pained soul recognises it in another. Shedding my own tattered clothes, I head into the stall. She turns with a triumphant smile on her face as her wet hands reach for me.
“Turn around,” I tell her softly.
She blinks but does as bid, her voice low and purring. “Want to play like that?” she teases, sticking her luscious arse out at me. I have to fist my hands and count backwards from thirty to stop myself from taking her up on her offer as she wiggles at me.
No, this is about her needs, not mine.
I can feel it pushing at me, she needs to feel cared for. Cherished, loved...wanted. Whatever they did shook her to her very core, left her reeling and unsure. We are heading into battle, into a war, and she needs to be her usual strong, confident self. But in here, with me, she can be weak. I will always look after her.
A warrior knows pain, a general feels it. I will take it inside myself and add it to my own.
Sliding my hands across her curves, I wrap my arms around her stomach and press my head to her shoulder. “Let it out.”
“What?” She laughs, pushing back with her arse to brush my hard cock. “You need help freeing it?”
“No, my little blood lover, you need to let it out. I don’t know what happened, I will not ask. You need to be strong, I know that. But to be strong, sometimes you need to be weak. So do it. Here and now, in my arms. Do what you need to, I will hold you through it and help put you back together again. No sex, Dawn, just the offer of someone to stand with you through it.”
She goes quiet, her body stiffening. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. And that’s okay, you don’t have to be this sexy, strong monster all the time, my love. You hate and rage so much because you care, because you feel so deeply, but that is a sword. It cuts both ways and right now you are bleeding from those wounds, let us seal them shut. Together.”
She turns in my arms and I let her. Her blonde hair is pushed back and slick. Water rolls down her face, clinging to her lashes, her eyes wet with unshed tears as she searches my gaze. “I’m scared,” she admits in a low voice.
“Of what?” I query softly, holding her closer.
“O-Of being weak. Of letting people back in…of not being enough.” She blinks then, swallowing hard. “Of becoming what they made me, not this...I can control myself if I want to. But they are saying my power will keep growing, how will I control it? What if it controls me and I hurt someone I love?”
“My love.” I sigh, dropping my forehead to hers and looking deep in her eyes. “Your mates will never let that happen, you know that, as do I. I see it in your head, they will be there. Anchoring you always.” I smack my hand across my chest. “I will be with you to the death. I would follow you over that cliff, into battle, or worse. We will support each other. You never have to worry, we will be there.”
“But how do you know?” she challenges, desperate.
“Know that you won’t become a puppet of power? You are too strong, too stubborn. You wouldn’t let it, but when you feel weak. When you are scared or the power gets to be too much, pass it to us, Dawn. Look into your mind, look at those threads to your other mates, waiting there for anything you need. Let us aid you, let us help you absorb it. I think that’s why you have so many powerful mates, Dawn, because you will be the most powerful of us all, and that power will need an outlet. You’ve got more than one. You have us, feel it. Look at what love you have brought to the darkest of us. Lighting us up once again, dusting off the relics of this world and gathering them to your heart.”
She gasps, her eyes are closed, and I know she finally sees the tangle of threads of her mates connected to her.
“You are never alone, not in your life, not in your power. We are here. We are yours. Let us be that.”
I see the moment she fully accepts us, not trying to protect us or love us, but accepts our help. She cracks, breaking in my