Crushing Gravity

Chapter 25

Leah's POV

"I don't know how many men forced themselves on me."

"I was eight the first time it happened."

"Have you ever been raped?"

"Stop it! Get the fuck off me you fucking pedophile!"

"Fuck!"

"Or maybe, once I take her away... I'll do something else."

I have to consciously force myself to stop tearing chunks out of the mutilated pile of marble. The stench of leech burns my nose with every pant, but my chest continues to heave as I wrestle with control of anger and sense.

The others continue to tear apart the unfortunate vampire, thoughts no more than primitive fury.

I hesitate when I'm able to pull myself away from the mutilation, and suddenly, it's not such a struggle to focus as my eyes land on my imprint. Even the wolf in me knows that it is far more important to be by its mate than partake in the just and complete dismemberment of its enemy.

I pad over slowly to Sam, who is still kneeled in the puddle she fell in. She's trembling like a wolf about to shift, but her eyes are wide and trained on her shadowed and distorted reflection looking back at her.

"After the first few it didn't seem to matter; I knew it was just going to happen again."

My whine can be heard over the wind and rain that continues relentlessly, but she doesn't look up or even stir.

Leah...

I drag my eyes past my girlfriend, and meet the wide troubled eyes of the youngest wolf.

Was she really... Was she really... Brady is unable to finish even the thought.

I turn back to the broken-looking girl with out a word. I don't need to tell them anything. They already know that it's true.

Get her out of here, Sam growls, glaring down at the pile of white marble. We'll take care of this.

I quickly shift back to human, ignoring the harsh weather beating against my bare body, and kneel in front of my imprint.

"Sam?" I call softly, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

Her eyes lift slowly, blinking at my swinging breasts like she can't quite process what they are, until she meets my eyes.

Her eyes. They're so green. Large emeralds melted down and swirled.

"A lot of them weren't fostering me just because it was a good thing to do. I have pretty eyes," I hear her ironic voice in my head.

"I have pretty eyes."

I hate that she might connect them to her rapes because it's probably my favorite feature on her.

Miraculously, they lighten and she smiles. Her hands lift from the forest floor, still trembling slightly, and she holds them out to me.

Immediately, I scoop her into my arms, ignoring the slight pain in my recently dislocated shoulder, and start walking.

Her rests her head against my chest without complaint, enabling me to feel the brush of her eyelashes every time she blinks. Her left hand traces my skin almost unconsciously, cold fingers making it immediately erect and heat to coil in my core.

In my mind, the wolf is still thrashing in its cage with the fury of what it witnessed. The leech touching her mate. My mate. Our mate.

There is an instinctive part of me that wants to claim her for good; rub my sent into the deepest part of her so there would be no mistaking who she belongs to. Me. She's mine!

"Leah?" She asks softly, and my glower shifts from the gravel road down to her. She doesn't flinch, just looks up at me with those wide, curious eyes.

I then realize that I'm still butt-naked, walking in the middle of the road, and I also took her to my house instead of hers.

It doesn't matter anyway; mom and dad would both not be home, so I let myself in and carry her all the way up to my room before I finally let her down. When I flip the switch, the light stubbornly stays off so I start going for the candles that every house in Washington keeps laying around.

"Take those wet clothes off before you catch something," I tell her, and move towards my drawers once there is enough light in the room.

I tug a large shirt on before going in search of something for my girlfriend to wear, only to falter when cold arms wrap around me from behind.

I turn slowly to look down at my girlfriend, sopping wet, dripping a puddle on my bedroom floor and burying her face into me for warmth.

The urge to claim her, that hadn't quieted any, but was pushed back, becomes all the more strong at this show of vulnerability.

I need to claim her, mark her.

"Um," I suck in a deep breath, filling my nose with the sent that would be a vampire's treat, and push her away slightly by the shoulders. "I should go."

She notices my slight trembling and frowns. "Why? What's wrong?"

"I just... It's Wolfe." I know that she sees my shifted form and me as too separate beings. Me, as I am, is her girlfriend and best friend. But Wolfe is an entirely different thing. Wolfe is her protector. Wolfe is an animal, Leah is a human; it's too separate things. She knew them as too separate things before she ever knew them as me. So even if she knows mentally that we are one and the same, it doesn't quite seem like it to her and she has different feelings for them.

I guess Wolfe is kind of separate from me, considering I always refer to that primal part of myself as 'the wolf.'

Sam tilts her head in concern.

"Wolfe... My wolf wants to claim you. Seeing you...touched like that drives crazy. It's very possessive and the normal instinctive thing to do would be...claim you."

She blinks at me, face not giving her emotions away at all, not like it normally does. I turn away to shuffle through the drawers again.

There is the sound of wet clothing as Sam finally shrugs out of them.

"I'll just get you some clothes and go downstairs," I rattle nervously. "I'll be fine once-"

A chilly hand tugs on my elbow, turning me smoothly and rising up to connect our lips with a practiced ease. She's gotten really good at this, is all I can think as she softly bites my bottom lip before pulling away.

My eyes are slow to open, but when they do, they stretch wide and my mouth goes completely dry.

Sam steps away, clasping her hands behind her back to display her bare breasts with nipples that are little more than pebbles and a dusting of goose flesh on every inch of exposed skin.

She's naked, staring at me with an expression that instantly snaps my brain into working order. Her face is blank but her eyes are a war of different things and feelings that I can't figure out.

She lies down on my bed and turns her head away in what I can only call shame.

"Do whatever you need to," she says in a voice matching her expression.

Looking at her, stretched out naked on my bed, I have to admit that I have daydreamed of this.

Except it's all wrong. She doesn't want me.

My wolf, finding something much more important than marking her mate, settles back down to its normal protective concern for an imprint.

I crawl forward on the bed, hovering over her and closely watching her warring emotions. I lower my face to hers and she willingly returns the kiss, but it feels like she's not really there.

I pull away just a whisper, looking into her resigned eyes. "I'm not going to sleep with you, Sam."

She nods with that same look, like she expected the answer. Was this some sort of test? Why does it look like I failed?

She ducks her head, tucking it against my chest with a loose grip on my shirt. But everything about her movements and silence and expression still screams that something is wrong.

She's extremely quiet, and the longer it stretches on, the more concerned I get as a small knot in my chest seems to grow.

"Is it because you think I'm a slut?" She whispers.

First, I blink. Then, my eyes widen as I recoil from my girlfriend, looking down at her and begging with agonized eyes that I heard wrong.

"What?" I ask disbelievingly, throwing my mind backward and searching for any moment that I could have in some way given her that impression.

She looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes and damp cheeks. How could I not have known that my imprint had been crying into my shirt?

"Do you think I'm a slut? Am I a slut? I know you love me, and least I'm pretty sure you do, and I know you don't want me anymore because of all the men that I've..."

I can only watch wordlessly as she swallows thickly, shaking my head slowly in dumbfounded denial.

"But I'm not a slut. Or, maybe I am, I don't know, but-"

"No, Sam, no," I finally seem to find my voice, and I reach out to her frantically. "Fuck, I messed up," I moan, cradling her tear streaked cheeks. How did I mess up?

She opens her mouth, but I quickly silence her with my hand.

"No, shut up and listen. None of what happened to you is your fault, okay? And you are not a slut. I do love you, don't ever doubt that, and I want you, Sam. I always have, even when it made me sick with guilt, and it still makes me guilty."

"But...you don't touch me like you used to. I told you that I liked it when you touch me, and now you always pull back."

"Of course I pull back; it felt so awful when you yelled at me like I was... I don't ever want you looking at me like that again, and I'm terrified that I might go too far and you will!" Some of my frustration leaks out, which I know to be a mistake when her bottom lip wobbles before she sits up and turns away from me, taking deep breaths.

I close my own eyes to try and center myself until all that is left is calm urgency.

"It's so easy to lose myself in you, and I don't ever want to hurt you by being so careless," I reach out, placing a hand on her shoulder. I'm relieved when she turns into it some, leaning into my touch even if it is subconscious. "I'm sorry that I didn't know I was hurting you anyway. I don't know how I could have already messed up so much."

She relaxes completely under my hand, and I'm so relieved.

"What is an imprint?"

The question shocks me completely, but I guess I should be used to it by now.

"I'm sorry?"

She looks over her shoulder, nothing but curiosity showing in her gaze.

"An imprint. I've heard it a few times, from Kim or the other wolves. I heard that I was your imprint. What does it mean?"

I smile ironically, having not even suspected that this talk would be happening when I woke up this morning.

"An imprint is you. Or rather, an action that I do- did- to you. Did you know that wolves mate for life?"

Sam nods, and I can see the slow understanding beginning to dawn on her face.

"I, we, are essentially wolves. When a wolf first sees its mate, they know automatically. I knew as soon as I saw you in that lunchroom that I couldn't ever love anyone else, even if you didn't choose me, too. I knew that I would do anything for you, be anything for you, if only you asked."

Sam's expression is undistinguishable. Then she smiles with a sort of relief.

I didn't expect any less of her and it pleases me to be right in something regarding her.

She turns her body back towards me, and I'm suddenly reminded of my girlfriend's nakedness now that she's more emotionally stable, as the candlelight throws shadows of deep contrast across her bare chest.

My eyes unwillingly take in the exposure of her skin before I can think to stop them, but then my cheeks burn as I quickly turn away.

"Um," I stutter and Sam suddenly gasps.

It makes me feel strangely better as Sam becomes flustered and stutters and trips over her own feet to hide herself. I almost smile as she makes me turn away as she changes, completely disregarding the fact that she had been in front of me that way for the past hour.

Even after she's clothed she's still too flustered to cuddle, and by that time, the power flickers back on as the storm finally passes.

A/N: You are absolutely right, SH4D0W44, everybody prepare yourselves. There is only one more drama before this story ends, and I honestly think you guys might hate me a little for it.

Mwahahahahaha, I feel evil. But, no seriously, this story is almost over. Like, three or four more chapters almost over. :(

So let me know what you think, is it starting to feel like things are repeating themselves? It seems kind of repetitive to me...

~Silver~