“I know what's going on with you, Sophie,” he sighs. “Just give me a chance to explain.”
“No! No more chances! You had your chance, and you blew it, and now you think that you can trap me here with ritualand fate and whatever else you werewolves believe in! I'm not falling for it!”
I try moving toward the doorway, but Damian stays rooted there, blocking my way.
“Let me go, Damian.”
“I can't do that, Sophie. It is dangerous out there. I'm not letting you walk into danger.”
“I don't need you to protect me,” I growl, glaring at him, but he refuses to relent.
“I know you don't, but you're safer here than you are out there.”
“You keep telling me that, and I don't believe you,” my voice trembles as I say this. “I don't trust you, Damian.”
“Then tell me what to do to make you trust me again.”
His voice is so sincere, so sure, that it stuns me how much my heart wants to believe him. But my mind is at war with the parts of me that want to believe him, and I snap again, “I want you to leave me alone.”
“You know I can't do that,” Damian argues, and I blow a frustrated breath through pursed lips.
“I just can't deal with you right now. I'm leaving, Damian.”
“No, you're not.” Damian takes a step forward, towering over me. “You know that's not what you want. You're afraid, Sophie, and I get it. I do. You don't know who you are.”
That last sentence strikes me harder than it should, and I shove at his shoulders with enough force to push him out of the way.
“Iknow who I am!” I roar as I step aside, halfway down the hallway, when I hear his voice echoing from behind me.
“You don't knowwhatyou are, Sophie.”
Those words stop me, something vibrating in my chest as if in response to that sentence, and I gasp. My eardrums are filled with a ringing sound that has me panicking again, and I turn around slowly, frowning furiously at Damian.
“What do you mean by that? WhatamI, Damian?”
Damian gulps, dropping his eyes and shrugging. “Nothing. It didn't mean anything.”
My nostrils flare, my body blazing with heat that frightens me—heat reminiscent of the heat that consumes me and turns me into something I'm afraid of. And what's worse is that I can feel where it's being directed, at the person I'm most angry with, the man who is solely responsible for all of this.
There's a part of me, deep down, minute, that warns me to walk away before I do something I might regret, so I spin on my heel and put distance between Damian and me, throwing the door open and stepping out into the evening air just as the sun is setting. Dusk is approaching, casting beauty and serenity over the valley, but I can't appreciate the scene.
Not when every part of me burns with that frightening heat I've been trying to run from. I race all the way to the river, lugging in deep breaths in an attempt to cool down.
I feel the tug, the pull that stops me from being impulsive, but it also whispers to me that I can't leave. I realize that it isn't a ritual or marriage that has me feeling trapped.
It's my own instinct, and my heart, that keeps me attached to this place—this place that should have felt like a prison, but instead feels like home.
As tears spill freely from my eyes and I sink to my knees, the ground cushions my fall, embracing me, silently holding me in welcoming arms I can't see, but which I can feel closing in around me. The earth withers around me, like a circle that burns, before it erupts with new blooming life, surrounding me like a sacred circle of protection.
That's when it hits me that there is no escaping from this. Who I am, what I am becoming, is all a part of something I have no control over.
And not having control is the part that scares me the most.
Chapter 15 - Damian
I watch Sophie from the kitchen window, my heart breaking as I feel her pain humming through the bond. She's feeling…everything…and perhaps it's what she needs to truly come to terms with what the council plans to reveal to her in a few days.
I know I should be the one telling her, explaining to her where her roots lie, and why the valley responds to her in a way that it won't respond to any of the wolves.
