Chapter Notes: Ava-Rain's POV

* * *

- '. . .burn everything you love then burn the ashes. . .' -

* * * *

The only way that I had managed to make it through life—surviving a painful childhood and rocky upbringing—was by responding to each and every tough situation that had been thrown my way in one of either two ways: fight-or-flight.

To avoid confrontations with my grandmother, I always fled. When I had been attacked by the wolf the night after I first met Caleb, my response was to flee. But when I had stumbled upon Declan and Rickon in wolf form back at the den, my instincts were to fight, just as they were when Declan and I had been attacked by the pure bloods.

     When it came to protecting others, fighting had always been my first instinct. A natural reaction. But it seemed that whenever I was thrusted into a dangerous situation—one that only threatened my survival—my instincts were to run. To find an escape rather than fight for myself.

The only way that I knew how to protect myself was to remove myself from that danger. And although the Hellands were my family—the people that I had loved for over half of my life—and they did not pose a threat to me, learning that they were hunters was not the reason why I felt the need to run. It was simply my desperate last ditch effort to save myself from the world that was quickly crumbling all around me.

"Take me home," I whispered as I pulled my hand out of Caleb's. My eyes drifted over every single Helland, settling lastly on Kasey as I took a step backwards. "Please, take me home," I repeated with a little more urgency.

"Wait, Ava-Rain," Kasey lowered her bow and, as if to combat the step I took back, she took a step forward. "I don't know what he's told you or what you think you know, so will you just allow me to explain? Please?"

Ignoring her, I turned away and moved to open the passenger door of Caleb's car, but only managed to lift the door handle before I was stopped. With a firm hand planted on my waist, Caleb turned me around so that I had no other choice but to face him. "I can't stay here, Caleb. So will you take me back?"

"No," he replied without hesitation.

No? Did he really just refuse me?

If my world hadn't just been shattered by the revelation that my best friend and her family were hunters and a part of a supernatural world I had only just discovered existed, then I might have actually allowed myself to be shocked at my mate's refusal. But because I was still dazed and confused—a result of the explosion from the bomb that had just been dropped—the only emotion I felt over the denial of my request was anger. "No? What do you mean, 'no'?"

"I mean, no, I'm not going to take you home."

Because my body was literally sandwiched between the car and Caleb, there was no place for me to go. I tried to push him away, which only resulted in him gently grabbing my forearms and easily wrestling me into submission. But, still motivated by my bubbling anger and my irrational fear that if I did not leave soon then I would be destroyed along with the world I had tried so hard to preserve and keep intact, I refused to look at him.

"Can you guys give us a minute?"

Although he tried his best to ask politely, I knew Caleb well enough to know that his request was non-negotiable. His question may have been posed for either a 'yes or no' response, but we all knew which one of those answers he hoped to have received. And after a few silent seconds of deliberation, the Hellands began to walk away. They had not gone too far but far enough so that the space between them and us would not permit them to hear our conversation. But despite the distance, Kasey kept her eyes pinned on me. But it wasn't entirely a watchful gaze—I had witnessed and been a recipient of those too many times to count—but a hopeful one, as well.

My only response was to pull my eyes away and divert them to the ground.

"You remember when I gave you that choice to make about us and whether or not we'd have a future? That night after you first met the pack and you chose me? I made you a promise that night, Ava-Rain, and now I'm acting good on it. This is me making you suffer."

Up until that point, I thought that I had been doing well by refusing to look at Caleb. But that had definitely pried my eyes from the dirt road beneath us and forced them to look into his. I had remembered the night in question and that exact promise he had made during a time when such a promise was needed. After a night that entailed being hijacked by his emotions and nearly being scorched alive by his desire, Caleb had wanted me to be conditioned; to learn how to survive in his world by being my own saviour.

But that promise held no merit in this current situation. Learning that your best friend and her family were not who you thought they were could not easily be fixed with a conditioning lesson. I mean, what exactly did Caleb expect me to do? Channel my shock and use its energy to restore my ability to assess this life-shattering revelation nonchalantly? Tug on the string of memories I had created with the Hellands and spin it into gold? Suppress my confusion? Combat the rising feeling of inferiority by attempting to rise above my mediocrity? How exactly did he expect me to remedy the growing belief that the only reason the Hellands took me in was because it was their job to protect humans.

"This isn't the same, Caleb" I protested. "This isn't the same as you wanting me, as your mate, to learn how not to be hijacked by your elements." I attempted to pull my arms out of his firm grip, but, again, it was to no avail.

"Sure it is. Learning to stand up for yourself instead of running. Talking instead of hiding your thoughts away where nobody other than you can hear them. This is me giving you the opportunity to rise from your ashes, Ava-Rain. On your own."

His grip on my forearms loosened, which was the opening that I needed to successfully pull them away. But once I had, once the absence of Caleb's touch kicked in and my heart began to race out of fear, I realized that it wasn't what I wanted. That without his hold, I would fall. Without him, I was weak.

"You don't get it, Caleb. You don't. . ." I shook my head defiantly, frustrated to the point of tears. Frustrated not with him but with myself because I couldn't explain my human feelings to.

I couldn't explain to him why I felt like I had been betrayed or why it hurt so much. Withholding the truth wasn't always akin to lying, but that didn't stop me from believing that my whole life—my whole relationship with my best friend—had been a lie.

"You can't possibly understand."

"Then make me understand," he replied. And when I allowed my gaze to fall from his, he took my face in his hands, probably in an attempt to coerce my eyes back to looking into his. "Talk to me. Just like we promised."

"Kasey. . ." I started, but found it hard to continue

Despite his hold, I tried to turn my head away. But a soft stroke of my cheek with his thumb was enough to remind me that my continuous attempts of escape would always be thwarted by my mate. And if the night's earlier events taught me one thing for sure, it was that Caleb would never let me go. He would never allow me to leave him.

What Caleb wanted from me was the girl I had tried so hard to keep hidden. The girl ruled by her insecurities and plagued by self-doubt. The girl that I feared Caleb had seen when he entered my mind earlier that night. And on the car ride over here, my fears had been silenced when that girl was not who he had come across inside of my head. She was one of my many demons, one I thought I had been prepared to slay, but it wasn't until that moment that I realized that I may not have been ready to let her go.

"She—they were all that I had left connecting me to my world."

I didn't want him to think of my rationalization of this deceit as a rejection of his world because it wasn't. I loved Caleb and I loved his pack. And this whole new world that I had been deemed worthy of entering was a part of my life now. A part of me. But the only reason why I had not been consumed by this new world entirely was because of the Hellands and the normalcy they represented that kept me anchored to my old world. I no longer had Jennifer nor my grandmother to go back to; both of those links had been severed. Now, without Kasey and her family, without that final link to keep me tethered, I had nothing left to go back to.

Nobody left to go back to.

"I get it," Caleb replied with more acceptance and understanding in his voice then I expected. "You feel like your world has just been burned to the ground with you in it, don't you? You feel like you're gone—the Ava-Rain from that normal human world coloured in black and white. But she's not, is she? At least not entirely.

"That girl may have died in the fire; she may have burned alongside all of the memories, both happy and painful; she may have burned knowing her best friend betrayed her; she may have burned while still clinging to the hope to repair her relationship with her grandmother. And her eyes may have closed forever after seeing her other best friend and her family for who they truly are. But I promise you, Ava-Rain, I promise that all you need to do to put out that fire is to open your eyes."

Caleb leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. "And once you do, once you open your eyes, you mourn for that girl. You mourn her for having to die so that you could be reborn. And then you thank her for her sacrifice. You thank that girl, that old you, for using her final breath to breathe life into you. The new you, Ava-Rain. The you that you were always destined to become."

The girl that would not flee but would finally fight for herself.

It was clear that Caleb wanted me to stop looking at this revelation as an act of betrayal, but as a means to an end. But that was definitely easier said than done. Accepting the end would have meant accepting my end. It would have meant sacrificing the small glimmer of hope I was still clinging onto by allowing it to be swallowed by darkness. Hope that I would never lose myself to this new world as long as I still had something to hold on to in the old one.

Caleb slid his arms around my waist and, out of reflex, I wrapped my own around his in return. He pulled his head away from mine slightly and looked down at me."Now go and talk to your best friend. Running away only prolongs the inevitable. You need to talk to her. You owe that to her and yourself."

"Do I?" I challenged, despite already knowing the answer to my own question.

I owed the Hellands everything. I could be as confused and as hesitant as I wanted to be but God knows that, at the end of the day, they were still my family. And that should have been enough to push me out of Caleb's arms and lead me in their direction. But if I allowed myself to walk over there, if I gave them a chance to explain, then the truth that I wanted and deserved could never be unlearned.

Once I heard Kasey tell me that she was a hunter, it would only unleash another revelation that I certainly did not want to face but would be forced to accept: my best friend—the regular old human I knew her to be—would never accept my relationship with Caleb. But my best friend—the hunter—would certainly stop at nothing to make sure that Caleb and I were kept apart.

And although that feeling was nothing more than a flutter in the pit of my stomach, I knew that, at some point, I would be forced to make a choice between them.

"Yes, you do and you know it. You owe it to them all, Ava-Rain. I'd drive to the ends of the world for you—hell, I'd drive off a cliff if you told me to. But I will not drive you home until you talk to Kasey and her family after making me drive over an hour to get to them." He smirked. "Remember that fear you felt? Remember what happened a couple of hours ago because of that fear? Because of your love for them?"

You mean almost losing my mind, literally, at the sight of the Hellands being watched by a bunch of pure bloods through a memory of one of those said pure bloods?

"You'll only regret it later if you run from them now. They never abandoned you, Ava-Rain. And that's more. . ." he paused and turned his head to the side, pulling his gaze along with him. "That's more then even I can say."

With one hand, I reached up and placed it on his cheek and gently forced him to face me once again. His grey eyes were filled with regret and I couldn't understand why. "Caleb, what are you talking about? You've never abandoned me."

Was he talking about his two day absence after he told me about Emmy Grace? If so, I hardly considered his search for Angelie as abandonment, but as an alpha doing what needed to be done to protect his mate and his pack. To fix a mess that his mate had created. But just as I was about to ask him if that was what he was referring to, he took hold of the hand I had planted on his face and guided it down to his chest, just over his heart.

"She's waiting for you, Ava-Rain," was his only response. And the fact that it wasn't a response to my question should have urged me to get to the bottom of what he meant, to uncover the reasons behind his regret filled eyes and guilt laced words, but continuing to push would have only made Caleb push back.

And he sort of had this annoying-yet-sort-of-sweet habit of always wanting to focus and tend to my needs before his own.

I pushed myself into his chest and closed my eyes when I felt his arms wrap around me in a tight embrace. "Ever think about a career in law enforcement? Because I'm convinced you'd make a darn good negotiator." Although it wasn't my intention, I allowed myself to smile when my body shook slightly as a direct result of my laughing mate.

"I think the pay's a bit better being your mate, so it's probably in my best interest to stick it out with you."

Smiling, I pulled my head away from his chest and looked up at him. He was already looking down at me, a soft, barely there smile on his lips. "I love you, Caleb Brandt."

I loved him with every fibre of my being. I loved him so greatly and so deeply that sometimes the thought of professing that love seemed like such a waste of energy and breath because a love as great as that would only be disgraced once deconstructed and forced into words.

His faint smile turned into a smirk. "I love you, Ava-Rain Tolbert."

As much as I wanted to kiss him in that moment, we were still surrounded by the Hellands and the last thing I wanted to do in that moment was make out with my wolf boyfriend in front of them.

And we really weren't that type of couple and we would probably never become that type of couple. You know, the normal kind. The kind that always felt compelled to tell each other that they loved the other every minute of every day. I had only said it three times, twice of which had been in the last couple of hours. Normal relationships consisted of such professions; saying it and hearing it return. They were meant to be fifty-fifty. Giving a little while taking a little. Giving a lot and taking a lot in return. Those types of relationships were meant to be balanced.

But mates—in the supernatural sense—I was slowly but surely beginning to understand were much more than just two people in a relationship. It was more than hand holding, more than warm embraces and passionate or stolen kisses. Unlike a normal human relationship, a true pairing didn't necessarily need an equal balance.

'Two halves of one soul,' was how Caleb once explained it. Us. An explanation that would undoubtedly make you think that an equal balance was essential for such a union. But that wasn't what Caleb and I needed to work. To survive. To be.

     I didn't always need to be at my best in order for him to be at his best. I didn't always have to be strong to match the strength of my mate, and I didn't always have to hide my moments of weakness in order to eliminate the risk of Caleb's strength taking a blow. All I had to be was the Ava-Rain to his Caleb.

Sometimes strong. Sometimes weak. Sometimes broken. Sometimes whole.

And that was okay. That small something that always glimmered in his eyes, that warmth that always underlined his touch, and that silent assurance that always echoed in his voice confirmed that it was okay.

Pulling out of Caleb's embrace, I turned and made my way over to the Hellands, not entirely as the Ava-Rain that they knew so well but as the Ava-Rain they did not know. The Ava-Rain they were about to be introduced to.

A little bit bent. A little bit broken. But not entirely damaged or beyond repair.

Kasey was the first to move, breaking through the barricade of Hellands to meet me halfway. My eyes couldn't help but flicker down at the bow she was still holding onto. I always knew that the weapon—a take-down modern recurve—was pretty much an extension of her; I had spent enough summers watching her perfect her skills at the cottage to know that archery was never just a hobby but an art form that my best friend excelled in. But I never could have imagined that all of the hard work, all of the years filled with obedient dedication and mental and physical exertion she endured was because Kasey was a real life, track-down-the-monsters-underneath-your-bed-that-keep-you-up-at-night hunter.

The kind I never even knew existed up until a couple of weeks ago.

My eyes trailed back upwards, bypassing Kasey to, instead, focus on the rest of the approaching Hellands. But Kasey, whose eyes were still pinned on me, only stretched out her arm to the side and lifted her free hand in a signal for them to stop. She didn't have to say anything for them to get the message that she wanted—needed—to talk to me alone first. And in a matter of seconds, they all retreated back towards the cottage.

"He goes, too," Kasey said as her eyes darted behind me in Caleb's direction.

"I go wherever my mate goes," was Caleb's far too quick, shut-down of a response.

I turned my head to look at him. He was leaning against the front of his car with his arms crossed and his eyes trained in our direction. To any other pair of eyes, Caleb might have appeared either bored or angry. But to mine—a pair that had become well trained in learning the difference between looking and seeing—I saw a worried Caleb. A protective Caleb. A 'that's-my-mate-so-don't-you-dare-try-and-tell-me-what-to-do-when-it-comes-to-her' Caleb.

And, of course, the last thing that I wanted was for him to leave. If he left, then the strength from his mere presence I was mooching off of to overpower my weakness—the small but powerful part of me that still very much wanted to flee—would have left, too. But no matter how much I wanted Caleb to stay, I knew that I had to do this alone. That I had to dig deep inside and search through every nook and cranny until I found my own source of strength to draw from. And that source, just as Caleb had said, was the sacrifice of the old Ava-Rain to make way for the new Ava-Rain. He