Chapter Notes: Ava-Rain's POV

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- 'cause I'm broken, when I'm open, & I don't feel like I am strong enough. . .' -

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They're okay.

     They're absolutely fine.

     If something was wrong, I'd know.

     I had repeated those three sentences over and over inside of my head, hoping that the more times I repeated them, the more I'd believe them to be true. But the truth was, I didn't know know if Kasey and her family were okay. I didn't know if they were fine. And if there was something wrong, as much as I wanted to believe that deep down I would have felt it, I felt nothing.

     Well, not entirely nothing; my emotions were, in fact, present and completely all over the place since Caleb, Kane and I left the den. But during the entire drive, as I sat in the darkness of his car and accepted the silence graciously offered to me by my mate, I tried to dig deeper to locate something—anything—to assure me that the Hellands were fine, only to come up empty handed.

I loved these people and for years I had considered them my family when they welcomed me as one of their own. So surely there was something inside of me, something instinctive and intuitive that I could rely on. But the more I searched, the harder I looked and the deeper I dug, I was met with more nothingness.

     Tearing my gaze from the window, I looked, first, out of the dashboard at Kane's car ahead of us, then over to my left at Caleb. His head immediately turned in my direction, his gaze holding mine for only a few seconds before they flickered back to the road ahead. His right hand lifted off of the stick shift to, instead, settle in my left one, which was placed on my lap.

I laced my fingers through his, wanting to hold onto him for as long as possible. Because it was extremely late, there weren't many cars on the highway so there wasn't an urgent need for him to be switching gears and, therefore, no immediate need for his hand to depart from mine just yet.

     "Distract me," I said, holding onto Caleb's hand a little tighter.

     To be honest, I didn't really want a distraction, but I knew that Caleb's need to comfort me greatly outweighed what I wanted. And so I'd grant him the opportunity to do so, even if I would have much preferred the silence.

Silence, which I would have welcomed as a comforting distraction because its presence eliminated offerings of reassurance and fillers consisting of questions meant to coerce me into admitting my thoughts and feelings.

When you spent your entire life staying mum, living with a grandmother whose best piece of advice was to 'sit there and look pretty', and growing up with two perfect best friends with perfect lives that only reinforced how truly imperfect I was, revealing the contents of my mind just wasn't something that came naturally for me. Allowing one's self to willingly submit to vulnerability by being completely open and honest—especially with those you loved and who loved you back—was utterly terrifying.

     But after what happened over an hour ago back at the den—when Caleb literally broke into my mind in order to save it and me—I feared that he finally saw me. The real me. The girl hidden inside, protected by the thoughts and feelings that she's too scared to reveal. Scared because she doesn't know how to show the boy that she loves the girl that he loves. The girl that isn't strong. The girl that isn't powerful. The girl that sometimes smiles when she really just wants to cry and often laughs in order to drown out the sound of her flaws mocking her.

I didn't know exactly what happened or what Caleb saw through his eyes while he was inside of my head, but I knew what I saw through my own eyes: Ava-Rain, the human, not Ava-Rain, future alpha female.

     "What kind of distraction would you like?" Caleb's grey eyes flickered over at me and, despite the surrounding darkness and nothing more than the light from the highway's street lamps faintly illuminating his face, I managed to see the glimmer of humour within them. "Because the kind I'm thinking of might involve pulling over onto the shoulder and," he paused and returned his sights to the road, "well, you know." He turned his head and winked at me.

     Yes, actually winked.

     And if he hadn't had the innate ability to make everything he did—including something as cheesy as a wink—look so damned beautiful, I probably would have laughed in his face. Hard. But, instead, I was too busy trying to ignore the burning in my cheeks and steady the slightly accelerated rhythm of my heart before the organ gave out on me entirely.

     I smiled and lowered my gaze to our connected hands. "As much as I would love to cross out being 'ravished on the highway by a mysterious and gorgeous boy' from my non-existent bucket list, I was thinking something more along the lines of . . ." I turned his hand around and starting tracing random patterns into his palm for no real reason, "acting good on our promise to each other earlier to stop not talking and talk."

Just because I didn't necessarily want to talk about how I was feeling, didn't mean that I wouldn't suck it up and get it off of my chest. That's what two people in a relationship and who loved each other did, right? Faced their demons head on and hoped that the love from their partner would give them the strength they needed to slay them?

     Well, my demons, it seemed, were not going to be banished back to the hell they came from if Caleb's immediate response to my question was any indication. He pulled his hand out of mine so quickly, you would have thought that I had burned him. Before he placed it on the stick shift, he stared down at it as if he were looking at something that only his eyes could see.

     "Or we don't have to talk," I said, not entirely sure if Caleb's reaction was his way of telling me that he didn't want to talk.

     "I'm sorry," he said. "I just. . ."

     "It's okay," I turned my head to him and offered him a reassuring smile, allowing that girl inside of me to do what she had always done best and pretend.

     "No, it's not. And I don't want you to say that to me when we both know that's not how you really feel, Ava-Rain. I didn't pull my hand away because I don't want to talk. I pulled away because," he lifted said hand off of the stick shift and stared down at it, palm side up, before returning it to its previous spot in my lap, "it reminded me of what it took to save you."

     The power of the four.

     What Caleb had done was considered to be impossible. Angelie had made it quite clear that not even a full blooded heir of the yellow harboured the ability to literally implant themselves within another's mind. But Caleb had broken all of the rules and discovered a part of himself that not a soul in his world thought existed. Despite his belief that he was only able to find that hidden strength through my own, what reason was there for me to accept or believe that to be true? It wasn't my strength that had strengthened Caleb, it was my weakness.

     "What did you see?" I looked at him and gripped onto his hand, not entirely for his warmth but for his strength. "When you were inside of my head, what did you see?"

I didn't remember anything besides that one memory belonging to the pure blood that contained the Hellands. And darkness. So much darkness. Despite Caleb gaining entry into my head, I didn't know how my mind had appeared to him, only that we had not been placed on the same wave length.

     Instead of an immediate answer, Caleb continued to stare out onto the road. The view of his profile enabled me to see the slight clench of his jaw and the even slighter shake of his head. My eyes travelled downwards, along the length of his arm until settling on his hand on the steering wheel. My focus on it wasn't because of it's failure to be positioned in the proper 'ten o'clock' spot, but the fact that he was white knuckling the steering wheel.

     Was what he saw inside of my head really so horrible? Was I so horrible?

     "I saw you. And you were. . ."

     I looked away then.

Not what you expected? Everything you thought I wasn't?

     "Beautiful."

     Surprised, I tore my eyes away from our hands and looked up at Caleb. Of all of the things that I expected him to say, of all of the things that I anticipated would come out of his mouth, that certainly had not been one of them.

     "Just as beautiful on the inside as you are on the outside, Ava-Rain. Just as perfect. Just as innocent. Just as sheltered. And I was destroying you. I was destroying it," he may have tried to disguise it, but I picked up on the trace of anger in his tone, "all of your beauty, your perfection, your innocence. I was destroying you. The elements, all four of them, were destroying you in order to destroy me."

     "I don't understand."

     "I needed the four elements to save you. I needed their power. There was no way for me to save you without their help. But, in doing so, allowing them to break free inside of me enabled them to break free inside of you. Your mind's self-destruction was led by all four of the elements," he glanced at me, "because of me."

     "Caleb, you can't possibly believe that you had anything to do with my obviously faulty mind giving out on me." As he returned his eyes to the road, I lifted up his hand, which had still been tightly clutched in mine, and placed it palm side down over my heart. "You feel that? That heart is still beating because of you." I looked down and closed my eyes as I felt the resonation of my beating heart flow from my chest, through his hand and into mine.

     When he remained silent, I opened my eyes and stared at him. "Well, if you're so hell bent on believing that the four elements are double agents, then maybe. . .maybe in order to save me you had to destroy me."

     "But it wasn't you that they were trying to destroy, Ava-Rain. It was me."

     "And why would your own elements try and destroy you."

     "To prevent me from doing what I thought needed to be done: destroying the barrier that protects you from me. The one that prevents the weight of my elements from overwhelming you, from taking you over and forcing you into giving it control. When I was inside of your head, I broke the barrier that shielded you and protected you. And I'm scared to death that it was the worst thing that I probably could have done, Ava-Rain. Absolutely and completely terrified."

     I knew that it was probably taking a lot for Caleb to admit that, to confess that he was afraid. This wasn't a side of him that he ever wanted to show, a side that he couldn't afford to show. But the fact that he was allowing me to see him, to truly see him in yet another situation that made him vulnerable, made me realize, right then and there, just how alike we truly were. Both afraid to show ourselves, the hidden parts of ourselves that we may have kept chained in the shadows, but the part of ourselves that had far more power and control than we wanted to believe they had. I had been terrified of what  Caleb may have seen while trying to save me, while he was terrified that he may have destroyed me.

     I couldn't help but smile at how messed up both of our train of thoughts were. Focusing so intently on the negative, rather than dwelling on the positive. Living as if we were still stuck in the confinements of my mind rather than in reality, where we were both alive. Both safe. Both together. Both unbroken.

     "You're scared?" I asked, staring down at his hand still pressed against my chest. "Scared that you broke me?"

     "Scared that I'm going to. Scared that. . .that breaking you might be inevitable. That destroying you is going to happen. I don't know what I unleashed by allowing the power of the four inside of you, Ava-Rain. And without that barrier to protect you. . ." he paused, eyes still intently focused on the road, "well, let's just say there's a reason why wolves aren't meant to enter a human's mind. A reason why there's a cut off point, even for pure blooded heirs of the yellow."

     "Because our minds are naturally weaker than a wolf's, right? That's what Angelie said. That whenever she entered a human's mind, it was an in and out sort of thing to avoid being detected." And to, I could only rightfully assume, avoid that human mind from shutting down, which was exactly what my mind had done, though it wasn't by any fault of Angelie, but my own.

     And it hit me then. The deeper reason behind the conflicting pain in Caleb's voice and emanating off of his fear laced words.

It wasn't just the fact that my human mind was naturally fragile enough to begin with. It was, literally, my weakness that had caused my mind to shut down; my inability to handle seeing my best friend and her family in the pure blood's memory that caused me to almost lose my mind. If I had so easily broken under the pressures of a mere fragment of a memory, then how would I even stand a chance against a memory—or memories—belonging to my mate if my mind latched onto them, too?

     "Are you scared of what your mind might do to me, or what my mind might do to you, Caleb?"

I waited for him to turn his head to look at me, even if only for a second to at least acknowledge what I said, but he kept his eyes glued to the road. And I couldn't exactly hold that against him because he was driving after all.

"This whole time, I've been scared of what you might have seen inside of my head, but. . .but you're just as scared of what I might see inside of yours, aren't you? Because that barrier is no longer there, not only will it allow you inside but it will allow me to step outside, won't it?"

     And I didn't need to ask to know what—or who—Caleb did not want me to see inside of his head.

     "Like Angelie said, you shouldn't have been able to enter the pure blood's mind."

     "But I did," I whispered, more to myself than to Caleb.

     "But you did," he agreed.

     Although my eyes were no longer looking in his direction, I knew that Caleb was finally looking at me. I felt his gaze on me, heard his silent pleas for my own to join his, but just as he had refused to look at me when I needed him to, I refused to look at him. Not out of spite but because I think we had both already seen—figuratively and literally—more than enough of each other for the time being.

     "I doubt that's even a possibility, Caleb. For me to enter your mind. And even if it was, I'd never go poking around inside of your head."

     "Even if I want you to?" If his words were a last ditch effort to get me to look at him, then his plan worked because I lifted my gaze and looked in his direction. "Even if I want you to see me. To know me. To feel what I feel. To be linked—connected—as true mates are meant to be."

     "You already told me that it doesn't work the same for a wolf and human pairing. Being linked is a wolf thing, isn't it?"

     Caleb had explained something to that effect the night I was introduced to the pack and his parents. It was why he had suggested that I needed to be conditioned—to avoid being overwhelmed or hijacked by the elements that inhabited him and would, therefore, naturally want to invade me since I was his mate. Only, the point of the conditioning was to strengthen me so that I could learn to hold my own against the four elements and avoid being overpowered by them, which would always be more of a probability than a possibility because I was human. Now Caleb wanted me to do the complete opposite and embrace the link, rather than continue to keep it heavily guarded?

     "And if we've just been given the opportunity to break the rules?" He asked.

     "Rules that have been set in stone for centuries?"

     "Rules that may no longer apply between an heir of the four and his strong and beautiful human mate." He slipped his hand out of mine to, instead, place it on my cheek before returning his attention to the road. "Believe me when I say that the idea alone terrifies me, not entirely because I have things inside of my head that I never want you to see, but also because I don't know what kind of effect it will have on you.

"My entire existence had to be hidden because of the unknown it promised and that fact alone should be encouraging me to refrain from steering you in the direction of such a huge risk, but. . ." Again, he tossed a quick glance over at me, uncertainty in his eyes, which only led me to believe that he may or may not continue on with his thoughts.

     But that was okay. Because if he couldn't find the strength to continue, then I would always gladly and willingly do it for him.

"You don't want to be alone anymore," I said with more confidence and certainty than I probably should have had. But, in that moment, I knew exactly what Caleb was going to say, even if he had been too reluctant and afraid to voice them.

     "You sure you're not already able to read my thoughts?" His smile was so faint and only lasted for a second that I almost missed it. He then pulled his hand away from my cheek and returned it to its favourite spot on my lap. "But you're right. I don't want to be alone, Ava-Rain. Not in grief or in guilt or in sadness. I've been trying so hard to only allow you to see the good, to only show you the good, but I want. . .I think you need to see the bad, too. The darkness. And I'm absolutely positive that this is a bad idea and that I'll end up regretting it, but I'd regret it even more if I continue to expect you to love me without showing you all of me. All of the parts of me that may not deserve that love."

     For a couple of silent minutes, I thought over his words. If you were given the opportunity to know everything about the love of your life—the good along with the bad, the thoughts that they kept locked up and the darkness tucked away where the light could not reach it—would you take it? If so, then would you be willing to do the same and allow that love of your life to know everything about you—your good along with your bad, the thoughts that you kept locked up and the darkness you tucked away?

     "I. . ."

     Yes, I would love to see all you. . .But, no, I don't entirely think I want to literally know what it was like for you to love another girl. . .If I allow you inside of my head, which would only be a fair exchange, I'm pretty sure it won't take you very long to see that I'm not the girl I need to be for you. . .What if you find me boring, or worse, realize just how crazy I actually am? Would you still love me if my unforgotten memory of cheating on a spelling test in first grade decides to pop up?. . .

     "You don't have to answer right away, Ava-Rain. Especially not now with everything that's going on. Just think about it, okay? And whatever you decide, that's what we'll do."

     Just then, Caleb's phone started to ring, providing me with the opportunity to avoid giving my mate an answer and him with the opportunity to not have to wait for one.

     Maybe a long and silent drive would have been better after all.

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Forty-five minutes later, Caleb, still following behind Kane's lead, pulled up to the large two-story cottage I was all too familiar with. My hand was already on the door handle, waiting for Caleb to shut off the car so that I could get out. But once he did, before I could even open the door, Caleb gently grabbed my left hand to stop me.

     Tearing my gaze away from the cottage, I turned my head to look at my mate. The serious expression on his face was enough to remind me of the promise I had made before we left the den to do everything and anything he said. Surely, he wasn't about to tell me to stay put in the car after bringing me all the way here, was he? But, knowing my mate, I wouldn't have been surprised if that was exactly what he planned to do.

     "Will you give Kane and I a minute? Just a minute," he quickly repeated, his intention probably to cut off the eye roll I was undoubtedly going to give him before I even had the chance to. "You promised, remember?"

     With no other choice, I nodded in response to both of his questions. The minute that he requested was, I assumed, for him and Kane to do their 'wolf thing' to determine if proceeding with caution would be necessary or not. And I certainly knew better than to argue or interfere with that.

     Caleb pulled his hand away from mine, only to lift it up and place it on my cheek for a brief second. But, unwilling to be parted so soon from his touch and warmth, my left hand immediately lifted and placed itself on top of his before he had the chance to pull away completely.

     "But sixty seconds is all that you're getting," I said firmly, wanting to make it perfectly clear that he would not be the only one making the negotiations.

     A smile tugged at his lips but he only allowed them to spread into a smirk. Then, in the next second, he pulled away, opened the door as he took the keys out of the ignition and stepped out of the car. My eyes never left him, not as he closed the door behind him, nor as he tossed a glance in my direction through the windshield before meeting Kane in front of his car.

     I didn't know if it was Caleb's absence or the fact that I was, literally, so close to possibly reuniting with my best friend that was responsible for the sudden onset of nerves that took hold of me. Perhaps it was the sudden remembrance of the pure blood's memory and just how close he and his fellow wolves had been to the Hellands. To think that the miles and miles of woods off in the distance—woods that I had explored for years—had been forced to serve as a disguise for those pure bloods just didn't sit well with me.

     Why had they come here? Why were they watching the Hellands—a bunch of humans?

     The answer to my question was obvious, though it wasn't until Caleb tossed yet another glance in my direction that I finally allowed myself to admit it to myself: the pure bloods were watching the Hellands because of me. I mean, they must have, right? The Hellands being on their radar was my fault, wasn't it?

The pure bloods had gone to great lengths to draw me out and were only able to do so with the help of Jennifer, who was my friend. They wanted me and it was pretty damned obvious that they would do whatever they had to do and use whoever they could to get to me, a human whose presence threatened The Council's job to maintain the balance between the human and supernatural worlds.

     Caleb had not mentioned it nor had I, but I suspected that what had angered him most of all about that night Declan and I were attacked was not the fact that I had disobeyed him but the fact that the pure bloods had come after me, not him. They wanted me. They had lured me out to that park. And I don't know what that meant exactly because it really didn't make any sense, and the only lead that we had to go on to try and gain a better understanding of the pure bloods that attacked us was gone.

All that we had now was our own assumptions and conclusions derived from questionable facts, and one of those assumptions was that they must not have known about Caleb's true identity as an heir of the four. But if they had known, surely a human would not have garnered even a fraction of their interest or attention, right?

     Earlier, Angelie had hinted that Caleb had suspicions that the pure bloods may have been protecting him. I didn't think much of it then, and, even now, the idea alone still sounded absolutely crazy, mainly because of everything I was told about the pure bloods and their ruthlessness and hatred towards mixed bloods. But was the idea really so far fetched? Was it possible that, for whatever reason, Caleb was being protected? And if so—and that is a really big if—it wasn't that hard to conclude who was jeopardizing that protection: me.

     And all threats had to be eliminated, right?

     I was pulled out of my thoughts when Caleb began to make his way back towards the car. I watched him as he approached, kept my eyes on him as he opened the passenger door and stared at his hand when he reached it out for me to take. Without pause, I placed my hand in his and stepped out of the car.

My nerves were still waging war inside of me, though they now had the aid of my fear over whether or not Caleb knew or sensed the thoughts that had just taken root inside of my head. With the sudden awakening of the power of the four and all of that talk about broken barriers and my mind no longer being shielded to keep him out, who knew how soon it would be until he could, literally, read my mind.

     Knowing that if I stared into those all seeing grey eyes of his it wouldn't take him very long to figure out that something was on my mind, I avoided them. Instead, I turned my head towards Kane, who was walking off into the darkness and away from us and the cottage. "Where's Kane going?"

     "He's scouting the perimeter."

     "Alone? That can't be safe." I continued to watch my mate's beta until the darkness swallowed him up and his footsteps could no longer be heard.

Kane and I weren't exactly the best of friends and I didn't doubt that he could take care of himself, but there was an unsettling feeling knowing that he was out there by himself in the middle of the night; a need to make sure that he was safe and protected.

     Caleb only chuckled and, before I knew it, he had me pressed back against the passenger door. "Are you gaining a soft spot for my beta?" His words had pulled my attention towards him, which, I assumed, had been their intention. "Because I can assure you that Kane welcomes the darkness," he turned his head and looked out to where Kane walked off for only a second before his gaze returned to me, "and there's no safer place for him to be then in its embrace."

     "You sure?"

     "I'm sure."

     "Because I can't. . ." I lowered my gaze, no longer wanting to avoid his eyes but unable to say what I felt needed to be said by looking into them. "I can't have anybody else getting hurt because of me, Caleb."

     "Ava-Rain—"

    "You ready?" I asked, cutting him off.

I knew that if I didn't look at him, it would only give him a reason to push me into revealing what was on my mind. And if pushed, I knew that I wouldn't be able to resist telling him because we had promised to talk to each other. So I looked at him. I stared directly into Caleb's grey eyes and fought my damn hardest to resist the urge to spill my guts and tell him how horrible it made me feel to know that I was possibly putting everybody I came into contact with at risk the longer I stayed in his world.

My friends. The Hellands. Him. The pack.

     He didn't answer, he only continued to hold my gaze. And if there was one thing worse than Caleb trying to read me, then it was definitely him trying to get me to unwillingly tell him what was bothering me by coercing the truth out of me. He had only done that once before, with the use of his skilled mouth as a distraction. But as we stood there, staring back at each other, I didn't get the impression that Caleb was going to seduce the truth out of me. He just wanted me to want to tell him.

     "Caleb, I—"

     "I warned you to stay away from her." The sound of Kasey's voice sliced through the silent darkness surrounding Caleb and I, cutting me off before I could admit to Caleb what was bothering me.

     I pulled away from Caleb and quickly turned my head to the side, where my best friend of over fifteen years stood. My immediate reaction should have been one of excitement and relief, but it was, in fact, the complete opposite. The only emotions that I felt were surprise, then fear, and, lastly, confusion.

Surprise because how had we not heard her approach?

Fear because she was standing about twenty feet away from us, bow and arrow in hand.

And confusion because her weapon—one that, I kid you not, she had mastered at the age of  eight—was pointed in Caleb's direction.

     "Kasey!" I shouted, hoping the fear in my voice would get her to stand down. It didn't. "Kasey, my gosh, what are you doing?"

My natural instincts pushed me forward to protect my mate by putting myself between him and my crazy best friend's clear shot. But I only managed to take a couple of steps before Caleb grabbed my arm and pulled me behind him.

     "Get away from him, Ava-Rain!" She shouted back, her tone deadly serious.

     "Kassandra Efigenia Helland," I knew that raspy voice all too well, "put the bow and arrow down. Now." Saundra Helland, the family matriarch—aka the-sweetest-most-loving-Swedish-grandmother-in-the-world—emerged from the shadows along with the rest of the Helland tribe.

As my eyes flickered over each and every one of them, a part of me wanted to run to them—the part that should have made me beyond ecstatic to see that they were fine and unharmed by the pure bloods—but, my only desire in that moment was to stay rooted by Caleb's side and make sure Katniss Everdeen over there didn't shoot him.

     Because I was behind Caleb, I couldn't tell whether or not Kasey listened to her grandmother. But knowing her and knowing just how serious she could get when it came to protecting the one's she loved, I was betting that she ignored her grandmother's request.

     "Kasey," I tried to get around Caleb but he was adamant about keeping me tucked behind him. "Caleb, let me talk to her, okay?"

If only I could talk to her and try to reason with her—make her see that Caleb was much, much more than just the stranger she warned me to stay away from at that stupid club—then I was positive that I could get her to trust me. To trust my judgement, which was all that she could do because I certainly couldn't tell her that Caleb was a werewolf and I was his human mate.

"I can reason with her," I said low enough so that only he could hear, "without telling her everything."

     "I don't think there will be much reasoning, Ava-Rain." He turned his head to look at me, his mouth twisted into a smirk. "She already knows."

     My heart dropped.

What did he mean by 'she already knows'? There was absolutely no way that Kasey could have known. And why the hell was he smirking while Kasey had an arrow with his name on it pointed in his direction?

     "And she knows," he slipped his hand into mine before turning his head back towards the now lined up group of Hellands staring at us, "because your best friend and her family are hunters."