I Will Walk With You

I sat and wait for Frankie to come back out. My mind is rushing with the events of today. I met my mate, her uncle is my Alpha, I yelled at him but I also stood up for her. I can't believe I didn't get scared and run away.

I've never been brave enough to stand up to anyone until today. I just hope nobody knows why I did it, especially Eli. He'll kill me for sure if he finds out I'm Frankie's mate and I didn't tell her. I would love to tell her honestly, I'm just afraid she'll hate me. She’ll hate me like every other person I’ve ever met.

I want to make her as happy as I can without her knowing I'm her mate. I can love her from a distance, right? It's not about how happy I am anymore; it's about how happy I can make her. I don’t even matter in this equation, at least not right now. Everything is about her.

"Are you ready?" She asked as she walked down the steps of the porch. I nodded my head and rolled in her direction. "We're going to walk the trail." She pointed to a clearing in the woods. At first everything was quiet, she didn't speak and nor did I.

"How did you end up here, Devlin?" She asked finally. "Why didn't you stay with your family, where you're safe?" I fought the urge to look at her and focused my eyes on the trail.

"I wasn't safe with them," I said. "I had so many people who hated me for no apparent reason. After what my sister did yesterday, I would probably be dead by now." I sighed.

"Is your sister like my brother or something?" She asked curiously.

"Not at all." I said. "Leah's sweet and very protective of me. She tried to fight anyone who so much as looked at me for half a second too long. While she was trying to make sure I was safe, she completely neglected her mate, Mark. He really loves her and he doesn't deserve to be put on the back-burner for me." Frankie sighed.

"I can’t wait until I find my mate," She said. "Since my parents died, Eli has been the only one there. He's been the one protecting me and taking care of me. Everyone thinks that just because I'm small I can’t take care of myself. I'm bigger in my wolf form but that doesn’t change anything because I have asthma and can’t run long distances."

"At least you can shift," I said. "I don’t get to enjoy any of the things werewolves do. I'm not strong, I can’t run, I can’t even protect myself or anybody else." She looked over at me. I didn’t look back; I just kept my head low and my eyes to the front.

"You protected me." She whispered. My chair came to a stop. I know what Sam was talking about when she said use my words to defend. I did stand up to Eli and I defended my mate. Still though, I only protected her from her uncle, not someone who will try to hurt her.

"Why did you do that?" She asked quietly. "You know he could have thrown you out or seriously hurt you." I shrugged my shoulders.

"I don’t care about any of that," I admitted. "I don’t think I can be hurt any worse than I've been in the past. The best thing he can possibly do is kill me and put me out of my misery." We started to move again after that.

"You can be happy, you know." She said surely. "You just have to stop letting your disability get in the way of being happy and falling in love." I made a sound of disagreement and she looked at me. "You don’t think so?" She asked.

"I don’t think any woman in their right mind would want to commit themselves to me." I said honestly. I saw the confused look on her face from the corner of my eye. Why does she have to be so tiny and perfectly made for me? Why can’t she be tall and not right? I guess if it were that way, she wouldn’t be my mate.

"Why?" She asked. "What’s wrong with you?" I almost looked at her but I stopped myself.

"Did you not notice the giant wheelchair?" I asked seriously.

"Actually I didn’t," She said. "I noticed the sweet, loving, and completely adorable man who sits in it. I don’t see a disabled person, I see a strong individual who is blinded by others thoughts and words. Just because someone calls you disabled doesn’t mean you are. I have severe asthma but I try not to think about it. You just have to find it in yourself to be the man that I know you are."

In my head, I'm debating on whether I should tell her she's my mate now. From the way she's talking, she would love me no matter what. What if she's just speaking in for others? She might not think the same if she knew I was her mate. My phone started to ring moments later. I pulled it out of my pocket and looked at the number.

"Leah." I said aloud right before I answered.

"Devlin, where are you?" I heard my mother’s voice say. It completely shocked me, why is she calling from Leah's phone? "Are you safe? You’re not living on the streets are you? Why haven’t you called me? I've been worried sick!"

"Mom, calm down." I said rolling my eyes. "I'm ok. I'm alive and not living on the streets."

"Tell me where you are right now!" She demanded.

"No." I said blankly.

"What?" She asked sounding baffled.

"I'm not telling you where I am," I replied. "If I tell you, you'll come looking for me. You'll find me, and you'll drag me back home. I don’t want you to find me because I don’t want to come home. I'm fine where I am." I heard her crying into the phone.

"Why are you doing this to me?" She asked. "You know I can’t live without my children, I need you to come home Devlin."

"Mom, for once, can you please just let me live my life?" I asked. "I may be in a wheelchair but that doesn’t mean I need to be smothered with care. You can’t take care of me forever, one day you'll be too old and I won’t know how to care for myself because you wouldn’t let me. I want to live and now I have something to live for." The something I was speaking of is actually a someone.

I now live for Frankie. Even if we aren’t together, I will live for the seconds I get to spend with her. I'll live just to hear her voice or smell her sweet perfume. She's going to be what I wake up for in the mornings, the reason I come out of my room, she's my reason for living. I never thought it would be this way but it is, I can’t change it, I can only embrace it while I can.

"Your father said you would be like this." She said sadly. "I'm happy though, Devlin. I'm glad you want to be independent and responsible and I'm even happier that you've found your reason to live. I hope she's everything you want her to be." I heard the phone quickly switch hands and Leah was on the line.

"Sorry," She mumbled. "Dad took her phone and she sort of bombarded my room and stole mine." I laughed at that.

"That's so mom." I said still laughing.

"I know right," She said laughing also. "But on to the bigger thing at hand. Who's this "she" mom mentioned? Did you find your mate?” She sounds extremely excited. "Did you tell her yet?"

I looked over at Frankie. She stood next to me watching a few birds nesting in a nearby tree. "Yes, Leah, and no I haven’t." She huffed into the phone.

"Why the hell not?" She asked angrily.

"You know why." I said lowly. "We’ve talked about this numerous times."

"Tell her!" She demanded. "If you don’t, you'll only make it bad for yourself in the end."

"The ending is going to be bad anyway so it doesn’t matter." I retorted. "But I can’t talk now, can I call you later?" She sighed into the phone.

"Sure, whatever." She said. "But you better call me!" I laughed and hung up.

"Sorry about that," I said. "It was my mom and my sister." She shrugged.

"That’s ok." She said swinging her arms playfully. "I think it’s cool that you and your sister are so close. Kevin and I used to be close but he's changed a lot over the years. He used to be my favorite person in the world but now he's like my worst enemy."

"What happened?" I asked. She sighed.

"Our parents died." She said. "After that, he slowly became a cruel and evil person. He doesn’t care about anything but himself. His friends are just like him, they’re all monsters." I know a few monsters also. I don’t know if her brother is worse than they were but I hope I never find out.

"Eli better do something about him soon, it’s been seven years and he's only getting worse." We let the conversation go and stayed silent as we continued down the length of the trail.

"What are you in school for?" I asked breaking the silence after a few minutes. I heard her sigh happily.

"Well Eli wants me to go into medical school but I have other plans." She laughed. "I want to do what I do best, cook and design. I want to open up my own restaurant and be an interior decorator. I figured if I'm going to be in college I may as well do something I love. What are you in for?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don’t know," I said. "I haven’t picked a major yet. I've never really been able to do much so I don’t really know what I like. I was home-schooled and I go to college online. I've never really been anywhere exciting or found a career that suits me."

"You could transfer to my school," She suggested. "Then we could help each other with assignments. I have to warn you, I suck at math."

"I'm good with numbers but I get bored thinking about history." I laughed. She gasped.

"History is not boring!" She said defensively. I can hear the laughter in her voice and it made me smile extremely hard. It’s easy to talk to her, she's not judgmental and she doesn’t see me as a disabled person.

"If you say so." I laughed. We came to a clearing in the woods, there is a stone altar in the middle and the ground is covered in flowers of different colors. “This is really nice." I said as I looked around. It would be the perfect place for a date. If you added a few candles, some nice food, and romantic music, this would be perfect.

"I know," She said smiling. "The flowers just naturally grow in this one spot. No one is really sure why. There aren’t any other places like this in these woods. We all enjoy it though, it’s a frequent place for weddings and our book club meets here sometimes."

She stepped closer to me; I could smell the fruity scent of her perfume. "I want to get married here." She whispered. "My parents got married here and I want to do the same." She sighed. "I just hope I don’t get mated to some asshole like Kevin. I want to live a happy life with someone who understands me. Someone who can look past my tiny size and my asthma and see the person I really am."

Guilt struck me like a bolt of lightning. People basically treat her the way I was treated. They look at her asthma as a disability. For her, it’s just like being in a wheelchair. Someone will always think you can’t do something just because you’re not like the rest of your kind.

"I'm sure whoever you end up with will love you." I said. Hopefully she'll just move on from trying to find her mate and just settle for a guy who can make her semi happy.

"I hope so." She sighed and sat down on a nearby bench. I watched the way she tapped her nails on the wood, I noticed the way she bounces her feet like she's dancing to an unheard beat. I was awestruck when I saw the way the setting sun made her skin appear golden.

"So, what do you have planned for tomorrow?" She asked. I froze up a bit. Does she want to hang out with me tomorrow or is she just asking to be nice.

"Um, I'm not sure," I said. "Why do you ask?" I saw her cheeks turn red out of the corner of my eye.

"Sam, Alex, Vanessa and I always go to the movies on Friday," She said. "It’s the last Friday before everyone goes back to school so we were going to go shopping and stuff also."

"I don’t really have much money to shop," I admitted. "I only have the little bit that I left home with." She shrugged her shoulders.

"That’s ok," She said. "Eli gave everyone a credit card." She stuck her hand in her shirt and pulled out a card. God why does she have to be one of those women who keep everything hidden in their bra? What happened to women using purses or putting it in their pockets like us men do?

"He told me to give it to you when I went to change." I took the card out of her hand and looked at the name on it. Eli W. Dunson. "He'll get you one with your name on it soon. This one is just temporary." I nodded my head as she spoke, I'll have to remember to thank Eli later.

"What are you guys going to see?" I asked curiously still looking at the card.

"Have you read the book Sensual Meets Sinister?" She asked. I think I may have scanned through it a time or two. The girl, Sensual goes to college and meets her "vampire" mates who are twins. She ends up getting pregnant and kicking the shit out of a pack of ugly wolves without even touching them. That's definitely a story to remember.

"I've read it," I admitted. "It was a good book; hopefully the writer can get the sequel out soon." She laughed sarcastically.

"That book was better than good, it was freaking epic!" She said seriously. "But anyway, the movie is premiering tomorrow night and we've all been waiting for it. I would really love it if you would come with us. We could use another guy in the group, being surrounded by females constantly isn’t that easy." I laughed at that.

"If you really want me to come, I'll come." I said. Frankie bounced in her seat and clapped her hands. Her happiness made my heard flutter and my blood pumped hot. It made remember the first segment of last night’s dream. I can only dream of the moment when I have her wrapped in my arms and making her laugh.

I can only dream of the first time I kiss her or tell her that I love her. I can only dream of the day that I can call her mine and only mine. I can only dream because I can’t let any of those things happen. I want her to live a happy life with someone who can give her what she needs.

"We're leaving for the mall around ten." She said cheerfully. "I'll make breakfast in the morning for our little group; the rest can fend for themselves. Would you like me to wake you when breakfast is ready?"

"Sure." I said smiling. It’s so hard to be the emotionless person I was around her. My walls crumble the moment she asks me something. I just wish I could see her face. I'm just terrified that she won’t accept me so to save my heart and hers, I can’t look at her. I'll never be able to see her eyes.

My chest started to ache from the pain of my thoughts. If my lazy ass wolf were here, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way. Maybe I would know if she wanted to be with me and if she would accept me but the worthless bastard chooses to watch me suffer.

"What’s on your mind?" She asked quietly. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head at the same time causing her to giggle cutely. "Come on," She nudged me and I had to hold back a gasp from the moment of electrical pleasure. "You can talk to me." I sighed and shifted in my seat.

"Does your wolf talk to you?" I asked lowly. She groaned.

"Yes, and she talks entirely too much." She paused for a moment. "Why do you ask?"

"Mine doesn’t do anything." I said sadly. "He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t make me lose control, and all he does is sit in my head and not say anything." She didn’t say anything for a moment.

"Maybe you’re just not giving him enough power," She said. "I can see you’re not happy Devlin, you compared your chair to prisons for God’s sake. Maybe if you find something or someone to make you happy he'll make himself known." I've already found what makes me happy, it’s her.

"What makes you happy?" I asked just wanting to get in her head a bit. She sighed and rested her back against the bench. Her feet barely scraped the flowers growing underneath her.

"It used to be cooking and design but oddly that changed today." She said sounding a bit confused. "Today I found something that makes me happier than what I love most and I don’t even know why." Now I am confused.

"What is that?" I asked a bit hesitantly. She looked at me and said with a serious tone.

"You." My breath escaped my lungs in a matter of seconds. I didn’t have a clue what to say not that my mouth would let me anyway. When I didn’t say anything her heart started to pound. "Oh God, I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have said that." She hid her face in her hands in regret.

"You make me happy too." I said finally. It felt good to be able to tell her that much. Relief washed over me when she looked back up.

"Really?" She asked hopefully. I nodded my head and smiled. "Is it not strange?"

"What?" I asked curiously.

"It may just be me but I feel a like you’re extremely special to me. Something tells me that I cant live without you but I don’t know why." She admitted. My heart started to flutter. I lifted my head to look at her eyes but stopped when she continued. "You’re like the best friend I've always wanted." I felt my heart crack a bit; I just got the best friend card.

I've heard people say that it hurts to get branded as best friend when you’re hoping for something more. I never thought it could hurt this damn bad. "Are you ready to get back?" She asked. "You look really tired." I nodded my head and we made our way silently back to the house.

Everyone had finished cleaning up and had gone inside. We slowly entered the back of the house and went to the stairs. "Well I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow." I said when I got to my room. She nodded her head.

"Goodnight Devlin." She said as she leaned in close to me. I quickly closed my eyes and waited for whatever she was going to do to be done. I felt her run her hand across my cheek. "Thank you for talking to me tonight, I really needed it." She pecked the side of my mouth and I gripped at the wheels of my chair to keep from grabbing her and kissing her like her lips are oxygen.

"Goodnight, Frankie." I managed to choke out. She turned and skipped to the end of the hallway. Her room is seven doors down from mine. I stayed in the hallway watching her until she disappeared into her domain.

If I'm best friend why does she keep kissing me? I ran through about a dozen reasons and none of them seemed to fit. When I got into my room, I stripped out of the long shirt I wore. I looked down at my chest and sighed. There is a terrible scar that a blind man could see. It stretches across my chest and down my stomach. It’s not like Cory was trying to draw anything in particular, he just wanted to ruin my already fucked up body.

His friends had taken turns burning my arms with cigarettes and hot pieces of metal. My legs look like I was assaulted with razorblades. I have long deep cuts that run up and across my legs like disgusting veins. The scars are pink and extremely noticeable; they did my back the same way. I've been wearing long sleeves for a year and a half, every day, no matter what.

I threw the shirt in the floor angrily. How did I let them do that to me? I may be in a wheel chair but to be honest, I didn’t really fight back much. At the time I guess I thought I deserved it for being a disgrace to the werewolf kind. Now I look at them and know I could have done better. I could have screamed louder or resisted harder, I could have done something to stop it even if it was telling my old Alpha.

I'm starting to realize that I helped them weaken me. I made myself an easy target because I let my chair get the best of me. I made myself a handicap, this chair didn’t. Now the problem is that I don’t know how to fix myself or even where to begin.

I'm too afraid of rejection to even tell Frankie what she deserves to know. I know if she ever finds out she'll hate me for sure. I kept her from the one thing she truly wants which is me. That is if she isn’t completely relieved that I didn’t tell her. Fuck, maybe I should be taking those anti-depressants. I'm going to need them to numb all emotion so I don’t accidentally say or do something I'll regret.

I ditched my chair and changed into a pair of pajama pants and pulled myself to the bed. I lay there in the dark trying to go to sleep but I couldn’t get Frankie out of my head. I lay there for hours and when I looked at the clock it was already after two in the morning. I groaned and rolled onto my side. After counting what seemed like a million more sheep, I finally fell asleep.

I woke up to a light tapping on my door; I looked over at the clock. Its nine thirty, Frankie is at my door. The excitement of seeing her again got the best of me as I moved too quickly to get out of bed. My hand slipped off of the mattress and I landed face first on the floor with a loud thud. I could hear Frankie outside the door.

"Devlin are you ok?" She yelled urgently as she pounded on the door. I bit back the pain and pulled myself towards my chair.

"I'm fine!" I yelled back. "Just getting a shirt on!" I could have sworn I heard her mumble something about me leaving it off, but maybe that’s just what my mind was hoping she had said. I wouldn’t have done it anyway but the thought made me tingle.

When I had gotten myself covered enough, I opened the door. Frankie stood in front of me wearing an electric blue sun dress and a pair of white sandals. She has blue and white bangles and her hair is pulled back into a messy yet elegant bun. She looks absolutely beautiful standing in front of me. I stared at her with my mouth hanging open.

"Hey." She said breathlessly.

"Hey." I whispered back as my eyes involuntarily raked over her body. The skin of her chest and arms are silky as the smoothest cream and the perfume she is wearing makes me want to taste the sweet skin of her neck. I'm definitely going to have to numb myself for today.

"Is the dress too much?" She asked as she looked over herself. I shook my head.

"You look great actually." I said honestly. She did a little curtsy.

"Thank you," She said smiling. "Do you want to eat first then get ready or get ready first?" I shrugged my shoulder.

"I can get ready now to save time." I said. She quickly stepped into my room. Her body brushed against the side of mine and I froze up. I took a deep breath and waited for the feeling to pass.

"Could I wait here?" She asked. "Kevin's downstairs and I don’t feel like dealing with his crap when I'm having a good day." My heart started to pound, she wants to wait for me while I get dressed.

"Be my guest," I said. "I just need to take my medicine and change." I rolled over to the dresser where I left my medicine bag. I took out my four usual medicines and dry swallowed the pills. I've been doing it so long it doesn’t even bother me anymore. I grabbed the bottle of anti-depressants and stared at them for a long moment.

I finally opened the bottle and quickly popped the two tiny blue pills in my hand. In about twenty minutes I won’t give a shit about anything going on around me. I'm being completely mellow and numb to everything. When I turned around, Frankie stood in front of me with a set of my clothes in her hands.

She had grabbed the exact outfit I was planning on wearing anyway. "I think this green shirt goes nicely with your hair color." I closed my eyes and shuttered slightly as she ran her fingers gently through my shaggy ear length hair. She settled her hand on my cheek and sighed sadly before removing it. I whined to myself at the loss of her touch.

I moved my chair to the center of the room. Frankie watched my every move like a cat watches its prey. "Could you, um, turn around for a minute?" I asked as my cheeks turned red.

She quickly turned around and pretended to look at something on the dresser. I slipped off the shirt I had thrown on and quickly pulled myself out of my chair and onto the floor. I blushed profusely as I slipped out of my pants and sat in the floor with only my boxers on.

I looked around for the pants and saw them in front of Frankie on the dresser. I cursed under my breath, how in the hell am I going to get hose without saying anything to her. I can’t just grab another pair out of the closet because she's standing to the right of it. "Could you um, toss me those pants?" I asked quietly.

She froze up for a moment but grabbed the pants off of the dresser. She tossed them over her shoulder and landed at my feet. "Thank you." I said shyly.

"Y-You’re welcome." She stuttered. Why is she stuttering? I could tell she was a bit nervous when she got here but I never thought she could be this nervous. I got the pants on in record time. I slipped my shoes on and climbed back into my chair. I watched as Frankie played with her hair nervously.

"Done." I said finally. She turned around and looked me over more than a time or two.

"You look so handsome." She whispered with honesty clear in her voice. She took a step towards me. "Just let me-" She cut off her words and replaced them with actions. She started by smoothing my shirt out over my shoulders and chest. She froze when she felt my scars from beneath my shirt but she ignored it and continued.

She tousled her fingers through my hair and laughed when she couldn’t fix my cowlick. "Your hair does the most adorable things." She said when she finished. I rolled my eyes.

"It’s irritating," I stated. "I'm praying for a haircut." She shook her head.

"Long hair is sexy," She said quietly. "I think you should keep it."

"Ok." I said. That’s about all I could think to say. Frankie seems to be flirting with me. I don’t know if she knows she's doing it or not but I like it, a lot. I keep wondering by the way she's acting if she knows we're mates and she's just choosing to not say anything.

We finally headed down for breakfast. On the way, a few guys stopped me and told me how "badass" it was for me to stand up to Eli like I did and that they'd hang with me any day.

When we got to the kitchen, everyone was there already eating. "It’s about time!" Sam said. She looked at us mischievously. "Are you two in love?" She asked playfully. My face turned blood red and Frankie started to stutter.

"N-no," She said hesitantly. "Devlin and I are friends, right Devlin?"

"Uh- yea, sure." I wanted to smack myself for not sounding believable. Sam looked at me with a raised brow before picking up her fork and digging into her purple eggs.

"Hey man, I got some new music in, maybe you could stop by later and check it out." Vanessa huffed.

"Alex, did you forget about that "thing" we're supposed to be doing later." She asked leaning into him seductively. He smirked at her.

"I couldn’t possibly forget about that." He said wiggling her eyebrows at her. "But I think we should get to know Devlin a little. I mean he is our newest pack member, I think today should be about showing him a good time." Vanessa huffed again but agreed.

"He could use a good time." Sam said truthfully. "We need to loosen him up a bit." I actually agree with her. I could loosen up a bit. I'll be loose as hell now that these anti-depressants have kicked in. I took twice my regular dose, I hate the feeling of being on them but I need it.

We finally sat down and ate breakfast. Frankie had taken the time to make all of the pancakes shaped like hearts; she cooked bacon, purple eggs, raspberry muffins, and homemade biscuits. It is completely utterly delicious. Frankie cooks better than my mom and grandmother put together.

"Why is everything you make is so perfectly good?" I asked turning my head in her direction but not looking at her fully. She giggled and covered her mouth so she could swallow.

"I try to put feeling into everything I cook." She said. "When I come in the kitchen, I make sure I feel good that way my food tastes good. I'm not sure if it makes sense but if I cook when I'm angry, my food tastes like something you wouldn’t feed a dog." I laughed and finished off the food on my plate.

"Is everyone ready?" Vanessa asked as she grabbed her key. We all nodded and headed out the door. Frankie made sure she stayed close to me as we walked out to the car. Every few seconds or so, a part of her body would brush against mine and I would lose my breath. Maybe these pills make me numb to ever emotion but love.