A.N.: Alpha's Choice is back! I must apologize for taking so long to update but had an unexpected vacation escapade, very spontaneous so couldn't update before. A huge, most heart felt thank you for all your reviews!
This chap is a bit short but I will be updating as soon as I can as the other chapter is already outlined. Oh hell, this entire story is already outlined! It's just to flesh it out *evil grin*
It had never been a natural inclination for him to be this close to anyone...just talking.
They were on the outskirts of the Rez border, stretched out on a blanket, a souvenir from him all human years, in a spot of low grass just past the first thick line of trees. There was a break in the towering trees revealing a surprisingly starry sky free of the normal heavy clouds.
Just simply lying beside her, their faces so close that they can inhale each other's breaths and their hands entangled, is strangely the most intimate moment he's experienced. The companionable silence between them is not awkward or uncomfortable as he would have expected from his own former experiences.
Sam looks at her wondering expression. Even with a slight frown, she looks so alluringly...beautiful. She seems to be deliberating something in her mind. He wonders if she's thinking of whatever had made her appear visibly upset when she met him after collecting her bag where she'd forgotten it at the hospital. Sam had asked her if anything was wrong but she'd just said that she was worried about a patient at the hospital. Yet he sensed it had been something else but hadn't pursued it further, thinking she'll tell him when she is ready...
Now Sam observes a series of fleeting expressions enlivening her delicate features. Her face is so expressive but watching her think is like trying to figure out a puzzle. Sam always liked puzzles...
"Come out with it, Bella..." Sam says, a rare smile stretching his lips, not so rare when he is with her.
"It's nothing." She says softly but Sam has an inkling that this 'nothing' is a big something in her thoughts. His skepticism must have showed on his face because she sighs, finally saying, "Ok. I was just wondering about..." She hesitates, sucking her bottom lip... "...when you first changed...phased..what you must have gone through...what you must have thought."
"It was a very difficult time for me." Sam says, thinking of how self-destructive he'd been in those first few wild days. Fortunately, his newly phased body was able to endure the trial he'd willingly put himself through. He had survived that plummeting fall from that cliff, his body torn on the rocks below but not broken...
He couldn't have said the same for his mind. His body had recovered fast but it'd taken a while for his mind to catch up.
It took one day...one...for the bruises and cuts to heal. A normal human would not have survived that suicide attempt. It was the very thing he'd hated then...the wolf...that had saved him. Somehow, he suspects that a newly phased wolf is at its most physically strong.
"I wish I was there for you." Bella says, her tender voice bringing him back from that blood tinged memory. She appears as if she wants to say more but purses her cupid bow lips.
He shudders to himself, secretly thankful that Bella had never encountered the untamed beast that he'd been. To his surprise, the wolf growls silently in his mind, in blatant disagreement. Interesting.
His wolf instinct is insistent on viewing Bella beyond her fragile, ethereal looks. He wants her to see him at his most ferocious...hunting, exacting discipline, fighting. The wolf wants her to see him as the beast he really is. And while his wolf instinct is also very...territorial about Bella, the animal's feral possessiveness is in direct contrast to Sam wanting to shield Bella from that side of him.
Before he laid eyes on her, Sam had never been possessive about anything let alone anyone. From the second Sam had seen her lying cold and comatose in the woods, he'd wanted to hold her and never release her from the sanctuary of his arms.
He is very much aware that the soft-skinned girl lying beside him has survived a lot. Things she should never have encountered. Things he would kill to have her never encounter again...
Sam is always willing to help anyone out, even before the wolf emerged, he'd hated seeing people in pain. Especially after having witnessed his own mother's emotional and subsequent physical pain. He'd always reached out to help others with a barrier firmly in place so that he was never emotionally touched by those he assisted.
Until now.
Staring into her deep brown eyes, something he is compelled to do often, he murmurs, "You're here now..." He touches the human warmth of her cheek, petal smooth. It's inconceivable how much he doesn't want to lose her...
"Yeah, I'm here now..." She says softly in agreement. "The past is the past..." She adds firmly.
He caresses the small arc of the scar at her wrist. The tiny cresent indenting her skin feels eerily cold.
Glancing down at her old wound, she whispers, "The chill goes away when you touch it."
Raising her delicate arm to his mouth, Sam brushes his lips against the healed scar left from his most reviled enemy's bite. He relishes her sudden intake of air.
"From now on, the only marks on your body will be those of pleasure. Never from pain again." Sam says, the growling cadence of his wolf seeping into his deep tone. No sooner had he uttered those words, Sam experiences a need so unfamiliar that it momentarily disconcerts him. The need to mark her as his...instinctively he knows such an act would bring her pleasure...
The curiousity in her gaze entices him...brings out the predator that he inherently is. She gasps, staring into his eyes. And Sam knows she can see the wolf looking back at her.
Without any more thought, Sam crushes his lips to hers. She returns his kiss with a passionate fire of her own. Much like she had on that cold night he found her, she slides her leg over his hip so that he's pressed even more intimately against her. But her skin's not chilled now but sensuously warm, almost as hot as his skin.
"I want to see you phase again..." she murmurs against his lips.
The wolf perks up within him, her throaty whisper is music to the animal's senses. His wolf is always eager to see her, just as much as he, the man is. It seems to him as if the wolf needs constant reassurance of her complete acceptance.
Leaning back to look into her eyes, Sam asks, "Really?"
She nods in affirmation, her full lips parted wordlessly, heart thundering where her full bosom is pressed against his chest. She watches him silently, wide brown eyes dilated with a bewitching glint. He could even sense that she's become more aroused now. Is it at the prospect of seeing him phase?
With an unfamiliar cold pang of shock, Sam thinks for the first time ever, he would actually enjoy being a prey. Her prey.
He can't help but close his eyes, bliss making him shudder slightly when she sifts her slim, dainty fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. He blindly finds her hips with his hands, pulling her even closer to him where they lie on the soft grass.
"He wants to see you too...my wolf..." Sam whispers, "...but I want to kiss you more... " He trails off, dipping his head ot hers and capturing her lips again...
She nips him on his full lower lip, hard enough for him to feel the sting of her teeth. He growls. The mark of her teeth on his lip sends another intense jolt of desire through him.
"Fuck, baby..."
Heaven help him, he's the hardest he's ever been and by the look in her eyes, one of caution intermingled with that somewhat endearing curiousity and desire, he knows she can feel how much he needs her...
But then, she makes the most adorable pout. "Phase for me..."
Part of him wants to turn her over and spank her for deliberately biting him. Yet another part of him, the greater part, wants to fully claim her now...
Brushing her thumb against his lip, Bella says softly, "I hurt you..."
"The only way you can hurt me is if you decide you don't want to see me again..." Sam says.
"Well, you're safe..." Bella responds, a smile lighting up her face. He can't help but grin back at her.
Then with a sigh, he says, "I'm actually..." He pauses, finding it hard to articulate his fear aloud. Always, he is accustomed to portraying a strong front, always showing courage even when he was most afraid. Except for that one utterly hopeless time when despair had driven him off the cliff...
Yet Bella's unintrusive silence lures away his usual facade, her undemanding attention somehow manages to make him feel an ease to just talk to her.
"I'm afraid that each time you see me phase, that you'll...decide that you don't want anything to do with me. And then there's the situation with the wolves...how they feel about you. I'm not one hundred percent sure, but from what I've researched, there's a way to put a stop to that."
Bella places a hand on his arm. He meets her direct gaze.
"I know." She whispers. Then the most beguiling shade of pink covers her cheeks. Sam is yet again grateful for his keen night vision. "You have to...be with me."
For a moment, Sam admires her quick understanding.
"Did a little research of my own as well..." Bella adds, that hot blush still suffusing her face.
He can't quite stifle his wicked grin. "Be with you? Tell me, Bella. What exactly do you mean by I have to be with you?"
Quite unaware of his teasing, she grips his arm, apparently flustered, teeth digging so determinedly into her bottom lip that Sam thinks blood would appear at any second. Yet she doesn't look away from his gaze, soft brown eyes locked with his own. He loves that she doesn't break their joint gaze. He gently places his thumb on her lower lip, releasing the plump softness from the edge of her teeth.
"The pack...will stop wanting me when you accept me as your mate." Bella blurts out. Then promptly burst into tears.
Immediately gathering her in his arms, Sam does his best to school his features into a semblance of calm. The sudden hurt makes him feel as if he's choking, a tightening nuzzle constricting his throat so that for a few mind muddling seconds, he can't speak.
Is the idea of being his, of being his mate, such a bad thing to her?
"It's ok, Babygirl. I will never force you to do anything you don't want to..." Sam forces the words out, "If you want to stop seeing me, I will...try...my best to leave you alone..."
She doesn't say anything at all, just clutches at him harder, her sobs muffling against his chest. So he just simply holds her, rocking her a bit in his arms.
He couldn't really blame her for not wanting to be with him, to be his mate. He'd always be tied to this place, his ancestry shackling him to a life long sentence. She deserves so much more than that. She is young, beautiful and free. The whole world is out there waiting for her and he certainly could not give her the world. Only his world. A world shrouded in secrets that could never be unveiled...
"Bella, I would kill my wolf first before I ever force you into something you don't want..." Sam whispers brokenly.
She stills against him. Raising her head, her tear stained eyes brimming with a fierce expression, she says almost frantically,
"No, Sam. Don't say that. Your wolf is a part of you. To kill him...is to kill yourself. Don't ever think that..."
Sam nods, "It won't be an easy thing to do. I have learned that the hard way."
Her eyes widen. "What do you mean? You did try to...kill yourself?" Bella asks, horrified.
"Never mind that now..."
"Oh God, you did, didn't you? Oh, Sam..."
Sam closes his eyes, feeling the tense hurt meIt away when she wraps her arms about his rigid torso. Just touching her, being touched by her, her scent all around him would be enough...
Despite his intention to appease her if she decides she doesn't want anything to do with him, Sam knows he is greedy and selfish enough to try his damndest to seduce her into 'being' with him as she put it. He can sense that she wants him, he knows that much. He would have tried his damndest now but he couldn't think of the chances of her regretting their time together. He didn't want her to wake up the next morning wondering if she'd made a mistake.
He won't touch her until she's completely sure that she wants to be with him. Right now, there is still a slim chance that he could still let her go. Because he knows it would destroy him in ways he can't fathom if he fully claims her and can't have her by his side...
"When did you...when did you try to kill yourself?" She asks quietly now.
"That's not important anymore, Babygirl."
"I understand if you don't want to talk about it, right now." She says softly. "But this isn't over..."
"I hope so, BabyGirl...I don't want this to be over. You're my mate, Bella. If you will have me. Wolves mate for life..."
"There's no one you have felt this connection to before?"
"No." Sam says, without a trace of doubt. "This is between you and me only. No one else."
"I know wolves mate for life. You're...glad about this?" Bella asks wonderingly.
"It's not what I expected. But I wouldn't have it any other way. Or with anyone else..."
"I thought you wouldn't be happy about that...with me..." She admits, her voice so quiet a human's average senses would have found it difficult to hear her.
"And I believed that you didn't want to be with me...Ah, Bella..."
Three drawn out howls resound through the trees, the pack's distinct call for the alpha. Sam is instantaneously alert, instinctively sensing for anything out of order in their immediate surroundings. But all is as it should be, the natural sounds of the night echoing a muted rhythm of nocturnal, harmless creatures.
The other wolves so close that he can practically hear their heavy breathing yet they remain out of sight.
He holds her close against him for a fleeting moment before releasing her with a sigh.
"I have to phase." Sam says, regret infusing his usual calm.
"Okay. I'll be right here. Do your thing." Bella quips. Sam chuckles irrepressibly, noting the glimmer of excitement in her gaze.
Hands going to unbutton his shirt, Sam mutters, "I'd dance for you...but whatever it is seems urgent."
He's rewarded with a sweet giggle. "I'll hold you to that..."
Mere moments later, he's on four paws as Paul and Jared mentally update him on what's happening. All the while, the wolf's large silvery obsidian eyes never stray from the lone girl standing a safe distance away.
Seems like the pack just got another new member...