Page 21 of Curvy Girl and the Mountain Man Wolf
"Maybe," he acknowledges. "But my reasons for hiding are... concrete. Physical. I'm not safe to be around."
"You seem safe to me," I say, the words simple but heartfelt. "To us."
Chapter 8 - Kane
"You seem safe to me. To us."
If she only knew. If she could see what lurks beneath my skin, the beast that paces and growls, that even now is pushing against my control, wanting to be closer to her.
Lois sits across from me, her face tear-streaked, eyes luminous in the firelight, looking at me with a trust I haven't earned and don't deserve. She thinks she knows what danger looks like because she's faced human monsters. She has no idea what I truly am.
"You don't know me," I say, my voice rougher than intended. "Not really."
"I know enough," she counters, wiping the last of her tears away. "I know you took in two strangers during a blizzard. I know you've been kind to my daughter. I know you've respected our space, our privacy."
If only she understood why I maintain that distance. Not out of respect, but necessity. Not courtesy, but survival.
"What you've seen is... controlled," I try to explain without revealing too much. "Deliberate. I work hard to keep it that way."
"We all wear masks," Lois says softly. "We all control which parts of ourselves we show to the world."
She thinks she understands, but she's talking about human coping mechanisms, human trauma. Not the primal force that lives inside me, that is me in ways most people can't comprehend.
"This is different," I insist, struggling to find words that might make her understand without frightening her. "What happenedin Afghanistan... it wasn't just PTSD. It was something in me that... responded to the violence. Something that enjoyed it."
I've never spoken of this to anyone. Not the military therapists, not my commanding officers, no one. The terrible truth that when my wolf emerged that night, tearing through the warlord's compound, part of me reveled in the carnage.
Lois doesn't recoil as I expect. Instead, she leans forward slightly, her expression thoughtful. "You think you're the only one who's felt that? The only one who's discovered something dark inside themselves?"
"This is not the same—"
"When Lily's father pushed me that night," she interrupts, her voice steady despite the pain in her eyes, "when I saw him turn toward her crib with that look on his face, do you know what went through my mind?"
I shake my head, caught by the intensity of her gaze.
"I thought about killing him," she says simply. "Not in some abstract way. Not 'I wish he were dead.' I actually calculated how quickly I could reach the kitchen knife block, which one I would grab, where I would aim. I visualized it in perfect detail. And part of me—a part I'd never known existed before that moment—wanted to do it. Wanted to feel the blade sink in, wanted to watch him bleed out on our apartment floor."
I stare at her, stunned by the confession. My wolf goes still, listening.
"I didn't do it," Lois continues. "Obviously. But not because I couldn't have, or because the impulse wasn't real. I didn't do it because I knew it would mean Lily would lose both parents, one to death and one to prison. But that darkness? That capacity forviolence? It's still in me, Kane. I feel it sometimes when I think about him, or when I imagine someone threatening Lily."
"It's not the same," I insist, though with less conviction. "What you felt was protective instinct. Natural. What I experienced was... something else."
"Was it?" she challenges. "You said the mission went wrong when the warlord used children as human shields. That your teammate hesitated and got shot. That you didn't hesitate. Sounds to me like you made a split-second decision in an impossible situation. Sounds like you were protecting your team."
"You weren't there," I say, standing abruptly, needing to move, to put more distance between us. "You didn't see what I did. What I became."
"No, I wasn't," she acknowledges. "And I won't pretend to understand the specifics of what you experienced. But I do understand living with darkness inside you. I do understand isolating yourself because you're afraid of what you might do if pushed too far."
I move to the window, looking out at the night, at the snow gleaming under starlight. She thinks she's reaching me, connecting with me. She doesn't realize she's only proving how impossible any real connection between us would be. She's talking about human darkness, human violence. Not the beast that lives beneath my skin.
"The difference," I say finally, still facing the window, "is that you've proven you can control it. You didn't hurt your daughter's father, even when you had every reason to. You chose restraint."
"And you haven't proven the same?" Lois asks. "Eight years alone up here, and no incidents? No violence? That sounds like control to me."
"It's easy to control yourself when there's no one around to trigger you," I counter. "No threats, no conflicts."
"You've had us here for two days now," she points out. "A woman and child, vulnerable, dependent on you. If you were the monster you think you are, wouldn't we have seen evidence of that by now?"
