Chapter Fifty-Nine
“Catherine, how did you do that?!” Chloe repeated, louder this time.
Graham stood, cradling his mate to his chest as he did. Catherine gasped as he jostled her shoulder and his chest vibrated in anger.
“Graham, we need to talk about this,” Chloe demanded.
“Later,” he growled. Graham stepped around the shattered remnants of his living room. What furniture hadn’t been destroyed by the spell was smashed when he came bursting in as his lycan form.
“Do I need to call Nancy?” Theo asked, glancing over Catherine’s battered body.
Graham quickly perused her injuries, trying to contain his rage by not lingering too long on their severity. Catherine shook her head and buried it in his chest.
“Only if Lucas needs her,” Graham said.
Lucas spat blood on the scratched wood floor. “Fuck you, Man. You barely scratched me.” Theo chuckled and shook his head. He lowered a hand to help him up. Lucas smacked it away. “I’m not an invalid.”
Graham walked past the bickering duo and down the hall to their bedroom. He sat her in the leather armchair and turned away to give himself a moment to try to find some composure. His fingers shook as he lit a match and threw it into the stone fireplace. He knew how much she loved to sit by the fire at night before they went to bed.
He grabbed the chair by its arms and pulled it closer to the fire. Catherine stared into the flames, not meeting his eyes. He took her chin and forced her face up to his. She continued to stare away from him though her eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
“Look at me,” he whispered gently.
Catherine let out a shaky breath and did as she was told. He had to swallow at the raw emotion he saw encompassed in her gaze. She’d broken open a levy of pain and it still flowed around her, threatening to carry her away. He wouldn’t let it happen. His grip on her chin tightened as he took in each of her injuries.
Her face was bruised. Her lip was cut and bleeding. Her blue eye was swollen, nearly shut. Her left shoulder was dislocated. He hated how bad she looked. He hated even more that this was not the worst he’d ever seen her.
“Stay here,” he ordered before standing sharply.
Graham walked to the bathroom and closed the door softly. He walked to the counter and gripped the marble edge. He stared at his reflection and the pitch black eyes he saw there. He closed them and tried to breathe. His chest felt constricted. It would only allow him to take in short, shallow breaths, made even more painful as the images he’d seen raced through his mind.
He’d seen it. Graham knew he wasn’t supposed to, he shouldn’t have been able to. Something happened though. Right after Lucas mindlinked him that Catherine was under he’d felt her presence in his mind. He’d felt her touch him, call out to him. Then it was as if his being was ripped away from his chest, leaving a gaping hole. While she relived her memories he would receive snapshots of what she was experiencing. The images were blurry, hard to decipher. Her pain, however, was not. He’d felt it all: hurt, betrayal, anger, nausea, terror.
Just as everyone predicted, it sent him into a haze. One moment Jensen was opening the door for him, the next he was tearing through the guards trying to keep him inside. When she woke up, he found himself mere inches from killing one of his oldest friends… Not that Lucas hadn’t gotten a few hits in himself.
Graham tried to take in another deep breath but it felt as though only one lung would inflate properly. His primal side wanted to reclaim what was his. He wanted to go back into the room, grab her by the waist and throw to the bed. He wanted to pin her down there and bury himself in her until he erased each and every memory of another man. Of course his rational side knew it was the absolute last thing his mate needed from him. That was why he was on the brink of another haze. She was his. Trying to fight the physical need to prove that was tearing him apart.
This couldn’t keep happening to her. He roughly pulled on some sweatpants. He took another ragged breath and opened the medicine cabinet where he’d kept the medication to help her heal faster. With shaky hands he filled a glass of water. A sharp cry had him sprinting out of the bathroom. When he saw the source of the cry, he stopped dead and the glass of water shattered on the floor.
“What… the… fuck… do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his voice low and menacing.
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Chapter Fifty-Nine
Catherine gripped the side of the dresser with her good hand. Her face was pale, a sheen of sweat coated her forehead and her breathing was sharp and fast. She pressed her dislocated shoulder against the edge of the dresser again.
“Putting… it… back…” she gasped as she applied pressure.
Graham was across the room in less than a second. Catherine cried out as he grabbed her by the waist and yanked her back. With as much care as he could muster while blinded with rage he sat her on the edge of the bed. He ran his hand roughly through his hair as he paced back and forth.
“You were putting it back?” he rasped around the anger clogging his throat.
“It’s not a big deal,” she whispered, looking down.
“Not a big deal?” he repeated, standing in front of her now.
Catherine glared up at him. “I’ve done it before, Graham. I just couldn’t get the proper leverage. I just need something a bit higher and…”
“No!” he roared, causing her to clam up. Graham squatted down in front of her. “Look at me,” he ordered. She shook her head. “Look. At. Me.” She finally looked up, her expression firm. “You are not in this alone anymore. I will take care of you. Do not try to do something like that to yourself again. Do you understand me?”
Catherine turned her head away and nodded sharply once. Graham ran his hand down his face. He stood up and retrieved a new glass of water and handed her the pill bottle. She took a pill without asking what it was and gulped half the glass down. Graham bent so he could look at her shoulder. He touched the tender injury with his fingertips noting how her eyes would squint as she tried to hide the pain his touch caused.
“How many times has this happened?” Graham asked, knowing if she was talking it would be easier to get through the next part.
“Four times…” she answered with a sigh. “To that one.” Graham’s fingers stilled. He tried to unlock his jaw for fear he would snap it in two. Instead he tasted enamel on his tongue. “How did you get past Jensen?” she asked.
Graham cleared his throat once, then twice. “He let me out before I lost control.”
He extended her arm and gripped her wrist. He made sure the arm was straight and felt along her joint wanting to make sure just one pull would do the job so as to avoid any more pain than necessary.
“He let you out willingly?” she asked. He noticed her voice get higher and the pulse he felt in her wrist was like that of a hummingbird.
“I had to promise him something,” he said, readjusting her arm to a better angle.
“W-what?” she asked.
“Don’t tense up, Baby,” he whispered. She took a few short breaths and gripped the fabric of his sweats with a tight hold. “I promised to not kill Stuart
tomorrow.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, her eyes jerked up and he took the opportunity. While she was distracted he pulled sharply and lifted. Her face whitened. They both heard a pop and Catherine groaned. He squatted down so her head could fall on his shoulder. He massaged the joint while making sure it was in place.
“Why would you promise that?” she asked into his neck. “Stuart doesn’t strike me as the kind to submit easily.”
He moved his hand from her shoulder down her back. “I would have promised anything to get to you.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes each trying to calm down by holding on to the other.
“You experienced it too… didn’t you?” she asked, softly.
He drew back and raised a brow. “What do you mean?”
Catherine reached forward with her right hand and brushed her thumb across his eyebrow. “Your eyes. You’re still fighting your shift,” she whispered. “I touched our tether and you were drawn into my memories.”
“You touched our tether?” he asked, avoiding answering her question.
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Chapter Fifty-Nine
She nodded. “When I was first pulled under I could see it… I could see everyone’s energy actually.” She looked down at her lap. “I could even see the energy connecting everything together. The tree roots… the grass… everything was connected. I could feel it flowing through me.”
“Your gift,” he whispered, brushing his knuckles along her arm. She shrugged. “We need to keep this between us for now, Baby.”
She looked up. “Why?”
He sighed. “Gut feeling. What you did, changing your memories like that… You should not be able to do that.”
“You think I’ll get worse?”
He chuckled despite himself. “I don’t think you’ll get worse, I think you’ll get more powerful. I think it’s why Lucien has expressed so much interest in your gift and why…” Graham ran his hand through his hair again. She looked down.
“Why Dominic wants me,” she finished.
Graham cupped her face. “Catherine, I vow to you now, he will never touch you again. I promised you I would kill the man who tormented you. I haven’t forgotten that promise.”
Catherine ran her hands up his chest and they settled on his shoulders. “I know.”
“I would never ask you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I would never force you. I would never hurt you like that,” he whispered, noticing a stinging feeling in his eyes. Catherine bit her lip.
“I told him so,” she whispered.
“I heard,” he said, answering her earlier question.
Tears slid down her cheeks. She pushed his hands away and wrapped her arms around his neck. The door opened behind them and they heard a soft cough.
“Sorry guys,” Theo said. “Jensen’s here. He wants an update.”
Graham’s grip around Catherine’s waist tightened.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” Catherine said.
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Surrendering to Destiny
