Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Sienna
My body hurts like somebody ran me over with a car a couple of times. As awareness flickers through me, I feel like my head weighs too much for my neck. My mouth tastes of copper.
What happened to me?
Slowly, I open my eyes and look at the ceiling. For a moment, what I’m seeing doesn’t register on me, and then I realize that the ceiling is wrong. Wrong wood. Wrong color. The room is dark, with heavy curtains drawn against the day or the night. I do not know which.
I also do not know where I am.
Something stirs on my right, and I turn my head. Pain crashes down my shoulder in a bright line.
Lucas is sprawled in a chair beside the bed.
His clothes are creased, and there are shadows under his eyes as he sleeps.
I silently observe him, still confused about what is happening.
He looks like hell. He’s always so well groomed, so to see him like this is a little alarming.
He also smells like blood—not his, so my wolf doesn’t react.
I try to sit up. The pain flares so hotly that I gasp, and Lucas’s hand is on my chest before I even notice him moving. His palm presses me gently back into the pillow.
“Easy,” he breathes. “Easy. You’re safe.”
I stare up at him. The word safe knocks loose something I am not ready to feel. “What happened?” My throat is dry enough to crack. “Why are you here?”
He doesn’t answer me right away, stalling. “I’ll get you some water.”
He turns his back to me, and I hear him pouring water into a glass. I take the moment to reevaluate myself. Bandages are covering my entire stomach and my left arm. It’s rare for our kind to need bandaging unless the injuries are incredibly severe.
When Lucas turns back around, he gently lifts me into a sitting position, and I groan.
He stops. “Does it still hurt?”
“What do you think?” I let out a shuddering breath. “What happened to me?”
He lifts the glass to my lips. “You don’t remember?”
I shake my head. I feel so groggy that even that slight movement makes me want to close my eyes.
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, then.” He gently nudges me down. “Sleep. You need your rest.”
“But…” My voice trails off, slurring. The exhaustion that hits me is different. It’s a sluggish feeling, and I let it drag me down. “Y–You’ll stay?”
He takes my hand. “I’ll be right here.”
I relax, my eyes slipping shut. “Okay. Don’t go.”
I feel his lips against my knuckles as I drift off to sleep. A part of me thinks I shouldn’t let him kiss me like that. But his touch is comforting, like a balm against the pain, and I just can’t find it in myself to object.
When I wake up again, it’s in a haze. I can feel warm healing magic coursing through me. The pain has reduced significantly, and when I open my eyes partially, I see Lucas sitting beside me, his eyes on my face, his hand wrapped around mine.
“Sleep,” he whispers, his voice sounding to me like he’s underwater. “You need to rest more.”
I close my eyes again, and his hand tightens around mine.
My eyes flutter open to fading daylight. I can smell flowers in the air—lilies, my favorite. The fragrance wraps around me. There’s a hand with thick, strong fingers holding mine. The man attached to the hand is sitting by my bedside, a tablet in his other hand as he reads whatever is on it.
This time, there is no haziness. My head is much clearer than before.
“What are you doing here?” I ask hoarsely.
Lucas turns his head to look at me, and the relief that fills his eyes makes me feel strange. “How’re you feeling?”
I pull my hand away from his as he leans forward, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Better,” I mumble. “How long have I been out?”
“You’ve been coming in and out of consciousness for the past three days. Today’s the fourth.” He touches my cheek, and I flinch. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything about it.
“What do you remember?” he asks slowly.
“I—I remember Ethan leaving, and then…” I trail off, recalling Lydia telling me about the lake. The woods. Those wolves.
My heart begins to race. Lucas hears my elevated heartbeat before I can say anything further. “You’re here now. You’re safe.”
“Safe,” I murmur, trying to wrap my head around the situation. “I thought I was going to die.”
Then, I remember. Lucas saved me. I look down at my body, and the bandages are no longer there.
I open my mouth to ask about them, and he tells me, “Your injuries were nearly fatal. Healer Charles bandaged you up to keep the wounds from getting infected. They closed up this morning.”
The tenderness in my abdomen and stomach are gone. I feel normal now. At times like this, I’m incredibly grateful for shifter healing.
“I see.” I look around. “Where am I?”
He hesitates. “My bedroom.”
His bedroom? I don’t know why my brain is so slow right now. I take a few seconds to gather my thoughts, frowning.
“You had no right to bring me here. That’s incredibly disrespectful to your intended.” I try to move my legs off the bed, but Lucas blocks me.
“Stop.” He forces me to lie back down. “You’re not going anywhere right now. And Lydia has nothing to do with this.”
“I disagree,” I sneer. “Humiliating the women in your life may be something you enjoy, but I don’t. I don’t go after taken men. I don’t sleep in their beds, even if I am half dead. I’m leaving.”
His hand on my shoulder is enough to stop me from moving. “Lie still. You may have a clean bill of health, but I’m not taking any chances.”
“I am not lying in the bed of a man who belongs to somebody else,” I snap at him, pushing his hands away.
“I don’t belong to Lydia!” he growls. “I broke it off with her.”
I stare at him, stunned. “What?”
He looks away. “I ended my engagement with Lydia.”
“Are we women a joke to you?” I give him a disgusted look. “You ditch your fated mate for someone you’ve been carrying on with for years, and then you ditch her for Goddess knows what reason—”
“It was a contractual arrangement with Lydia. And we were never carrying on.”
My heart nearly stops. “What?”
He looks uncomfortable. “I don’t love her, Sienna. I never did. I just needed a way—”
“To get away from me,” I finish for him. My voice is only a whisper, this agony being more than I can bear. “You would go that far to get rid of me? Do I really repulse you that much?”
My wolf is keening now, deeply agonized over this revelation.
“No.” He shakes his head and cups my face with his palms. “That’s not it. I swear to you, that’s not it.”
I push his hands away and turn my head to the side, unable to look at him. “Then what is it? Just tell me, Lucas. I’m sick of you dancing around the subject. At this point, I don’t even care that you don’t want me. I just need to know why.”
I can feel him about to speak, and when he makes a strange sound instead, my eyes flick toward him. His lips are parted, and there’s an odd look on his face, as if there’s something stuck in his throat. He quickly presses his lips together and lowers his gaze.
After a brief pause, he says, “I can’t tell you the reason. But I will clarify a few things for you. I never meant to humiliate you. All I’m trying to do is protect you.”
“From what?” I ask tensely. “What is it?”
He sighs, his shoulders slumping. “I can’t tell you.
Sienna, I know you don’t understand why I’m doing this, and I know you’re angry with me.
But please know that if I didn’t have feelings for you, this would be much easier.
You are incredibly precious to me. I wish I could give you my mark.
You don’t know how much I wish I could. I didn’t want to hurt you.
I didn’t want you to think the worst of me, or of yourself, when I took Lydia’s hand that day.
I haven’t been able to bear the idea of you being with anyone but me.
I even wanted to kill Ethan just for touching you. ”
“Is this supposed to make me forgive you?” I stare at him. “Did you think saying all this would make me fall into your arms?”
He is quiet for a long time. Then, he says, “No. No, I don’t expect you to forgive me.
Perhaps it’s better this way.” He gets to his feet, and suddenly, the shadows under his eyes seem darker than before, and his expression is filled with a weariness that unsettles me.
“Once you’ve recovered, Sienna, I will be sending you back to Moonvale. ”
My eyes widen, and I sit up abruptly. “What?!”
“I told you to stop moving. ” He pushes me back down carefully.
I grasp his wrist. “Why the hell are you sending me back? I didn’t do anything wrong!”
He studies me, our faces closer than I expected, and in his eyes, I see regret and misery. It makes my heart tighten.
“I can’t have you here, Sienna,” he murmurs gently. “I might end up marking you, and I can’t do that to you. I won’t put you through that.”
“Through what?!” I ask, my teeth grinding. “Stop speaking in riddles, Lucas! If you don’t want me, that’s fine! I haven’t pushed you ever since you got engaged to Lydia. I have not crossed any line. My behavior has been more than appropriate. You can’t throw me out. This is my job!”
“Darius can send somebody else,” Lucas says, shaking his head. “It can’t be you.”
My chest is heaving, and I’m pissed. “You’re not going to sabotage my career because your human side finds me lacking. I’ll keep my distance from you if I have to. But I’ve worked hard to get where I am—”
“I don’t find you lacking!” he snaps back at me. “Neither my wolf nor my human find you lacking in any aspect. And I’m not trying to sabotage your career. I know how ambitious you are, how driven. You think I don’t see that? But you can’t stay here.”
“Why the hell not?” I push his hand away. “Because of this need to protect me from an imaginary threat? You can’t make me leave like this. If you’re so worried about accidentally giving me the mark, then I will find somebody else. I’ll—”
“It’s that easy for you, huh?” Lucas stares at me, his voice hollow.
“It’s that easy for you to just decide to find somebody else?
You had no problem finding all those human men to have a good time with last week.
You were perfectly comfortable hugging Ethan.
And here I was, trying to do everything possible to avoid Lydia’s touch. ”
My eyes narrow. “You didn’t look like you were having a hard time.”
Lucas opens his mouth and then looks at the floor. “I guess I was the only one hurting this whole time.” Before I can react, he starts to walk away. “I’ll send in the healer and order you some food.”
“Where are you going?” I demand, feeling uneasy over his words.
He stops and faces me again. “To talk to your alpha.”
“Don’t you dare, Lucas!” I shove the blankets aside and try to get up. “I swear, if you—”
I stumble forward, my legs unable to support me. Before I can hit the ground, Lucas’s arms catch me and hold me tightly.
I grab the front of his shirt, hissing, “Don’t you dare do this to me! I will never forgive you if you destroy everything I’ve worked for!”
His eyes search mine as I dig my nails into his chest. “I don’t care why you don’t want me, but I will never let anybody trample on my pride. You seem to have a habit of doing that. You keep making me feel small and worthless. Fuck you for that!”
Under the anger and tears is a pain so raw that it scrapes at my insides. “You think you’re the only one who can humiliate someone by choosing someone else? I did exactly what you did. I gave you back the same pain you gave me. We’re even now.”
All he does is look at me, his jaw tense. His silence grates at my nerves. “What? Now you can’t speak? You know what, I will go back to Moonvale, but not until I am done here. And when I do return, I’m going to let Ethan court me!”
We glare at each other fiercely. “I don’t want you anyway, Lucas. You and your vague excuses. Ethan cares more for me than you ever have. I’m not going to hold back any longer. I’ll wear his mark, have him in my bed, bear his child—”
Lucas’s mouth slams down on mine with an intensity that stops my heart. My eyes widen for a moment, and I know I should push him away and slap him.
Instead, I cling to his chest, and every word I just threw at him disintegrates between our mouths.