Author's note. Sorry it took so long. This chapter isn't as long as the first, but I hope you like it. Remember to review!
Chapter Two
Watched
Anneal
I watch her face as she sleeps. After what happened on the beach, I don't dare sleep.
I only have to look into her eyes to know that she wants to as well, but she thinks she's too young. I'm six years older than her. I wish I was just a little younger. Twenty even. I know she wouldn't think she was too young if I wasn't twenty three.
The love I feel for Eden is almost unbearable. It's unbearable when I'm away from her. It's unbearable when I'm not holding her. It's painful. It's painful for me when I see the scars all over her body. She was perfect. An angel before I made her fall. I have left my mark. I have claimed my territory. Wolves always mark the ones they love. Their mates, but normally just once. The scars really are everywhere. I've touched almost every inch of her beauty. And I'm bound to destroy it one day. The scars are everywhere. I've hurt her so much, but I know that she would never tell me that.
A pack leader can hear the thoughts of his pack. Though, I didn't need to hear Eli's thoughts to know that he and Aria have gone all the way. He's always touching and kissing her. How does he manage not to ravage her body? Eden and I haven't gone as far as them yet, but I've put more scars on her than the stars God put in the sky. Aria has only two scars and that's on her neck where Eli marked her.
I settle down next to her and drape my arm casually around her waist. She sighs, but doesn't wake up. I move her hair away from her neck gently and look at the first mark I ever made. Her fifteenth birthday. I called her beautiful. She was beginning to be noticed by boys. I don't use the word boy lightly. Football players, wrestlers, and baseball players. They were all good looking I suppose. For boys. She dated several boys. At least three a month. She was and still is absolutely gorgeous. Even with the scars.
One of her relationships lasted seven months. She was convinced she loved the boy. Star quarter-back of the football team. He was eighteen and a senior. He broke it off on her fifteenth birthday. She was a sophomore and she was heartbroken. I had actually managed to make a cake without burning it.
She was not as wise then. She let her hormones get the best of her. After he called her she came into the kitchen bawling her eyes out. I put the cake on the table and grabbed a lighter. She just cried more. "Why are you so great?" she had bawled.
She blew out her candles and took a fork and just started eating the cake. She downed about half of it. We watched a movie and I ended up carrying her to bed. At about four a.m. she ran to the bathroom and puked up half a chocolate fudge cake. It was sad, because it was her favorite.
I fall asleep and find myself reliving the memory. What a wondrous night. It was the beginning.
I held her hair while she was puking. I stayed sitting next to her bed an hour after she was done. She kept on crying and screaming.
"I'm so fucking fat! That's why Alec broke up with me!" I could have reasonably hit her there.
"Don't you ever say that! You're beautiful! If he can't see that than he's blind!" she went silent there. The tears stopped, but they still coated her eyes and cheeks.
"You really think I'm beautiful?" she whispered so low I had to lean forward to make out what she was saying.
"Yes. I always have." I whispered back to her. I had slowly become aware that I was leaning forward even further. It hadn't struck me until I was kissing her. It wasn't just a peck on the lips. It was a passion I had had never experienced with any other woman. I knew that things were going to go much further than they should have when she let me pull her onto my lap. I remember the shock I had when she locked her arms around my neck and kissed me back. We ended up on the bed, but we had just kissed. I had told her about marking in the past. When I kissed her neck my teeth pierced her skin. Just slightly. I tasted a small amount of her blood on my lips.
She was in no danger of becoming a werewolf. It isn't something that you become. It's something that's born into you.
My nails made another long scratch down her arm. She had received two marks that night. Two marks that claimed her as mine. She'll be my future mate. A wolf doesn't mark someone intentionally. It happens when fate decides they found the one.
I'd been with other women. I never told any of them what I was. I'd gone far with them, but I had never marked anyone.
Twenty-one and I had fallen for a fifteen year old sophomore girl. I wish I could say that I finally fell for Eden that night we first kissed, but I would be lying to myself. I had truly noticed how amazingly beautiful she was the first time I saw her. She was so young.
