It’s funny, the way things worked out. It just didn’t seem like contact really stuck to Salem. Family was gone. Adopted family was gone. Glorall alphas had come and gone, what seemed like a new one every season. She knew what it felt like to be left alone. Salem was growing more and more okay with that. It didn’t matter, did it? Even her imprint didn’t want her. Not like she wanted him, but it would have been nice to know that someone was there. The last time she’d seen Tobias was right after she lost Jaye, that overwhelming ache having taken over. She’d been hurting that last time, hurting so badly it was physical pain.
So she’d focused on other things. The creature didn’t have anything she was good at, so she was going to find something. Salem needed to keep busy—an idle mind would be the worst possible option. Though there was a new so called alpha, she was going to stick by what she had been doing. She was going to figure out what was going on, and what she was going to need to do. A job for herself. A talent for herself. That was what Salem really did need. The quiet thing had a habit of ghosting around, and clearly that wasn’t going to cut it anymore. It just seemed like she was forever not good enough.
Not even for Tobias. With a smattering of blood smeared across her front leg, the only bits that remained from a rabbit left behind her, Salem made her way back to her den. It was a hollow beneath a great rock, a small affair… just enough for her. She was on her own, and that was all. She would always be on her own, it seemed. It didn’t matter now. What did matter, as she drew closer, was that bizarre feeling in her chest. It was a churning, sickening feeling she had begun to recognize—Tobias was close.
She felt that sickening tug when things happened with him. There was one that she felt as a near physical pain not so long ago… she’d known he had a mate, but it a bizarre physical tug she’d felt in a while. He’d consummated something after all. Salem didn’t care. She cared that he was here only for the simple fact that he was in her way. Tobias had never once shown an interest in her, save for wanting her gone… so she wouldn’t show any interest in him. No tenderness, no curiosity, just a callousness that came from something that was a fact of life. That was all
“If it isn’t the bearer of bad news himself.” Salem fixes her ghostly gaze on the man, ears pressing back to her head if only slightly It’s a roughness, an aching… she aches, she really does. It’s a dull ache of the soul, having him here. The pale beast licks her lips, sighs heavily, and sits in the snow. It’s a grounded sort of sit, the kind that says she belongs here… and he doesn’t. This was her home. He’d made it clear that he didn’t have a place here, and that was all.
salem. my name is blue canary |