I WOULD RATHER PRETEND

"Don't you think you are rushing it?"

My best friend Travis was seated in my office and looking at me with worry in his eyes.

"I know my mate the best. He said he was okay and I believed him," I keep my hands busy tidying up the already tidy desk.

"But you have told me that he is conditioned to say he is fine. How can you take his word knowing that?" Travis presses and I feel hot anger rising in my throat.

"My mate is not the same as your mate, Travis. I think that's very clear, isn't it? If he tells me he is fine, then he is."

He doesn't say a word as I heave out, feeling like the world is not on my palms for the first time in my life. Rain is showing signs of recovery and he doesn't want to go to the therapist, but I still haven't been able to let that topic go.

Even when he is angry and dissatisfied with me, he is doing what I say, accepting everything like a robot. That is what is killing me the most.

I don't know what's real with him, and what's not. What are his true feelings if he is just accepting and obeying me?

"Don't talk about my mate," Travis warns, letting me go for talking about his mate like that just this once. "I know this is hard and if you don't want my help, then I am going to leave."

Travis is the only one who understands what I am going through but I feel protective of Rain that I can't just say everything to him, despite him being my best friend.

The loyalty I feel towards rain is unquestionable and binding.

"What the fuck should I do? He is not asking about the fact that he is still locked up, and although he rejected the idea of a therapist first, he now seems to be warming up to it."

"He is sensitive, and it's been a few weeks since you two met. He is still adjusting and getting to know you. But keeping him under lock and key is not buying you any favor," Travis sits up in his chair.

"I am scared he is going to leave me, he has already rejected me saying he isn't worthy, so what the fuck am I supposed to do?"

"Trust him? I mean how else he will be if you can't even let him out of his room?" Travis asks with a laugh, eyebrow raised in question.

"It's my room actually," I grumble

"So you two have already mated then?"

I want him to be covered in my scent without the mark so that Ron will not lose it.

"No, I don't think I can do that when he is still like this. I don't want him to mate me out of obedience. He has to choose. I am showing him he has options."

"By locking him up and feeding him and washing him …"

"Fuck you Travis," I throw him a dirty look. "Why are you here if you aren't helping me?"

"I have known you since we were kids, so don't bite my head when I tell you that you don't work well under pressure. It is usually you handing out the pressure, not the other way round."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Have you even told him that you have a condition of going bloodthirsty and going on a killing spree? And the latest was on his former pack?"

"He is never going to see that side of me, and I am never going to tell him."

When Rain has been recouping and getting settled in his new home, I have been busy killing all the pack members, basically wiping a whole pack out of the map. The blood thirst has been so high I would be concerned but it ends when I am in Rain's arms.

 So it's good. He doesn't need to know my dark side, as he won't ever see it.

"I understand. We have to do what we have to do and be all that we have to be to protect our loved ones," Travis agrees. He too has walked and perhaps still does walk the dark path to keep his mate safe from the darkness itself.

I have seen Day and Travis together. No one would know that day had been kidnapped and abused for ten years straight by how he is now. Travis and Day are soul mates, it's so easy to tell, their mating bond seemingly strong.

When Travis rescued Day, they disappeared off god knows where, and when they came back, it was as if they had been living their whole lives together without Day's dark years and Travis's years of searching for day for years.

Their story is full of pain and darkness, and I know the one who understands me and would advise me is him.

"What the fuck should I do?' I ask him, feeling dejected.

"You can't show him that you are distressed or he will mask, according to his conditioning. But you have to be vulnerable on some levels and then trust him, step by step. He is not going to leave you."

"I don't know, I am scared every day he is going to ask me to let him go, for the third time. This time I don't think I will say no. I can't stand to cause him pain, hell I don't want to think of all the pain he went through through that monster," I feel my claws coming out but I breathe to calm myself.

"Take it slow, it will be okay. This isn't something that is going to be okay overnight Liam. It is going to require work and commitment. It's messy and you have to face his past with him, don't run away and think by ignoring it it doesn't exist."

We are silent for a minute. "I already love him so much, I would carve my heart out for him if he asked."

"I know," Travis hums.

"But he can't even feel our mate bond, it's shattered," my throat closes up when I remember the time I healed him and felt the shredded cord.

"Fuck," Travis mutters and I nod in agreement.

"It doesn't matter if I tell him we are mates. If he doesn't feel it, then it's all bull."

I am holding rain every day as we sleep and every night, I extend my healing energy in his body. To repair and mend that cord, to bring back the thing that will make him connected to me, know that it's not all a farce.

 "Has your father come to see you both?"

Fuck. My family is another thing I haven't even bothered to think about lately because it will only pile up to all the things I have to deal with.

"When we are ready, we will see him. I want rain to meet everyone and everyone to know him as part of the pack, even before our mating is complete."

"You know how your old man is …"

"I know, but that doesn't mean shit to me. I am protecting rain even if it's against him."

I know Rain will want to be accepted, and I will make sure they do. No one is going to upset my mate.

"You glint your eyes," Travis notes and I stand up from my desk to stand at the wall-to-ceiling glass wall overlooking Manhattan.

"He is an old man set in the old rules of the past. I don't know how open he is to me being mated to a man when he was pestering me to get a female and make her my Luna."

"What happens when he can't accept rain? I imagine rain won't want to make things hard for you," Travis asks and I look at him. Travis is alpha too, in the neighboring pack and his mate day is a male.

"What did your parents say to you?"

"They are dead, so I don't have reference notes for you," he shrugs and laughs when I roll my eyes.

"You're sick."

"Says the guy who cleaves heads and hearts for his mate!"

"Those are tokens of my love. What do you have to say to that?"

"Sick twisted bastard."

I laugh as I turn to look at the view, but my mind is on the person 30 floors up in the building.

"Day and rain will get along. After all, they will be going to the same school right?"

"I haven't talked to Rain about resuming the world, but I know it will be a change of scenery for him which will be good. Having Day with him will maybe elevate his spirits."

"I will talk to Day. Maybe a visit before school will help," Travis suggests and I nod in agreement.

"I am going to give him his life back. Everything he has lost or hasn't experienced will be his," I vow silently as I send love through our mating bond, even though I know he won't feel it.