Beating Heart

//you can not save people, you can only love them//


//Harry//

The crisp air carried her scent straight to me - such a wondrous creature she is. A smile began to form on my lips as I pushed past the brush at the edge of the tree line. I could feel her intense stare despite the distance we shared. As if on cue, Julianne jumped up from her chair and darted towards me. My heart is pounding and beating against my chest, it’s been ages since I’ve wrapped my arms around my sweet girl. Fifteen or so minutes ago we shared such a beautiful moment - her fingers tugging at my fur and her heart thumping violently in her chest as she put her arms around me the best she could. It was purely wonderful - I was hesitant at first, with letting her see me like that and get so close, but I no longer regret it.

I extend my arms out as she runs towards me, no sign of stopping until she reaches me. The smile spread across her face is so gorgeous to me, she’s so happy to have me back and it’s purely beautiful. I love her so much, she doesn’t even realize it I bet.

Before I could even realize anything else, her arms flew around my neck and my feet tripped over each other - knocking us to the ground. She squeals, either from happiness or the shock of hitting the ground. My arms tightly lock around her back, keeping her pressed against me. Julianne’s hand finds my face and she cups it, leaning up so she could see me.

“I missed you.” She whispers softly to me, her forehead grazing mine. “I missed you.” I speak back and her eyes light up at the sound of my voice. She falls closer, her lips dancing on my cheek and over my scar - the thing she doesn’t seem to mind at all. Just to think that I hid for so long because I feared she would find it disgusting really makes me want to slap myself sometimes. “I don’t wanna smother you.” Julianne sighs out as she goes to sit up, but I stop her. “Nonsense, baby.” I press my hands into the small of her back, keeping her pressed against me.

“I didn’t frighten you earlier, did I?” I question, already knowing the answer to it though. I just want her to say it so I know for sure, I need some clarification. “Of course not.” She shakes her head lightly at me, rolling those pretty eyes. “You’re quite amazing, Harry.” She adds in, her lips pecking my cheek a few times. “Mmm, you’re amazing, love.” I bury my face in the side of her neck - the same side I marked days ago. “Don’t ever leave me again.” Julianne demands as her other hand finds its way to the back of my head - her small fingers tangling into my hair.

“I won’t baby, I promise.” I whisper back, my lips finding the spot just below her ear. She giggles to me, repositioning herself so that she’s now straddling me. She probably didn’t even realize it, and I hope she doesn’t because it feels great. “You better not. You had me terrified, Harry.” Julianne’s sweet voice is like music to my ears, I don’t know how I survived a week without her. I guess it was because I didn’t go far and I could hear her the entire time, even when she was crying her eyes out and sobbing - my name leaving her mouth in whimpers.

“I owe you that bath, you know.” I remind her with a smirk on my face. I know it’s wrong for my mind to think so sexually sometimes but I can’t help it. I have a gorgeous girl and I’m ready to do some amazing things to her. “Oh I know, I didn’t forget.” Julianne says as she sits herself up on me. I lean up, her body falling onto my lap. I grunt lightly as her weight sits on top of my crotch. “Am I hurting you?” She asks with worried eyes and furrowed brows. “No baby, just.. my um..” I stop myself when her eyes lock with mine, her soft palm pressed against my cheek.

“Do I need to.. get up?” Julianne asks me, glancing down towards my lap quickly, her eyes relocating to mine just seconds after. “Babe, you’re fine.” I shake my head in denial to her question, she worries too much. “You look like you’re in pain, Harry.” She says, still unsure about this position. I take a deep breath, this might be a bit much to say but I sure do mean it. “It’s the good kind of pain, babe.”

She arches a brow at me, “There’s good pain?” I just chuckle at her, she's so innocent.

-

My beautiful girl strolls into the living room, her hands cradling a small bowl of grapes. Sophia trails behind her with a glass of wine. Julianne plops down beside me on the couch after handing the grapes over to me. “You're so warm.” She mutters out as her arm wraps around my right arm and her other hand tangles with my own. I lean onto her, getting as close as the position allows us to.

“You guys are so cute.” Sophia gives us a grin as she glances our way. I feel Julianne's cheek heat up against my bicep. Her hair is tickling my exposed skin, my body is free of a shirt at the moment. Julianne lowers a hand to my thigh casually, the other still locked with mine. “Woah.” Niall blurts out as he snaps his head in my direction. I look to the opposite end of the couch where he's sitting with Sara on his lap. “You smell that, too?” I ask with furrowed brows, at first I thought my nose was just overreacting but now that Niall has possibly picked up on the same scent, I'm beginning to believe I was not going insane.

“What's wrong?” Julianne asks in a small, nervous voice when Sophia stood to look out the window. “S’nothing, babe.” I say as I pull my arm from her rather strong grip and lean up, trying my best to focus on it. “The boys are on the other end of the land. I don't think they even notice it.” Niall mentions before I could even ask. Liam, Zayn, and Louis all went for a hunt an hour or so ago and I know that they are focused on a kill, so Niall's right. They've got to be clueless because if they did smell it, the would send us a sign.

“I can't even hear Liam.. That's not normal. Harry, I always hear him.” Sophia places her hand over her heart - fear beginning to settle into her. “Calm down, Soph. He's hunting.. probably not even thinking of anything right now.” I give an attempt to soothe her worrying heart but I know she won't be okay until she hears Liam’s thoughts again. “Ni, I'm scared.” Sara whines as Niall picks her up and sits her where he was previously. “It's alright, love.” he places a kiss to her forehead before heading to the front porch.

“No, please.” Julianne gasps as I stand up, her small hands both grabbing onto my wrist. I look down at her, straight into her fear clad eyes. “Don't leave.. I just got you back.” She begs in a soft tone, tears forming in her eyes. “I'm just going outside.. I'm not leaving.” I assure her as I push a strand of her golden locks behind her ear. My hand cups the side of her face while my lips push against her cold forehead, she's literally shaking at the moment. “Harry.” She whispers my name, her plump lips barely moving. “Julianne, everything will be okay.” I allow myself to place a kiss against her lips. She doesn’t kiss me back, but I’m sure she’s just afraid right now. I can sense the nervousness her body is holding right now, poor thing. I pull myself free of her grip and I follow Niall and Sophia to the front door.

“Harry.” Julianne called out my name as she chased after me. I don't want her out here, not while there's something on my land. “Baby, get inside.” My hands grasp her waist, preventing her from even passing through the door frame. “Get inside with the girls and relax. I will handle this.” I assure her, but I already know that it won't work. “No.. I.. I don't.. I want to be with you.” She starts to release tears, streams quickly flowing down her heated cheeks. “Baby, I'll be right here. Go inside and-” I'm cut off by the sound of howling, before I could open my mouth to stop them - Sophia and Niall were running towards the woods.

I push Julianne inside the house, my blood is starting to catch fire. Half of my pack is out there and it's my duty to protect them. As much as I love Julianne, I have to leave.

“Perrie, keep her inside. If she can't behave then put her in her room.” I say as Perrie and Gemma run into the living room to see what happened. She nods in reply as she grabs Julianne's elbow. “Harry, please come back!” Julianne screamed as I turned my back to her. Something inside of me decided on saying one last thing before I leave. Perhaps it was the small amount of fear I possessed, or just the thought of soothing her heart that encouraged me.

“Don’t I always come back?” I turn to face her, raising my eyebrows at her, trying to keep a calm expression despite the raging animal in my soul. She nods lightly to me the same moment I cup her pretty face with both of my hands. “I love you, Harry.” She muttered out, her warm breath fanning my face. “I love you, Julianne.” I quickly place a peck on my love’s swollen lips before she is pulled away from me.

There’s something out there, I don’t exactly know what, but I will find out.


//Julianne//

My lips are quivering and the tears are shedding from my eyes as I watch Harry transform into a beast before storming off to the woods - the dark of the night shielding him from my eyes now. “It’ll be okay, sweetie. He’ll be back before you know it.” Gemma says as she places her arm around the small of my back. “I.. I just got him back.. I.. I don’t want him to go.” I sob out as I turn and rest my head on her shoulder. She wraps both arms around my now, holding me tight as she pets my hair with one hand while the other rubs circles into my back.

“He’ll be back, I promise. He has to make sure there aren’t any trespassers. He’s doing it for our safety, love.” She tells me, continuing the rubbing and soothing motions. Gemma is highly different from both Sophia and Perrie. She’s calm, she’s collected, and most importantly, she’s caring. Don’t get me wrong, Sophia took care of me for a week while Harry was gone and the wound in my neck was pushing out blood for days - she made sure I was okay. But Gemma is different, I’m not real sure why or how, but she is.

“He’s the Alpha.. so he has to go with them.” She adds on as I continue to wet her shirt with my salty tears. She doesn’t seem to mind so I don’t even think about it. “How about we go sit down, hm?” Gemma insists as she releases me from her embrace, but her hand finds mine and she clutches it. I smile lightly with a nod before she guides me over to the couch where Harry was once sitting. I sit down in that spot, it’s still warm from holding his body for so long.

“I don’t want him to get hurt.” I mumble out as I nervously twist a piece of my hair around my finger, my eyes are staring out of the window - waiting for him to emerge from the forest. I have barely had him back, and now he’s already gone again. “He won’t get hurt, sweetie.” She says while placing herself beside me on the couch. Perrie is standing on the porch now, I assume to watch for their return. “Harry never gets hurt, Julianne.” Sara says as she climbs onto Gemma’s lap. She gets comfortable and rests her head on Gemma’s shoulder similar to what I was doing earlier.

“Julianne, guess what?” Sara asks with a happy tone. How on earth could she be happy right now? I push aside my nervous fear and look over at her. “What?” I muster enough energy to speak. “Harry told me that one day.. He’s going to make you like us. Isn’t that right, Gem?” She says with a bright grin. My heart starts to pound at the thought of that happening. I highly doubt it though, even though she said Harry ‘told’ her that. “Well, I don’t know, love. He might.” Gemma says with a laugh, perhaps he really didn’t say that and Sara is only trying to calm my down. Well, either way, it’s not working.

I flinch as I hear a round of howls and barks echo outside of the house - it was more than one creature and certainly sounded familiar..

“Damn it.” Perrie comes through the door and quickly shuts it behind her, turning the lock swiftly. “What?” Gemma asks, motioning for Sara to get off her so she could get up. Sara gladly does what she’s told and sits down on the other side of Gemma. I watch her stand up and get drug into the kitchen - apparently, whatever happened, me and Sara aren’t supposed to know about it. Sara shushes me with her finger, even though I wasn’t even speaking but I got her gist. She stares at the floor as I highly assume she listens in on the two in the kitchen.

“Oh, no.” She whispers to herself as her shaky hand covers her mouth, clearly something has happened and it isn’t very good. “What?” I ask, looking over at her, praying that she’d give me some damn answers. Before I could get a response from Sara, Perrie and Gemma reentered the living room, both with nervous faces. They share a glance at each other before looking straight at me. “Guess we sort of jinxed him.” Gemma said with a rather loud gulp. “What.. what happened?” I ask as I stand up from the couch, it’s lost the warmth Harry once gave to it by now.

“Julianne, you have to listen to us, okay? Don’t freak out.” Perrie says as she takes a few steps closer to me. “What.. what’s wrong? Is.. is he okay?” I feel the panic anchor itself at the bottom of my heart, here comes my ultimate fear. “Turns out.. It was a small pack passing through. But.. but they didn’t have permission, and clearly they didn’t care. Harry confronted them, and things.. things got bad.” Gemma explains, but all I could think about the entire time was Harry - he’s not okay. “The Alpha of the other pack.. Harry thought he was going to lunge at him, so he went ahead and did it himself. He got.. He got hurt.” Perrie’s words were the last thing I wanted to hear from either of them.

I just got him back.. I can’t lose him.

“They’re coming.” Sara jumped up from the couch and darted to the door. Perrie went to stop her while Gemma stepped in front of me, I guess to prevent me from running. I thought I was going to, but once I picked up my foot I found that I have no energy left whatsoever. “He’ll be okay. We recover a lot quicker than humans do.” Gemma says with a soft smile. But it soon faded when I heard noise come outside and she left me standing alone in the middle of the room.

I took it upon myself to go out there, not caring about what either of them had to say to me or what they did to try to stop me. I’m sick of being held back, Harry is mine - and he’s hurt. So I deserve the right to go to him. As soon as I step onto the front porch, Liam and Zayn came into my view and what they were carrying made my heart sting rapidly in my chest.

“Harry.” I whisper softly. All my eyes are seeing is red - blood. “It’s okay, he’s okay.” Niall rushes to me and tries to bring me inside but I don’t bulge. I push past him and run down the steps, ignoring his calls for me to return. “Julianne, please. Babe, calm down.” Sophia grabbed my elbow and yanked me to the side. “No.. No.. He’s.. no.” I shake my head a few times, not wanting to fucking listen to any of them. I don’t take commands from them.

My heart began to shake in my rib cage as Liam and Zayn approached me, but they didn’t stop to waste any time. I watched in silence as they carried Harry up the steps. Harry’s arms are thrown around both of them, Zayn is holding up his left leg and Liam has the right. Since he didn’t have on a shirt, his wounds were open to my eyes and the blood trickled down onto the grass. He gasped for air just as they reached the stop step. Tears fell from my eyes as I heard him struggle to breathe. “J-.. Juli- Julianne.” Harry chokes out my name and my eyes seemed to flood even more now.

“He wants to see you, hurry up!” Zayn yells out, glancing over his shoulder at me. I try to think that he wasn’t being mean and they were in a rush to get Harry laid down. I ran up the stairs and darted in front of them, Harry’s eyes are barely opened and his lips are parted. I carefully place my hands on either cheek and hold his head up since his neck was practically limp. “Ba-baby.” He mutters, sharp intakes of breath follow shortly after. “Shh..” I didn’t know what else to do other than shush him, I don’t want to hear him struggle to speak. I lose all of my shyness and press my lips to his, they’re cold and dry - they’re never like this.

“S’okay.. M-.” His eyes fall shut as I lean back to look at his scratched, dirt covered face. “M’fine.” Harry tells me as he continues to take quick, short breaths. “Harry, we have to fucking get you inside!” Liam said frantically. Harry lightly shook his head from left to right. I drop my hands from his face, and one accidently skims his stomach. He hisses suddenly, making me jump back a few feet. “Fuck.” He groans out, gritting his teeth. My hand feels wet, like there’s something on it. I look down and nearly faint when I see the blood - Harry’s blood - covering my palm.

“Oh my god..” I sob out, rivers flowing down my cheeks and my knees begin to feel weak. “S’just.. jus- bl-blood.” Harry coughs out. Gemma grabs me and brings me to the corner, so that they could get by. Harry lets out my name a few more times but I know it’s best to let him go - he doesn’t need to wait any longer.

The door slammed shut and I felt my heart crumble into a million tiny pieces. “He was stalling.” Gemma mumbles to me as she combs her fingers through my hair, trying to get it out of my face. I let my forehead fall against her shoulder once again, her arms holding me tightly. “Is.. is he.. hurting?” I stutter out, already aware of that answer. “Yeah.. but he’s scared more than he is hurt. He.. he was thinking about you.. And how he didn’t want you to cry.” She informs me and I feel my heart just continue to shatter in my chest.

“He tried to tell you, but he couldn’t find.. any strength.” Perrie’s voice continues to explain what happened just now, I feel her hand on my back as well as Gemma’s. “He’ll be okay.” Gemma whispers to me. I’m beginning to think that’s a lie. My legs start to resemble liquid, and before I could stop myself and balance my weight, I fell to the ground and everything surrounding me faded away.

We’re all going to die, so it might as well be love that destroys us..




*+*+* The butterflies flew around me, landing on a flower here and there, and occasionally even landing on me. I adore butterflies, they’re so pretty and lovely. Sweet little creatures. I look over as Momma sits down beside me in the field of beautiful flowers. “We need to talk about something, Julie.” She says, picking a flower from its stem. “What is it?” I ask, there’s no telling. It might be a secret, or a story, or just a reminder. Momma always reminds me of things, like not to touch the stove top, and not to leave the top off the milk.

“One day.. Mommy will have to leave this place.” My eyebrows drop in confusion as I look up at her, what does that even mean? “To go to Heaven.. and.. and I want you to know.. that even when Mommy is gone.. there will always be someone looking out for you, okay?” She tells me. I nod to her, but the tears still form in my eyes. She knows I don’t like talking about Heaven because I don’t want her leave me here alone.

“Who will it be, Momma?” I question, I bet it’s one of her friends. Momma has the nicest, prettiest friends. “I can’t tell you just yet, baby. But you’ll find out one day.” She says, her hand smoothing out my currently frizzy hair. “Why not now?” She just laughs at me, she knows I hate waiting on things. “Because sweetie.. you’re still too little.” Momma explains. “Hey! You said I was a big girl.” I pout my lips out, I know Momma always loves when I do that.

“You are, darling. But still, you’re not old enough now.” She says. I huff at her, I can’t believe this! She won’t even tell me. “Always remember.. no matter what your Daddy says.. you can go outside anytime you want and play, okay? Just.. not in the rain.” Momma tells me but I know that can’t be right. “Daddy said no going outside without you.” I remind her, how could she forget? He says it everyday.

“Well, I’m telling you that you can. And you won’t be without me.. I’ll be watching you from Heaven and.. someone else will be watching over you, too.” She tells me. “Momma.. What is this person like? Is it a girl?” I ask, I bet she will at least tell me this, right? If she loves me, she would. “No, it’s a man.. He’s really nice. He’s Mommy’s friend. One day, when you’re old enough, he will come and save you from this horrible place. He will protect you and take care of you.” I wonder how Momma knew all of this. She’s so smart, but still.

“As a matter of fact.. He’s here right now.” She says and I jump up quickly, I can’t even believe this! “Where is he?” I ask, spinning around in the flowers searching for the man but I see nothing - only the butterflies fluttering around. “He’s hiding, doll. But he’s here.” She giggles again as I sit back down, now I’m mad because I want to meet him.

“How.. how do you know?” I ask her as she runs her fingers through my long hair. She wanted me to cut it but I love it long. I watch as Momma lifted her head and looked straight at the tree line, her pretty eyes staring at something. I look too, but I see nothing. Just trees and grass.. “Because I just do, my love. I just do..” *+*+*

Notes

We have reached chapter 55. Wow. This is really mind blowing to me. I promise that I won't delay anymore, I want this year to start right and of course that means updating my lovely story. Please leave feedback for me, I'd love to know what you think. Something huge is coming.. stay tuned, my loves! Updates regularly now!!! xx

--I know things might seem like they are happening so fast so please forgive me for that but every thing that happens /good and bad/ is part of the story and it's just how it progresses. It seems as if it's always something going on, and that's true - but trust me.. you'll love how it all unfolds in the end xx--