Sweet Nothing

He was more than she knew how to handle, and with this realization Chrysanthe was beginning to understand just how in over her head she was. Yet it would end soon, she knew, she repeated like a mantra, this was over, it was done, he was no longer within her reach, he belonged to someone else. She expected a quip from him, an answer, a simple response before he left and she didn't see him again afterward. Her eyes wandered, wandered up to his and where she expected for him to move away, for him to put distance between them he moved closer. The girl was frozen, despite her confidence or rank she couldn't get herself to move away as he swept toward her with that liquid ease that nearly took her breath away.


His words were not what she had expected from him at all.


He made it sound as if he cared, as if she had it all wrong - as if he had not torn apart this relationship at the seams before it could truly become the work of art it deserved to be. His voice was honey to her, so sweet and sticky, seductive in the way it clung to her ears and reverberated in her mind, creating a strange dissonance within her that made her feel like she was sinking and floating all the same. She turned toward him then, her blue eyes gazing into his own, trying desperately to see the emotion behind his words. And although she was not trained in reading the feelings of others, she saw no hints that Gideon was speaking anywhere but straight from within himself. That charming persuasion was dabbled with genuine concern, and she found that she couldn't tear her eyes away from the sight.


He hadn't meant to hurt her, and he seemed almost... unsure about the marriage that he had so simply stated moments before. Chrysanthe's family was the exact opposite of his own, it seemed. A marriage to them was important, a wolf mated to one other, and only death could tear the two apart. It was what she saw in Cairo, although her memories of her mother were slowly fading with time. It was what she saw in Collision, in Nova and Erani, in Thane and Ookami, it was all that she had ever seen. Yet Gideon was different. He would have many wives, many children, and she was stuck between feeling curious at the lifestyle and sick at the prospect. His women, how could she be one of his many? Was he worth it?


It wouldn't be too much different to how she felt now. She was Syrinx's sister, but he would take a mate and she would step aside and watch as the couple became Valhalla's leaders. Collision was the same, and Erani, although the most loving woman she had ever had the pleasure of being close to, would have her own family to attend to. "I want you Gideon, want to call you mine. I'm young, there is a lot that goes along with the feeling that I don't understand but you know that." He knew that, even after during their first encounter. Yet his silver tongue did nothing to ward the girl off.


She was a fool.


"I feel for you something strong, something wild." It had been eating away at her since their first meeting. 'You have no idea what you do to me...' "But my family is different - we are monogamous. Your traditions are your own, and I would be wrong to judge them, you can't change them - I don't expect you to change anything for me." But she wanted him to - wished that he wasn't already married out of duty and obligation, wanted him to be hers and hers alone. "But I wish that I... had known. I... don't think that I can share you Gideon. I could try, I would try for you of course." If he asked her, she would. She loved her family, loved Valhalla fiercely, would never turn her back on them. Leaving her pack behind was like tearing a piece of herself away, the wolves there were her family, they were her structure and stability... but if Gideon asked her she would try her damndest to make things work...


"But I don't think I could ever be happy that way." It was what made it all come to a screeching halt. "Seeing you with one, or two, or three other women - hearing you call them your wives, knowing that no matter how strong our connection is that you have others... I can't. " Her voice threatened to break as she tried to get him to understand. She didn't want him to leave! She didn't want him to feel like he had to change, he was beautiful and perfect and it would be silly for him to change a deep seeded tradition for a yearling he had been with once. But she felt it, felt what he felt - the pull, the desire to be near him, to hear him whisper to her goodnight, to be able to greet him in the morning and stand beside him during the day and it hurt. "I can't do it Gideon, I'm sorry but I can't be one of your many. You're my only, and clearly that is not... a relationship that we can have. Your traditions, your wife, you... there's no place there for me." She wanted to cut out a shape in his heart that she fit into perfectly, but there wasn't room for everything that she knew she needed.


He would grow to hate her, surely, if on some off chance he ended up changing how he was for her. Irritance would grow to contempt, and he would regret ever taking her at all.


"I want you to be mine and mine alone - but that was never part of the plan, was it Gideon?" Her words were a whisper, and finally she pulled her teary blue eyes away from his own. Her ears had fallen, her figure drooping like a withered flower. "I care about you too much to try and change you - but I don't want to let you go. What am I supposed to do?" She leaned on him, letting her head rest on him, relishing in the feeling of his fur, his flesh, his warmth. Although she was frustrated, saddened by this turn of events, she knew that at the root of it all, the only thing she wanted was him.