Page 89 of Feral

His words heated my blood and sent shivers through my body. Was this real, was he serious? I hadn’t been imagining any of it? But if he really did want me…

“Then why?” I begged, tears falling down my face. “Why are you pushing me away?”

He cringed and the next thing I knew, he had his glamour on.

“I’m afraid,” he answered.

This big Werewolf, with his strength and intimidating glare, was afraid.

No, not afraid. Terrified.

I was about to reach out to him when he stepped back and leaned against the wall as if he needed its support.

“Her name was Silvia,” he whispered. “She was a Mundane, like you. I loved her but she didn’t ken who I really was.”

“You never showed her your true form.”

He shook his head.

“The night I was going to show her, we were attacked by a rival clan. They were trying to stop us from coming to peace with the Campbells. I flew into a rage, and my glamour slipped. By the time I realized it…” he hesitated and I could see him censoring himself. “Silvia was terrified, rightly so. She…she broke everything off with me, told me she never wanted to see me again.”

My heart shattered for him, for the pain that was written so plainly on his face. I knew what it was like to be rejected when someone saw that the reality didn’t match up to their fantasy. It was a scar on my mind, reopened more times than I cared to think about. I, too, worried about it more than a little with Fraser. To find out, though, that he had a similar fear, soothed something in me even as his pain tore me open in a different way.

More tears burned my eyes and I clenched my hands into fists to keep from reaching out to him. I had a feeling Fraser wasn’t done yet, that he needed space before I could reassure him that I didn’t care about his primal side, that I was actually falling in love with all of him.

So I stood there, shaking with the need to comfort him and waited as he gathered the courage to continue.

When he finally looked up at me, there were tears in his eyes, which had become yellow at some point during all this.

“She looked at me like I was a monster. A disgustin’ beast. If I ever saw that look in your eyes,” he rasped, “I think it would kill me.”

Unable to wait any longer, I went to him and captured his face between my hands. It was his glamour, the mask he wore out of fear and heartbreak. But I would take it right now because I understood.

And maybe I also know what might help. Maybe I’m the one that needs to be brave for him, to show him that I see all of him, and I’m not afraid.

I pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, his beard tickling my mouth. His long, muscular arms went around me in a fast press, clutching at my body as if he were afraid I might run away. My cheek lay on his chest, his heart thumping under my ear. It was a sound I’d never tire of.

“I already know your true form,” I said, running my hand up and down his back. “I’m not afraid of you, Fraser.”

“Ya haven’t seen me. Really seen me. There’s a whole part of me that I’ve kept locked up from ya that’s screamin’ to get out since the moment I bit ya.”

“And you’re afraid that I’ll not accept it.”

A shudder went through him and that was my answer.

With one last squeeze I stepped out of his arms. His gaze was questioning, fearful. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also afraid of what I was about to do. It was everything that I’d been taught by past partners to avoid. The room was bright, late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the sheer curtains. Even if I closed the shades and turned out the lights, there would be no place to hide from him.

I wanted him to trust me when I said I wanted all of him. So, maybe exposing my own scars, my own fears, and showing him that I was choosing to trust him, would be enough for him to start doing the same.

I took a deep, shaky breath and stepped away a little more.

“I’ve only had sex with the lights one twice. With my first college boyfriend. I’d been in therapy for body image issues for just a few months at that point, but I felt…well, I felt like I’d conquered quite a bit. And here was a man who said he loved me, so I thought I could trust that,” I began to undo the buttons of my blouse. “I thought that he had liked my body, soft parts and all. But he started suggesting that I might want to hit the gym to tighten a few things up. That it would help him to not stray.”

Fraser’s eyes sharpened, lips tightened into a thin line.

I placed the blouse on a nearby chair and began to undo my jeans with trembling fingers.

“We didn’t last long, as you can imagine. It took me a long time to trust anyone again. Years, actually. Years of therapy and learning to love myself as I am.”

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