CHAPTER FIVE-BIG HEAVY DOORS

"So what happened to you?" Looking across the fire at Gretchen, Jason pulled his legs in close and wrapped his arms around them. More than anyone, maybe, he wanted to know what happened to Gretchen. Any news of her family brought him comfort.

Rolling her eyes away to the darkness, Gretchen pretended not to hear the gentle young man.

"Oh, the silent treatment. My wife's a champ at that shit." Rhett bit his lip and chuckled to himself. He loved his jokes and his wife was usually the topic. "You know, you're related to her kind of. To Jason here too. Jake's his brother in law."

"I know quite a bit about your family, you know." Jason trilled his lips then pointed at her. "Let's see, Logan only has one niece, so that makes you...Gretchen. You're called Gretchen, aren't you?"

Gretchen sighed and laid down on the ground with her head on her bag. "Right."

Damien looked over at her then took his cloak from the ground and handed it to Gretchen. Without even looking at him, Gretchen pushed it away. "Drop dead."

"Theres no need for all that," said Jason. "We're just trying to help you Gretchen."

Chuckling to herself for her seriously terrible luck, Gretchen crossed her feet and clasped her hands across her belly. "The three of you have been pretty much as far from fucking helpful as anyone has ever been in the history of being helpful. In fact, I didn't have a goddamn problem in the whole world until the three of you showed up in it."

Shrugging off her poor attitude, Jason put his chin on his knee and tried again. "So, again, how'd you get here?"

Looking up at the sky that covered them, Gretchen sighed and searched her mind. "I don't know, I don't have the faintest idea what happened to me."

"What's the last thing you remember?" asked Jason.

Gretchen shook her head and scrunched up her face.She was going to have to play whatever game these guys had going on right now or she'd never get to Tessa and Logan. "The last couple of weeks before I got here are kind of fuzzy. The last thing I remember for sure is my fiancé and I laying in bed watching a movie. That's it, that's all I remember."

Jason cringed at her words and looked back to Damien. The anger and hurt is his face were obvious and Jason got the feeling that none of this was going to work out right. She was already so angry that he feared she'd never listen to reason.

Bored of being left out of the conversation, Rhett interjected himself. "Was he a Lycan too?"

"Human," she said. "We were supposed to get married at Christmas. I guess I'll be a fucking no show to that blessed event. Assuming he didn't end up wherever the hell they go."

Damien clasped his hands in front of him and he dropped his forehead on top of them as he listened to her talk about the human. "Why'd you get involved with a human? Why didn't you wait for your mate?"

Gretchen laughed out loud and wiped the tears from her eyes. "Jesus, grow up Damien. Don't tell me you believe in all that nonsense. Mates! Get out of here with that."

Damien's hurt expression turned to disgust then he pushed himself up to stand. "Humans are fucking worthless. If he was worth his weight, you'd still be alive and with your family right now Gretchen."

Gretchen snickered a satisfied laugh as she bit her lip and looked up at him knowing she'd pissed him off. "Really? Well, where was my supernatural supermate? No fucking where. He didn't do a goddamn thing to save me. Go preach your old religion bullshit somewhere else Damien. I'm not interested."

Rhett drew down his brows and blew out through his mouth as he looked to Damien. He knew that had to hurt. Wiping his hand across his mouth, Damien fought the urge to argue with Gretchen. His shoulders heaved up and down and his nostrils flared, but he finally blinked away then walked over into the darkness beyond the pillars to pout.

Looking at Rhett as they shared the same annoyed expression, Jason said, "You should get some sleep Gretchen. We'll start off at first light."

Once Gretchen was asleep, Damien returned and sat down across from her. As he leaned back against the hard, cold stone pillar and watched Gretchen sleep with the glow of the fire lighting up her body, he thought back to his first home...the one he shared with his wife.

They made love by the fire every night for the short time they were married. It was Damien's favorite memory and he often wished he could go back in time and just lay down there with her one more time.

Damien wiped away the tears of his memories then took off his cloak and placed it over Gretchen. Life is very different now for Damien and he was going to protect Gretchen whether she wanted it or not. She could hate him forever if it pleased her, but Damien would never again fail the women in his life.

As the sun rose over the mountainside the next morning, Gretchen woke up to find herself covered in Damien's cloak and him sitting up sleeping with his head against a pillar before her.

With last night's anger all but forgotten, she looked in his face and admired him. His shaggy dark hair blew around in the morning breeze and it made another brief glimpse of a memory come back to her. When the breeze died down and his hair touched his collar, Gretchen noticed a bite mark on Damien's neck and her heart sank as she realized that he belonged to someone.

Gretchen shook away the confusing twinge of jealousy and got back to her plan to escape from her captors. She rubbed the tip of her thumb against her lips as she contemplated her options.

They'd have to let her have some privacy at some point, then she'd make a run for it. Or, maybe she'd luck out and another group of goblins would attack to distract them. As she played all the scenarios in her mind, she felt the weight of Damien's stare then looked up and locked eyes with him. He breathed heavily while he tried to connect with her mind. Gretchen shook her head and rolled her eyes away at his shabby attempts to control her.

Bending his arm over his knee, he tapped the first knuckle of his fist against his nose as he concentrated. "Those are both foolish ideas Gretchen. Why would you intentionally put yourself in danger when we're only trying to help you?"

Chewing on her lip in frustration over her spoiled plans, Gretchen felt the anger rebuilding. "So, not only do you use magic against me, you don't even give me enough goddamn respect to stay out of my mind. You're a real charmer, you know that?"

Damien rubbed his hands together as he looked at them. He didn't mean to keep making her angry but it was like everything he did set her off. "I can't help it Gretchen."

"Right," she said as she stood up and brushed off her pants.

Feeling the pangs of hunger gnawing at her, Damien rubbed at his own stomach. "You should eat something. You've barely eaten anything at all since you got to the realm."

Rummaging through her bag for something to tie her dirty hair back with, Gretchen glanced up and gave him her fathers arched brow. "Who the fuck are you, my mother? Get out of my head."

With her hair blowing in the morning breeze, the familiar scent of balsam washed over Damien and it made his heart flutter. "You can't keep this up forever. You're immortal here, but you still have to take care of yourself."

Gretchen grabbed the canteen that was packed in her bag and threw it at Damien and he ducked out of the way before it smashed against the wall beside him. "Leave me the hell alone! Just shut your filthy fucking mouth Damien!"

Stomping off past the ruins, Gretchen did her best to mask her cries. Once she was outside the structure, she leaned over and put her hands on her knees then just let the tears come freely.

Damien stood and took a step towards her then stopped and looked down at the ground as he decided what to do. The harder he tried to care for her, the more she resisted and he was confused about how to proceed.

"Damien, man, just leave her alone. She's not ready to hear anything you have to say," said Rhett as he scratched his head.

Seeing her crying hysterically tore at his heart and he just wanted to comfort her. "She's so angry with me. I didn't mean to do that."

"She needs her family," said Jason as he wiped the sleep away.

Slapping his hand against his chest, Damien shook his head. "She needs me."

"Not now, you're just going to make her hate you if you keep doing this," said Jason. "Just take her to her family. When she calms down, maybe it will all come to her."

Twisting his lips to the side as he looked up to Damien and nodded his head, Rhett agreed. "Besides, your father would never put up with that smart mouth of hers. He won't care who the fuck she is."

Damien bit his lip and tried to push away the pain rising in his chest. "Fine. You two head back. I'll get her to the city."

"Nah, man, leaving you two alone is like lighting a powder keg. We'll all go then you can mist us back," said Rhett as he walked to Daniel and slapped his back lightly.

When Gretchen finally calmed herself down, she walked to the brook beside the ruins and splashed her face then drank from her hands. She was angry with herself for letting the men see her cry like that, not a very alpha like thing to do.

She planned to detach from them as much as possible for the rest of the trip. Gretchen didn't want any more confrontations, she just wanted to see her family. Whatever she had to do to make that happen was all she cared about.

Gretchen thought about ways to block Damien from her mind. She hadn't paid much attention to magic lessons, but she remembered what her grandfather Haldir taught her. Big heavy doors. When he used to read her mind when she was a little girl, he told her to think of big heavy doors to try to stop him.

In the daylight, everything looked different. Damien chose a shorter path North, not bothering to tell Gretchen about the change of plans. She was trying so hard to push him out of her mind that she didn't notice where they were going, she just followed behind them.

Glancing back over his shoulder at Gretchen, Damien smiled at her efforts to stop him. "Who taught you that? Doors. That's quite tricky for a werewolf."

When Gretchen refused to answer Damien, Rhett chuckled to himself. "Back to the silent treatment."

Gretchen walked with her arms crossed and her finger against her lips as she concentrated on the feet in front of her. She didn't mean for him to come to her mind.

Seeing his dear family friend talking to her as a little girl in her mind, Damien's head snapped back to her again. "Haldir? It was Haldir. How do you know him?"

Gretchen didn't answer. Every door she put up against Damien, he kept finding a way to open, and every time he opened one, Gretchen got a flash of her memory back for a split second. The violent visions were throwing her off balance and the hate for Damien was growing with each glimpse she got.

"Haldir's her grandfather," said Jason.

Slowing up to walk beside her, Damien thought he may have finally found a common ground to build from. "Really? Haldir's is a close friend of my family's. I have a lot of stories I could tell you about him."

"I think we all have a Haldir story," said Rhett as he tossed the stick he was walking with out into the woods. "I wonder if he still has that axe I gave him. I really loved that damn axe."

Damien shook his head as he looked down at Gretchen. "That's unbelievable really. I've known Haldir my entire life, I never knew, I can't believe he never told me about you, Gretchen."

As she continued to ignore him, Damien sighed and curled his lips under as he looked away. "You can't stop me with a door, no matter how big it is Gretchen. You can keep trying, but there's nothing you can do to hide your mind from me."