“Does that bother you?”
His mood changed like a switch had been flipped. She’d thought they were about to do exactly what the wolves downstairs thought he’d dragged her away for, but now he seemed different, his own mask slipping. He sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands.
Sydney stood there for a minute, not sure if he wanted comfort or space or what to do for him. She’d obviously said something wrong. Maybe he was angry or jealous. The pack had already bonded with him somewhat, but they still weren’t at the drinking buddy stage, something she’d managed in about fifteen minutes when they’d returned from the hunt.
He looked up, and everything fell away. The image he’d erected to protect her and get them safely back home was gone, and in its place, he was just that little boy again. Fiercely protective of her, but just some guy. Not the technological savant who’d orchestrated their escape. Not the superhero who’d slaughtered humans and werewolves to keep her safe. Not the alpha. Just the man.
He sighed. “No, Sydney. It doesn’t bother me. I’m relieved they like you, and that you’re sociable enough to keep the pressure off me. I don’t know how to be around people. They’re going to figure me out.”
She sat beside him on the bed, leaning her cheek against his shoulder. “They don’t know your history. And even if they did, if you are strong enough to lead them, what does it matter? You escaped a near-impossible-to-escape place that was well-guarded.”
Noah shrugged. “They had holes in their security. Big holes. That was luck. If it hadn’t been for that, I never could have gotten us out, even with the unnatural strength I had on my side last night.”
“It wasn’t luck. Everything came together for us. It was all meant to be.”
“You sound like the seers.”
The cities had a lot of those. Cary Town, not so much anymore.
Then Noah broke down for real. All that he’d held in—possibly for years—all that he’d been through the past few nights came flowing out of him. Sydney held him and let him get it out. She hadn’t been in that place for very long, thanks to Noah.
She tried not to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t been there. She would have had no hope. She never would have been strong. She would have spent the rest of her days in that sterile cube and out in the exercise yard trying to fade into the background so some random therian or vampire didn’t kill her simply for existing as something weaker than them.
Even if she managed to survive that, deep down she’d known they hadn’t intended to keep her long. She was a curiosity. Perhaps they wanted to use her blood in experiments to determine how it might benefit them, but in the long run there was little she could offer that couldn’t be gotten from any other vampire, and her blood didn’t infuse magic with extra power like therian blood did. There would have been no reason to keep her alive.
The experiments with the UV light lasers had confirmed it. If she’d died in all that? Well, who cared? They were merely curious, and curiosities didn’t last long in this world.
Sydney closed her eyes, trying to stop seeing Jacob’s lifeless face. Yes, he’d betrayed her. He’d deserved to die at her fangs, but not under those conditions. It had felt all wrong. But her few days of fear and captivity only put a finer point on Noah’s.
What had he gone through? Not just seeing her like that in there, but what had they done to him for all those years? Even if they’d only ever kept him captive and drawn blood every day for use in their magic, it was still beyond cruel to keep a wolf in a small enclosure like that, to prevent him from being socialized properly and from having a pack.
“Noah?”
“Yeah?”
She wasn’t sure if him crying in front of her was because macho hadn’t been properly socialized into him, or if it was because she was his mate, and he trusted her that much. She had to believe it was the latter because of the mask he’d worn while captive and again now with the pack to keep things under control. He wasn’t stupid. He’d known how he had to be in order to stay alive both on the inside and on the outside of those walls.
“I might be able to help with some of this stuff you’re dealing with. Maybe I could soften the edges,” she said.
“How?”
Sydney hesitated. She’d never manipulated emotions before. It wasn’t a skill she’d had. But now, with Noah’s blood and all the changes that had taken place, if she was truly a real vampire now, as his mate, she could help him. Her lack of hypnotic abilities had been connected to all the other weaknesses she’d inherited from the accident of her unnatural birth. It was as if she were a battery that just hadn’t had enough juice to get and stay going. But now she did, and every door that had previously been closed to her stood wide open.
“It’s this mental connection thing. Vampires can do it with humans when they feed normally to some extent, but it’s especially strong with mates. The emotion part, anyway. Vampires can’t get into their mates’ thoughts, but we can help with emotion. I can’t make any of it not have happened, but I can help you get through it.”
In reality, while she she couldn’t read his thoughts, as his mate she could implant new, happier memories. But she knew he wouldn’t want that—to never know what was real or fake inside his head. Taking the worst of the sting from his history would have to be enough.
“Okay.” Noah held out his arm.
She didn’t ask why he didn’t offer his throat. There were limits to everything, and maybe that was too much intimacy for what she was about to do. Maybe he wanted to keep that as something associated with other things.
Sydney bit into the offered arm and tasted all the anguish he’d tried to keep locked away from her. All the self-doubt and insecurity. Those stupid fucking bastards. She wanted to go back in and kill every single one of them that Noah hadn’t gotten to. She wanted to rip down their shiny city and leave it in ruins, like they’d left vampire and therian societies in ruins, like they’d left lives in ruins—including Noah’s.
She thought about his parents mourning him, about her parents mourning her. She thought about everything Noah had lost even in spite of all he’d recently gained and would have returned to him. She thought about all of these things, and as she drank she let those thoughts go and focused only on sending him peace and warmth and security—all the things he probably couldn’t even remember having.
She melted against him as his free hand ran through her hair, and she started to cry as if his pain was transferring into her. And maybe it was. Only it was more distant and detached because it hadn’t actually happened to her. Still, the emotion swamped her.
“Stop, Sydney. This is hurting you.”
Big stupid wolf. Of course it hurt her. But it would hurt her no matter what. If she had no power to help him, it would just be the same powerless uselessness she’d lived with for nearly three decades already. It would be a slow-burning pain as she watched him unravel from the pressure of trying to be all the things to everyone that he’d never been properly taught to be.
When she’d taken the worst of what was on the surface and replaced it with something better, she pulled away from him. “I’m not letting my mate suffer in silence pointlessly. What have you got to prove? After all the years you were in there and everything you risked to get us out? You told them all that I was their alpha, too. If that’s true, let me take on part of this.”