Heavenly Poison

Damien Gray

I had just opened the front door when I heard Tania and Emilia’s hushed voices coming from somewhere down the hall.

I imagined they were in the living room. I had stayed out as late as I could, while managing to make it home. It was almost two in the morning. I thought Tania would be in her house and Emilia would be sleeping.

I knew I had to face her at some point. I took a few deep breathes, before slowly heading in the direction where I heard them talking.

‘No, I don’t think it will. Either way, school it such a drag,’ Tania was saying.

‘Damien is here,’ Emilia quietly told her.

Her words made me stop midstride. She had either heard me or felt me. Even though I’d been trying to be quiet, there was no hiding from her. She was a Werewolf.

“Hey,” I waved, entering the living room.

Both Tania and Emilia inhaled loudly when they saw me. I must’ve been a sight to see. The cuts and gashes I’d done to myself had mostly healed, but not the bruises. The bruises never healed as fast as the rest of the injuries did.

“Are you okay? What happened?” Emilia asked, coming to my side.

She had been crying. From the looks of her, it must’ve been going on all afternoon that I’d spent trying not to feel her emotions.

Her eyes were puffy and they looked dull. Her hair was up in a bun, but it looked messy, and her face was blotchy red.

Despite her state, she looked a lot better than I did.

“I’m fine,” I told Emilia, holding my hand up when she tried to touch me.

My entire body ached, and I was covered in dry mud and blood. I knew that if Emilia tried to touch me, it would end up with her arms wrapped around me.

The hurt look she shot me almost killed me. It was what I had been trying to avoid all afternoon. When I looked away from her, I noticed I had Tania’s attention.

She had no pity in her eyes. She was glaring at me. I thought she was going to attack me with the way her eyes looked at me accusingly.

“You finally show up,” she said, coldly.

“I was busy,” I shrugged.

As soon as I moved my shoulders, pain shot throughout my body. Somewhere between the third and fifth time I smashed myself against a tree, I had dislocated my arm. Although it healed, the fact that I kept hurting myself wasn’t helping me much.

I had taken off to the piece of land Sebastian and I owned. I didn’t need anyone in the pack looking at me while I was hurting myself. By the time I was done, trees in an entire area had been wiped out, everywhere I flew through would flood with rain water I was creating, and I had left a bloody mess in the area.

“I can tell,” Tania said, crossing her arms.

“Where’s Sebastian?” I asked her.

“He went to bed. He knew where you were but didn’t want to tell us. He said you were fine,” Emilia said, her eyes trailing over my body slowly.

I had lost my shoes, so I was barefoot, but that was the least of my worries. My pants had rips everywhere, and I hadn’t been wearing a shirt since early in the afternoon.

My chest, which had taken most of the blows, was exposed to them.

“I’m fine,” I repeated.

“You’re staying here?” I asked Tania, who seemed to have no good feelings left towards me.

“I am. Emilia needs for someone to be here for her, since you seem to be preoccupied with other things,” Tania snapped, before heading for the door.

She shot me one last glare on the way out. She was looking at me very aggressively. I wouldn’t have doubted that even though she was a human, she would’ve tried to attack me.

After Tania left, Emilia and I stayed alone, but neither of us spoke. A thick uncomfortable silence settled between us.

She was looking at me with glassy eyes. I wanted to reach out to her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. I didn’t deserve to touch her, not after how I behaved.

“We should go to bed,” I told her, nodding towards the door.

“Do you want me to prepare a bath for you?”

“I’ll take a quick shower. Come on,” I said, taking a hold of her hand.

It didn’t seem like she would move unless I gave her a small push. Emilia gave me a weak smile, but she let me guide her upstairs.

“Wayne called me to say that Lilly is coming to visit,” Emilia said in a small voice on our way up.

“I don’t think her mate is strong enough on his own to cause any harm. I’m going to keep an eye on him either way,” I assured her.

“Yeah, I think so too,” Emilia agreed. “Lilly’s nice. I liked her a lot when she was part of the pack.”

“You went to school with her?”

Even though I assumed Lilly was young, she was already mated and had been for years. Emilia was just sixteen. I had never thought about the possibility of Emilia being friends with Lilly.

“She was older than me,” Emilia replied, shaking her head. “But she was always around. You know, I always thought she would become my step-mom,” Emilia said, giggling when she spoke.

She rubbed her eyes, clearing them away. They seemed to have remained glazed over, even though she was no longer crying.

“Isn’t Lilly young?” I asked her, feeling curious about that piece of information.

“She is. She’s twenty-six now.”

“And you thought she would be your step-mom?” I chuckled at her words. I didn’t understand her reasoning.

She was acting normal, more or less. She was smiling, so I considered that a good thing. I expected to come home to find her angry with me. I would’ve understood, because I was being a complete asshole. I told her I wasn’t going to hurt her anymore, but I was hurting her more than I had before.

Talking about Lilly was distracting her, and I was trying to make the conversation last as long as I could. I was hoping she would fall asleep before she asked me about us. I wouldn’t have an answer for that.

“Lilly used to have the biggest crush on my dad,” Emilia shrugged, and it seemed like explanation enough for her. “Everyone thought she was getting old and she hadn’t found her mate yet.”

“Twenty-six, and everyone thought she was getting old?” I laughed, because their thoughts on age were way off.

When we arrived at our room, Emilia didn’t let go of my hand. It was very late, but she walked us over to the couch and continued on her conversation.

I let out small groan when I took a seat on the couch and rested my back on it.

“You okay?” Emilia asked.

She slowly trailed her fingers over my chest, where I had an angry bruise forming. She didn’t realize that her touch was having an effect on me, which was what I’d been trying to avoid since the night before.

I stopped her hand before it trailed any lower. I didn’t need her giving me any ideas, and just the small way she was touching me made me want to take her to bed.

I kept holding her hand. I didn’t want her to think I was just pushing her away for no reason. It seemed that any contact was enough, because she smiled at me and kissed my knuckles, which were also bruised.

“Since when is twenty-six old?” I asked, trying to return to the conversation we had before.

“She’s twenty-six now. She was younger back then, when she was still part of the pack. Most of the She-Wolves in our pack find their mates early on. I know most packs don’t have that, but for some reason, our Wolves have gotten lucky. Our Wolves also tend to mate within the pack,” she explained.

“And Lilly didn’t?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “She used to come here all the time. I think it all started when she was still in school. Wayne didn’t mind. He loved that Lilly showed an interest. Although Lilly never said anything, we all pretty much knew that she was in love with my dad.”

“What did Anthony say?” I questioned, cocking an eyebrow.

I had only ever seen him alone. I couldn’t picture him with a partner.

“He thought it was just a silly crush. My dad never stopped loving my mom. But we both liked Lilly a lot. She’s really nice. I don’t know— she has that maternal instinct.”

“Did Wayne say anything?”

“He wanted a union,” Emilia grinned, “an Alpha and a Beta— the dream coupling.”

I chuckled at her words. I was taking over the pack, but there were still a lot of things about Werewolves that were confusing to me.

“But it never really amounted to much. Wayne pushed for it a lot though. Lilly’s mom supported the union.”

“How did she end up with John then?”

“Well, since nothing happened between my dad and Lilly, Wayne started carrying her around everywhere. He wanted to find her mate, and he became intent on doing so. Would it be weird if I say that at one point, he actually wanted Dylan and Lilly to become a pair?” Emilia said, but she was frowning.

“Lilly and Dylan,” I repeated, glad that it hadn’t worked out like that.

“But on the trip to meet with Alpha Dylan, who hadn’t found his mate yet at the time, Lilly and John met. Everything that happened after, including their mating, took place in less than two or three days.”

“Wolves don’t waste time.”

“Nope,” Emilia said, shaking her head. “Lilly didn’t return to our pack after it happened, and Wayne told us John claimed and mated with Lilly the same night they met. John wasn’t too happy that Dylan had been Wayne’s first option. Wayne said that John became very possessive of her, even when Lilly was around her family.”

“I guess that’s just how most act with their mates. They always want them— they’re possessive” Emilia said, and she slightly pulled away from me.

Her comment had been directed right at me, and it felt like a slap in the face. I closed my eyes for a few moments, letting her last words sink in.

“I’m going to go shower,” I said, getting up and making my way to the bathroom.

Emilia didn’t stop me, and she didn’t try to go after me. It was better that way. I needed time to think. Being close to Emilia clouded my thoughts. My body reacted to her, even when Emilia wasn’t doing anything to turn me on.

She was wrong, I wanted her. That wasn’t the problem.

The scolding hot water stung my skin. When I looked down, I noticed the water rolling off my body was blood mixed with dirt and small pieces of greenery.

I stayed in the shower for a long while, letting the spray of the water hit me. I didn’t turn off the water until I heard Emilia’s soft breathing in the other room. I didn’t want to leave the bathroom until she was asleep. I didn’t want to face her.

After slipping on a pair of shorts, I lied down next to Emilia. She was wearing one of my white shirts with a small pair of black shorts.

She felt me when I wrapped my arms around her. Although she didn’t wake up, she curled herself against my chest.

It was almost four in the morning. I was exhausted, but every time I closed my eyes, the day that my dad kicked Sebastian and me out of the house replayed in my mind.

I always thought if I had any kids, they would happen by mistake and I would end up being a bad father, just like mine had been.

If Emilia was as devoted to any kids we ever had, as she was devoted to me, I didn’t doubt she would make a great parent. I couldn’t say the same thing for me. I was messed up, and I was too screwed up on my own to think of taking care of somebody else.

I spent what was left of the night with that thought replying in my mind.

Before Emilia woke up in the morning, I got ready and slipped out of the room. I was walking down the stairs when Tania called my name.

I stopped, and turned up to look at her. She looked sleepy. I couldn’t guess if she had heard me wake up, or if she thought I would sneak out so she had stayed awake.

“Running away?” She asked, and her voice was still croaky from sleep.

“I have things to take care of,” I told her, and waited for her to catch up to me before heading towards the kitchen.

“You have things to do at six in the morning? Everyone is still asleep right now,” she told me.

“We’re going to have some visitors. I have a lot of things to do before they arrive.”

I wasn’t entirely lying, but the same scowl Tania gave me the previous night was back on her face.

“You’re not going to school today either?” I asked, trying to distract her from any more comments about Emilia and me.

“My parents are mad about it, but Sebastian shows up in my house, and I swear he charms them or something,” Tania said, sounding confused. “I don’t know how he does it. My mom loves him.”

I chuckled at her and shrugged. “He has his charm, whenever he wants to use it.”

“He does, unfortunately he also loves to charm other girls,” Tania said, shaking her head disapprovingly.

“Yeah, but you’re his favorite,” I said, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and pressing her to my side.

Tania groaned, which made me laugh, but she didn’t pull away from me.

“That boy, I swear, will make me age young,” she said, but she was smiling. “I guess he’s worth it. He is very pretty.”

The last comment made me laugh harder.

“If Sebastian catches you saying that, he’s going to throw a fit,” I told her, in between laughs.

“I’ve told him the same thing to taunt him when he’s teasing me,” Tania said, grinning devilishly. “At least he’s making an effort to behave,” she said.

I nodded in agreement. “He loves you, don’t worry about it. I told you, you’re his favorite.”

When Tania tensed by my side, I knew what was coming. She pulled away from me, and her forehead creased into a frown.

“You know, I always thought you were the nice one,” she said.

“The nice one?”

“Oh, come on. We all know Sebastian is a jerk with people he doesn’t like, and sometimes with the ones he likes too. But you, you’re always so quiet. Looking all innocent, and yet you’re doing this to Emilia,” Tania said, shaking her head at me.

“So now everyone is going to be talking about Emilia and me?” I snapped.

“Not everyone, just Sebastian and me.”

“I’m going out,” I told her.

She tried to stop me, but I was faster than her. I was out the door before she grabbed my arm to stop me. I heard her call my name a few times, but I didn’t turn back.

I spent all of my morning with Wayne. Wayne was telling me that he had made the arrangements for Lilly and John. They were going to arrive in two days, and they were only staying for one night. It was going to be a very short trip, and I was happy about that.

I tried to pay attention to the rest of the things Wayne was telling me, but my mind was elsewhere. I had been thinking about Emilia.

We hadn’t even kissed, but my thoughts were on how she had been dressed. The shorts had been too short. My shirt, despite how long it was on her, had scrunched up and given me the perfect view of the skin in her stomach and waist.

It got to the point where I considered claiming her if only because it would push her to be with me. When that thought entered my mind, it made permanent residence there.

I was snapped out of my thoughts when Sebastian burst into the room, looking worked up and breathing heavily.

“What happened?” Wayne asked.

It seemed like Wayne was ready to get out of the conference room and find out on his own if something was happening with the pack, or if we were under attack. The hurried way Sebastian entered into the conference room put Wayne on alert.

Randy was right behind Sebastian, and he seemed to be getting anxious.

“Sebastian?” I asked, getting up from the chair at the end of the table where I’d been sitting at.

“Emilia,” Sebastian said, breathlessly, walking deeper into room.

At the mention of her name, something in me snapped. I closed the distance between us and practically attacked Sebastian so that he would tell me what had happened with Emilia.

“What happened with Emilia?” I desperately asked.

“She wants to leave. She’s getting her things ready,”