Page 54 of His Found Lycan Luna

I know she’s cozy, yet I can also sense her discomfort at being there. It is a weird sensation to feel from her. Almost as if it is her safe place, but also a place that torments her. Her emotions fluctuate between peace and panic, and I know she is claustrophobic. I have witnessed her distress not only through the bond when she made her den the last time but also saw it for myself. But as much as she hates the closet, it is almost as if she fears the outside world past the door or maybe just me, which makes me shift uncomfortably.

Eventually, all noises stop inside the closet, and I can hear her heart pounding as she draws nearer to listen to what I’m saying. My purr reverberates around the room, echoing off the walls as I call her to come to me. Her anger and fear amplify as she fights not only an invisible war within herself but also against my calling. I tone it down a little, giving her the choice to fight it or answer it, while still encouraging her to come to me. However, reading simultaneously is also a little tricky trying to maintain both tasks. Coughing, I take a sip of my drink, resting my head back against the wall.

“If you come out, I will read to you,” I tell her. She doesn’t answer straight away. When she does, it isn’t the answer I am hoping for.

“No, you will use the bond against me,” she growls.

“You are my bond, Ivy,” I tell her, turning my head to look at the door handle. I twist it, but she still hasn’t unlocked it.

“Don’t you want the bond?” I ask her, wondering how she canfight so hard against it and refuse me when I am hers as much as she is mine.

“You broke it,” she says, and the sadness through the bond stings me.

“And I am trying to fix it,” I reply, closing my eyes as I lean my head back.

“It wasn’t just yours to break,” she states.

“And I said I am trying to fix it,” I repeat.

“And what if I don’t want you to?”

“It’s not up to you; I told you already. You are mine; I meant that Ivy; I won’t let you go again,” I tell her, becoming annoyed that she dares to challenge our bond. I don’t understand what she wants. She wanted the bond. I broke it, and now I am trying to fix it. What more does she want from me? I can’t go and take everything I did back.

“Until you find something else to hate me for or I do something you don’t like, then you will cast me aside because you can, and there is nothing I can do about it,” she murmurs. “You hurt me,” she whispers so softly I nearly missed it.

“I didn’t mean to break your hand, Ivy; I didn’t know it was there,” I snap at her. I bloody healed it, for god sake.

“I’m not talking about my hand, Kyson. I know you didn’t do that on purpose.”

I growl, annoyed, shaking my head.

“You think broken bones hurt? Scratches, wounds that refuse to heal for months on end. They hurt, but they also mend when the skin closes over. After that you’re left with a scar, a distant memory of what was once painful. Yet that hurt ends,” she pauses, and I pick up my glass, draining the last of it about to break the handle and drag her out, tired of playing these games of hide and seek. Standing, I go to grab the handle when she speaks again.

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to allow yourself to trust someone, let them see every dark ugly piece of you only for them to throw it in your face?”

I pause, wondering what she is onabout now.

“Are you going to finish, or are you going to make me guess?” I ask her, gripping the door handle; the metal creases as my grip tightens around the brass knob.

“I trusted you; I allowed myself to love you despite knowing better than to get my hopes up.”

She takes a moment’s pause, perhaps waiting for me to answer. When I don’t, she continues.

“Mrs. Daley taught me to know my place, and you made me believe I could find that with you. That I was free to choose that place.” Her words sting. I know I messed up, but I never would’ve thought she’d compare me to Mrs. Daley, the woman who tormented her for years.

“Freedom. My version of freedom for years was death. I was ready to die on that podium that day, ready to be set free. I was convinced it would be better than the life handed to us. Then you showed me another sort of freedom.”

I take my hand off the door handle, figuring it’s better to let her finish.

“I realized I was never living. We were already dead, and then you gave us our names back, and our lives back, for a while, anyway. Then just as quickly as you gave it to me, you took it away. The ultimate puppet master with a god complex that I can’t compete against.”

“Ivy,” I say, her name coming out as a choke whimper.

“No, Kyson. You took it; you made me wish for freedom again. I wished that you would have left me to die that day; it would have been a more humane thing to do than give me hope only to show me how foolish it was to have it in the first place.”

My heart twists painfully in my chest as I feel the truth behind the words she speaks.

“Now that is pain, and nothing haunts me more than knowing you have the power to send me back to a place that the only freedom I will long for is death.”

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