Rising from the Ashes
Chapter 11

There are pros and cons that come with Alpha Bardrick traveling with Elenora to the Stonebridge pack. There is a small bitter part of herself that would really like to say that there’s more cons than anything else.

At the end of the night, no matter how stubborn Elenora would like to remain on the matter. The pros outweigh the cons in every aspect. Pros such as Alpha Bardrick owning a car, paying for all travel cost including food and a room, and last but certainly not least, even with a rogue at his side Alpha Bardrick can go through any pack he wishes. Alpha Bardrick is well respected which means each time he showed up at the border formally introducing both himself and her, they were able to travel through with no further explanation. Not one person asked any questions. Not one Alpha. They had all shaken his hand and to Elenora’s absolute surprise, they shook hers as well.

Alpha Bardrick had explained that it is because they had shown up as equals and so they will be treated as such. Alpha Bardrick had explained that most probably suspect a mate bond and that was only confirmed when her curse revealed itself. The room is a different matter entirely. One room. Two people. One might think they would take turns on watch. Wrong. Elenora hadn’t trusted Mia for a year. A year. She had not survived by trusting her emotions, even if her emotions told her things like she’s a friend or he’s your mate. Elenora is going on days without sleep and she suspects it’ll be days before she gets any. Vermont is out there. How can one sleep with that knowledge “Are you sure you don’t want to take turns keeping watch?” Alpha Bardrick asks, settling on the bed.

He smells freshly showered which is exactly why Elenora avoids looking at him. She’s not at all sure she’ll be able to turn away if she does and Elenora was never one to take risk. Especially because she never heard him put on clothes which means everything is on display “No. Thank you but no.” Alpha Bardrick doesn’t argue. Not with this.

“Wake me up if you change your mind.”

“Not if I see something?”

“If you see something, I would guess that something would be dead as you call my name.” This time, Elenora does turn. He knows her well and they hadn’t even known each other long. Is that the mate bond or is he just observant? Observant and very in shape apparently. Elenora was right. She can no longer look away. There’s no way to properly explain just how incredible he looks right now. It’s enough for her wolf to be more than satisfied as she suggest grabbing her mate and running off into the forest together. Forget the world. Marcella whispers in her head. Can’t it just be you with your mate. Grab the girl. We’ll be a family. We could be happy. Her wolf tells her.

“Are you enjoying the view?” Alpha Bardrick smirks, dark eyes on her. He leans up, holding himself up with his elbows. It’s a tempting view. Very tempting but Elenora turns away with a reminder to herself. It does not matter what she enjoys, not in this life. It never has.

“We often want the things we can never have.”

“Who says you can’t?” Alpha Bardrick sounds so very serious, as if asking for her to come to him. They are after all, away from all responsibilities at this very moment. Who would know? They are alone in a hotel room located in the middle of nowhere. What happens in this room could be a secret. It is tempting. So tempting until she remembers why she cannot once again. She looks to him, meets his welcoming brown eyes

“Vermont, the moment he killed my family.” Another reason follows the first “The packs when they decided rogues could not be trusted.” Alpha Bardrick doesn’t react the way Elenora thought he might. He is nothing she ever suspected he would be. He pulls himself out of bed, walks towards her and slowly reaches out to hold her face as if afraid she might stab him.

He gently pulls her hair behind her ear and tilts her head back “Vermont is not here right now.” He tells her in a voice so....not vulnerable but certainly full of something she does not recognize. It has her entranced. He has her entranced. He always does a little bit she thinks but especially now. “There are no packs here.” He smiles. Elenora had never see him smile. It’s a soft smile, a lovely one.

“I cannot forget how things are because they’re out of sight Alpha Bardrick.”

His thumb rubs across her lip and Elenora is no longer certain forgetting is completely out of the question. After all, it feels pretty easy to forget right about now. “Nakoa.” He corrects “It is just us right now, Elenora. No rules. Just you. Just me. Let’s forget about the things we can’t do for awhile.” He suggest and what a suggestion it is.

For education purposes, Elenora decides she might as well try kissing him. Just to see what all the fuss is about kissing of course. Academic purposes. He kisses her. Or she kisses him. She doesn’t know who exactly kissed who all she knows is his lips, pressed to hers. Forgetting comes easy. Elenora had never kissed anybody and she thought when she does she might wonder what to do in the moment. She doesn’t. It’s all instinct and hers are running wild. Instinct pulls him closer. Instinct has her fingers tugging at his perfectly combed hair and ruining everything. That’s alright. He ruins her too. Destroys her.

Then he pulls away and he stares. She has his attention. He has hers. What were the important things they had to do? Why were they here again? This time it is her who grabs him, pulls him to her once again. Doesn’t matter. He does. Right now, this is all that matters to her.

Her lips are swollen come sunrise and neither of them slept at all. He had her fully educated on everything that was kissing. She’d learn quite a few lessons actually. Elenora had learned exactly how long they could kiss before they both remembered they still need oxygen to survive. She learned that kissing, his lips on hers can light a different sort of fire within. She had learned exactly how long they could kiss before her knees gave out and he took her to the bed. She learned that it is always important to keep things even. This meant that sense his shirt was off, it was only right that hers went as well and went it did. Torn in half. He is paying for that one. She learned that kissing can be an addiction and it is definitely hers. She had his lips memorized by morning. The shape of them. How warm they are. How soft they are against her lips, against her skin.

Most importantly, she learned that forgetting the world is awfully easy when he’s there to help her do it.

Not only did she learn about his lips.

She learned about his hands. How they travel. How hers can travel. She feels him. Everywhere. They aren’t even touching right now. He’s in the drivers seat. Elenora is in the passenger seat. Yet she feels his hands, his lips, across every place he dared to touch. “This changes nothing.” She manages to say.

“Okay.” He agrees and kisses her at the next light. He’s intoxicating. Forbidden. She must remember that and yet she kisses him back with just as much desperation as he kisses her with. Up until somebody honks behind them.

Haven’t Intoxicating and forbidden always went hand in hand together?

They reach the Stonebridge pack by evening with exactly three more gas stops where they bought a ton of food. Now its a waiting game to cross the borders of the pack. Security. They took our names and are checking with Luna Jackson to see if we can cross the border. Elenora didn’t recognize any of the warriors at the border. They must be new. She smells a couple of familiar scents but none are around them. “What is taking so long?” Elenora eyes the woods before her. Here, the snow is all but gone and everything is already starting to look alive again. There’s something beautiful about it and yet there is nothing Elenora wants to do but run far away from it all. She tells Alpha Bardrick this too “I just want to get Charlotte and leave.”

“We can keep ourselves busy while we wait.”

Elenora turns to him with narrowed eyes “Absolutely not Alpha Bardrick. We cannot keep-” And there he goes again. He pulls her close once again, presses his lips to hers and like last night they’re lost in each other. Elenora is quick to decide that this would be much better if they were in a better position and so she climbs over the center console and successfully manages to learn just how irritating a steering wheel could be. How expensive are those because she’s about to rip this one clean off. Alpha Bardrick laughs beneath her and she pulls away just long enough to see that smile. He has a beautiful smile. It captures her. Takes her breathe away. “There are easier ways to make room in a car than breaking things my dear.” And like that, his seat falls back rather unexpectedly so. She falls against him hard.

“How did you do that?” She asks

“Does it matter?”

No it does not but if she starts talking about it, maybe she might see reason and that reason is this cannot happen. It just can’t. He has a pack. He hates rogues. She hates Alpha’s and she doesn’t really like being in packs all that much either. He goes to kiss her again. This time she pulls away and hits her head on the roof of the car. With a low annoyed growl she sighs and stares down at him. She grabs his face, smiles at his messy hair. It looks rather nice this way. “This is wrong Alpha Bardrick.”

He shakes his head “If you stop calling me Alpha Bardrick, I’ll stop kissing you.” No. If Elenora stops calling him Alpha Bardrick than she would no longer being addressing him as an Alpha but something else entirely. She cannot do that. If she addresses him as an Alpha than that alone is a reason why this can’t work. If she stops than what reason is there? He kisses her again.

“Elenora!” Mia had once told her that before everything went to hell, her parents were the biggest mood kill. If Tara Jackson was her real mother, she’d completely agree with Mia. Fortunately, as Elenora found out, Tara Jackson is not her mother so she’s just the regular sort of mood kill. “Oh!” Tara Jackson swings around quickly when she catches sight of the two of them. Elenora pulls away and hits both the ceiling of the car and the steering wheel. She should’ve broke the damn steering wheel earlier but the aggravating Alpha just had to stop her. Elenora looks to Alpha Bardrick who sighs, leaning back as if he’s comfortable. Next time, she should be on bottom.

That isn’t to say that there will be a next time because that is definitely not allowed but well...if there is she should be on bottom. Elenora smooths down the mess that is his hair the best she can before climbing out of the car. Tara Jackson is still not looking at her or Alpha Bardrick who climbs out behind her “I thought you were dead. Truly.” She turns around with a great amount of hesitance. Tara had not only changed her surname but everything Vermont had demanded her to be.

She is hardly recognizable to Elenora. Where as Vermont had demanded she wear her hair short and in a warrior bun, the blonde locks curl all the way to her butt now. Whereas Vermont forced her to cake makeup all over her face to ‘cover up the ugly’ as he would say, now there is nothing on it. She has freckles. Elenora never knew the woman had freckles and she spent nineteen years with her. She no longer looks starved either. What Elenora remembers to be skin and bones is now a filled out curvy woman who looks more than healthy. Her arms are all muscled and she’s tan, or at least tanner than she was went she spent every hour inside. She must be outside a lot now. “You look better.” Elenora manages

Tara Jackson doesn’t dare smile “You too.” She offers before gesturing to move over the border. “Charlotte is in school but how about I show you all that has changed over the years?”

“No.” Elenora tells her immediately. She really doesn’t try to sound rude. It was a painful time for Tara Jackson as well but some things can not be so easily forgiven no matter the circumstance. This is not forgiveness. This is not forgetting. She is here for her daughter. That is all. “Alpha Bardrick and I will be going to Nix’s while we wait her out. I’m happy for you but I’m not interested.” With that Elenora climbs back into the car and waits for the Alpha. He keeps it business as usual with Tara Jackson before climbing it.

“Lead the way.” She does and she does so with a certain amount of impatience. This place makes her sick. It has her skin crawling. It looks nothing like the years she spent here. There is joy in the air. It looks rich and beautiful and children run pass the car unafraid yet all she sees is the way things were. All she hears is her own screaming. It’s suffocating.

Nix is at the counter “Are you paying for your visit this time girl!” It is all Nix says to her. Elenora doesn’t respond. She moves past him. She focuses on breathing. She tries to listen to the things around her but all she hears is Alpha Bardrick’s apology to the older man. She hears him setting money on the desk and grabbing the keys to the room. She hears his heavy steps towards her. The dangling of the keys. She just needs to forget this place. This pack. These people. People she never wanted to see again.

Alpha Bardrick unlocks the door and she slams it shut right after them before grabbing him and she kisses him. As it was proven last night, he can make her forget. “Elenora. We should talk.” As she had realized last night, the only thing she needs to do to leave him speechless is strip out of her shirt and she does just that.

“Just make me forget this hellhole Alpha Bardrick.” He frowns but he doesn’t protest when she lays on the bed, pulling him with her “Please Nakoa.” He doesn’t kiss her, not even when she tries to pull him close. He does pulls her close in a different sort of way. “What are you doing?” She asks and he chuckles.

“I can’t kiss you.”

“Yes you can. You’ve been doing it all day, you did it all night. Why turn away when I ask for it?” He kisses Elenora’s forehead and lays down beside her.

“Because it will kill me if you decide to go further than kissing, Elenora.” He tells her and call her confused but isn’t that what every guy wants? To go further? Now she’s offering it up on a platter and he’s turning away? For what? Why? “You’ll regret it in an hour and I can’t handle that. You may want to fight this bond between us but I refuse to.” Alpha Bardrick swallows and for the first time his emotions are on display. He looks oh so vulnerable and for some very odd reason it breaks something within her. “You have the potential to ruin me Elenora” He pulls away, tucks her hair behind her ear “What scares me is that I am willing to let you do so.”

What scares her might very well be the same thing.

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