Read The Half Blood Luna by The Black Daisy
Chapter 57
Klaus’s POV:
I was pretending to play on my phone, all the while I could feel Ella staring at me from across the other sofa. It felt a little awkward to be living in this place with her from now on, after spending a whole year living in this empty house alone.
She said good night to me and went inside the bedroom to sleep.
I was pretending to be busy with my phone because I didn’t know how to act around her. It kept me from saying a lot of things I wanted to say that would have probably chased her away.
I was afraid of admitting my feelings to her, like a coward.
It was so ironic. The great, fearless, alpha Klaus is afraid of expressing his feelings towards a girl.
But I had a good excuse for not telling her about the true reason behind accepting her offer.
I was afraid she wouldn’t feel the same way. I was afraid if I came forward, it would scare her off and drive her away. She told me that she will never love anyone after what she has been through. I was afraid that admitting my feelings to her will make her think that I want to touch her now.
I was okay with hiding my true feelings from her. Love is not just k!sses and se*x. I promised myself that I will make it up to her in every way possible. I will make her happy. I will make her laugh constantly. I will K*ll anyone who tries to harm a strand of her gorgeous, red roses smelling hair.
I just want her to feel safe with me and let go of her past.
The three days I spent away from her before our wedding were torturous. I practically restrained myself from knocking on her door, or even mind linking her. I knew she was overwhelmed with the whole Luna wedding, and didn’t want to stress her more or confuse her.
The second my eyes fell on her walking through the hall doors on our wedding, my heart literally skipped a beat. Words couldn’t describe everything I felt when I saw her after three days of no contact.
She was enchanting. She didn’t need to hold a bouquet, because she was the most beautiful bouquet I haven’t seen in a long time.
She was shining bright with that golden hair of hers. Her floral wedding dress made her beauty more dazzling.
When I touched her hands, I felt warmth seep into me. As if I was freezing cold for three days, and the second I touched her, my soul caught on fire.
My vows were oaths that I have taken upon myself to fulfill and keep until my last breath.
I saw her uncertainty clear on her face when the priest said I may k!ss the bride.
The moment I leaned in to k!ss her, I was afraid of scaring her with my touch. So, I kept it soft and brief. Even that brief little caress made my insides tight with desire.
I saw her blush so charmingly from the k!ss. But she didn’t seem bothered by it. I didn’t want to imagine things, but it really looked like she liked it too.
I sighed loudly after I lost my game for the hundredth time probably. I couldn’t focus on it, because Ella kept popping into my head constantly. Sleep was so far from happening tonight. Just like any other night.
I got up and walked into the bedroom to check on her. She was sleeping deeply on the sofa, huddled under her blanket. I went over to her and gazed at her for a while. Watching her sleep brought some peace inside me.
Suddenly, she started twitching and murmuring incoherently.
It was the beginning of a nightmare, I recognized instantly. Just like the last time I was with her in her room after I brought her from the hospital.
She was begging weakly for something, or someone to stop. I leaned over her and started shaking her before things escalate any further, but she wasn’t waking up.
I started panicking as she began screaming in pain and agony. She was thrashing in my arms viciously trying to escape from whoever was terrorizing her.
“Ella wake up please. It’s not real” I begged her.
It wasn’t working. I felt each shriek of pain slash a piece of my heart. It was far worse than the last time I tried to pull her out.
I held her shoulders tightly, leaned over her face, and shouted loudly desperate to reach her wherever she was trapped deeply inside her mind.
“Ella, wake up!” I begged frantically, afraid she might never wake up, afraid that I might not be enough to pull her out of it, this time.
She opened her big brown eyes, and I could almost see through them. See that that nightmare, whatever it was, was the most terrifying nightmare of her entire life. What I saw in those eyes at that moment, it could be described as fear, pain, helplessness, and anguish. But it was far greater than those words. Using them to describe what I saw was like a tiny drop in a ma*s*sive ocean.
My whole body ached at what I saw in those eyes.
I instantly without even a second thought, sat her up, hugged her tightly to my chest, and started soothing her.
“You’re safe, I promise,” I whispered in her hair.
She clung to me so tightly and started sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. My heart was screaming from feeling her pain so intensely.
I kept soothing her for what felt like an hour. Eventually, she started to become quiet. I couldn’t see her face, so I didn’t know if she fell back to sleep.
After a few minutes, she pulled her head away from my chest and looked at me.
Her eyes were so red from crying.
The happy, joyful, red-faced girl from the wedding was gone, replaced by a girl that was haunted by the demons from her nightmare.
It broke me to see her change to the worst on our first night.
“I’m sorry if I woke you,” she said in a hoarse voice.
I smiled sadly. Despite her suffering, she still managed to think about me. She was something different, I admitted to myself. Different from anyone I have ever met.
“I wasn’t sleeping Ella. You didn’t wake me. You scared the hell out of me. I tried so much to wake you up, but it was like I couldn’t reach you.”
She didn’t say anything. Just kept looking at her hands and sniffling every now and then.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked so softly, afraid of upsetting her. She looked at me in pain and shook her head.
“Do you want me to take you to Sara? I’m sure she won’t mind even if it was late” I asked. I didn’t know what to do to ease her suffering. I was willing to do anything she wanted, anything.
“No, I never talk to her about the past,” she said in a small voice while avoiding looking at me.
“I thought she was helping you?” I said in confusion.
“She is. She is helping me adjust to the pack and overcome my problems. But I told her that I don’t want to bring up anything about what happened to me at the old pack. She agreed to respect my decision.”
“But isn’t it better if you open up to someone instead of battling this by yourself? Maybe if you talk about it, it will stop haunting your dreams.”
She looked at me for a while considering what I said.
She sighed and said in defeat, “I can’t talk about it with anyone, because it simply cannot be talked about. There aren’t… enough words that can even begin to express what happened back there.”
I looked down in shame. Shame of my kind. Of men. How can they be so cruel, so cold hearted, to do that much damage to an innocent seventeen-year-old girl? What the hell did they do to her to the extent that she cannot even begin to describe what happened all those months?
“It’s okay. I’m used to having nightmares every night. I should have probably gave you a heads up before I went to sleep,” she said with a sad smile. She was pretending to be strong for me. But I could see right through it. Something was damaged within her after that nightmare.
I found myself holding onto her hands and staring into her brown eyes as I said overwhelmingly “I’m so sorry Ella. I know sorry is not going to do you any good now. I know it won’t make whatever those monsters did go away or disappear. But I am truly, whole heartedly sorry that I did not save you from those lunatics sooner. I’m sorry that it took me such a long time to wake up from my grief and K*ll them. If I had K*lled them right after what they did to my family, none of this would have happened to you. Please forgive me”
“No it is not your fault. You didn’t know, there is really nothing to forgive. You were struggling with your own loss, you can’t be blamed for this,” she said sincerely.
We stay quiet for a while just staring at each other, deep in our own thoughts. We were still holding onto each other’s hands. I was glad she didn’t pull away. I kept hoping that she was drawing some strength and security from my touch.
“You can go to sleep if you want, I don’t want to keep you awake, alpha… I mean.. Klaus,” she said my name with some hesitation.
I smiled at the way she said my name. It came out like a melody to my ears.
“Can you go back to sleep?” I asked her.
She shook her head and said, “No, sleep is not coming, not for a few hours. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” she said determinedly.
“What do you normally do when you can’t go to sleep?” I asked curiously.
“I watch a movie or two. I’m still new to movies so it is quite easy to find one I like right away”
“Great let’s watch a movie together then. I have trouble sleeping as well, you’re not the only one,” I said rea*s*suringly, trying to make her feel less uncomfortable about her nightmare.
“Ok, let’s watch something based on your recommendation. Stephanie and I watched a movie that she said was amazing and I ended up crying my eyes out because of how sad the ending was. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Well, it’s not going to be some sad romance, because it is totally not my genre. I’m more of an action person.”
“Ok, I don’t mind some action,” she said with a smile.
It was a genuine smile, it got my hopes up that she will be able to get past what she just suffered from.
“Let’s watch one of my favorite movie series. It has five movies and each one of them is amazing. It’s about pirates,” I said excitedly.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise “Pirates?” she looked at me with so much uncertainty and doubt, it made me laugh under my breath.
“Yes pirates, you will love it I promise. Let’s start with the first one,” I held the remote and started the tv.
We leaned our backs against the sofa and started watching the movie together.
We were sitting close to each other without actually touching.
I would sneak looks at her every now and then to catch her reaction and make sure she is still watching and not going back to that dark place again.
She was hooked into the movie from the beginning. I caught her smiling broadly at some of the funny scenes.
It made me a little more relaxed to see her smile so soon after crying her eyes out for an hour.
Just about thirty minutes before the movie ended, I noticed her struggling to keep her eyes open, as sleep finally started to claim her.
“Don’t fight your sleep Ella, it’s okay. Let’s sleep and continue the movie tomorrow, it’s not going anywhere we can pick it up where we left off,” I said tenderly.
She nodded her head in agreement as she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.
I got up from the sofa to let her lay down, and closed the tv. I was covering her with the blanket as she said sleepily “Pirates are not as bad as I thought they were. You were right, I like the movie a lot.”
I smiled and whispered, “I’m glad you like it.”
I wasn’t sure if she heard me or not as her eyes closed and her breathing became softer.
I crouched next to her head and smelled her hair again. I wanted to savor that smell with me as I went to my own bed and laid on it.
The last thought on my mind was a prayer that she does not have to see that damn nightmare ever again, or any nightmare for that matter.