Page 39 of His Curse
Iroll my eyes with a chuckle, set my phone down, and grab my tool belt, strap it on, then move to the various lengths of plywood before dragging them all up to the roof. And even though my body is still on fire, I stop for a second and take a cleansing breath.
This is probably the closest I get to relaxed.
Working on something, building, creating with my hands. It soothes me, always has, and it's why I was a carpenter early on, and why I moved into construction or hard labor over the years. It’s why I've always done things that require a sharp mind as well as a capable body. Any sort of trade that made me work hard and use my brain, that kind of shit has always helped me keep a level head.
My favorite, though, was the carpentry.
More specifically, woodworking; sculpting things from discarded scraps of furniture.
My dad was the one who taught me how to listen to the wood; taught me to respect it and appreciate it, to wait for it to tell me what it wanted to become.
We built our house in West Virginia together and all the furniture inside, and as much as I enjoyed that—stillenjoy that—what I really love to do is create those little sculptures from the leftover wood, using every piece and making them into something beautiful.
When my mind is restless or when I miss my father or my mother, even when I miss my mate I barely knew, I sit and whittle wood for hours, just letting my mind go while I check out and let my hands work.
I've made so many things over the years, so many pieces of art from various local wood, but recently my subject matter has shifted to animals. Animals that I've sanded down and painted before giving them to the young. Vok, Milos, and Andrej's young since my sister won't let me give anything to her pups, but I'm still happy to do it, and Daisy loves the dragons I carve for her and Lily. Even carries the big black one around and refers to him as thedaddy dragon.
And while it makes me feel good to do that for them, to give the nieces and nephews of my heart gifts, I wish I could share them with the nieces and nephews of my blood, as well.
Gods, if Mary could only see what she's doing to us—to me.
It doesn't have to be this way, not at all, but she's so hellbent that my curse iscontagious, that I'll somehow ruin her pups the same way that demon ruined me, and I doubt things will ever change.
At times that gets so heavy, so fucking heavy I feel like I can barely breathe, and I end up entertaining ideas of going Rogue again.
What's the point of being close to family if they don't want you?
The only reason I haven't is because I know our parents wouldn't have wanted that. My mama and pop would want me to stay and protect my sister and her family no matter what, and if they had any inkling as to what was going to happen to them, or all the shit with the clan in the years that followed, I know they would have been even more insistent on it.
Too bad that also means protecting my family fromme.
"Fuck,” I grunt as I shoot a nail right through the plywood, splitting it down the middle and ruining it completely.
My mind has been so unfocused, so clouded with these strange dreams and nightmares, all the thoughts of what once was and what should have been that I can’t do the mindless tasks I normally can perform in my sleep. And those same dreams and nightmares, all the shit going on inside my head lately, it’s all taken me down a rather nostalgic path that I wouldn’t usually think twice about.
Like how I know my dad would be proud of Kai, of the clan, and that my Alpha would embrace what our king is trying to do without ever questioning it. The way I can say without a doubt that my father would help in any way possible to make all of the dragon king’s dreams a reality. Which of course leads to how he and Mama should be here to see it play out; how theyshouldbe involved in it but were taken too early and gone too soon. They were robbed of so much life, so many years, and so many opportunities.
Didn't get to meet their grand-pups.
Missed seeing Mary grow into motherhood and become a fantastic mom.
And that line of thinking has led to thoughts of my mate, even though most things do—everything does.
My beautiful Birdie.
And fuck, she was so goddamn beautiful.
I wish I could have seen her up close, closer than a few feet away. I wish I could have breathed in my mate’s incredible scent while I buried my nose in her silky hair instead of carried on the wind. Gods, and to touch her, to actually push those strands from her eyes, to hold her hand or pull her body close to mine. I'm sure it would have been nothing short of heaven.
Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to kiss her, to feel those lush lips against my own even in the simplest, sweetest caress.
I think about running with her through the woods, our wolves running and playing the way mated pairs do—the way they do before sealing the bond and claiming each other forever. And to claim her, to actually mate my Birdie and make her mine, I can't even wrap my head around the kind of bliss that would create.
Idle fantasies; empty dreams.
Stupid thoughts from a male destined to be alone with nothing but his curse to keep him warm.
None of that was ever in the cards for me, not since I accepted the burden that belonged to someone else. Not since I made a half assed martyr out of myself and damned my heart right along with every other part of me.
