Chapter 38: Chapter 38

DAHLIA:

“It’s too bitter,” I said as I sipped the greenish liquid in my cup. I hated drinking anything that’s bitter, but Tristan stroke my head to coax me into finishing it like a child.

“Just a little bit more… Just two more sips, and it’ll all be gone.”

I made a nasty face as I braced myself to take in another sip. It didn’t taste any better on my second try, but I gulped down and held it into my mouth until not a drop was left.

“Yuck! Remind me never to get this medicine again…”

Tristan’s face looked agonized. He unwrapped what looked like a small treat in his hand and held it before me.

“What’s that?”

“It’ll take some of the bitterness away,” he said timidly.

He held it into my mouth, and I had no choice but to take it in. It was a piece of chocolate, and it tasted very nice after that awful medicine.

“Hmm, good,” I said.

Tristan unwrapped another chocolate and dangled it again in front of my lips.

“I have hands, you know,” I said as I bit the chocolate away from his fingers. He moved right next to me on the bed, unwrapping a third one even before I had even finished what was inside my mouth.

“It’s my fault you are sick,” he said, busying himself with unwrapping the sweets in his hand, “so today just use my hands.”

After a day of resting, I was finally able to be of good spirits, but Tristan insisted that I stayed in bed.

I didn’t complain, but I told him I would do so under one condition.

“I want you to stay with me. Now. All day. We need to have a serious talk…”

He didn’t say anything else. He just nodded his head off like an obedient boy.

I wasn’t sure if that tame disposition was all an act. I have seen his bold side, and I had seen his wild side. What else was there in him?

Ahh, yes… I have only seen the sides he wanted me to see, and that’s what was bothering me...

When Eva took me away last time in my wolf form, I felt the kind of freedom I have longed for. I was in pain, but somehow, I was happy too. Being able to shift at that moment and coming away to the woods made me feel like I was finally a legitimate werewolf.

Now, I can feel Eva anytime. She didn’t disappear in our shared consciousness unlike before. The bond I held with her felt much stronger. I am finally able to shift by will, and I am really happy to be able to get through this personal hurdle.

However, what happened between Tristan and I was of another matter.

I still resented him for what he had done. He had lost his temper for something I thought was so insignificant, and because of that, my life was put in danger.

I think his temper problem has got something to do with the past he never speaks of. I remembered his words in the cave when he was desperately asking me to heal myself.

‘I can’t lose you! I can’t lose you like I had lost them!’

Who was ‘them?’ And how did they lose ‘them?’

Initially, I didn’t want to see Tristan after what he had done. I wanted to flee from him… I could still picture the devilish look in his face as he inflicted those wounds in my body… It was something I couldn’t immediately forgive him even when he cried and pleaded desperately in front of me.

After I was healed though, I heard how he awakened Kaist and attempted to strike a bargain with him to take me back to the palace. That was when I realized what Tristan was trying to do…

Like me, Tristan was running away too… He was running away from facing me, just as I had run away from him in my wolf form…

I knew I was naïve to have married him out of the desperation to break away from my engagement with Kaist, but at the same time, I could not deny that I am attracted to Tristan. I love him, yet the truth was that I don’t know a lot about him other than the fact that he was my mate…

Perhaps, for many people, marriage is hard because love alone would not suffice to keep two people together… We ought to learn to understand each other. I think that if I would be able to know where he was coming from, the resentment in my heart from what he had done would ebb away a little bit…

I wanted to hear his explanation. Yes, I was tremendously hurt. My body still recoils a bit when he touches me in a manner akin to how he just touched me at that time, but I don’t want to be afraid of him for the rest of my life… I don’t want to be a stranger to him…

I decided that I would stay put for now and attempt to communicate honestly with him at this time…

“So, yesterday… You were well aware of what you’ve done, right,” I said as he tried to unwrap the third chocolate in his hands.

Tristan’s breathing became tense. I felt his shoulders droop a little before he spoke.

“I have no excuses, Dahlly… I was enraged, and I had spiraled out of control.”

“At that time, I think I blacked out… I don’t really remembered what happened, but I think I saw you in your wolf form… Was that what happened,” I asked, verifying my memories of that time, despite the swelling fear in my heart.

He began to toy with the already opened chocolate in his hands. He was swirling it in his palms. He nodded.

“I see... Care to explain why you lost your temper enough to force me like that?”

Surprisingly, I was calm. I thought of this a lot since yesterday. I was still angry at the fact that Tristan had forced me to copulate with him in his wolf form, but I knew my anger would get me nowhere.

“Dahlly… I... Actually I don’t know how to face you again after that… What I have done is something unforgivable…”

“Is that what you were thinking when you asked Kaist to take me back with him?”

Again, he did not say anything. He only nodded.

“How about the fact that I ran away from Kaist on the day of our wedding, and I married another man, and the fact that you were that ‘other man’ – did it not occur to you that sending me back with him was so wrong because of these things that you and I have done?”

Tristan’s face looked so crestfallen, so unlike the devil who had disregarded my cries the other day that it was hard to believe something that diabolical had happened between us…

I cupped my hand against his face. “Tristan, just because you and I had hit a rough patch, you shouldn’t send me somewhere and run away and to the man I did not chose, for that matter… What does that make us?”

He answered my reason with difficulty. “That boy – he loves you, Dahlly… He was willing to stay by your side no matter what I said… I thought you’d prefer to be with someone like him after what had happened…”

“I know… Kaist and I, we go back a long way together,” I explained, “but even so, even if he did love me dearly, you were the person I chose to marry, Tristan, and married people are supposed to work things through, not push each other away…”

“I panicked too,” I continued, “Honestly, I didn’t know you were capable of doing something like that to me, and I haven’t forgiven you yet… I still get scared imaging that you’ll suddenly turn monstrous one of these days…”

“Still, it did not occur to me that I should come home to any other house but here… I would still want to hear why you did it, and why you were capable of harboring such hate to the point that you had become capable of doing something like that. I wouldn’t dream of sending you away or of staying away without even trying to hear why,” I continued.

Tristan’s face had turned pale under my gaze. I looked at the mess of melted chocolate in his hands and took out my handkerchief from the side table on my side of the bed. I began to wipe his hands.

“Now, tell me honestly… Why did you lose control? Why were you so angry at me, and did you really mean what you said – that you like torturing people?”

I was calm outside, but my heart was in a near state of panic. I dreaded to hear Tristan’s explanation. What if he really did turn out to be someone who enjoyed torturing people for sports?

“I was angry because you lied to me, Dahlly…”

“What did you think I lied about?”

“You lied that you heard me speak in the study early that day.”

“Well, I heard you alright… You said something about a girl, but I didn’t hear that much. I didn’t even know whom you were speaking with…”

“Then why did your face change? Why were you so frightened of me?”

“Because it was the first time I saw you as someone capable of being cruel,” I replied slowly. “My papa also had a cruel streak inside of him, and I didn’t like it one bit… I was afraid I ran away only to marry someone like him…”

I finished wiping his fingers clean. I just removed the handkerchief away when he started to intertwine his fingers into my own hands.

“Dahlly, I am not like your father… I know you’ve suffered from him, but I will try to be a better person… I can try. No, I’ll definitely be someone better.”

“Then how about that bit you said about enjoying the act of torturing people? Wasn’t that all true?”

“That… That is something I cannot deny,” he said, his eyes looking down away from my face. “I had dreamed of torturing certain people with my bare hands, and that desire would not rest until I found them…”

“Found whom,” I said, my heart starting to beat wildly from fright.

“I cannot rest until I found those who caused the death of my parents.”