Chapter 14 - Amelia
Present
“Amelia! There you are!” Cassie calls out with relief in her voice the moment I step into the diner. She comes rushing forward, grabbing the handle of the rocker from my hand and patting my shoulder. “We’re swamped today, and I need you at table five. Chop-chop!”
I open my mouth to object, but Cassie walks off hurriedly with the rocker. Chuckling under my breath, I make my way behind the counter to grab an apron off the hanger and get a pen and my notepad to take down table five’s order.
It’s taken me some time to come to terms with how my life has played out. Forced to stop working in the Sterling Retirement Home as a nurse and caretaker, I’ve settled as a waitress in a local diner in the small town of Lugert. Adjusting to my new life in the lakeside town while I’m hidden from my brother in my aunt’s old lakehouse, I pray each day that he doesn’t find me.
“Hi…” I greet the patrons at the table—a young couple who appear to be madly in love as their fingers are interlaced on the table and they wear broad, starry smiles. A pang of envy grips my chest, but I gulp and plaster a fake smile for the sake of customer service.
“... My name is Amelia, and I’ll be your waitress,” I announce, and the bubbly couple proceeds to give me their orders while I jot them into the notepad robotically. I’m trying not to let jealousy become the poison that finally irks my compulsion to leave this job and never come back.
It’s too risky to return to my old life, even if it’s been months since I escaped my brother’s clutches.
The only thing I can’t seem to escape is the haunting recollection of a man I’d somehow lost my heart to. Being free now and seeing others blissfully navigating life with their significant others, all I feel is anger.
Why do they get to be happy when I was forced to leave any hope of my own happiness behind when I escaped the warehouse? It’s not fair.
Nothing is fair now that I not only had to leave my old life behind, but I had to leave the one man I saw a future with. Even if we were forced to get married, I thought I felt something that came about organically.
In hindsight, I was wrong. The heartbreak of hearing his words of rejection stuck with me for the four months since that fateful day when he shoved me through the window and begged me to leave. Now, that rejection lingers like a dark omen in my mind, showing its ugly self every time I’m faced with a depiction of what could have been.
I was crazy to fall for my captivity companion. Some would call it a trauma bond, and I’ve relegated to seeing it as the desperation of two desolate souls who had no one else to turn to but each other. It was my own stupidity that had me recklessly abandoning any sense of good judgment, only to get hurt in the end.
The worst part of it all is that I can’t hang on to anger toward him. I don’t know if he’s alive or not, and I’d hate to hold a grudge against someone dead. He’s dead to me, his blatant rejection driving the numbness that comes with every flicker of rage.
Dragging my feet to the kitchen with a huff, I hand in the order when a gurgle alerts me and I sprint to the staff room at the back.
“Cassie?” I whisper gently as I push the door cautiously enough in case I am worried for no reason.
When she presses a finger to her lips with the bundled blanket pressed to her chest, I breathe a sigh of relief, tiptoeing inside as I try peeking over her arm.
“She’s asleep,” Cassie whispers as she gently turns in the chair so I can get a better look.
I smile the moment I set eyes on my sleeping baby, her angelic face glowing with the satisfaction of a full belly while her lips are still moist from the milk Cassie must have nursed her with. A rumbling burp doesn’t wake her but instead draws her lips into a smile, and I swoon, my worries washed away from just being in her presence.
Four months ago when I escaped the warehouse, I would have never guessed that I would be leaving my heart behind, only to take a piece of Dorian with me. Once I found my way back to civilization, I fled to Lugert and hid in the old lake house that belonged to my late aunt. It was the one place we spent our Summer breaks growing up, the land left to my mother after my aunt passed away.
When Mama died, the lakehouse had been forgotten, save for the memories we made in the lake house overlooking Lake Altus-Lugert. After witnessing how inhumane my brother had become, I was sure he wouldn’t find me when I was right under his nose.
He couldn’t possibly care about our family or about the memories we made together in the past. But it wasn’t until I secured a job at the diner that a missed period alerted me that I was pregnant.
Only Cassie knows the truth about my pregnancy. She’d been the friend we had during our vacations out here, and we reconnected when I needed to pick up the pieces of my life. She doesn’t know all of the truth—only the part where my pregnancy lasted a short three months, and she was with me through it all.
When Damita, my daughter, coos in her sleep, my heartstrings are tugged and I reach out for her. When she’s nestled against my chest, I sigh and turn to Cassie.
“Thank you,” I mouth the words silently so I don’t wake Damita.
Cassie dismissively flaps her hand through the air. “She’s an angel. Did you finish with table five?”
I shake my head. “I need to serve their order. I hope you don’t mind me keeping you from your break.”
Cassie rolls her eyes. “The only thing that brings me back to Pete’s is having to babysit,” she giggles. “Now, give her back to me,” she says with outstretched arms. “You need more tips today. She needs more milk.”
I nod as I carefully place my little bundle of hope back in Cassie’s arms. Damita is perfect, and unlike anything Dorian suspected a hybrid child would be. The only problem is that she’s a mix of a human and a werewolf, and she has her father’s appetite. Because I’m human, I had to carry a full-term pregnancy for a third of the time it would take for an ordinary human baby to be born. Though my pregnancy wasn’t horrendous, my body wasn’t able to produce milk in time for her birth.
I’ve had to bottle-feed her with the formula that I keep needing to replace every fortnight. Damita’s ravenous appetite is the only indication that she’s part werewolf.
The one part of Dorian I have to carry with me. When I realized I was pregnant, I was torn to shreds, scared of what I was carrying but even more terrified of having to do it all by myself. Luckily, my childhood friend came to the rescue, even if she couldn’t understand how I was pregnant for just three months. I didn’t know that a werewolf pregnancy was that short. Dorian and I didn’t touch on the sensitive topic, since it was Jackson’s plan all along for us to produce a hybrid child.
It’s not like my pregnancy wasn’t strenuous. Not on my body, but on my heart, which felt like it was breaking a little more with every second that ticked by and stretched as if time was slowing down. That’s what time felt like in the cage—it was ineffective, and it was only until I escaped that I realized we were locked away for two months. It felt like a lifetime had passed when Dorian and I were together.
All it took was a split second to shatter the illusion and false reality I created in my head, thanks to a weak heart.
It’s this heart that I’ve caged now since escaping the physical cage, going about my days scraping by just enough money to pave a life for my newborn baby and me. That’s why I trudge through this day, going about my waitress duties until nightfall comes and it’s time to go home.
Home is at the lake now, in a Nordic-style cottage overlooking Lake Lugert Altus. It must be coincidental that the lake’s name means “lone wolf” in some native language. That’s what Aunt Valerie used to boast about every time we visited her out here.
Now, the lone wolves are me and my newborn baby, Damita. Sighing when I climb up the porch, I gently set the rocker down when my daughter’s eyes search for mine. When she meets them, her tiny heart-shaped lips pucker into a smile.
“We’re home, my angel…” I cajole as I unlock the front door and lift the rocker to carry it inside. We’re greeted by the scent of pine and lavender that whispers from the garden behind the cottage.
Our place of refuge is calming, and the only qualm I have is that life isn’t as easy as I would have liked it to be. Still, I push ahead every day, even when I’m exhausted. Lifting Damita out of her rocker and cradling her to my chest, my worries fade as I stare into her dark brown eyes.
Eyes just like her father’s…
My own eyes glaze with tears as the heartbreak comes crashing back. Damita is so perfect, she’s been my guardian angel before being born. While she grew in my belly, she gave me the will to keep going when my heart threatened to stop beating altogether.
If it wasn’t for my little angel, I might have died of a broken heart.
“Thank you, my angel…” I whisper as I carry her to the bedroom. Her long eyelids flutter like her angel wings as she sighs and falls asleep, wriggling in my arms to settle more snugly. I press a kiss to her forehead and carefully lay her into her crib, saying as I step back and gaze at her adoringly.
I never imagined that my life would turn out like this, as a single mother to the most perfect, hybrid human-werewolf angel. The love I found when I held her in my arms for the first time is stronger than any love I felt for someone else.
The only thing that came close to this feeling is what I felt for Dorian Walker.
I take a deep breath, quietly heading to the dresser to remove my clothes and take a shower. As I peel the scarf from around my neck, I catch the sparkling glimmer reflected in the dresser mirror and turn to see myself reflected there.
A hand coasts to the mark on my neck—the one I have to keep covered with a scarf or foundation—and a slow breath staggers from my chest while tears well up in my eyes.
I thought I was strong enough to forget Dorian, but the mark serves as a reminder that I may never give my heart away again. It’s a reminder of the pain and the heartbreak, and I won’t ever put myself through that again.
The brunt of his words remains echoing in my mind.
“You are not my mate, Amelia! You’re just a human! I could never consider you my mate!”
I glance over my shoulder at my baby sleeping in her crib as that thought returns and sounds absurd in the wake of Damita’s existence. I may be “just a human”, but I’d done the impossible.
We had done the impossible by conceiving a hybrid child.
I return to staring at my reflection just as the mark of Dorian’s teeth remains glowing faintly in tanned hues and sigh.
My feelings for him might have died, and for all I know, he might have died too. But his territorial mark remains.
I turn from the mirror and simultaneously pull the curtain aside as I stare out at the night sky, the full moon illuminating the grounds and reflecting off the crystalline waters of the lake. A fleeting thought passes through my mind as I stare out at the horizon.
Is he dead? Is he alive? Will I ever see him again?
Time heals all wounds, and hopefully, more time will heal the mark on my neck that keeps me bound to his memory. I should forget about him altogether. I have to look toward a future for me and my baby, whose werewolf nature I’ll have to figure out all by myself.