IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCE

GALLAHAN’S POV

A dismal look marred Willa’s features, despite the tiny curl at the ends of her lips. She was looking down at the plate of stir fried noodles that were still mildly glistening in sauce.

“The war is a polarizing topic,” she said at last. “So I was thinking while in the bathroom…”

“Yes?” I urged on, taking a salacious tone with my voice.

A withering glare from her got me grinning.

“Maybe it would help if we ease ourselves into this conversation, instead of diving head first into a topic we are sure to fight about.”

I hummed with a nod of my head. “So you’re suggesting having small talks?”

A pink hue dusted the apples of her cheeks. “Yeah. I am. It allows us to establish rapport, I suppose. Makes us feel a little more comfortable. Maybe then we could slowly broach the sensitive topic without one of us immediately getting defensive and angry.”

“That makes sense,” I replied, picking up one of the forks and handing it to Willa.

She accepted it with a whispered ‘thanks’ and began to twirl the noodles around her fork. “So…”

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked to save her from the awkward task of starting the small talk she wanted.

My question got her snorting.

“What? You said small talk.”

We battled in a staring contest for a couple of heartbeats before she conceded and said, “Fine. Fine. It’s green.”

“Mine too.”

“No, it isn’t,” she argued before shoving a forkful of noodles in her mouth.

“No, it wasn’t. But only until I saw such a pretty shade of green in the middle of a battle,” I said, making it a point to look her in the eyes so she wouldn’t miss what I was pertaining to.

A sense of childish triumph flared in my chest as I watched the pretty pink flush bursting on her cheeks.

So easy.

“My turn,” she said once she had swallowed down her food. “Favorite food.”

“We could never go wrong with a good steak.”

“Unsurprising,” she remarked with a roll of her eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a predator in every way.”

I didn’t miss the insinuation of her explanation. There was an underlying jab there, straight at the fact that I am a predator of her ‘innocent’ humans.

“Careful there,” I warned jokingly. “You’re treading close to home.”

She shrugged then said, “Mine is ice cream.”

“Sweet tooth?” I asked, my forkful of noodles raised halfway to my mouth.

“I don’t particularly care much about sweets. Just ice cream. The ones with nuts especially.”

“Duly noted,” I said with a wink, before finally bringing the forkful of noodles into my mouth.

“Your turn.”

I lifted a finger, trying to ask her for a moment as I continued to chew. It was after the food slid down my throat that I said, “Any hobbies?”

“Art. I mean… I paint, but I also draw.”

Huh. That seemed to suit Willa well. After all, she seemed to be a work of art herself.

“Do you prefer painting over drawing?”

A subtle excitement vibrated off of her as she answered, “I do, and I also love gardening. I have this small and private garden back in my family’s estate, and I love it. I wish I had more space though.”

I nodded.

“What’s that look?”

I stare at her quizzically. “What look?”

“That look. You seem to be plotting something.” She squinted her eyes a little in mild suspicion and said, “No, you ARE plotting something. What is it? Spit it out.”

“A greenhouse,” I answered casually, twirling more noodles around my fork. “For you. In our own home in the near future.”

“Oh. That’s…”

“Sweet of me?” I finished for her with a smirk. “I know. You don’t have to tell me.”

“You know, you have a knack for ruining the moment.”

“Sweetheart, I am the moment. It will never get boring when you are with me.”

“Debatable.”

“And yet, you are smiling.”

Her smile dropped instantaneously, leaving her face carefully impassive. “Just tell me your hobbies.”

“Reading.”

A disbelieving snort erupted from her, causing her to lift a hand to cover the lower half of her face. “You read?”

Her tone rang with incredulity, but I refused to get offended. I was well-aware I didn’t seem to be the type. Nearly everybody who didn’t really know me had raised a brow every time they caught me with a fucking book in my hand.

“I do. About all sorts of things. This,” I pointed to my temple, “is not empty. I can’t be all face and hot bod. Personality and smarts are important too.”

“But so far, you’re failing the personality part.”

My lips parted, ready to protest over her remark, but she quickly added, “Still, I can’t believe you read.”

“You are acting like it is so hard to accept. Just be thankful that at least you aren’t stuck with an idiot for the rest of your life.”

Willa shrugged, still looking at me with a hint of disbelief, as though she couldn’t even imagine me with a book in hand. “You just don’t seem the type. That’s all.”

“I am full of surprises, sweetheart. To keep you on your toes.”

“Whatever you say, Han,” she said indulgently, as if she was talking to a toddler.

“You-”  I stopped myself before I could fully slip out my indignation. My shoulders sagged, letting the tension fizzle out of my frame, as I let out a heavy sigh. “Okay, okay. Your turn.”

I feigned to not have noticed her small smirk and the mirth dancing in her pretty eyes. She knew she was able to get a rise out of me. 

“Age. How old are you?”

“Twenty-two. You?”

“Twenty-one. We’re still pretty young.”

Her quiet voice had me replying in the same volume. “We are.”

It was apparent what was left unsaid—the weight hanging silently on the word, ‘young.’

‘But we are already soldiers of this war.’

She didn’t have to say it out loud for me. I already knew.

I cleared my throat and said, “So… My turn?”

The conversation went on and on. We tossed questions back and forth and shared answers for each of them. Every question grew more personal than the ones before, and I knew then that we were slowly but surely getting to the topic of our glaring and probably irreconcilable differences.

“You prefer fighting in your human form. Why?”

Willa stabbed her spoon onto the half-eaten pint of ice cream I found in my fridge. It was plain vanilla, but then knowing she liked ice cream with nuts, I had also given her a bag of mixed nuts she could eat along with the cold treat.

We had long finished our stir fried noodles, and we had moved on to desserts; the bed tray of emptied plates discarded uncaringly on the countertop in the kitchen. But our conversation remained in the bedroom, with me having a simple bar of milk chocolate with almonds, and Willa having her vanilla ice cream and nuts.

I watched her doggedly dig her spoon into the hard ice cream as she answered, “I think… I just think I fight better in my human form. While my wolf is agile and quick, I am not in the same league as the others in terms of sheer strength. I am quite small for a wolf actually.”

“Really? Can I see?”

She gazed at me with slightly squinted eyes. “I had already given very useful information about myself to an enemy.”

I broke a small piece of my chocolate and offered it to her, saying, “Hey. We ceased to be enemies the moment we learned we are fated. Between the two of us, the war is on ceasefire.”

She shook her head to decline my proffered chocolate, a wistful smile on her lips. “If only it could be that easy.”

“It is. If we want it to be.”

“Han… Our difference in our beliefs and principles will put a strain on our relationship. We will forever be fighting about this until one of us concedes and joins the other side, or if this war stops completely.”

I knew she was right, but I childishly stayed in the river of denial and said, “Who said anything about fighting? We are not fighting.”

Willa heaved a heavy sigh. “For now. But soon enough, we will have to face it. You hate humans, but I am partial to them. I… How would we live happy lives together if we are fighting on different sides of this war? Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless we run away. Unless we leave everything behind.”

My blood ran cold, and my stomach dropped in one uncomfortable swoop.

“But we couldn’t, right? We wouldn’t,” she said, the sadness nearly palpable in her voice.

“Willa…” I paused, wetting my lower lip with my tongue. “I can’t just leave. I know you can’t too. You have a family here, fighting alongside you. And…”

I ran a frustrated hand through my mussed up hair, while Willa waited patiently for me to finish my speech.

“And I may have abandoned my people during the battle in the Ferndell Forest, but I refuse to abandon them in this war.”

“Your people?” Willa exclaimed, voice shaky and high.

“Yes, Willa,” I responded softly, an attempt to sway her back into calmer waters. “My people. My army.”

But my attempt was in vain.

The war was too polarizing, and we would never see eye to eye about this matter. I didn’t want to admit it, but I could see it in the way she seemed to be equally gobsmacked and terrified by what I was saying.

Meanwhile, I felt no terror. I had never known fear again since I was five, seeing my father go on a rampage as he tried to save me, my mother and my sister from a group of thirty humans who were creature hunters for fun.

FOR FUN.

I had never feared again after seeing my mother and sister brutalized by humans. Instead, I became the monster they feared, and I had never second guessed that path that I had taken.

But then seeing Willa’s green eyes, misting a little with tears, I almost, ALMOST, wavered.

“What? What do you mean, Han? Please… Don’t tell me…”

I swallowed, finding it hard to get the answer out. Maybe it was because I knew deep down that what I would say next would ruin me in her eyes.

But I would always stand by my people, my principles, my history, my mom, my sister, and my father. So maybe that was why, even though I didn’t want to break the fragile peace between Willa and I, I admitted to her, “My Culling Army, Willa. And every werewolf who stands by the Alpha King, who is my father, by the way.”

Willa’s strength seemed to have left her, her arms falling limp until the pint of ice cream sat on her lap, her hand loosely wrapped around it. The color on her face drained in a heartbeat, and she looked at me with dawning horror.

“What is your real name, Han?”

“Gallahan,” I managed to say with my mouth that had gone completely dry over the reaction I was getting from her. “I am Gallahan Wick, the general of the Culling Army and the only son of the Alpha King.”

And fuck.

The heartbroken look on her face as the first tear rolled down her cheeks was enough to raise all my defenses up despite my efforts to keep them at bay.

I wouldn’t let anyone judge me for my pain and how I handled it. Not even my fated mate.