Chapter 40: Chapter 39 - Bells

Saturday 19 December

~*Bells’ POV*~

Earlier…

“Give me the phone, Tatum.”

“Answer the question, Nat.”

These two were going to be the death of me.

Tatum, I was used to. It was hard not to be used to your own twin. He was annoying as ever. Of course, he was going to latch onto this turn of events and be obnoxious about it.

But Nat? Nat was like a breath of fresh air, a cool breeze after days of sweltering heat. I watched them wrestle over Nat’s phone, proud that Nat was holding her own against Tatum, giving him back everything he was giving her.

It was glorious.

“She really is magnificent, isn’t she?”

I sighed happily at Wyatt’s words. “She absolutely is. I still can’t believe you wouldn’t let her leave last night. Or that you refused to let me shift back.”

“What did you expect me to do? I haven’t spent nearly enough time with her. Dumbass.”

“We are so going to need to talk about this later.”

I could feel Wyatt rolling his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. I don’t regret what I did for a second, and I won’t apologise for it. I need time with her too, you know.” He shut his consciousness off from me so he could have the last words on the matter. I was sure that he did it to me because he knew how much I hated it.

I huffed in annoyance. He had a point about letting him have time with Nat, but he had to see it from my perspective. As much as she would be loath to admit it, she was fragile right now. Not in the physical sense. I only had to see her wrestling with Tatum to see that. But mentally. Her admission earlier about suffering from nightmares every night had me wracked with guilt. Why hadn’t I known about that?

I watched Tatum keep Nat’s phone just out of her reach, and Nat was getting more and more desperate. “Give her the phone, Tate.”

He glanced at me with a smirk, which was the only reason he never saw Nat’s punch coming. I grinned in anticipation, as I knew exactly how he was going to be feeling soon enough. He’d done it to me enough in the past. Time for him to get a taste of his own medicine.

“Oof!” Nat’s phone clattered to the kitchen bench as he doubled over, trying desperately to get air back into his system. Her punch had been perfect. For someone who spent so much time using defensive moves in the sparring sessions, she knew exactly how to throw a punch.

Not for the first time, I wondered what secrets her beautiful brain had locked away. Someone had clearly taught her how to fight. There was no way she could throw punches the way she did without years of training.

It couldn’t be her wolf guiding her. There was obviously some disconnect still going on between her and her wolf, even though Cody and I were both convinced that Nat had heard her at least once last night when she made the toilet joke. I had pulled Cody aside after dinner briefly to see what she thought, and we were of like minds. As much as Nat disagreed with the idea, we were both convinced that Nat’s wolf was starting to claw her way back.

It was only a matter of time before she would come through entirely. And we would need to be there for Nat when that happened. For some reason, it was plain that Nat was in denial about having a wolf of her own, so when she inevitably pushed through, Nat was going to have a tough time reconciling her world view of who she was.

Unless her memories came back before that happened.

That was one thing that was wonderful about living in a pack — we had each other to teach us how to cope with our wolves when they first appeared when we turned sixteen. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like waking up on your sixteenth birthday and suddenly start hearing a voice in your head without being told to expect it. I had heard that we had workers planted in psychiatric hospitals to look for rogue wolves, or, on rare occasions, those that had been left with humans. The workers had two years to identify those that did not know what they were, testing them with silver, and looking for any unusual increase in physical and mental abilities. Two years to get them out of a situation that would end in disaster once they turned eighteen and were forced to turn on the next full moon.

I assumed it was only a matter of time before the human world learned of werewolves, other than the tales they told themselves around the campfires and under the blankets. We had been lucky far too often and for far too long as a species. Our reveal was inevitable. It was just a matter of when it would occur.

“Thank… You!”

I watched Nat pluck her phone from the kitchen bench where Tatum had dropped it and dart to the front door. My eyes drifted to Tatum, still doubled over, and gasping for breath. He glared at me, then back to Nat, obviously trying to get me to tell her off for punching him.

My grin spread further. There was no way I was going to berate her for what she did to him. He’d totally deserved it. He frowned at me, still unable to say anything.

“Bells? I’ll message you later, okay?”

“Sure, Nat. Speak to you soon.” Tatum’s frown became angry as he realised I wasn’t going to say anything at all to her before she left. My grin grew ever wider, the more furious he became.

Goddess, I loved that woman.

After the door shut, I turned back to my bedroom. I heard Tatum’s groans, no doubt trying to get me to stay so he could get all up on his high horse about me not defending him, which I couldn’t give two shits over. I was also sure that he wanted to grill me about last night and how, or why, Nat had stayed the night.

Fuck him. He’d just have to wait until I had showered.

I desperately needed some alone time. I hadn’t been kidding with Nat earlier about needing a cold shower. My cock still throbbed from the memory of kissing her in my bed.

The way her hands had wandered down my back.

The way she had smacked my bare arse before shifting out from underneath me…

I shut myself in my room and sagged against the door. My dick was giving me hell for not being attended to. I couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before. Things had been so different with Kadin. The spark I felt with Nat had never been there with Kadin. The need to be continually touching her, to feel those pulses thrumming through me every time my skin met hers.

Being near Kadin when we’d been dating had felt like an obligation, a chore.

Being near Nat was an addiction, a craving that I could never fully satisfy.

Feeling the discomfort in my jeans, my cock straining to be released from its confines, I hastily made my way to the ensuite, locked the door, and stripped as fast as I could. I turned the water in the shower on, getting under the steady stream, not caring in the slightest that the water was still freezing. The cold gave me a brief reprieve from the heat consuming my body, letting my brain get fully back online.

My arms outstretched in front of me, I leaned against the tiles with my face down and took a deep breath, letting the water cascade over my body. Nat had said that she could feel these sensations as well. I had said nothing to her about them, as I honestly thought I had been going crazy and imagining it all. But when she said it out loud? A feeling of elation had come over me — I wasn’t alone; she was feeling them too.

As the water warmed up, so did my body. I groaned as desire flooded my blood, a longing to find Nat, to hunt her down wherever she was and take her.

I closed my eyes as an image floated through my mind; of her underneath me, writhing in ecstasy as I thrust into her again and again; her moans echoing around the room as I let my weight fall onto her, smothering her, pushing her into the soft mattress beneath her; my canines lengthening as I nuzzled her neck to find the perfect place to mark her; a bonding scent spreading throughout the room as I plunged my teeth into her, marking her as mine; of the climaxes that wracked both our bodies as we came at the same time.

My release made me groan. I opened my eyes to realise that at some point during my daydream, I had gripped my cock and had begun stroking it along with my imagined thrusts, releasing at the same time as my vision had. I panted raggedly as I watched the cum pulse out of me and over the hand that still held my hardened shaft, a shudder running through my body at the aftershocks of my climax.

Goddess, I had never had that vivid a daydream before.

Once I got my breath back, I finished up my shower, dried, and slowly went hunting for new clothes. I was putting off talking to Tatum as I knew he would be lying in wait outside my door to grill me as soon as I opened it. To maximise his waiting time and my thinking time, I put everything in my room back to how it had been before I had shifted into Wyatt.

When I couldn’t put things off any longer, I slowly opened my door. As expected, the response was immediate.

“Dude! Why did you let her jump me like she did?!”

I sighed as I walked past him, heading for the kitchen and leaving him leaning against the wall next to my door with his arms crossed. “Tatum, you deserved it.”

“The hell I did. There was no call for it,” he whined as he followed me.

I levelled him with a pointed stare as I grabbed cutlery out of the drawer before I started hunting for some cereal and fruit.

“What?” He sat on the barstool at the kitchen bench and watched me gathering my breakfast. Or was it lunch? I mentally shrugged. It was certainly late enough in the day for it to be lunch. Either way, it was food, and I was going to enjoy it.

“You knew she was running late, and you were playing ‘keep off’ with her phone. You deserved everything she gave you.”

“That’s no excuse for you to not intervene.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “What on earth gives you the impression that she needed my help?”

“Fuck her! It was me that needed the help!”

I burst out laughing. “Dude, if you needed help, you shouldn’t be playing stupid games like that.”

He growled at me. “Fuck you, Bells. You should keep better control of your girl.”

I leaped across the kitchen bench, grabbed him by the throat, and forced him to the floor. I brought my lips to his ear. “Be careful, Tatum,” I snarled. “You want me to tell Zelda about how you ’control her’?”

The colour drained from his face as what I had said registered. I had such a tight grip on his throat though, he couldn’t respond. He didn’t move, not attempting to fight me back at all.

“I didn’t think so.” I loosened my grip gradually, then lifted myself off him. He went to get up, but I put my hand on his chest to shove him down again. “Stay down.”

He scowled at me, but stayed put.

I looked down at him. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?” I finally got to my feet and went back to my breakfast/lunch, still sitting on the kitchen bench. “Mum raised us better than that.” I watched him lie where I had left him, his hands resting on his chest. “She’d be so disappointed in you right now.”

He glared at me but said nothing. Not shifting his gaze from mine at all, he slowly got up, pulling his shirt straight from where I had rumpled it.

I spread my hands on the kitchen bench, leaned forward, and sighed. “You can’t keep pulling this shit, Tate. Get your fucking act together.”

“Right. Cos you’re so fucking perfect,” he muttered under his breath, planting his hands on his hips. “You’ve always been the golden child. The best at everything. Given the best of everything. Given the best opportunities.”

I groaned, running my hands through my hair. “What the hell are you on about? Mum and Dad gave us both everything equally.” I pointed my finger at him when he started to argue. “Don’t you dare blame me for your life flying off the rails. You make your own choices.”

“Whatever Bells.” He threw a hand up to dismiss me. His eyes narrowed. “I hope she was a good fucking lay, brother. Goddess knows you needed it. I bet she was worth it. It’s a pity I wasn’t here last night to hear her moan.”

“Damn it, Tatum.” I ran at him, my food once again forgotten. I leapt at him, my fists finding their way to his face with no conscious thought. Pummelling him, I pushed him backward until his back slammed into the wall.

He never tried to stop me.

He didn’t once try to raise a hand to block my attack or to dodge anything I threw at him.

When my rage was spent, I pulled back from him. He slid down the wall, a hand raised to his split lip. I stood over him, puffing.

He looked up at me from his slumped position on the ground, his legs spread out in front of him. He rubbed his chin, where a bruise was already sprouting.

He let out an appreciative sigh, then grinned at me. “Thank you, brother. I needed that.”

Still panting, I took two steps back from him, appalled. My fists hovered at my sides before I dropped to my knees next to him. I hung my head in shame, the adrenaline still coursing its way through me.

“Why, Tate?” I mumbled. “Why do you keep doing this?” A frustrated tear ran down my cheek.

He let out a taunting laugh. “Why not?”

I shook my head, giving up trying to argue any sort of sense into him. I got up, grabbed an apple as I stumbled past the kitchen bench, abandoning the meal I’d prepared earlier to clean up later.

I had to get out of the apartment.

I had to get away from my beloved brother.

As I headed to the door, Tatum’s mocking laugh grew louder. “You love doing this to me, Bells. Don’t deny what you crave. Isn’t that why I’m here? Isn’t that why I was born?”

I paused at the door, my hand on the door handle. Another tear fell as I listened to him doing everything he could to enrage me again so I would return and continue beating him.

“Get help, Tate. You can’t keep expecting this from me.”

His laugh turned evil. “You can’t deny me, Bells. I know what your trigger is now.”

I felt faint. The sound of his laugh faded into the background as a vision of Nat flickered through my mind.

“That’s right, bitch. You have no choice.”

I gripped the doorhandle, narrowing my eyes at his words, but refused to turn around.

“I own you, Bells. I fucking own you!”

His horrible cackling filled the room as I turned the handle and left.

I fled to Nat’s apartment. When I got there, I pounded on her door, praying that she had returned from her meeting with Auden.

The door opened, but it wasn’t Nat who answered. It was Cody.

The look on my face must have revealed my inner turmoil, as her eyes filled with sympathy.

“He’s done it again, hasn’t he?”

I nodded, fighting the tears that were filling my eyes.

She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Come on. Nat will be back soon enough.”