Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 302

I stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

“I’m not asking you to. But I want to talk to you.” She said, ignoring my plea. I looked at her for a moment and she raised an eyebrow at me. “Delilah, you’ve come a long way to this. You have fought hands and nails to get where you are now, why are you stopping yourself when it comes to this?”

I closed my eyes. “Sienna, don’t.”

She turned to face me, her voice low. “Why won’t you let him in? Why are you pushing him away when you know that you want to be closest to him?”

I swallowed hard. “Because I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore. I don’t why I can’t have it in myself to trust him the way I want to. After Carter, after everything, this war… everything’s confusing. I don’t remember what happened with her… with Tatiana. I know something happened, something important. But it’s just… blank. And that terrifies me more than anything. And I don’t know why I need my own distance. I just… whenever I look at him, I remember what he said. It hurts me, Sienna.”

Sienna was quiet.

I finally looked at her. “You think I’m weak.”

She blinked, startled. “What? No…”

“I do,” I interrupted. “I feel weak. For not remembering. For still being scared. For not knowing if I can even trust my own thoughts anymore. For being used the way that I was, for allowing him to be in. I wasn’t raised to be this way. Yes, the way I grew wasn’t exactly ideal, but it was me, it was what I was meant to be. Strong, resilient, and willing to fight. This, I don’t like what this is.

“You were taken. Manipulated. You fought through it and survived. That’s not weakness, Delilah.” She said, shaking her head at me. “Look at yourself, Delilah, do you really not see how the pack stood strong because of you? You fought alongside Damon, Ethan, and everyone else. You didn’t hide out. You refused to hide out or to stand back. If that doesn’t show strength, what should?”

My throat tightened. “Then why do I feel like I’m breaking every time he looks at me like I’m still… whole? Why do I feel like everything is about to crumble when I just want him to hold me in his embrace? I can’t, Sienna. I want to, but I can’t. Not when I don’t know what to do anymore.”

But when the door opened and his scent filled the air, warm and familiar… my heart beat faster anyway.

I was still broken.

Still bruised.

But maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to be alone in it.