Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.

Washington Irving

"You bit a human?"

That snapped the carefully maintained control he had tried to keep for the last few hours. Ever since he had left Daphne's side he had been off-kilter. He didn't want to leave her alone. He had no wish for that. But she needed time. Time to come to a decision without him lurking around and he could give her that.

Or so he had thought.

He had tried to keep calm when the pack came together for the meeting but the exclamation of Joseph Newton, one of the older members of the pack...that broke something inside him wide, wide open.

"If I didn't, then she would be dead!" He roared, his father laying a hand on his should trying to hold him back as tremors ran through him.

He needed to force the wolf back down in a way he didn't need to do often at all, forcibly calming the waves of tremors wrecking through him.

He remembered Daphne's red blood on the white snowy ground, remembered the white of her bone sticking out of her leg, the way her breathing had been harsh and punctuated with whimpers.

"My son did what he had to save his mate. Did you expect him to do something else?" His father asked icily. "Did you expect him to let his mate die in front of him from injuries that a bite would heal?"

She had been in so much pain. She wouldn't have survived it if he wouldn't have bitten her.

And that...that was just not acceptable.

She should have a long and happy life, be able to get married and have children and...and he could just hope that he would be the husband and father to theses eventual cubs that she would give birth to.

"No," Newton shook his head. "He did what he to. It should never have come to this, however."

There Luke was in total agreement.

"What did you do Kyle Wilder?" Another member of the pack piped up.

"It's an interesting conundrum. He as human hurt another human, but he also interfered with a mate bond," Newton commented. "And the mate of the future alpha at that."

"I took care of it," his father said calmly. "He will attend a military academy in Washington State. Maybe they will straighten him out."

That's all?

Luke wanted revenge. Luke wanted to taste Kyle's blood, wanted to put the fear of God into him and to rip him apart. He had hurt Luke's mate. He deserved to suffer.

"That's all?" Kiana asked unbelievingly and Luke balled his hands into fists. Oh, how he would love to...

"I have learned that while revenge tastes good for a while, it's the protection of our families that's the most ." His father gained murmurs of agreements with that. "He will never set a foot into our territory again. If he does...he will it."

"Other packs could see this as weakness," Andrew, Luke's uncle cautioned his father softly but Stephen Schuyler just snorted.

"He's a 17-year-old boy. Yes, he nearly beat a girl half to death that's around half his size, but he is still a boy. I am willing to give him one more chance to straighten out. If he doesn't...I will deal with it."

"Prosecuting him is out. We can't deal with it the human way. Not without trying to explain how Luke found her and why she didn't go to a hospital and a whole lot of other issues," Sebastian threw in gently as well.

"If he doesn't...then we will deal with him," his father vowed quietly. "He won't come near her again."

Ever. Not if Luke had a single word to say about it. Kyle would never come near Daphne again.

"And what does she want?" Kiana asked, crossing her arms. "She's the hurt party. Shouldn't she have a say in that? He hurt a member of our pack. He beat her half to death. He broke her bones, he made it needed that Luke bit her. What does she ?"

What did Daphne want? To be honest...Luke had no idea. She seemed to want peace and quiet most of all, being so very shy and calm all the time. Now he knew why.

Her mother had probably beat her up if she was anything less than silence.

"She wants a family. That's the only thing she wants," Caroline said softly, her eyes shining.

"We can provide her with that," Luke's father said, a simple promise. The rest of the room murmuring her agreement.

"Congratulations, Lucas. May she be everything you need her to be," Joseph Newton told him calmly and he met the older man's eyes.

"She will be," he said with conviction.

She would be glorious.

If she ever gave him a chance.

***

Daphne had gone back to her room, her legs protesting but she hadn't cared. Ollie had lugged the mattress back to her bed and she curled on the bed, unable not to reach out to touch the black wolf that was painted on her wall just within her reach.

She had painted him on her wall. He was there.

Daphne buried her face in her pillow pulling the blankets tight around herself.

This wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Werewolves couldn't be real. They were a figment of her imagination, goodness knew she had a lot of it.

This was all a dream. It was a dream. She would just go to sleep and then it would be alright again.

She did go to sleep.

And then she woke up.

Her body felt like it was on fire.

It burned and burned and burned in her chest.

Everything was loud. Too loud. She couldn't make out the noises, she didn't know what it was. It was loud and it was scary and She hadn't heard it before, not so much at the

It was hundreds of noises all of them over each other

She could hear voices, too loud voices, the words so loud that she couldn't understand them when they echoed through her brain. It was painful and overwhelming and Daphne's breathing quickened as it continued to be thrown at her again and again and again.

Then there was the taste of the salad and mustard and beef on her tongue from the sandwiches she had eaten, just that the taste was so strong that it was unrecognisable. It burned in the back of her throat, just like it was burning in her chest, the pain flicking up through her throat.

And then suddenly there was a touch on her arm, just that it didn't feel like a touch. It felt like somebody was burning her with a hot pan and Daphne jerked her arm away, her eyes opening up and then it was another sense added to the cacophony of them bombarding her already.

It was too bright, too painful and her eyes slammed shut again when she tried to turn away from all the pain, trying to curl up in a ball and

"Daphne," her name echoed in her head and she whimpered in pain. So much pain.

"What is wrong with her?" Another voice asked, also echoing in her head and she shook her head, wanting to escape the pain.

It didn't help.

There was more talking, words that she couldn't understand and then suddenly...suddenly there was another noise, droning out the others. It helped.

"Concentrate on that. Just that," a voice whispered, a stab to her head but then it was quiet again.

And slowly the pain began to recede.

She opened her eyes, this time the curtains were drawn, to find her uncle crouching next to her bed.

"It's white noise," her uncle explained, his voice near silent.

"Everything Hurts," Daphne breathed out, her body protesting her communications and she closed her eyes again, another roman escaping her.

"I know it does," Matthew told her soothingly."Just keep listening to that."

"Your senses went into overdrive. It happens, when the change takes," he explained to her his voice quiet and sure. And still painful but less so."Your senses are going to stay sensitive for a little while longer while you adapt to them. They spiked, that's why you are in so much pain. Just keep on listening to this, it should level out in a few hours."

It didn't.

It felt like an eternity passed, the pain a constant in her body that nothing seemed to help about.

It was torture.

She would gladly have her mother have another go at her with a belt or one of her whiskey bottles...just please let this pain stop.

She couldn't move. Movement made it worse. It skyrocketed her sense of touch, the bedding suddenly scratching and hurting even when it was soft.

So she just laid there, rolled together as tightly as she could, hands clenched in the bedding and just wanting it all to stop.

Everything hurt.

"Daphne?" Her uncle asked her and she opened her eyes, the movement hurting her. "Is it any better?"

"Make it stop," she begged, her voice breaking when the pain began rising again. "Please."

"Oh honey, if I could I would," he told her softly. "Close your eyes again, I'll figure something out."

"What's wrong with her?" A voice asked, sounded worried, but Daphne was in too much pain to identify it. "Her senses should have levelled out by now, Matthew."

"I know."

***

On Monday morning school started again and he was hating every minute.

Luke was hanging on on a thin thread and everybody knew it. His father had thought that the normality would maybe calm his wolf but it managed to do the exact opposite.

His wolf thought that running around the Hyde's house and hunting some more rabbits would be a much better use of his time than to learn about the revolutionary war, and Luke happened to agree.

He would only be able to protect Daphne if he was near her. And not if he was sitting around at school useless.

Kyle#s absence had been explained away with him suddenly attending a military school in Washington State and Luke still wondered what his father had told Kyle's parents to get them to agree to that.

Somehow he didn't want to know.

Jacob White, a fellow junior took Kyle's place on the football team and while it was nice to know that the guy wouldn't push a knife in Luke's back when he wasn't looking...Luke still didn't enjoy training that afternoon very much. He tried to get his mind off Daphne, tried to get his head in the game and failed horribly.

"Dad asked you to come back home with us," Ollie told him softly when they were on the way to the cars and he stopped dead in his tracks. He pushed down the hope that wanted to bloom in his chest and turned to his friend, one eyebrow raised.

"Why?" He asked calmly, far more calmly than he felt. She wouldn't...he doubted that she had decided that she wanted him near her. It hadn't even been 24 hours until they had dropped their bombshell on her. And 24 hours was nothing as she needed to make an actual life-changing decision.

"Please, just come..." Ollie whispered, nearly pleading with him. "It's about Daphne. She isn't...the change isn't taking as it should be."

"What. Do. You. Mean?" Luke growled.

He had pushed enough saliva in her wounds that this shouldn't be a problem. He had seen her bloody wolf resurface, she had put her teeth in his damn shoulder. Her instincts had been primed.

There shouldn't be any kind of problem with that.

"Her senses are going haywire," Ollie admitted finally. "She didn't sleep at all last night. She's in constant pain and dad can't fix it."

She had been in pain for the better part of a day and nobody had him?

"Are you sure you should drive right now, Luke?" His sister asked him calmly and he shook himself out of the rage that wanted to build in his chest.

"No," he snapped, forcibly calming the shakes running through his body.

He knew why her senses were going haywire. And he was pretty sure that Matthew should have realised that before just now.

Her senses were reaching out and searching for him. And as Daphne never had any training at tracking anybody, her senses were stretched thin and it was overwhelming her. Which resulted in the pain she was feeling.

She was in pain. And he could fix it.

"Go," Grace told him. "I'll take the car."

That was the only thing he needed. He jogged in the direction of the forest, not even stopping to remove his clothing as he shifted. He could feel the ripping of the clothing but at that moment...he didn't care. At all.

Clothes could be either repaired or replaced. He never had lost control before like that, had never managed to break any clothing as Ollie had done more than a few times so Luke thought he was probably due.

And then he ran.

It took less than 10 minutes to reach the Hyde's House, probably helped by the sprint he had broken out in and he was only slightly surprised to see his mother stand on the back porch.

"Lucas," she said with a sigh, but he ignored that when suddenly he heard voice from the upper part of the house.

Her voice was near hysterical, pained and rough, the syllables forced out. "Don't, " she was begging now, her voice quieter but no less painful.

Her pained voice was like fire was poured through Luke's veins, and he saw red. He growled at his mother, something he had never in his life done before because in that one moment she was the one thing between him and his mate.

"Honey..." Caroline's voice was trying to soothe but was starved out by Daphne's screams.

Again Daphne now tipped into hysterical sobs and Luke's mother was smart enough to step aside as nearly 300 pounds of muscle mass forced it's way in the house, throwing himself up the stairs, ignoring anything and everything.

"Luke, ..." his father got out as he watched Luke reach the upper landing but he didn't try to reach for him.

A good thing. Luke didn't know how he would have reacted if his father would have tried to touch him right now.

And so when another one of Daphne's sobs broke through the door he pushed aside Matthew who was standing in the doorway and finally reached her bedroom.

Caroline was kneeling on the floor, a few feet away from where his mate had curled herself up in the corner of her room, as tiny as she could make herself, rocking back and forth in pain and terror.

And Luke had enough.

He growled once, telling Caroline to back off before he reached Daphne and placing his bulk right in front of her, shielding her from anybody but him.

Everybody would need to get around to get .

Another growl, glaring at Caroline, Matthew and his father, all of them now in the doorway.

"We'll be downstairs," his father said softly, shutting off Caroline as she tried to protest. "She needs her mate."

The door was closed, and Luke turned towards Daphne, still curled in the corner, blonde hair messily hanging around her face as her body was shaking with sobs.

He nuzzled her face, pressed his snout against her skin, feeling the soft and hot skin, softly whining.

She was upset, so upset. Her scent, the normally soft and sweet scent was drenched with pain and fear.

There was no enemy that Luke needed to fight with. Nothing that he could to make it all better, other than doing his damnest to comfort her. Comfort her even when she continued to sob, her head buried in her arms. He kept rubbing his snout over her head, trying to do the wolfish equivalent of a hug.

A part of his wanted to start licking her like a cub, wanted clean away the tears and drench her in his scent apart from the bitter scent of pain and fear she was currently feeling.

She didn't move. Until suddenly her hand was grasping the fur on the side of his head.

***

The pain stopped.

It receded fully, Daphne's senses suddenly scaling back until she felt...normal again.

It was exhilarating and overwhelming and she couldn't stop sobbing hysterically when finally, finally she wasn't in pain anymore.

She knew that Luke was there. She knew. The moment it had become quiet when his father had snapped "Luke, don't..." and then suddenly she had been shielded from everything and anybody, that huge wolf putting itself between her and the outside world.

Daphne wasn't scared. She should be. The last time she had been near him he had been drenched in rabbit blood and had a carcass in his mouth.

This time that same snout was pressing against her hair, a high whining sound escaping the wolf that made it sound more like a puppy and less like the small horse-sized wolf that it was.

The tears and sobs slowly subsided not before the wolf continued to gently nose along her head and she reached out with a shaking hand to touch its fur.

It was soft.

She pulled back slowly, not wanting to upset him but he didn't move.

Finally, she looked up at him, the wolf suddenly going from standing to letting itself fall down in front of her, his huge head bedded on both of his paws as he watched her with big yellow eyes.

She reached out again, touching his head, his tail thumping against the floor as she scratched him behind her ears.

"You are really big," she croaked out absentmindedly as she continued to touch him and he pressed against her hands, his tail continuing to thump against the floor.

"I don't...I don't know what I am supposed to do," she whispered. "I can't...I always just wanted a normal life," she admitted, tears again building into her eyes.

"You know...a house, a dog, 2.5 kids and a white picket fence. Something normal, something boring," Daphne admitted, letting herself slide down to the floor so that she was laying on her side facing him. Her body protested less that way. She kept scratching him behind his ears, his tail still wagging. "My own little family."

"I wasn't...I can't be what you want," she whispered, closing her eyes. "Why would you want me? If you can change a human, why didn't you just change Haley? She's so much prettier than I am." He reacted with a soft growl, and she pulled back her hand like she burned herself.

He stopped growling and looked at her nearly apologetic as he pushed his snout in her direction again.

She couldn't help but shiver when he moved his bulk to be closer to her, heat seemingly permeating her.

She wasn't scared. Which was the most stupid thing she probably could do. He could kill her in seconds, she would be absolutely no match for his strength.

Somehow Daphne knew he wouldn't do that though. He was keeping her safe.

"Will you stay?" She finally asked him when she could feel the bone-deep tiredness set in. "Please," she nearly begged. He looked at her and then he nodded and for the first time, she actually felt like Luke was somewhere in that wolf. She looked at him, moving around until she felt a position that wouldn't hurt her body even more than it already did and then finally laid her head again his shoulder. He pressed his snout against her hair for a moment, then laid his head down again, and Daphne buried her hand in his warm black fur and closed her eyes.

She was safe. Safe.

She finally slept.

***

She stayed curled up half on top of him and he was content to listen to her breathing and her heartbeat, even when her words played around in his head against and again.

Not pretty enough for him? Daphne was beautiful.