn't turn around. Didn’t need to.

"Didn’t think you noticed," I said, stepping out from the shadows.

Morticia checked me on her shoulder, eyes traveling from side to side with that characteristic, contemplative, look only she would. Her gaze wasn’t sharp like her father’s or dismissive like Jacob’s. It was steady. Like she was taking the measure of me and didn’t mind taking her time to do it.

"I always notice," she replied, dabbing her brush into a lighter blue. It's not even optional to notice if a person's fixating hard enough to burn a path right through the top of your head.

I snorted, moving closer. "Didn’t think you’d mind. You'd be too busy with your masterpiece to worry.

Her lips quirked, not quite a smile, but close. "Careful, Jake. You’re getting dangerously close to sounding like you have a sense of humor. ".

Don't tell anybody," I said, crouching down on one knee beside her small stone planter. From here, I could see the canvas better. It was a sea. It's not the tranquil, still, quiet, but the roaring, surging type that would seem like it would submerge the world.

“Stormy waters,” I said, tilting my head. “Feeling trapped?”

Her brush paused mid-stroke. Her eyes flickered toward me, sharp as broken glass.

“Don’t,” she said quietly, her voice low but firm. Not a warning, not quite. More like... a plea.

I raised my hands in mock surrender. “Just an observation.”

Her stare at me remained for a second longer before she resumed looking at the painting. The brush moved on, laying down lines of gray and white onto the seafoam. She sat and worked in silence for a while, the only sound the careful noise of the brush on the canvas.

“Why are you here, Jake? she asked suddenly, not looking at me.

I glanced at her, brow raised. “You sound like you want me gone.”

“Not what I asked. Her brush now went faster, it gave sharper waves to the water. “You don’t hover unless you have a reason.”

I shrugged, leaning my back against the planter. “Maybe I’m bored.”

She glanced at me, one brow raised in disbelief.

“Fine,” I muttered. “I like it here.”

That caught her attention. Her brush slowed, her gaze shifting to me fully.

“You like it here, she repeated, her voice filled with quiet disbelief. You, the one who's always in the back of the house, the dog with nowhere else to run, the one who's somehow here.

I scratched at the dorsal region of my neck, but not looking at the person. “It’s quiet.”

She looked at me for just a little longer, eyes narrowed sheepishly as if she was attempting to strip me right down to the core truth underneath it all. I hated it when she did that.

Hm," she remarked after a pause and rotated back towards her work once again. “I’ll allow it.”

“Generous,” I muttered.

The corner of her mouth twitched. A genuine smile this time, only for a moment a spark goes out, but there it was. And I noticed.

The sun rose higher in the sky, going back to the withdrawal. A tune of faint, remote bird song filled the trees with the whispering leaves. She painted. I watched.

Neither of us spoke.

★

I don’t know how much time passed before she set her brush down and leaned back, wiping her hands on a cloth. She looked at the painting for some time, her gaze remote as though she was not yet sure that it was a completed painting.

“It’s good,” I said, standing and stretching. “The sea looks alive.”

Morticia blinked, surprised by the compliment. Looking up at me, she shifted her head most curiously like she was seeing me again for the very first time.

“Thank you,” she said softly. Her gaze lingered. Longer than usual.