Chapter 20: The Killing Wound
“Sweetheart, you’re trying too hard,” Grey said. “I can tell by the way your face is scrunched up. Relax, if it can happen, it will.”
I tried again, but it didn’t work.
“You’re putting too much pressure on yourself,” Grey said, pulling me into his arms for a kiss. “Get some sleep, and try again tomorrow”
But I couldn’t sleep. Even when Grey sensed I needed him beside me and agreed to sleep in my bed again, sleep wouldn’t come.
I lay awake listening to thunder echo in the distance for what seemed like hours. An occasional howl from the woods was like salt in the wound of my failure.
“You need to relax and let sleep happen, too,” Grey said after I rolled over for the fiftieth time and hit him on his chin with my elbow.
“I can’t help it,” I told him. “I need to be able to shift. I can’t keep being a victim who needs saving.”
Grey pulled me closer. “Emma, I don’t see you as a victim. You’re a survivor. You survived a life that would have destroyed a weaker person.”