24. Elera
Chapter twenty-four
Elera
I stretched and groaned, my body tight from my sleeping position. Although I didn’t remember falling asleep… or leaving Bram’s. Shooting upright, I sucked in a sharp breath as the world spun and my head throbbed.
“Elera!”
I covered my ears with my hands and shut my eyes.
“Oh no, I’m sorry. Was that too loud? Are you okay?” I recognized Hazelle’s soft voice filtering through and nodded.
“I think so. What happened?” Silence met me. “Hazelle?” I opened one eye, squinting it just enough to see her hugging a pillow to her body and hiding her face. “Why are we still at Bram’s?” At least, I assumed that’s where we were. We certainly weren’t home yet.
“Are you really okay, Elera?” Layne asked me, and more confusion filled my mind. Why was
Layne here? Then Catalina stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Where’s My Mistress? Is she okay?” I jumped up onto my knees, regretting it immediately as the dizziness grew, but it didn’t matter. I had to find My Mistress. What happened with Bram? Why couldn’t I remember anything?
“Elera! Please, lay down. She’s fine. Everyone is fine.” Catalina was in my face, trying to get me to listen to her, but the need for my Alpha wouldn’t let me settle. “If you get hurt too, Bellamira will never forgive us. Sit. Down.” Catalina used some of her Alpha bark on me, and her words made it past the anxiety induced haze.
“Okay, okay, but if she’s not…” I looked at Hazelle to my left who hadn’t moved an inch.
“Hazelle, are you okay?” If My Mistress was okay and Bram wasn’t here…
Hazelle shook her head against the pillow, and tears pricked my eyes as I collapsed down next to her, pulling her into my arms. “What happened?”
“Let’s not have her relive it out loud in detail, okay, Elera? Just know Bram drugged you and Bellamira, and he’s Hazelle’s fated mate. Bellamira and Perrin are with the officers now, sorting it all out. She will be back soon.” Catalina sat on the bed a foot away from my curled up legs, and Layne remained on the chair next to the bed with the wet rag in hand.
I couldn’t get out more words as Hazelle cried into my chest, and my tears darkened her brown hair. The room stayed silent until the door opened, and someone I didn’t recognize stepped in. They were laughing and clearly drunk, making it five feet in before they realized the room was taken.
“Oh ho-ho, did you—” Whoever the man was, they didn’t get to finish their sentence before Catalina’s fist crashed into his jaw, then she was shoving him back out the door with his pet scurrying behind him.
“A promise is a promise.” Catalina shrugged as she closed the door, and we all chuckled. I might have been unconscious, but I knew My Mistress made her promise to knock out anyone who came in the room. It helped alleviate some of the tension that had filled the air, and I took a deep breath before letting it out.
“Thank you, Catalina. And Layne. This world can be an awful place.”
“It’s not all bad.” Layne beamed at Catalina as she came around the bed and sat down again.
“No, it’s not, but it could be a lot better. I see some change on the horizon. Maybe not society as a whole, but the way of our parties… Safety is a priority, and we have slacked on it when it comes to people we think we can trust. Bram is proof of that.”
“But you have security everywhere, Catalina. Yours are always safe and fun.” She smiled down at me, but it didn’t quite reach her golden eyes.
“That’s true, but everyone can be paid off. You never really know. I think we will have large parties without the sexy times after, then small ones with extra security and scrutiny. No passes, no oopsies, none of it.” Her face fell, and she sighed. “We became lax, comfortable, and simply too trusting. It is what it is, and we can’t change the past, but we can make a change for the future. I don’t know what will happen, but I do know we will be going to fewer parties, if any, for a while. Perhaps we will throw more to counteract it. I really don’t know at this point. It’s too fresh.”
“Realizing there’s a problem is the first step.” I mindlessly responded, keeping my grip on Hazelle who was softly snoring now. I kissed the top of her head and thanked whoever would listen for putting her to sleep for the time being. She needed the rest, and I hoped her dreams were kind or nonexistent.
The door opened again, and Catalina was already on the move when My Mistress and Perrin walked in. I placed a finger to my lips and looked down at Hazelle, hoping they’d understand.
Catalina and Layne slipped out of the room at My Mistress’ approval, and she took up the spot where Catalina had once been. Perrin leaned against the bedpost opposite us, leaving him closer to the door just in case.
“How are you feeling, Elera?”
“Dizzy, tired, nauseous. Are you really okay, My Mistress?” She reached out and took my hand.
“I’m fine, physically. Hazelle…”
“They told me, kind of. Do you think she’s going to be okay?” My Mistress’ lips flattened as she thought, taking her time to form an answer. But how could we know?
“She’s been through worse before. There was hope with Oros, then there was none, and it only got worse from there. Hazelle had hope with us, seeing what a loving family could be, but Bram stole that from her. I don’t know, Elera. I really don’t know where we go from here.”
My eyes grew wide at my Alpha’s admission. I had never heard My Mistress so unsure of anything. Her confidence was what drew me in. She always knew, always. Instead of questioning her and losing my trust, it grew. My Mistress was a person too, and no one could control everything, even if they wanted to. I had gone ten years with her in perfect harmony, loving every minute of it without question, with little fault, and always with love and devotion to My Mistress.
But now, there was more. An equality that I hadn’t seen.
Her demands weren’t like the ones others spewed. That was about control and total domination. Hers… they were part of a contract, an unspoken relationship between us. I always had a choice, although I never thought about it. Caera would take me away if My Mistress ever treated me like some ordinary Beta.
How had I missed this?
How had I missed such an important detail of how we worked, of how we all worked together?
My love for her grew, but I wondered where Hazelle came into all of this. What did she think of our mistress now? How would our relationships grow and morph in the future? What if— “You’re thinking too hard, Elera. Are you ready to go home?”
“Is Hazelle…”
“Hazelle is ours and will always be ours. That’s a promise I can keep.” She leaned forward and placed a kiss on my forehead, then Hazelle’s. “Let’s go home. We have a lot to work through, together.”
The rest of the night was uneventful. Hazelle slept in my arms between waking and crying, but she always managed to fall back to sleep. My Mistress joined us periodically, and Hazelle didn’t have any qualms about it. I was beyond thankful for that. I didn’t want to think about what I would have done if she denied My Mistress entirely.
Because she could, and the thought was terrifying.
I didn’t know how much Hazelle knew about situations like this, unlike Adira and Nyla’s. For them, Adira found her before she was sold off from her family. She was owned by the auction house, and the rules there are flimsy at best. So when Adira claimed her as her fated mate, no one had a right to deny her.
But with Hazelle, she wasn’t owned by her family or the auction house. She was purchased, and by law, she was My Mistress’ and no one, not even the fated mate, could remove her without striking a deal.
Unless Hazelle chose her fated mate.
She couldn’t be removed by force, and Bram having damaged someone else’s property, even though he’s her fated mate, made it a little murky. But as far as I understood it, she could still choose him. Hazelle would be wherever he was, or even sold off again since he now had nothing to his name, but she could, and no one would be able to stop her.
I held her close, trying to sleep, but it never took me. We didn’t know what Bram used on us, but now that I was awake, I was wide awake, and it didn’t seem to be ending any time soon.
The sun peeked over the horizon, and I blinked at the rays. Time flew by, and although I was grateful, it meant a new day was beginning, and we were one step closer to having a household meltdown. The bundle in my arms was a ticking time bomb, but I refused to let go.
What ifs tried to infiltrate, but I brushed them off. There was no use worrying about something that hadn’t happened. I’d take it one step at a time, listening to Hazelle, helping her the best I could to recover from this.
“How’s she doing?” My Mistress pushed a food cart into the room. It had three smoothies, loaded avocado toast, and the biggest pile of crispy hashbrowns I had ever seen.
“Still asleep.” It was strange watching the way My Mistress moved now. There was an air of caution around her. Her voice too, it wasn’t quite the same, and I hadn’t heard her use her nickname for us since I woke up.
“Let’s get some food in her, then we can get her bathed and redressed. She can’t live in Perrin’s shirt forever.” There was a harsh edge to her voice, an insecurity peeking through.
I nudged Hazelle awake, and she rubbed her eyes before looking at me, her vision slowly coming into focus. If nothing else, Hazelle still felt safe with us and didn’t panic each time she awoke.
“It’s time to eat, Hazelle.”
“Is it morning already?” She looked out the open window and sleepily sneered at it. “Do I have to get up?”
My Mistress laughed, and Hazelle turned to her with a smile. “Yes, you do.”
“Okay, Mistress Belle, but do I have to get out of bed?” She hunkered down enough so only her arms and head were outside of the blankets.
“Not to eat, but for the shower and fresh clothes, yes. A sponge bath would only do so much.” We ate and watched a movie about a princess finding her happily ever after, despite her past and her status. With each new scene, the heaviness in the room lifted a little more, and by the end, when everything was perfect in its own way, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing everything was going to be okay in the end. There was just a lot of work to be done between now and then.
Hazelle showered by herself, at her own insistence, and we did another fashion show to decide what we would all wear for the day, comfort being the theme this round.
I wore a simple T-shirt dress in a dark blue with a basic white collar, Hazelle had on her light blue one, black leggings, and a gray graphic tee she stole from My Mistress that I didn’t even know she had, and our Alpha had on fitted jean shorts and a dark green stretchy bodysuit with a scoop neck and frilly sleeves. This was the most casual I had seen her since she was younger than me, and I couldn’t lie. I loved it even though it was at odds with the vision I had of who she was now. But we all changed with time, had phases of our life where we were far different than the others.
Maybe it was time for a change. For all of us.