Beta Bully Bonus Autumn Exclusive (F/M) (Patreon)

Walkies I - Luca POV

Luca had been awake for hours. Had felt the sun rise on his back, waiting for Darcy to wake up. To confront what the hell had happened to them last night.

“I’m scared.”

Those words had hurt. After everything they had overcome, the thought of his soul-mate still feeling threatened by him was nauseating. It was his worst fear.

Darcy’s dark eyes blinked open slowly and sleepily. Her long lashes were clumped together into pretty points, turning her eyes into cartoon sunshine.

“Are you okay?” he asked lamely. He didn’t know where to even begin apologising for his weird behaviour last night. He didn’t understand it fully himself. It had been pure instinct, barely contained by his fear of scaring his mate.

She nodded, but her eyes were low. Then the light shining from them seemed to magnify and suddenly tears were streaming out and sobs were shaking her entire tiny body. She pressed her wet face into his bare chest and he dropped his arms around her.

“Darce,” he gasped. “My love, I’m so sorry.”

“You scared me!” Her tiny palms were clutching at his shirt, hanging open and limp from the night before. The wound that had barely scabbed over burst open again. He was still the boogie monster in Darcy’s life.

No better than the alpha that had sat across from her last night, refusing to look at her. Luca wasn’t stupid, nor did he have any issue picking up behavioural cues, but it wasn’t enough. Alpha Nico was known to be introverted and socially stunted, her behaviour at the dinner table had been nothing new to anyone that knew her. But Darcy had confided in him. And as much as Luca was running out of ideas to approach the problem, of course he still believed her.

“It scared me, too,” he said softly. He still felt dazed. “I’m sorry, babe.”

“What was that?” Darcy managed to ask through her sniffles.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “But you know when you’re in a dream and you just know something is true, even if it makes no sense?”

Darcy nodded. Her lashes were still wet, but Luca fought the urge to swipe them with his thumbs.

“I knew if you left, I was going to lose all control. I felt like my wolf form was trying to push through my skin. Like my fur was prickling just beneath the surface.”

“Why if I left?”

“Because the thought of you out there-” Luca barely suppressed the ripple of rage that came with the memory. “-alone in the dark… it was setting off all these alarm bells inside of me.” A feeling, no, an understanding, that if she left he was going to hurt someone. Anyone close enough to be seen would be a target. Anyone who walked into his eye-line would be in danger. And once again he would become the monster that Darcy was afraid of. “I don’t normally get those kind of instinctual warnings unless I’m sensing some kind of danger,” he added. “Like, if I see a rogue wolf getting too close to our lands or something.”

And never that intense. Never to a point where his wolf was trying to shift out without his permission.