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Weighted [sabra]
Topic Started: Jun 30 2013, 02:46 PM (153 Views)
James
Newborn
How long had it been?

Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

It had felt like a century. Another night of waking up in a cold-sweat panic had passed with the grown man clutching at the sheets beside him, hoping (maybe a little desperately) that he wouldn’t wake up alone. But he always does, and he always is. It’s in the middle of the day that the shifter awakes in the bed of his truck, parked out on some back Tennessee road where he was sure that no one would find him. He can’t remember how long he has been driving at this point, but he does remember one thing: His destination. Hitting the road again, now only a few hours away from arrival, leaves his hands shaky with nervousness and his mind racing. She could turn him away—she could tell him to leave. And he would be in no position to say no. The years of looking, poking his nose where he shouldn’t, hunting and tracking could have been for nothing. Yet, there’s something in the pits of his chest that keeps his foot on the gas pedal and the truck going in the right direction: Hope.

But what for? He had hoped that she wouldn’t have left him, too. His hope had gone dry that day when he had put a new hole in the wall and had drank his last bottle of whiskey, leaving his daughter to his sister and himself to his own agony. Sadness had become familiar company and his old cheap liquor started to taste better than misery—but that’s what starts a cycle, isn’t it? Somewhere along the lines the man had stood and made the drunken decision that he would find her again; whether it is the best or the worst idea he had ever come up with, he won’t know. Not for a few more hours. Each mile closer had become another mile of dread to go, another step closer towards the rejection that he had feared for so long.

It all seems to pass terrifyingly fast.

Where night had met day, he is not sure—but soon enough, the sky is dark and James Morgan is just outside of a cabin that is quite far from where he had called home. The loud crunch of gravel beneath his tires rings of finality and a decision, the encouragement to move forward but also to move back. When he gets out of his truck, he closes in the distance. Last time he had seen Sabra Kross had been over four years ago. Four years since he had woken up alone in bed—Four years since he called her name and got no response, and four years since Izzy had lost the woman that she had grown to know as mom. It all comes crashing down on him when he finally makes it to the door and raises one hand to knock twice. The area is clouded by the scent of werewolf and territory but among it all he finds Sabra, something warm and familiar and painful that starts to dig a new hole in his chest. He wants to take it and run with it and keep it but he also wants to leave.

It’s rare that the man’s fight or flight response turns to the less favorable, but a lot of things had changed. James doesn’t quite fill out his shirts anymore and his cheekbones are just a little more visible than they used to be. His eyes stay downcast and his shoulders sag with the mere weight of his hands when they return to his side, waiting for the door to open again and show him the face that he hadn’t seen in so long.

A face and a woman who had the power to tear him to pieces now if she wanted to.

His heart aches when the door finally opens.

“You could’a said goodbye, darlin’.”
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Sabra
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Newborn
She dreams of a deep forest, bones erupting from the earth like boulders, monstrous skulls leering at her from their hiding places among the briars and thorns. They are brilliant white, blinding in a landscape made of indigo and laurel green. Sabra wanders, lost in the towering oaks and chestnut trees, beckoned from a time before man, before fire or iron. The bones talk. They rumble in ghostly echoes of their temporal forms. Howls, death cries, shrieks that resound and make her clutch her temples, knees trembling. Blindly, she flees, vines clinging, dragging along her skin until finally she stumbles forward. Sixteen trees ring a clearing bathed in golden sunlight, four circles of four and at each of their bases rest skeletons, some still with bits of meat and sinew clinging to their joints, stacked masterfully, skulls grinning atop crossed femurs and tibias.

They are all human. All of them have died grisly deaths. Bullet holes, ribs gouged by a knife, broken necks.

Sabra. Sabra Kross. My name was Phillip. I had a little girl, she was seven. I had a wife. My parents are still looking for me. My casket has no body. Do you know where my body is? Why did you bury me so far from home?

Born of smoke and vapor, they rush forward. Some are wolves and some are men, and some are broken creatures that can be called neither. Teeth piece her Achilles's, cold clammy hands tangle in her hair and drag her down, bring her to the earth, threaten to bring her through it to where the worms and the weevils live, where they will strip her flesh and all the while they whisper. They beckon her. They beg and they scream and they ask.

A knock sounds at the door.

She gasps in mountain air and awakes, bathed in moonlight. The dream clings to her like a spiderweb and Sabra throws her legs over the bed, bare toes dangling above the hard wood floor, desperate hands trying to brush away the remnants of angry specters. "Damnit." The knock sounds again, mercifully real, solid.

Somehow, Caden is still asleep, thumb in his mouth, chest rising and falling. She leaves him like that, pulling on a pair of oil stained blue jeans and a shirt with Joe's Automotive Services emblazoned over her right breast. It's late and usually visitors would warrant bared teeth and clipped words, but Sabra's thankful to be woken from this dream.

"What do ya --" The hinges groan and a tall figure darkens the doorway, shoulders tucked inwards to fit through. A warm drawl, thick and sweet as honey and not heard for over four years hangs in the midnight air between them. "James." Maybe she hasn't woken up after all. Was this the specters' ultimate punishment? Her grip on the door frame tightens, knuckles white, and she swallows harshly, trying to push down the rising panic in her throat. The absurd urge to pinch herself twists through her mind.

But that wouldn't make him disappear anymore than closing the door would. She could ask what he was doing here, but the answer is obvious. "You're a long way from home." Still, Sabra can't help but try to make this James fit with the man she left behind. Some things don't change. She feels the same standing in his shadow as she did standing in the shadow of those ancient trees, but there's no smile, the vibrancy that attracted people like a moth to flame is startlingly absent. She catches the whiff of liquor and gasoline about him.

"Momma."

So consumed, Sabra doesn't even notice Caden's out of bed until he wraps his arms around her calf, cheek pressed to denim, round dark eyes glancing upwards. Confusion wrinkles a button nose. He yawns and clutches at her jeans, face now hidden from sight.

She closes the door after all.
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James
Newborn
Somehow, the sight of her opening the door is still enough to stop his heart where it beats. She is everything that he remembered her to be; she’s long messy hair after waking up with a tired drawl to her tone. She’s a small woman with a big voice, power and prestige in her tone. She’s cold and she’s warm, and she’s still everything to him. There is an urge there to reach out to her, to touch her, to pull her in close and feel the warmth of her body against his again, even if it’s just one more time. There’s a need, a hunger, a craving there, but it’s something different entirely than he has ever shown the woman. He can remember fairly easily the nights that she would spend locked in his arms after Isabelle fell asleep, the short stories that she would tell him. Just the same, he can remember when he would whisper in her ear that everything would be okay no matter what she decided to do, that all she needed to do was let him know. Now, the roles are reversed—and there isn’t a thing that James wouldn’t do to have Sabra lay a hand on his shoulder and tell him the same.

James.

His name rolls off of her tongue the same way that it used to—but there is a iciness to it that doesn’t seem to fit her the way that it should. It’s not the warm honey tone that she used to use with him, leaving James surprised that he could have ever expected anything different to happen in the first place. Her voice feels cold and maybe, if this were a better day, James might have given her a slick smile and said something stupid along the lines of, My home is wherever you are, darlin’. But he can’t manage that anymore. Instead, he falls silent, looking from Sabra to the floor like a little boy standing under his chiding mother. The silence is loud enough to damn near deafen him, until one small little voice breaks it and lets it shatter around him like glass. With his eyes already downcast, he takes immediate notice to the little boy that comes into view, wrapping himself around Sabra and uttering one word that makes James’s head spin.

But before he can look any further, the door closes and shuts with a click.

There is confusion and disbelief—because Sabra wouldn’t do something like this to him, not again. But she did, and the pain that grows in his chest threatens to break his ribs and split them right apart. The sound of heavy boots hitting the wood of the porch echoes in the night when James begins his nervous pace, hand on his chin with his thoughts somewhere else entirely. How long had it been since he had left? Four, four and a half years? How long had Sabra been pregnant? How old is this child? Somewhere inside, James can hear the pitter-patter of little feet on the ground and a sleepy voice say, Momma, who was that? Dark eyes and dark skin, much like him and Sabra.

It clicks.

With his heart in his throat James stops in front of the door again, laying one shaking hand on a panel as if his gentle pressure could open it and let him back into her life again. He does not push, he does not knock. Instead, James only stares at the thin wall that barricades him from her world, and manages to choke out, “Sabra—“ His voice cracks, and with it, his hand falls to his side again. “—please.” Somehow, he doubts that she will come to the door again. He’s on the verge of giving up when he finally sits on one of the steps, head in his hands. Dark green eyes stay glued to the ground and he wonders exactly what he had done wrong, what he could have done better, because now Sabra has her own home, and a son, she didn’t need him anymore— “You wouldn’t go leavin’ an ol’ stray out at night…” He attempts a smile, a half-hearted laugh at their old shared joke.

And he breaks.
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Sabra
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Newborn
If ever I prove false to you, the seas would rage and burn.

It had been a cold, snowy night in December when a stray was taken in by a drunk man with a calm voice and big hands. He wasn't scared of the bleeding, shivering thing sleeping under his porch and had stood ankle deep in snow, smacking his thighs and calling to her. Maybe it was the man and maybe it was the warmth and the good smells the poured from his home, but she had listened, climbed to her sore, frost bitten feet and sniffed him all over. She licked his potato chip greased fingers and stumbled inside.

She woke up in a warm bed with her wounds bandaged and James smiling, if not a little surprised. Somewhere along the line, between the time that Izzy began calling her mom and James abandoned sleeping on the couch, she fell in love.

It was gradual and then all at once. From butterflies brushing their wings against her ribcage to feeling like she had dove headfirst into the deepest, clearest lake imaginable. The water was rushing in over her head and she didn't care, she swam deeper, abandoned the surface and oxygen. None of it mattered but him.

It was always the things you never saw coming. The things that you couldn't prepare for.

Strangers knocking at your door and strangers answering.

She turns, back pressed against solid oak, one hand on the door, the other covering her mouth. Not trusting the sounds or the words that might come out. Instead of letting go, Caden clutches only tighter, her worry, her fear becoming his own. He lived in a world where the slightest emotion could catch flame and become an inferno, being in tune with what his family was feeling was not a gift, it was a survival skill. How else would he know when to run and hide? When to go for help? "Go back to bed, baby." Furrows form behind his brows and Caden shakes his head vehemently, that damnable hard-headness flaring to life with a vengeance.

Footsteps thud against the old porch boards and for a moment Sabra thinks he's leaving. Her heart leaps in her chest and she can't tell if it's with happiness or regret or some sick mixture of both. This is why she had left without a goodbye. The only thing more impossible than going was staying and she had chosen the coward's way out, knowing if she saw his eyes, the hurt she put there, that even war wouldn't be enough to take her away.

She had fought with his child in her belly. With blood gushing over the slightest baby bump, with the knowledge that burning that bridge at least meant she would never have to try and cross it again.

But now he's here and everything she imagined to be true is wrong. A sob threatens to escape at the sound of his voice again, so similar to the ghosts'. Sabra is reminded of the blizzard and the red paw prints she tracked to his front steps. He let her in. He let a wolf into his home with his small daughter and trusted her, scars and teeth and blood and all.

Tentative fingers curl around the door knob and she cracks it open. Sabra bends down and sets her son on her hip, watching the shift of light and darkness over his back, tasting the deep rich scent of man and tiger on the night breeze. The wolf stirs in her veins with longing. She opens the door a little wider and steps aside. "Ya still like your coffee with two sugars?" The kitchen lights flicker on and Sabra steps inside, Caden's fingers entwined in her dark hair, head resting on her shoulder, watching his father with his mother's eyes.

She fills the coffee pot and starts the water to boil.

It isn't a yes and it isn't a no, but it's the most that she can manage on such short notice.
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James
Newborn
Every instinct in his body screams for him to leave. To run away from a bridge that’s burning all over again, to let whatever was left of their relationship to crumble with it. But something keeps him rooted here on the steps. Whether it’s love, stupidity, stubbornness or all three he can’t tell, but he listens to it all the same. The place called Blackwater is quietly nudged into the mountains, an almost-peaceful environment that might have been called “safe” if it weren’t for the werewolves that ran rampant through its territory. Still, there is a certain romance to it. He can hear the crickets and he can hear bullfrogs from some stream in the distance with an increased volume that wouldn’t have been heard during the day. If he listens even harder, he might even be able to hear the rustling leaves of bushes pushed apart by some wandering animal. But the sound of the door opening behind him becomes even louder.

James turns his head and his tired eyes fall upon Sabra again, someone who he thought only seconds ago would leave him at the door, offering him to come in. Offering him to come in— by way of coffee, and James does not hesitate to nod in agreement. As he stands up and turns around, his eyes fall on Caden again. A beautiful little boy who looked all too much like his mother with dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin that watches him very intently. Something in James stirs, but he ignores it and ducks into the kitchen. It would seem now that his entire purpose for coming here has changed—and that’s if he can even think of what he wanted in the first place. Verification? A reason? An apology? No, none of those things. He wanted her, and he had wanted her every day since the day she had left. But such a thing is easier said than done. James would have been a fool to come here expecting to have everything handed to him again, but thankfully that’s not what he had expected.

In fact, things are already better than he had expected them to be. Sabra had opened the door again and had allowed him to come inside—and that is better than nothing at all.

“Yeah,” he finally says. He shuts the door behind him and takes a seat, watching Sabra and her son with an expression akin to an old man viewing old family photos, and not even the smell of coffee could distract him now. Caden looks at him with big wide eyes and James takes the time to really examine his facial features, to pick out what is Sabra’s and what is not. It becomes readily apparent that there are features that remind him of his own father, too—of his brothers—and with a sigh, James lets the information sink in with a hand at his jaw. “What’s his name?” There are some questions that can’t be avoided, even if they’re for something as simple as validation. “…Is he my boy?”
It feels like a stupid question, maybe it is.

James is reminded of the days where he and Sabra had discussed family—she had talked about hers and he had talked about his. He had always wondered about a life with her that would involve a second or third child, of the sound of bare feet hitting the hardwood floors. He had imagined more days of tripping over the kids toys and doing his best to not get angry with them for it, but above all, he had imagined her. She had been everything that he had wanted and then some, taking the grueling task of being a lover and the mother of his child.

Even now, it still pained him to tell Izzy that he didn’t know where mom went, that he didn’t know when she’d be home or if she would, only that he could try to find out.

He knows now, looking at Sabra, that he had gotten to her a little… and maybe that’s what he had wanted to do. Because as much as his own heart may ache, he knew that it must have been close to nothing compared to her own, and he wants to see it. Things are not always that easy with Sabra, though. He would have to keep digging and digging, dig until he found that one nerve that would offer him some peace of mind. The rush of adrenaline that had left his heart pounding in his ears dies down and James can only take deep breaths to slow himself down now, and maybe attempt to smile for the little boy and the woman that he had grown to love so much over the years.

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Sabra
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Newborn
James wasn't the only one she left. It might make a more convenient story if it was just them, but he had a little girl, he had a family and a life that Sabra had become a part of. She knew his brothers and sisters, she still remembered the stories his mother told her about James sleeping all night in the woods on a dare, just to prove someone wrong, or the time he fell off the roof right into the rose bushes and that's how he got that funny scar on his left ass cheek. Sabra was use to her memories blurring, to forgetting, but everything stuck, from how he liked his coffee to the expression of perfect serenity he'd get, fallen asleep on the couch with Izzy in his arms after a long day of work.

She had spent three and a half months with him, some of the best of her life. It wasn't out of shame that she kept James a secret, it was pure selfishness. She couldn't bring herself to share him with her sisters. He was her's and her's alone and nothing in the world could take that from her. If she died tomorrow, she would still have those days, the sun gleaming off the snow, the feel of his arms around her and the unshakeable knowledge that she was loved once. Not as Sabra Kross, not as Blackwater's enforcer, but simply as the stray that had wandered into his home one cold winter night.

I'm sorry for not calling. That's what she had told Billy.

The only explanation she had offered. Of course, she had heard the rumors. Theories surrounding the identity of Caden's father, everything from a supposed union with a demon in exchange for power to a lover who turned her away when he discovered she was a wolf. None of them were even close to the truth.

Their eyes meet over the table and Sabra looks away first, turning her attention to the rosy cheeked boy on her hip. "Caden." She ruffles his hair fondly and smiles, worn around the edges, marred by concern, but still a smile for her two boys. "He's your's." She could lie, but what would that accomplish? They had never lied to each other, avoided the truth maybe, but James was an awful liar and she was too good at it. It seemed like a bad habit to start now.

Water bubbles in the glass pot and Sabra turns her back, reaching to get the mugs down from the cabinet, spoon the ground coffee beans out, pour sugar and milk. She does it all one handed and puts the mugs down one at a time, ceramic clinking. Caden scrambles into her lap, as stubborn about holding onto her as he is about staying away and interrogating the strange man through eye contact alone. It's strange. How many times had she seen James' face reflected in his son's? Ached for the man she left behind? And now he's here, sitting at the kitchen table, taking two sugars with his coffee. She hadn't kept many things from her time with James, an old t-shirt, a military dog tag she keeps tucked away in the Plymouth's glove box.

And there was Caden, but she hadn't meant to take a baby with her. Still, it happened. A truck stop in Memphis, puking her guts out in the rhododendron bushes.

"I didn't know when I left." Sabra glances up from her coffee and down the darkened hallway that leads to Billy and Vianne's room. "I don't think I could have left if I knew."

She forced to take a better look at him in the light. James looks like he was baked to a hard finish in an oven, his muscles are a little tighter on his bone, his eyes, while still soft, aren't so expectant and trusting anymore. He has changed and something in her yearns to map each of them, to find out what four yearns apart has done to him, to place his hands to new scars on her own body. The light flickers over head and her bare foot brushes against his calf without meaning to. She shifts back in her chair and thinks like James for a moment.

To think like someone who had been left high and dry without word, without reason. Left to explain a fundamental absence when he had nothing to go on himself. It was the only way that she could even begin to try and address what she had done.

"James, I didn't leave because ya did anythin' wrong." God no. He tested her loyalty to the two people she swore she would never betray, but he hadn't meant to. "Someone was tryin' to kill us. I heard rumors, I had to go. Then," They sound like excuses and they ring hollow in her own ears. Inadequate. Worthless consolations to someone who had given her everything and asked nothing but her trust in return. They had made love before she left, she had to make sure that he'd be tired and wouldn't wake up as she dressed and packed her things.

The crickets chirp outside and Sabra finds herself at a lost. "It all fell apart. I couldn't leave again. Not after that."

She drinks her coffee and tries not to meet his eyes again.
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James
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She says the words that he wanted to (and simultaneously dreaded to) hear, and responds with a heavy sigh. While one weight has been lifted, another has replaced it. A child—not just another child, a son. A son, a brother to his daughter, a beautiful innocent little boy that he had created and yet had never seen until this very night. The realization creates a pull at his heart and he tries to ignore the oncoming wave of horror at the knowledge that he had missed so much of the boy’s life. James had never been there to see his eyes open for the first time, he had not been there to watch him take his first steps. He had not been there to hear him say his first word, or his second, or his third—he had not been there for any of it. For Izzy, he was there for all of it. Yet, somewhere in his chest he can feel the veins of bitterness spread, because Sabra had stolen those moments away from him. None of it shows on his face, and for now he is content to zone out at Caden’s feet.

…left if I knew.

He snaps back to attention, dark eyes flitting up to meet Sabra’s. The way that she talks tells James that even she doesn’t think that what she has to say is enough, and maybe it’s not. James had been an angry man once before—never to Sabra—but a part of him begs to go back to the days when he was only 19 years old. Still the same, but so easily ignited that he would put a fist through the wall before anyone could get another word out at him. You’re right, it’s not enough. It will never be enough. Because this isn’t just about them anymore, it’s about the child. Her son. His son. She never told him.

How could she have never told him?

James only sighs again, running a nervous hand through his hair with his eyes still on Sabra. Every fiber of his being tells him to be angry, to be furious, to yell and to blame her and to blame God and to somehow make things right despite that, but he can’t. He can’t be angry—could never be angry at Sabra. Not then, and not even now. And the only logical explanation that he can come up with is that somewhere along those four years, he had stopped blaming her. He had stopped asking why.

He had forgiven her.

When she stops talking, James shakes his head and reaches out, placing one large hand on the table in front of her as if he was expecting to find something underneath his palm a second later. “Sabra—” Another sigh. It had been a long night. A headache throbs at his temples. “Sabra, I don’t need a reason.” For a second, this could have sounded like an I don’t care about your reason. It is anything but. “I forgave you a long time ago.” Had he? had he? He had. Even now, the man struggles to grasp that concept, that he could have righteously forgiven something that his father may have hit any woman for. Something that his mother would have shook her head at, would have rested a hand on Sabra’s shoulder and said in that thick Russian accent of hers, Do you find this to be the best way? Or could you do this better? His brothers would have told him to forget it, his sisters would tell him to go back. But he had told no one.

The reasons for Sabra’s disappearance had become a mystery to his entire family. For once, James hadn’t felt so alone with their shared confusion.

He finds his voice again. “I would never have asked you to leave.” This place had made a good home for her, from what he had been told. Maybe not the safest, but the place had once been made safe in part by her. Her pack must have suffered without her. “All I had asked was that you let me know.” Let me know if you want to leave, when you want to leave, and I will drive you there. This is your life, not mine. Do what you want with it.

As long as she does not create another life with him in the process.

“But… you realize now, Sabs… I can’t leave.” He can already feel what will become anger rising in Sabra. It is how the woman had dealt with every emotion but love that she had shown him. “I’m not Just Isabelle’s father anymore. I’ve got a son.” with one finger, he motions to Caden. “It wouldn’t be right of me to leave.” His mother had always told him to do the right thing and his father had always told him to take responsibilities for whatever situation that he had caused. James takes a sip from his coffee anticipating Sabra’s comeback. It wouldn’t be pretty.

But then again, the past four years hadn’t been so pretty either.
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Sabra
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Sabra hopes that her sisters are still sleeping. Her job is simple because there is no one to question her decisions. There are no witnesses but herself and the man or woman marked for death. They may question why, but they are easily silenced. She is both judge, jury and executioner. There is guilt, regret occasionally, depending on the circumstances, but every choice is final. From the moment that she looks down the barrel and pulls the trigger to the crunch of the shovel's blade as it splits open the earth for a new grave. She can change nothing once it is done.

Her victims do not rise out of the ground and come knocking at her door. Memories can blur, gradually become forgotten when there is no one to stir them.

"Ya deserve an explanation." It was a coward's way out, what she had done, slipping through the back door once night had fallen, without a word, without even writing a damn note. James sets one hand on the table, skin a few shades darker than her own, fingers blunted and knuckles thick, a testament to days when he was more likely to use his fists than his words. Sabra looks away, trying to dispel the sudden image of those very hands heavy on her waist, tangling through her hair. Something twists in her chest and flares warm in the pit of her belly. She doesn't want to be forgiven.

It's easier to be guilty. Everyone agrees. You're wrong.

She hopes Billy and Vianne are still asleep because she doesn't want anyone to ask why she left or why she stayed. It's too complicated. Her loyalty is supposed to be a chain, not a rope knotted and twisted in so many places it becomes impossible to untangle.

''Ya aren't stayin'."

The equivalent of a bullet, her attempt to silence James and drag him down into the darkness where he will be silent and complacent. She sets her mug down on the table with a hard thunk, coffee spilling over the top. "This is my territory, James. This is Blackwater, you don't get a choice." He threatens to overturn the carefully maintained balance of the sisters, the precarious peace she had fought for. To bring change into her life. Sabra could weather wars, but this is too close to home. This is not something that can be solved with blood and teeth glinting in the moonlight.

It is all the more terrifying for that. She can't anticipate what effects his presence might have. The things she may be forced to address in her own heart and mind.

Blackwater's enforcer rises to her feet, chair dragging over the linoleum floor. Caden turns away, hiding his face in the crook of her shoulder. One hand keeps him on her hip and the other is smacked down across from James, her own knuckles white. "You still are Izzy's father. It ain't right to uproot her for some woman that left you high and dry. Someone she don't even remember." Not only does he threaten the fragile stability here, but he was willing to throw a little girl's life into chaos. To expose her to monsters in the dark. She rebels wholly at the thought of the chubby toddler she had once known, who she had carried on her hip and taught the ABC's to, living within the borders of a pack of wolves.

You could romanticize it. You could say they were merely animals acting on their instincts, indulging in all the desires that society deemed unacceptable, but it wasn't true. They were cursed beings. They were not entirely human, and they were not entirely beasts. The wolf was poisoned and in turn so was the man or woman. They reached compromises with the creature that shared their mind and souls, or they fought it for the length of their existence.

It was no place for children. It was no place for love and happy endings and all the things guaranteed in fairy tales and those cheesy damn TV commercials with the smiling suburban family.

"I don't want ya here. Go home. Go home to your little girl and forget about us like I've been tryin' to forget about you for the last five years."

Sabra draws away, her nails leaving thin gouges in the cheap pine table. Don't make this harder than it has to be.
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James
Newborn
He had almost forgotten how bullheaded this woman could be, and a small part of him misses it. She tells him that he isn’t staying with finality in her tone, as if it would be the final ruling statement that would dictate whether he truly stayed in this small Tennessee town or not. James can’t help but look down and smile a little to himself with suppressed amusement and nostalgia combined. Her territory—her land, her everything. Everything is hers and this wolf pack’s, it makes James wonder whether Sabra had been here so long that she had forgotten that werewolves and humans weren’t the only creatures that existed. He knows when Sabra wants to be listened to and when she’s okay with listening, but this is not one of those times. The wolf demands to be listened to, and in response, James shakes his head. “I am stayin’.” He gives a moment to slide his coffee away from him and place both hands flat down on the table. “This ol’ place may be your territory, but I ain’t one of your wolves, Sabs. You got no jurisdiction over me.” He says it as if it is a sad truth, one that he needs to break to Sabra slowly and easily, maybe because he does.

When she finally stands, he can only look up. He would give her the few seconds she needed to look down on him. She uses words that are like bullets to his heart, using every weakness she knows that he has. Izzy is one of them. The sound of his daughter’s name makes him nod his head quietly. And when he doesn’t think that he can stay under her shadow for any longer, he stands too. If he could play every time that Izzy called for her, he would—but it’s just another hardship that he had faced that Sabra didn’t need to hear about. He can’t argue with a pissed off wolf, and he doesn’t want to either. “She still asks me at least twice a week when mama’s comin’ home.” If they were to use bullets in the form of words, then this would be it for James. Isabelle, damn near six years old now, had always given him that same quizzical look, the one that begged for an answer that James could never give her. He had gone from saying “soon” to saying “I don’t know,” but the man didn’t have the heart to tell her that mama might not be coming back.

“This ain’t just about you anymore, darlin’. I’m still Izzy’s father and I’m still Caden’s father, too. Whether you want me here or not don’t matter as much when you got a kid in the picture. It wouldn’t be right of me to leave my son behind.” His daddy had always taught him about accountability, his mama had always told him to stick by his successes and his mistakes, because no matter what they would be no one’s but his own. Caden is his too, and while he may not be any victory, he sure as hell is no mistake.

Somewhere he knows that Sabra must understand this too, that she must understand what position he’s in. Sabra backs away and in turn, James takes one daring step forward, trying to find her eyes and force her to look at him. “You know me, Sabra. You know me. Now you look me in the damn eyes an’ tell me that I’m a man who would leave his kid behind.” Because he’s not—he would never, he could never. “Tell me I’m a man who would leave anyone behind. You look me in the eyes, and you tell me that I’m a man that would do that, and I will leave you to your peace.” But he knows that she won’t. Because even Sabra, as stony and as cold as she could be sometimes, wouldn’t have the heart in her to tread over that ice. He shakes his head and moves away from her, reaching one hand out for the door.

“I’m sorry, darlin’. I really am.” Whether he’s sorry that he bothered to try or whether he’s sorry for upsetting her is yet to be known, but he opens the door as quietly as he can anyways. “But I’m not leavin’. I’m not that kinda man.” Even if you are that kind of woman. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest when he moves closer to the door.

He has to duck his head again to leave the cabin, closing the door with a click to immediately silence any comeback that Sabra might have thrown back at him. Not out of arrogance and certainly not out of anger, but out of an inability to take any more hits. The gravel crunches beneath his boots during the approach to his truck. It feels like there are miles between the cabin and the old four-door. This had not been how the shifter had planned the night to go, but it certainly had not gone down as bad as he had expected it to.

Nothing was broken, not yet.
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