13. What's a Marsquake?: Xander's Pov

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"This isn't going well." I groan in frustration. Charlotte's still asleep, but I already know what the gauze on her arm is covering.

I thought that she was clean for the last week. She had no access to any sharp objects so I thought that she didn't hurt herself anymore. 'If mate talks to us, then we'll know how to help her.' my wolf says.

'I know.' I agree with him. If Charlotte just tells me what's on her mind, then helping her get through everything will be easier for the both of us.

The only emotion that we've talked about was fear; and that was a brief conversation. She told me what Red Stone did to her, but she didn't go into depth about it.

At the moment, I don't know how she feels about us or what goes on in her mind that caused her to cut. Same thing goes for marking; I could tell that she was about to let me mark her, but then something held her back. All I need is for her to give me consent and I'll officially mark her as mine.

It's not clear if she knows what value a mate is to their spouse. I'm just hoping that she doesn't think that she's only my mate so that I can continue the Alpha bloodline. She doesn't understand how torn I would be if I lost her again.

'We should do something special for mate.' my wolf suggests.

'Like what?'

'Let's take her to the cabin.' he howls in delight. 'No one else will be at the lake.'

'We'll do it today.' I grin as I think of how happy and relaxed Charlotte will be once the day is over. Fancy and luxurious doesn't appeal to her.

We'll probably go swimming and then go for a run through the woods once we get to the cabin. "Where'd your shirt go?" a soft voice brings me out of my thoughts.

"It got hot so I took it off." I shrug. "What are you staring at?"

She gives me a confused look before answering, "Why are your nipples so dark?"

****

"You know how to swim, right?" I ask.

"Yes." she answers, looking out the window. She smiles once she sees the cabin and lake come into view.

"That's why I told you to put on your swimsuit." I slow the car down so that we can park in the grass and get out. "We're staying overnight here."

"Is this your property?"

"Yep." I say popping the 'p'. "Let's go put our stuff down so we can jump in the water."

I rush to get to the other side of the car so that I can open the door for her. I know that she's perfectly capable of doing it on her own, but I enjoy being a gentleman for my girl. "This is where I go to get away from everything." I inform as we enter the wooden cabin. "You're the only other person besides me that's ever been here."

"Really?"

I nod and place our bags on the bed. "What's wrong?" I ask putting a finger under her chin. Her lips take the form of a frown and she plays with the hem of her cotton shirt.

"What's in your mind?" I try figuring out what she's thinking, but it's no use. I'll only be able to do that if I mark her.

"The bikini," she answers. "It shows all of my scars."

She looks away from me and plays with her fingers. "I don't care if you have scars." I tell her. "You look perfect no matter what."

"But they look disgusti-"

"No they don't." I interrupt. "Now let's go swimming, it's going to be too cold to swim after today."

I grab two towels and lead her outside next to the lake. Taking off my shirt, I wait patiently for her to reveal her swimwear. "You have it on under, right?"

She nods, but doesn't make a move to take off her clothes.

"No one comes near the cabin, it's just us here." I turn around so that she feels more comfortable. A few seconds later, I see her standing in her bikini.

"You look beautiful." I compliment. I put both of our clothes in a pile on the ground and place our towels over it.

"Is the water shallow?" Charlotte asks.

"You can dive in it." Once the she processes my words, she jumps into the water.

"AW FUCK!" I curse when I feel the cold water. Charlotte giggles when I surface and swims closer to me.

"Why are you bobbing up and down?" I look into the clear water and see her legs steadily moving.

"I can't stand. I'm not tall." she holds onto my arm and clutches it tightly.

"It's only five feet deep at the most." I say.

"I'm basically drowning." She moves her feet around to show me that I'm the only thing that's keeping her above the water.

"I'll keep you up." I smile down at her before leaning for a kiss.

"That kiss was wet." Charlotte scrunches her nose and makes a funny face. Pushing away from me, she starts to swim in the opposite direction.

I watch as she glides in the water, barely disturbing the surface with splashes. My movements are the exact opposite; I slam my palms against the water and kick as hard as I can. Charlotte notices me behind her and starts to laugh. "You look constipated." she giggles.

"You don't know if I'm taking a shit right now or not." I say, still paddling towards her. I hold her waist and trace patterns on the small of her back.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she smiles and tilts her head to the side. I shamelessly check out her feminine features; the sun making her eyes even brighter than they naturally are.

"Have I told you how beautiful you are?" I ask after a few minutes. She blushes and tries to hide her face by pressing it against my bare chest.

We spend the next hour or so justsplashing around and occasionally kissing. She made the mistake of challenging me to a "who can make the biggest wave" contest, but I realized that she's a master at treading water.

"Wanna go for a run?" I ask, not wanting to go inside yet.

"Yes." I take a few steps back and call my wolf out, ripping my swim shorts in the process.

"Do I rip these too?" she gestures to her bikini.

'I want to rip those.' my wolf whispers.

I nod and wait for her to shift. When she does, she stumbles backwards and lands on her tail. 'Are you okay?' is what I would've asked if I were able to mind link her.

'Charlotte says hi.' Brody's aggravating voice invades my mind. I found out what he said about using condoms as gloves.

Charlotte looks at me and starts to walk towards my large wolf form. I'm an entire foot taller than her, she's probably 3'0 at the most. She's small enough for me to stand directly on top of her without making contact.

I growl as she walks away from me and start to follow her. Her paws barely leave an indention in the dirt as she moves. I walk directly over her and lower my body so that she can't move.

'Wait,' my wolf commands. 'Can't we mindlink mate since she's in the pack?'

'No.' I tell him. 'Since she's our mate, we can't.'

It would be incredible if we were able to, though. Communicating in our wolf forms would allow us to go on runs more often and talk to each other without others listening in on our conversations. Once Charlotte allows me to mark her, things will be easier for the both of us.

No one will be able to hurt her without me feeling it as well and I'll know when she feels neglected or ignored. Another factor of the kidnapping was because everyone paid less attention to her, no one noticed when she went out the front door of the house.

Brody and I sensed that something was wrong and so did our parents. They sent a search party after her and checked in with the territorial guards to see where Maddie was; she was the first person accused of my mate's disappearance; it turned out that everyone was right.

****

"I would kiss you, but we might fall out of the tree if I do." I smile at Charlotte. Her hands grip the tree trunk and her legs are swinging in the air.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask, her looking around at everything around and below us. She seems to be in her own world as she takes in how high up from the ground we are.

"It's nice out here." she breathes. "It's calm."

The way she speaks shows me how much she enjoys being away from all the drama that's been happening recently. She's been talking more often, but it's only around Brody and I. She still seems to be afraid of my dad for some reason and she still won't eat as much as she should be. "Just tell me when you want to go inside." I say.

Her smile slightly falters and she starts to climb down the tree. "I didn't say that we had to leave right now."

"It's getting dark." she shrugs. I stay a couple of feet below her just in case she falls or slips. I would rather her land on top of me instead of on the hard ground.

"You want a piggy back ride?" I ask, bending down. Charlotte's face immediately brightens and she eagerly nods.

"Yay." she smiles, hopping onto my back. I hold onto her thighs and feel her arms around my upper body, her head resting on my shoulder.

I don't even have to bend my back to hold her weight; I'm standing straight up. "I just found out how leaves taste like." she tells me.

"Are they good?" I play along.

"It tastes like global warming."

"Okay then." I laugh, not know how to reply. I shove open the front door of the cabin and turn on the lights. "I got pizza delivered a while a go. It should still be warm."

"How'd you order?"

"Mind link."

I stop next to the living room couch so that she can hop off. I turn around once she does so and kiss her plump lips. "Pepperoni or meat-lovers?" I ask, pulling away. She doesn't even think about my question at all, she just shrugs in response.

I ordered a half-and-half pizza for the both of us. Charlotte will probably struggle to finish a full slice, but it'll give us another chance to talk about things. A lot of our deep conversations happen when we're eating. The times we talk about how we feel about each other is right before we go to sleep, when Charlotte is peacefully resting in my arms. 'Hey. Hey.' my wolf calls. 'I'm hungry.'

"What are you doing?" I see Charlotte sitting in front of me and using her fingers to pull the corners of my mouth upward.

"I'm making you happy, you s-hould thank me." she says with all seriousness in her voice.

"I am happy." I reply.

"When you're happy you smile. You always frown."

"It's my natural face."

'We have a RBF.' my wolf chimes in.

'What's that?'

'RBF, resting bitch face. Even I know that and I'm a wolf!' he muses.

I ignore his comment and continue to eat in a comfortable silence. Charlotte takes small bites out of one slice of pepperoni pizza while I'm constantly reaching towards the box to grab another one. "How many are you eating at a time?" she asks, tilting her head a little. I noticed that every time she gets confused or when she asks certain questions, she does this thing where she tilts her head to the left. I mimicked her doing it one time and she tilted her head to the right, even more confused.

"Two, I'm just folding them in half." I answer.

"I'm still on my first slice." she mutters.

"Do you want the last one?" I gesture to the box of pizza. She shakes her head and shows me that she's only eaten half of her first slice. The slices are larger than normal though; I ordered an Alpha sized pizza. It's barely larger than an extra large pizza. "I just thought if something." Charlotte's eyes light up as if she just discovered a new color.

"If there was ever an earthquake on mars, would it be called a marsquakes?"

***

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"I like this." Charlotte states.

"Me too." I agree. I sit Indian-style on the bed with her curled up against me in the space between my legs, the duvet covers surrounding the both of us. She has her arms wrapped around my torso and her entire body snuggling against me. My arms keep her close to my body in a protective embrace. Her eyes are glued onto the laptop that I downloaded movies on, but mine are staring at the gentle beauty in my arms.

"You're the best thing that's happened to me." I say once the ending credits come up on the bright screen of the laptop. Charlotte turns around in my arms and smiles up at me with that adorable smile of hers.

"You say that a lot." she tells me.

"I love you." I lightly pecking her cheeks. She looks down at her lap, biting her lip.

"I think I love you too. " she whispers. My widen in shock and I am unable to respond. My wolf howls in joy, ecstatic that she fully accepts us. No sound comes out of my mouth for a full minute before tears to build up in her eyes. She looks away from me as if she's expecting for me to laugh in her face and say that it was all a joke.

"Don't cry, don't cry." I cup her cheek with my hand. "I've been waiting for you to say that for a long time.

"I'm ready." she murmurs. "You can mark me, I'm ready."

"Are you sure, sweetheart?" I ask, hoping that she'll confirm it. "There's no leaving if I mark you. There won't be a way to reverse it."

"I'm sure." she blushes.

Once the words leave her mouth, I softly press my lips to hers. I move so that she is laying on her back, never breaking the kiss. I pull away and look into her eyes to ask for permission one last time. Her nod is all I need to motivate me to continue. I place light kisses on her jaw and start to move down towards where her neck and shoulder connect.

"I love you." I repeat as I move her hair to her opposite shoulder. She moves her head to one side to expose more of her neck that will soon be marked and replies, "I love you too."

I lightly suck on the area, looking for the right spot. It takes a few seconds, but I hear her softly moan when I find it. I feel my canines extend and start to sharpen as they would if I were in my wolf form. She closes her eyes and urges me to go on. "Ah." she whimpers as my canines puncture her delicate skin.

'We did it.' my wolf sighs.

I stay still for a full minute to allow the mate bond to do its magic before retracting my canines. I clean up the little amount of blood that is left on her skin and pull away. "Go to sleep." I whisper in her ear.

I position Charlotte's head on a soft pillow and pull the covers over her body. She shivers when the cold makes contact with her skin, but is peaceful nonetheless. 'Mate loves us.' my wolf purrs.

'And we love her.'

***

Charlotte's Pov

I wake up feeling like someone shoved a needle in the side of my neck. The stinging near my right shoulder blade gets stronger with every movement I make; including breathing. The surface of my skin burns and feels like it's an open wound. My head is pounding and when I open my eyes, everything seems out of focus and blurry.

"How are you feeling, baby?" I feel him sit up and pull me up with him. He must not be angry with me anymore.

"Everything hurts."

I know that my neck is supposed to feel sore, but it's my entire body that's burning. "You aren't going through Heat." Xander states, retracting his hand from my forehead. "Sorry, sweetheart, I think I bit too deep."

"Will it still heal?" I ask.

"It will." he nods. "It'll just take a little longer."

"Can you kiss it? It doesn't hurt anymore when you kiss it." I blush, not daring to look at him. He chuckles and pulls me closer to him. With one hand sitting on my bare stomach, he uses the other to hold my hand.

"Does this feel better?" he softly caresses the sore area. The burning quickly subsides, a light tingling sensation left on my skin. I nod and turn my head to the side to give him more access to my neck. "I like holding you."

"You're my pillow." I say.

"You mean teddy bear?" he corrects. "Most girls call their mates their teddy bear."

"No." I shake my head. "You're my pillow, I'm your teddy bear. My arms around long enough to hug you."

He smiles and shakes his head, still tracing patterns on the small of my back. We don't open our mouths to speak for a while, the only sound heard is the rustling of the trees outside. I'm tempted to run out there and climb one again, but resist. I wonder what happens when nature goes supernatural?

'It's called vampires and werewolves, baby girl.' Xander's voice echoes in my mind.

The voices in my head are back.

'It's just me.' he chuckles.

'We shrunk mate.' my wolf whimpers. 'He's trapped in our head.'

"Xander?" I say out loud.

'I didn't shrink.' his voice is in my mind again. 'We can mindlink now.'

'Oh.' I think to him.

'Now I have proof that you're mine.' he grins, staring at my neck.

'Do you have mark too? Or is it only me?' I ask.

"This is how yours will look like when it heals." he turns around and shows me a dark mark above his right shoulder-blade. Two large teeth marks from his canines show as the ending corners of a jagged crescent moon that I know will soon be smoother. The rest of his teeth marks form the rest of the shape and a small, unreadable symbol under the crescent. "That's the Lunar Shadow inscription. All Alphas and their true mates have it under their mark; it's extremely unnatural, but it somehow appears."

"Why did your mark heal before mine?"

"I'm not sure. Yours should have healed overnight, I really think that I bit too deep." he sighs. "That's probably why you're in so much pain. If you get some food into your system, it might heal faster."

"But I'm not hungry." I tell him. The breakfast on the nightstand smells delicious, but I don't feel any desire to eat any of it. After almost a decade of being called fat and selfish, food never sounds appealing to me. I was told that the reason I wasn't allowed to eat as much as everyone else is because I don't deserve the food; because it would go all to waste and make me look even more disgusting.

"Is that what your appetite is about?" Xander asks. "Because of your body image?"

"N-No." I lie.

Xander's Pov

I don't get it. I don't understand it at all.

I don't understand how such a beautiful and kind person like Charlotte can think so lowly of themselves. I finally found out what she thinks every time it's time to eat a meal; I thought that she just wasn't used to eating multiple times a day, turns out I was wrong. She would never talk about how she felt so I was guided by my assumptions.

I try to compliment her as often as I can to make her feel more comfortable in her own skin, now I realize that it has the opposite effect on her. A frown makes its way onto her face when I say that she looks beautiful or pretty, the compliments should make her smile. All of the things I say and do are to show her how wrong the assholes back in Red Stone were.

"Just eat." I say pulling the tray onto the bed. It's large enough to hold two plates full of food and two drinks. Charlotte completely ignores her plate and only drinks her orange juice. "You should've told me if you thirsty."

She's been getting more comfortable around me, but she still won't ask for anything. The thing she asks me the most is if she looks okay or not whenever she changes her clothes. If I question little details like the color of her socks or the length of her shirt, she'll think that I don't like the way she looks. Eye contact is another problem we have.

I expect her to look me in the eyes when she speaks, but she always looks away in the middle of her sentences. I can tell that she feels self-conscious around me and everyone she has an encounter with. The only time she's completely relaxed is in the morning when she quietly lays in my arms and allows me to caress her soft skin.

She listens intently every time I talk, but starts to get nervous every time it's her turn to speak. I try to make note of her reactions to certain topics and what habits she shows whenever she gets nervous or scared. Now that I can read her thoughts, it should be a lot easier.

All I want is for her to be happy.

*** (noon at the house)

"No." I growl pulling Charlotte onto my lap. She was looking down at her wrist again; but this time, I knew that she was planning on going to the bathroom to open her previous self-harm wounds. They are mostly healed by now, so if she were to open them without a blade, she would be ripping her skin apart.

"I wasn't actually going to do it." she mumbles.

"Don't try lying to me." I say to her. "I can read your thoughts and you can read mine, I won't block you out."

She stays quiet and doesn't reply. "Stop thinking so lowly of yourself." All of her thoughts are projected loud and clear into my mind. I haven't heard anything positive in her head besides the fact that she likes orange juice. "You need to talk to me, sweetheart."

"About what?" she asks. We sit input bedroom, in a comfortable silence.

"How you feel. I want to help you, I'm here for you; you just have to tell me what's wrong." I tell her. "I want to make you happy. You are the best thing that's ever happened to me, you deserve to be."

She stares up at me with tears in her eyes. "I-" she starts to speak, but suddenly stops.

'I don't talk out loud because I keep stuttering.' she says. 'Stuttering is bad.'

"Baby, I don't care about that. I would rather you stutter on every phrase you spoke than not talk to me." I put my hands on her waist, but she jerks away from me.

"What happened? What did I do?" I ask. Charlotte never tries to leave my embrace, she always allows me to hold her.

"It j-just hurts right there." she whispers.

"Is it from Dylan?" I question. She shakes her head in response and looks down at her lap; she isn't lying. "Show me."

Hesitantly, she scoots a little bit more away from me and lifts up her shirt exposing her ribs and stomach. "Who did this to you?" I ask with all seriousness in my voice. Ten red claw marks show on the lower portion of her ribs and stomach. Some of look like they go deep into her body while others just seem to be scratches.

"You did." she murmurs. "Last night."

As if expecting me to attack her for accusing me of doing that, she backs away even more on the bed. "I did?" I look into her eyes.

She nods, "You were sleeping and your claws came out."

"Sweetheart, I'm sorry." I gently pull her close to me, avoiding the wounds that I accidentally gave her. "If I ever hurt you, you need to tell me immediately. I'm sorry."

"I-It's okay." she dismisses.

"No it's not." I frown. "I could've punctured one of your organs. If my claws went too deep I could've killed you."

"It's not your fault-"

"Yes it is." I cut her off. I have to be even more careful with my movements now; I'll find a way to control myself while we're sleeping. Knowing that there's any possibility of harming my mate when we're both unconscious is a feeling that I want to get rid of. Luckily my claws only grazed her skin, but it could've gone deeper and go through the width of her body. She's already fragile enough, I shouldn't have to protect her from myself.

"I'm sorry." I repeat. Charlotte lightly kisses me on my lips and gives me a small smile. I wish that she was always smiling; every time she frowns, I feel like it's my fault that she's unhappy. Her laugh is what I want to hear more of, not her whimpers.

My dad told my brothers and I, "To make a girl fall in love with you, you have to make her laugh." The only thing is that I don't know how to make my mate laugh. I don't know what she finds funny or how to make her smile. Whenever she smiles, it's because of where we are, not because of what we're doing.

"Does the mark still hurt?" I ask.

"It's just sore." she answers.

"I'm going to let Brody punch me later." I state. "He'll freak out when he sees our marks."

"Will he be mad?"

"At me probably, but he'll get over it with time." I shrug.

***

"It's raining." I state when I hear raindrops steadily beating on the roof.

Charlotte looks out the window and nervously bites her lip. She glances at me before turning away again; I can hear her heartbeat quicken and beat louder in her chest. "What's wrong, baby?" I notice how she's visibly panicking.

"D-Do I have to sleep o-outside?" she asks in a quiet voice, shocking me with her question.

"No." I immediately answer. "Why would I make you sleep outside when you could sleep next to me?"

"They used to make me sleep outside when it rained." I already know that she's referring to her life with the Red Stone pack.

"I won't ever make you do that." I tell her. "Don't think for a second that I ever would."

I see her tense up when flashes of lightning shine through the window. Her eyes are glassy and she trembles with fear. "Don't think about that." I whisper in her ear. "No one here will send you out there. I'm right here, sweetheart."

I keep the room dimly lit and trace patterns on the small of her back. "Go to sleep, I won't go anywhere."

It takes a while, but she slowly falls asleep in my arms. Her body is curled up against mine, her head resting on my chest, and her hands intertwined with mine.

I lay there, thinking about Charlotte. Because of her, I've been doing even more of my pack work because I'm not sitting alone in silence anymore. Now we both do our work for a few hours and talk about random things to make time go by faster.

I don't plan on hiding any of my thoughts away from her, I'm just hoping that she feels the same way tomorrow; earlier she was trying to block me out.

***

Charlotte's Pov

"I'm not pretty." I mutter as I look into the mirror. "Xander needs to stop lying and saying that I am."

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