The Wounded Heart Within

Ulric brought his gaze to Aranea's when she eventually looked up at him, catching the faint darkness on her cheeks from her tears in the faint glow of the moonlight coming in through the window above them. It felt like every time she revealed something more about this part of her past, it only broke his heart more and more. It made him loathe this man that he would never meet for breaking Aranea the way he had - treating her so poorly and tossing her away. He could sympathize with the feeling of thinking that they had found the one wolf that they could entrust their life to only to be failed by them and not knowing why. The mystery of it always bothered him the most and he wondered if Aranea felt the same. It almost made him wish that he could find this Tyranis to make him suffer for what he had done to Aranea and demand those answers for her, but he knew that would probably never happen.

As Aranea drew even closer to him, leaving no gap between them, he listened as she declared what was now obvious to him - that Tyranis had broken her. It made him wonder what she had been like before that time. What had she been like before this man shattered her into this state. It made him wonder if he would ever be able to go back to how he used to be before Azariah's disappearance - but that wasn't a thought he let himself dwell on. It wasn't often that she let him focus entirely on her and let him learn more about what made her who she was so he didn't want to waste that time ponder his own existence. He squeezed her in his embrace and dipped his muzzle down to her cheeks, cleaning away the tear stains from her cheeks with licks that seemed far more gentle than should be possible from a brute his size.

"I wish I could put you back together," he rumbled softly as he nuzzled against her cheek. It was too much to think that he could actually help her heal from a trauma that was so deep seated for so many years, but he wished he could do such a thing. She deserved to know what it was like to genuinely be loved and cared for - not just used and abandoned. Whether that was with him, with the father of the children she had in Abaven, or with someone else entirely. As much as he felt himself drawn to her and felt some form of love for the silver and ivory woman, he just wanted happiness for her... no matter where that happiness came from.

Ulric continued to give her what little comfort he could offer as he left trails of nibbles and licks along her neck, cheeks, and ears, letting her now familiar scent fill his nose and surround him. He hoped that even if it was just temporary that he might be able to make her feel that affection she deserved to live in and experience that love that she should have had from the very beginning. "Whatever I can do for you... Just tell me. If it's physical affection, if it's companionship, if its space... I'll give you what you need for as long as you need it."

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