Protected Promise by Julie Trettel

Kaitlyn

Chapter 11

 

 

 

It wasn’t fair for me to blame Landon for everything we’d done. I knew in my heart that I had been a more than willing partner. A part of me feared I had even initiated it all.

Waking up naked and sore in a strange room had brought back so many memories and fears. I had been on the verge of a panic attack when Landon had returned.

With his presence, suddenly a peace fell upon me, erasing those worries, and it had freaked me out a million times more than the terrible memories. I couldn’t stop shaking.

He was hesitant, but eventually he sat down on the bed next to me. He opened his arms and I practically dove into them while crying. He patiently held me as he rubbed my back until all my tears had run dry.

“I’m so sorry, Kaitlyn,” he whispered.

I shook my head. “Please don’t be. I’m not upset about what happened.”

He gave me a comical look that made me laugh. I could only imagine what a hot mess I looked like with puffy red eyes, swollen lips, and likely streaks of day old mascara.

I gasped at the thought and tried to cover my face with my hands as I ran to the bathroom.

He stopped me though. “Kaitlyn, you look just as beautiful as always.”

I snorted a very unladylike sound and shook my head.

“Sit back down, please. I really think we need to talk about this.”

I nodded and sat back down next to him. I knew I was going to have to tell him the ugly truth about my upbringing and prayed he didn’t reject me when he found out. I was a nervous wreck and oddly, I thought maybe he could tell too, even though I knew I was usually a master at disguising my feelings, apparently just not around him.

“Do you want to go first or shall I?” he asked patiently.

“Go ahead,” I said delaying the inevitable and trying to get myself back under control.

“Okay, so here’s the thing. I don’t really have much to offer you, Kaitlyn.”

“What? But you’re an Alpha.”

“I know. I’m an Alpha of the smallest pack recognized by the Grand Council. We have a lot of land, I mean a lot of land. They believe territory wise it might even be the largest in the world, but it’s very remote, Kaitlyn, not at all what you’re used to. Some of my wolves live more in their fur than in their skin. It’s a natural environment where we embrace our surroundings.”

“But Tobi was always playing video games online with Jackson for as long as I’ve known him.”

He chuckled. “We aren’t quite that primitive. The main lodge where most of the families live does have Wi-Fi, electricity, cell service and even running water.” He was teasing, but I could tell he was concerned about my reaction to this too.

Honestly, it sounded like heaven to me, but I had no idea what I would do with my life in such a remote place.

“You’re concerned,” he said.

“Just thinking it through.”

“Talk to me.”

“I’ve spent the last five years studying and grooming myself to go into hospitality. Now what will I do?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you’d like. Hospitality skills are important for a Pack Mother too.”

“Pack Mother?”

He nodded. “Effective sometime last night, you have been promoted to Pack Mother. I hate this only because we should have discussed these things first. You should have had the opportunity to make a decision whether this is the life you want or not.”

I leaned my head into his shoulder. “I haven’t had a single clue what I want to do with my life if I’m being honest. But now that the decision is made, I’m okay with it. I’ll figure something out. It’s like a brand new adventure, a clean slate, and you don’t know how badly I need that.”

“Do you want to talk about that?”

I sighed. “There isn’t much to say honestly, it’s just been such a well-kept secret that it’s hard to talk about it.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he insisted.

“You’re my mate, Landon, you need to know so the next time you find me balled up and falling apart, you’ll hopefully understand a little.”

“Go ahead,” he said encouragingly.

I couldn’t look at him as I talked. I was still so embarrassed and ashamed. I stared at the floor instead.

“I was seven when my parents died. They were true mates and went into the beyond together, as it should be, but as their only child, I was left all alone in this world.”

“You had a Pack. You weren’t alone. Sawyer should have cared for you.”

“He was still young and unmated and decided it would be best if they placed me with my mother’s sister and her husband.”

“That’s good. Family is good.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t good. My aunt is the sweetest woman in the world, and she means well, but she’s weak, too weak to protect herself, let alone a small pup.”

He stiffened. “He hurt you?”

“Many times. Towards the end it was nearly every night, like living in a nightmare stuck on replay. He would go to the bar after work and come home drunk. He would yell and scream, throw stuff, and often he would hit my aunt, but never like on the face or arms, never anywhere someone would see and suspect.”

“And you? Did he hit you too?”

I nodded as a tear slid down my cheek. “But that wasn’t the worst of it.”

“He touched you?”

My cheeks heated. I was so ashamed. “I shouldn’t have let him. I should have fought back more.”

“Kaitlyn, if a grown man touched you inappropriately, that is not your fault. You were just a kid.”

I could hear the disgust in his voice as I shrunk back into my internal shell a little more.

“Was there more?” he asked. I could feel his temper rising and his body was shaking.

“As I grew up, I did my best to hide my body from him, from everyone, but it became harder and harder to conceal certain things.” I was heavy chested for my size and even though I’d tried bindings, it got to a point where it was just obvious they were still there.

“You shouldn’t have to be ashamed of your body!”

“I know, but I was, and sometimes I still am,” I confessed. “I do little things, like spa days to pamper myself. It just makes me feel better about myself.”

He smirked. “Like waxing?”

I gasped and stared at him. The heat I saw in his eyes was more than I ever dreamed possible. I had been desired before. Even my uncle in his own disgusting way had desired me, but the look in Landon’s eyes was nothing like that. It wasn’t skeezy or sick. It was natural and made me feel like the most cherished woman on Earth and not something to be ashamed and embarrassed of.

“How can you even look at me like that after what I just told you?”

“Sorry. I can’t help myself. I am furious for what happened to you, and I am so sorry that I couldn’t be there to protect you.”

I laughed despite the situation. “You were just a kid too and a thousand miles away.”

“Still. Did he ever force himself onto you?”

“All the time, but I never had sex with him. He tried a few times towards the end, but I was bigger by then and could fight back. It made him mad and resulted in a lot of beatings. Mostly he just touched me while jacking himself off.” I gasped. “I can’t believe I just told you that. I’ve never told anyone that before, not in so many words.”

He wrapped me up in one of his big safe hugs as I started to cry again.

“Sawyer knows?”

I nodded against his chest. “And Damon,” I confirmed. “I had snuck out one night afterwards. He had tried to force himself on me and I’d fought for my life. I really thought he was going to kill me afterwards. Bloodied and weak, I’d climbed through my bedroom window to get away. I wanted to kill myself, Landon. I just wanted the nightmare to end. I was seventeen and it had been ten years living with that monster.”

I paused as he rubbed my back.

“As fate would have it, Damon was out late that night and our paths crossed. I knew him a little from around school, but as you can imagine, I didn’t exactly have friends. I was too ashamed to let anyone close. I’ve come a long way since that night, but I still struggle to trust easily, except for you it would appear. I do have friends, true friends now, and I’m a lot better, but it’s still… there.”

“What did Damon do?”

“He took one look at me and said, ‘Wow, you look like shit.’ I started crying like a crack in my dam had just broke free. I don’t know what possessed me to talk to him. He was dark and mysterious. He wasn’t even a Longhorn, he’d just lived and worked there for several years. Maybe that’s what I liked about him. He was a bit of an outcast too.”

I still remembered how angry I’d been at him.

“I made him promise me he wouldn’t say anything to anyone, but a few days later, I showed up with a black eye. It was the only time I can remember him ever hitting me in the face. Damon was so furious he ditched the rest of school that day and went to tell Sawyer.”

“Good. I assume Sawyer took care of the situation?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your uncle. He’s dead, right?”

I bit my lip and shook my head.

“What? Why the hell not?”

I gave him a sad look. “Because I begged him not to.”

“Kaitlyn, why? Why would you want that piece of shit to breathe another breath?”

I sobbed. “Because he’s fully mated to my aunt and I couldn’t kill her. She was as much of a victim as I was.”

“No, she was charged to protect you.”

I shook my head. “She couldn’t.”

“Kaitlyn, did you take all of that all those years to protect her?”

I gasped and looked up into his eyes. He knew. I didn’t know how, but he knew. Tears welled up clouding my vision. “I thought he would kill her if I didn’t,” I whispered.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath as he held me tighter. “One thing I can absolutely give you is the promise that I will never raise my hand to you or intentionally hurt you in any way. You are mine to protect now, and that is my number one most important job.”

“Pack first,” I told him like a preconditioned wolf robot.

“Mate first, Pack second,” he corrected.

I didn’t argue with him.

Despite rehashing my life’s trauma, I found that being in his strong embrace was actually a turn on. I wanted to cry all over again, but this time in relief.

One of my biggest fears had always been that I would carry this with me and that it would destroy every opportunity of love. Like an invisible disease, I didn’t think I could actually be intimate with a man. The idea of sex had repulsed me, until now.

Sure, I’d tried with a whole lot of liquid courage to get past that fear of intimacy, dimly lit rooms were often a trigger for me, but not as much as being in a room alone with a guy that I didn’t fully trust.

Damon had helped some with that. My freshman year I had been determined to get past it. I had put myself in some uncomfortable situations and one time things went a little too far. I said no, but the guy wasn’t listening. Damon had come to my rescue that night and since then he had appointed himself my personal protector and then recruited his entire fraternity to his cause, guaranteeing my virginity.

I gasped again and could feel my cheeks on fire.

“What is it?” Landon asked.

“Um, did we actually, you know?”

“Bond? Yes.” He tilted his head and showed me the mark.

“No. I mean, yes I know that, but did we have sex?” I blurted out.

His face paled and I couldn’t imagine what was going through his head.

“You don’t remember?”

“I do, or at least I think I do. It all feels more like a dream than reality. I’ve, um, never…”

“Never?”

I bit my lip and shook my head.

He grinned like he was relieved and kissed me hard on the lips and then trailed light kisses across my cheek. “It was my first time too,” he whispered in my ear.