Chapter １４

“Oh, do you have to chain yourself up before you turn?”

I rolled my eyes when the silly and completely irrelevant question floated around in the air like a bad smell. Tristan stared at me with a huge smirk on his face and a slight blush in his cheeks. I pathetically tried to come up with some sort of excuse, something, anything to try and explain why I’d just asked him that.

“I think I saw them do that on a Tv program once.”

I dropped my head down in complete embarrassment. My mouth finally ceased its tirade of naive and childish questions. I was beyond glad that Tristan didn't seem offended in the slightest. It was clear that he was finding my awkward questions amusing. He burst out laughing at me and even slapped his knee. I popped out my bottom lip and gave him my cute, sad face expression, in an attempt to make him feel bad for mocking me.

“You'd like that, wouldn't you? Any excuse to tie me up, huh baby?” He asked with an eyebrow raised.

I bit my lip at the thought of him all tied up and completely at my mercy. When he saw me bite my lip, he lunged forwards and began to tickle me around my ribs. I giggled and tried to wriggle free from his tortuous tickly fingers, but it was no use. I tried a new tactic and wiggled my butt further down the bed. I playfully batted his hands away, each time they came anywhere near me. He moved even closer to me and positioned his knees either side of my hips, then grabbed both of my hands and pulled them above my head. I tried to struggle out of his grip, but the dude was so damn strong.

“There's no point in fighting me. You won't win. I’m a werewolf remember?”

He chuckled at me with a wide grin on his face. I saw that as a direct challenge and prepared myself for war.

“Oh yeah, it's on,” I said while giving him a determined stare.

I slowly pulled one side of my mouth up into a slight smirk, then violently thrashed around, attempting to free my hands. I felt my face flush while I huffed and puffed, pulling my arms either which way trying to break free.

“Ugh.”

I closed my eyes then threw my arms and head back onto the bed in defeat. When I opened my eyes back up, I saw Tristan staring at me with a big cheesy grin on his face. I hated losing, and all I wanted to do now was slap his stupid face, but I knew that he was just too damn strong, and I didn't stand a chance against him. I relaxed my body and whispered,

“Ok, you win.”

He let go of my hands and lifted one of his own hands to his head. Cupping his ear with his hand, he asked,

“I'm sorry, what did you say? I didn't quite catch that.”

I huffed and shouted back at him,

“Ugh, you win.”

He sat back onto his knees and dropped his hands to his sides. He then pulled his head back and let out an ear piercing and high-pitched howl. I frantically scrambled backwards onto the bed, pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my head on them. Tears began to stream down my face, and I was shaking like a leaf. I stayed silent and just let my thoughts engulf me.

I guess he howled in the excitement of his victory, and I knew he wouldn't have wanted to scare me on purpose, but the sudden howl caught me by surprise. I had never heard anything like it in my life, and it instantly churned my stomach, raised my pulse, and sent my heart fleeing into my throat.

In over ten years of knowing Tristan, I had never felt scared of him before. To be honest, the tickling and play fighting took all of the seriousness out of the situation. It made me feel like it wasn't a big deal, and that we could carry on like normal.

How naive of me.

The reality of it all, he was a wolf. Snarling teeth, ripping animals apart, werewolf.

How do I know that he won't ever turn on me? I mean he has been acting very strange lately.

Multiple thoughts were running through my mind and it felt like I’d been silent for hours. I had no idea how to take all of it in, or what it meant for our future.

Do we even have a future? Can a human and a werewolf ever make it work? My thoughts were interrupted when I felt Tristan crawl towards me. He sat back onto his knees and reached around my back to pull me into his chest. I tightened up but allowed him to pull me towards him.

“I'm sorry if I scared you, baby,” he said in a low and concerned voice, then asked softly, “you know I'd never hurt you right?”

I gradually looked up at him, then moved forward slightly and placed my hands on his chest. I stared into his beautiful blue eyes, they were flushed with worry and slowly filling with tears. I raised my hand to his cheek and wiped away a stray tear.

I wanted nothing more than to trust him. I should have known him well enough to know that he would never hurt me. But in all honesty, I wasn’t entirely sure what I thought. In my heart, I believed that he would never hurt me, but my gut was telling me something different, and I just couldn't shake it.

I decided to ease the tension in the room and lie to him, it was the only thing I could think to do in that tense moment.

“I know you wouldn't hurt me, babe,” I said to him, trying to be as convincing as possible.

He sniffed and smiled slightly. I could tell he was not completely convinced though, so I tried to make it more believable and said,

“I'm just a little bit overwhelmed, that's all. This is a huge change and it's going to take me some time to get used to it.”