shelter in his Arm.

Larissa POV

The moonlight hard and light, pallid against the stone of the balcony, moved shadows of ghosts behind me. I was sitting in my room alone, in the silence, and the ceremonial dress was yet upon me, like a clot of blood. I was still the same. I had not talked. I had not cried.

I merely basically… existed.

The things that happened during the binding ceremony were whirling in my head as jagged pieces- the incompleted bond, arrival of Kai, the words of Selene, fury of Xavier.

But above it all the gnawing emptiness of not knowing who to trust. Or what I felt even anyhow.

There was a light knock.

I made no reply.

The door opened creaking nevertheless.

There was no reason for me to turn because it was him.

His fragrance covered me first--pine and storm. Always him. And it is ever still the same.

Slowly Xavier took a step, heavily as I had not remembered him. Or it was perhaps because I heard them in a different way now.

At first he made no reply. He simply stood behind me with the atmosphere being so tense, I could have choked.

I glanced round slowly, facing him.

His face was weary. His lip was dirty with blood drying on the corner of it, and his cheekbone had still a bruise darkening on it. And it was not the physical mutilation that struck me, but the tempest that was behind his eyes. Controlled. Contained. And breaking.

“You ought not to be here, I said, and my voice was low.”

“I had to get a sight of you.”

“Why?” I got up, and it got bitter inside of me before I could prevent it. To narrate your flimsy explanation of how you humiliate me before the Council, Again?”

He came nearer. “Larissa…”

“No, I snarled, and moved off. you can not say my name like that. Not since what you did. Not after what you said, what you did the last time we faced one another.”

“I am aware of it, he said. That is the reason I am here.”

I was startled with the gentleness of his voice.

He gazed down, and stared at me.

“It is not that I stopped caring when I rejected you…”

I laughed twice--a sharp little laugh. Xavier, you called me a burden. Weak. Powerless. Convenient. That is not quite the lingo of a caring person.”

His jaws set. “I had to put it into your mind.”

“And you did not only make me believe it, I said, in a rising voice. You made me live with it. You even gave me some doubt of my own self-value. My power. Myself.” I spark as those words came back echoing in my head.

He draws once more nearer. This time I was not going to stop him.

“I realize I have offended you. The regret of which I have spent daily ever since. But hadn’t--hadn't I pushed you off--you would have been by my side. And they would have got you.”

I frowned. “Who?”

“The Council. The Elders. The people who did not want a Luna like you.”

My breath swayed. “What do you mean like me?”

“You lack enough politics Larissa. You are not raised in aristocratic blood. You were not prepared to be Luna. It is not by them you were selected, it's by the moon.”

My heart was beating like thunder.

He made another step. This was too close, now we were close.

He said, quietly, “they only gave me a choice. You. or the place in the Council of the Alpha. Love or power.”

“So you went for power?”I said in a low mid voice

“I did it to save you, he amended, thick-voiced with something fearfully near pain. If I had chosen you and married you, they would have slain us both. Quietly. Ruthlessly. I could not allow that to occur.”

I turned aside. “Then you did break me yourself first. How heroic.”

His hand jerked on his side. Just as he used to stretch out his hand towards me. As indeed he did not know whether he had the right any more.

“You should deserve something better, he said. I thought me releasing you would bring you peace.

“It turned me into a nightmare.” I said immediately

Once more we stood in silence. And then I--not thinking at all--I questioned that which I had put away within myself.

“Did you ever love me?”

He made no scruple.

“Yes.”

One word. No flinch. No lie.

When I looked back into his eyes it was as though I was in front of a fire where I could not take steps to leave it.

He stretched out his hand to me and paused before he did so.

“I do not think that you can trust me in one night. I just… I would like to give it a try. Will you please?.”

I looked up in his face, and down at his hand. His haughtiness which had been as a plume had disappeared. Nothing but where they were open, now, and a hurt that was as like mine as it could be.

My hands went before my head.

I held his hand.

His eyes grew tender and, suddenly, something between us fell back into the real world again, after a long time.

I snarled, I meant it, “I do not know whether I can trust you yet.” “But… I do not want to quit.”

He came nearer, deliberately, as though he feared that the moment would break away, had he not moved slowly enough.

I wrapped myself against him.

He kissed me.

It was not the kiss which mops away the past. It was the type that did not deny it. The type which went, We are broken, yet we stand.

His lips touched me softly and trembling but as soon as they touched my lips, I felt something inside me start melting, something I had not yet realized that I was clinging to. These are the years of hurt. The questions that were not answered. The loneliness.

He held my face in his hands as I was a precious item, as something he did not dare break once more.

And I, at once, allowed myself, first after such a long time, to feel it.

The bond.

Not that made by ritual or blood.

but the one that never quite went.

As far as I was concerned, when we got separated, I did not turn around.

He smiled a little brokenly. “There’s more. It can be postponed. I only wanted you to know tonight, that I remain yours. If you want me.”

I was tightened on my chest. I desired so much to believe him with my body.

There was danger to belief.

“You are sweet with words,” I mumbleed.

“Words? he said; I am sick of words! I want to demonstrate to you.”

Slowly, cautiously his hand went to mine.

I did not prevent him.

His hands were warm, hard, those of flesh and blood. And as they flaxed in upon mine one, there went a crack in me.

I have wished to despise him. I desired to back away.

But instead… I stayed.

With low, raw voice he stepped even closer. “Trust me, I would show you that everything I have done… I did it to ensure that you are still breathing. Even if it should be living without you.”

Tears filled the corner of my eyes. I had to keep my eyelids open refusing to let them fall.

“I do not forgive you,” I replied

“I know you do not.”

I do not confide in you.

“I will earn it back Larissa.”

I gazed at him.

I did not look up the cold Alpha that broke me the first time since everything shattered.

I could see the boy whom I used to take out to see the stars with.

I looked out and there stood the man still holding my hand as though it were the thing.

Again I whispered, “You ought not to be here.”

“I shall go, if you insist?” he said with his calm deep voice

There was a silence between us which hung as a cord stretched tight.

“And I did not tell him to go.”

Rather, I said, as though I were saying it to myself, rather than to him, very softly, I said, “Stay.”

His hands on mine clutched a little. Barely to say he would.

I put my head on his chest, however, and stepped into his arms.

And tonight that was all.