Change For Me (Werewolf Romance) (The Alpha's Kiss) (12 page)

“I... well, no, not really,” I laughed without thinking about it. “I guess you’re talking about Devin?”

The man’s sensation, his aura for a lack of a better word, seemed to warm a little. Suddenly I didn’t feel so weird being in his presence.

“Mhm, Devin. That’s right. He wore the skin of a boy growing up with you. Of course, his true self was growing too. We age to a certain point and then we can stop it if we want. Many choose not to take on that mantle. It’s painful to see your children, your lovers, your friends and family grow old and die for three, four, however many generations. It’s a terrible burden to take, but someone must, or the pack has no leader.”

This is perfect – even if this is just some crazy old man living in a cave, I can use all this in my story. Hard to get more folk magic and local hoodoo than this.

Thinking like that helped me distance myself from the insanity. Pushing back made everything easier, I’d learned, just like when I opened my eight year old eyes and saw my parents burning alive in the car that a couple of firemen had just pulled me from. I looked down at my hand and ran my finger along the jagged white scar that ran from my wrist to my elbow where a piece of glass had almost taken my arm off; almost killed me.

I’d never worn a short sleeve shirt since then, except when I knew I’d be alone. I didn’t even like my grandpa looking at the faded mark.

“In my pack,” Poko said, “we look at pain as growth. What you’ve been through, Lily, you’re stronger than anyone you know, even if you won’t allow yourself to admit such a thing.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I sniffed. Thinking about my parents, even now, always did that to me. Damon was the only person I’d ever really talked about them with, not counting Grandpa Joe. I just never felt like letting anyone else that deep.

I couldn’t deal with having their death be real.

Another shiver took me, from deep in my core, moving outwards .This time it wasn’t the ghosts in the cave, though. It was ghosts inside me.

“You can see them,” he said. His voice bounced off the walls, followed by a trickle of water and a crackle of burning bark. “To you they stay real, that’s why you went so long before you grieved.”

I sniffled again but didn’t respond. I had nothing to say, no way to know what on earth Poko was talking about.

“Your parents, Lily. You see them. You talk to them in your dreams. You can see them in my fire if you look hard enough, long enough.”

Abruptly, I stood up. “How do you know that?” I shouted. The old man didn’t react. “Who the hell are you to tell me this? Like you have some magical gift that lets you talk to ghosts? Let me tell you something. Ghosts don’t exist! Neither do my parents. They’re dead, all right? Yeah, good guess.”

My chest was heaving and tears burst from my eyes. My feet felt like aching nubs at the bottom of my legs, and it was all I could do to weave my way to the cold stone of the cave and prop myself up with my shoulder.

Still, the little man just watched me. He had a kind enough smile, but right then it started bothering me intensely that he had yet to open his eyes the whole time I’d been there.

“Why is this happening to me? Why can’t I just get a normal boyfriend and be a normal girl? I wish Damon was just...
shit!
I just wish he was normal!”

“Right about now, I’m sure he feels the same way. Lily, you must understand something. Help me to my feet.”

“That would require me to get off this wall and if I do I might throw up,” I admitted.

Poko chuckled softly. All at once I wanted to hit him, or cry. Maybe both, but what the hell good would that do?

“Yes, you will need to move from where you stand, but I don’t think you will be given to vomit. Come, come,” he gestured at me to come with the hand he freed earlier from his blanket. “Hand me that,” he said, pointing at a wooden cane that had gone smooth and dark brown with age.

Something about his calm voice forced a little steel into my stomach. My legs proved strong enough not to collapse when I tested them a moment later. Bending down was a bit of a trick, and when the blood rushed to my head I almost blacked out, but I managed to get the little man to his feet without falling on him.

“Hnnn... it is always, er, difficult to stand after so long in meditation. Hold my arm for just a moment while I gain my legs.” Poko’s arm shook violently, though whether it was from some illness or simply from being probably slightly younger than the cave in which we sat wasn’t really clear.

He bent over from the waist, his back made a series of popping sounds that sounded like a tree breaking off at the trunk, and then he twisted to and fro before tapping his cane on the ground a few times.

“There! Feels better, some.” He clenched his bare feet, popping each of his toes. He coughed and shambled nearer, his cane clattering on the ground as he did. “Now, sit. Unless you’d rather stand?”

I nodded. I braced myself with my hands on my knees, bending slightly, which relieved the ache in my back and the absolutely wonderful wave of nausea that hit me out of nowhere.

Suddenly, Poko froze in place and looked into the air, finally opening his eyes. “Oh!” he said. “Oh, very good.”

Oh God his eyes... they’re white
.

Luckily a booming, thunderous sound from the mouth of the cave jerked my attention away from his ghastly eyes. Something was dragging itself back to where we were and I knew instantly what – who, I mean – it was.

“Quickly, Lily,” Poko said. “Before your mate returns.”

Seeing the shock on my face, he raised the hand that wasn’t clutching his cane. “Very sorry, I mean Damon. I forgot very easily that not everyone is so versed in all this. Comes with age, I’m afraid.”

The clawing along the floor was getting louder and suddenly I had a terrible fear.

“Is there something wrong with him?”

“With Kataro? Er, Damon? No. Though he certainly feels like there is. We – our people – undergo a very difficult transition when we come of age, which is presently happening to Damon. I have long forgotten the specifics of the pain he feels, but I recall it being terrible. Many Skarachee do not live through the process, but once it’s complete, he will be in full control of his powers.”

My head was spinning, and those weird scratching noises just kept getting closer and closer. “I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing my temples. “What does this have to do with me? Seriously like two days ago my grandpa was going on and on at me, telling stories about werewolves, and I thought he was just telling me old folktales. I’m lost.”

“We all are,” Poko said with that curious smile and his milk white eyes wide open. They weren’t as frightening as the first time I saw them though. He had a way of calming me.

Damon was almost to us. “Poko, I... I’m bleeding, I can’t walk, I –”

“Steel yourself, Lily. You must care for him, because I cannot. He needs strength and I’ve none left. Staying alive takes all I have. Be prepared that he will not look like anything you’ve ever seen.”

“Even when I saw him on the mountain the other day?”

Poko averted his eyes. “Come, pup, you’ll find solace here,” he said. “Someone you wish to see has come to find you.”

“Lily?” His voice perked up before Damon descended into another fit of moans and coughing.

I looked at Poko, not knowing what to do. “But I need
him
. I need him to be strong for me, not the other way around. I came looking for him because—”

“In time,” he whispered. “He will give all you could ever need. But right now he needs
you
.”

Swallowing hard, it took me a couple of tries to find my voice before it actually worked.

“Damon, I’m here,” I licked my lips, looking to Poko, who nodded. “You’re safe. Are you hurt?”

Finally he stepped – or rather shuffled – into view. In the orange light of the cave’s belly, he looked exhausted and had one arm clutched around his chest. He took hesitant steps and dragged behind him a larger, disproportionate leg that scratched the ground. I had to look away for a second but I clenched my teeth and turned back.

Be strong, Lily. He needs you now just like you needed him a year ago with all those nightmares about your parents. Be strong.

“I, uh,” he trailed off and took a deep breath before exhaling a laugh. “Maybe a little?”

He hit the ground, bouncing off the floor as he entered the ring of light and warmth around the fire.

“Damon!” I screamed, unable to control myself. “Damon, hold on, stay with me.” Crouching beside him, I patted his human hand and grabbed the other one no matter how awful, how horrifying it was, and turned him onto his side.

There was the slightest flicker of light still in his eyes. Damon shook a little. He opened his eyes, then closed them tight for a moment.

“Lily,” he said again, squeezing my hand with fading strength. “I can’t,” he swallowed, his parched throat clicking. “Thank you for... this...”

The next time he closed his eyes, they didn’t open again. I clutched his head against my breast and rocked him back and forth, or as much of him as I could manage to lift onto my lap. Smoothing back his hair, I covered his forehead in kisses, just like I remembered my mother doing when I felt bad.

He was hot. So hot it alarmed me a little, but a glance back to Poko reassured me somewhat. Again I kissed his forehead, then his cheeks, then his nose. I felt his breath on the side of my neck.

“Where else do you hurt?” I whispered into his ear, before stroking his face with my thumb.

Without opening his eyes, Damon lifted his hand and pointed to his cheek. “Here,” he whispered.

I pressed my lips softly right where he pointed.

“Here, too,” he said, touching himself on the jaw, below his ear.

Licking my lips, I sucked gently where he indicated, and got a little bit of a smile from his busted lips.

“Oh, and, uh, here.” He pointed at his chin.

A quick peck was all he got there, because his stubble was really,
really
damn sharp, but it made me giggle anyway.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “You kept... I mean keep, me feeling normal, even when...”

“Shh,” I touched his lips with my finger. “You need to rest. I don’t care what you look like, Damon. You have the most wonderful heart in the world. And you put up with all my bullshit, so we’re even.”

He grinned, then winced. “Hurts to smile. Oh,” he said with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Hurts here too,” he touched his bottom lip.

“I’m sure it does,” I grinned and kissed him gently to make sure not to hurt.

With the last of his strength, Damon held me tight, his arm shaking as he did, and kissed me as hard as he could.

Moments later, our lips parted with a sweet suck that echoed off the cavern, and a half-beat later, he was asleep in my arms.

––––––––

E
very day was a little better than the last one, and even better than that, every day was mostly the same.

I woke up early, like always, fiddled with my story some, asked Grandpa Joe some questions, poked around in old books about the town and the mountains and the people who lived there, and then in the early afternoon, I’d go out in to the woods and tend to Damon. It became sort of a routine.

Routine
. The thing I’d always fought against turned out to be exactly what I needed. When I fell into one, everything was better. My head worked better, I didn’t panic, and I kept things moving forward, but for some reason, I fought against falling into them.

It’s stupid, and I know it is, but whenever I get comfortable with something, I always try to shake it up, having convinced myself that anything routine is actually a rut. Not this time though, I decided. I wasn’t going to screw up my trajectory again by being constantly unhappy.

No, I decided that for the first time in my life, I would take things as they came and appreciate them for what they are instead of what I wanted at some distant, vague point in the future.

And for a while, at least that first week after I started nursing Damon back to health, it worked. He needed me and I needed to be needed.

“I think I’m ready to try walking,” Damon said as soon as he saw me round the corner into the back part of the cave where he slept.

That reminds me – Damon’s parents. His parents had gone on some year-at-least long cross country trip. It was just their way, the Skarachee. They raised him from a baby and then handed him off to the pack’s elder. I couldn’t understand it, but then again, I don’t really understand NASCAR, so I might not be the best judge.

Normally he stayed at his house, like a normal human being. But with him in this state, both he and Poko thought it best that he be under some kind of watch constantly, so in the cave he stayed.

“What’s up?” I kissed him gently on the head and sat down on the little pallet we’d arranged for him near the warmth of Poko’s ever-burning fire. I had heard him perfectly well, and felt awful about it, but I kinda hoped the second time he’d say he was ready to
talk
or something. For some damn reason, I just couldn’t handle him getting better.

“Walk,” he said with a grunt. “I think I’m ready to try.”

My stomach sank into my feet. It was a combination of not wanting him to stop needing me to be around – as stupid as that sounds – but also that I didn’t want anything to change. Just when I fell into a comfortable routine, I had to adjust.

I’m
not
good at adjusting, which is funny for someone who fights against routines so hard.

“Are,” I paused to stop my voice from cracking. “Are you sure you’re ready for that? It’s only been a week.”

Damon smiled that dashing damn smile and my knees went from strong to goop in about a half a second. Before I knew it, I was over by the side of his pallet with my hand out to help him up.

“Damn,” he grunted under his breath. “Harder than I thought.”

He got one foot underneath himself, and when he put weight on it, his knee made the most gut-wrenching popping noise I’d heard since Poko stood up. With one hand on the side of the cave, he took the first tentative step.