Golden Chaos: A Reverse Harem Shifter Goldilocks Retelling (Three Bears Book 2) by Colette Rhodes

Author:Colette Rhodes [Rhodes, Colette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

I wanted to ram my stupid dysfunctional head through a wall.

“You did great today, Noah,” Francisca said kindly.

I scoffed at the old wolf shifter’s words as I hovered awkwardly by her front door, ready to bolt.

“None of that,” she scolded. “Nothing about this process is easy. Just walking through that door today took courage. Do not dismiss that achievement. Do you remember your goal for this week?”

“Identifying emotions,” I replied gruffly, feeling like a little kid in the face of this much older, wiser woman.

Emotion one: Shame.

Shame that I was asking for help. Shame that I needed it.

“This is not a smooth journey, Noah,” Francisca said sympathetically, patting me on the arm. “You’ve taken the first and hardest step, though. I’ll see you again next week.”

I nodded silently, walking out of her small home at the edge of wolf pack territory and into the forest. Francisca was an unusual woman. She was a wolf shifter born with clairsentient abilities, naturally able to feel others’ emotional states and understand a lot of their past and present without having to ask. That had made her unpopular with packs who feared her ability, so she’d lived as a human most of her life and trained as a psychologist until she settled with this pack.

She was uniquely qualified to help shifters, as Lacey had been gently reminding me for years.

I’d always dismissed the idea in the past. Therapy was for those who were too weak to deal with their problems, or so I’d assumed. The act of seeking help was an admission of weakness, and I didn’t have time to be weak when my family needed me to stay strong.

Until now.

When I’d first arrived home, leaving my brothers and Aurelia behind, I’d realized that for the first time, I had no one depending on me. Not only that, I’d walked away from something — someone — that actually hurt me to lose, because I couldn’t get my fucking head straight.

Mom had no interest in talking about the past, especially not the fire, and I’d arrived at the reluctant conclusion that I needed to talk to someone else. Someone who knew what they were doing. Maybe that way I wouldn’t have to live with the nightmares that had kept me up at night for twenty years, or the panic I was constantly swallowing down so I wouldn’t burden my brothers.

As I stomped back through the woods with my head pounding and my entire body drained like I’d just run a fucking marathon, I decided that all my preconceptions had been completely wrong. Therapy was fucking hard. I didn’t think anything in my life had required more strength than admitting I couldn’t fix this on my own.

Did I actually feel better, though? I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was too soon to tell. There had been something… freeing about focusing on myself instead of my brothers and how they were feeling, or whatever minor issue had incensed my mother that day.

At the same time, I felt like a flaming pile of garbage.

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