Chapter 4 - Emily #2
As the cortisone rushes through her veins, her breathing stabilizes almost immediately, and a wave of relief washes over me.
I finally look up to see Sean on the other side of the bed, kneeling beside his mother as he clutches her hand.
His face is ruined with tears, eyes downcast and deflated as he stares at his mother’s face.
Alpha Joseph is at the foot of the bed, equally deflated, defeated, torn apart from seeing his mate, his wife, succumb to her chronic illness in a way that’s eating her from the inside out.
I can only imagine what he’s going through, and I can only pray that I never experience something as heart-wrenching as this.
Evelyn Lowell’s breathing stabilizes, and I’m able to replace the oxygen mask on her face. She manages a faint smile—the only thanks she can manage ever since her condition worsened about a week ago.
I brush aside a stray hair from her face before offering Alpha Joseph a quiet nod. As I step aside to leave the bedroom to give her son and husband a moment alone with her after that scare, Alpha Joseph begins to sob.
The sounds are muffled, but heartbreaking, even as I step into the hallway and close the door behind me.
I can still hear Alpha’s anguish as he grieves his wife even while she still breathes.
She’s fighting a losing battle—we all know that, and all we can do is be there for her through her final moments.
It’s why Alpha Joseph gave me a spare bedroom in his house, to be closer to Luna Evelyn as I manage her palliative care. I know I should probably return to my room next to hers, but for some reason, I feel like I need to be a part of tonight’s grieving process, even if it’s just from the sidelines.
Beneath Alpha’s sobs, I can hear his son’s heartbreak, too, the underlying horror of having to watch his mother deteriorate in front of his eyes evident in just his breathing.
It’s not loud, but it’s even more heart-wrenching in its quietness, and it keeps me frozen in the spot, my own heart breaking as if I can feel Sean’s emotions.
I guess letting out tears when he’s just behind the door is inevitable.
Maybe it’s just the situation, but I suddenly feel a connection between what Sean feels and my own feelings.
While tears stream down my cheeks, I stand in the hallway, watching the door as I listen to Sean’s breathing.
I can make it out somehow—a trick I learned while we were still in school, and I developed a crush on him.
My unrequited feelings were hidden because I hid myself every time I heard his distinct breathing pattern approach.
Eventually, I couldn’t hide anymore. We grew up, and I’m Silverfang’s most promising healer. Alpha Joseph needed me to take care of Luna Evelyn.
And Sean needed my friendship during this trying time. I’ve had to push my feelings aside and be there for the Lowell family, however they need me.
Still, it pains me to see Luna Evelyn like this. She’d been kind to me since I became an orphan a few years ago, and treated me like nothing less than her own.
Taking care of her came naturally, and so the tears streaming down my face are partly because my own heart is breaking.
It’s like I’m losing my mother all over again, reliving that pain for a second time. Whatever I tried to hide from the past, mask so that I could survive, comes crashing back in this moment, and I hug my arms around my chest to console myself as I stare at the door.
My head hangs, and I’m just about to turn to drag my feet toward my bedroom when the door swings open and Sean comes out.
My breath catches when I notice his condition—worse than when I left him just now—and his shoulders are slumped, eyes burning with tears.
“Em…” he says as he lifts his head sluggishly, ocean-blue eyes meeting mine and melting me with his pain and the torture written in them.
He blinks as if he’s trying to fight the tears, but they win out, and he falls forward. My arms open up for him, holding him tightly, clutching him to my chest as he weeps.
I always admired how strong he was, but now, as I hold his shuddering body against my smaller frame, I admire his ability to be vulnerable. He doesn’t care that I’m witnessing the future alpha of Silverfang break down, and he clings to me as if I’m a lifeline.
That’s when all the feelings I’ve kept hidden come crashing into me all at once, and tear-stricken eyes turn to lovestruck eyes full of compassion and sympathy for the man I love.
The realization is quick, but impactful enough to turn the embrace from empathy into something more.
Perhaps Sean senses the shift, because he looks up at me through the veil of dark, dewy lashes, and my heart skips a beat. My breath catches as he blinks, a frown crossing his brows for a millisecond before he suddenly grabs my face with both hands and crushes his lips to mine.
The kiss is desperate, clinging to a lifeline he finds in the cavity of my mouth. But he’s not aggressive, his body still slouched with suffering, and I feel his hesitation to express more passion.
That’s when I slide my fingers through his hair and break the kiss, only to meet his eyes. A silent communication through our eyes tells him that it’s okay to lean on me for strength, because the truth is, I would do anything for this man.
The knowledge came in gentle waves over the years, and that’s why it isn’t shocking.
I was bound to be in love with him, bound to give myself in sacred ways, bound to feel the magic between us as we somehow made it to my bedroom.
His hands are all over me, tongue twisted with mine, and everything around us is forgotten.
***
I can’t forget.
I can’t forget what Sean did to me when I’d given myself up to him like that, a week before his mother passed away. Nothing, not even her death, could justify how much he’d hurt me, and my pain was as horrid as the alpha’s when his mate died.
My mate bond died when Luna Evelyn was laid to rest, and I can never go back and pretend that it didn’t kill me inside. I was torn, as if Sean died, all because our mate bond was fated.
He rejected fate when he rejected me, denied what the Moon Goddess Herself ordained for us, and I can never forgive that.
Even if I can’t feel my powers right now, like I’m disconnected from the energy of magic because of how far I am from Sean, I refuse to give him so much power over my life. My magic might be linked to him, but that’s as far as it’ll go.
I’ll go through with the official mating ceremony—this verbal one—only to enhance my skills and unleash the full extent of my powers.
I’ll figure out how to use my magic without having to see his face again.
He thwarted my plans by interfering in my ritual, and if I resented him before, I sincerely hate him now.
Once bitten, twice shy. And there’s no way I’ll let the alpha who has the power to ruin my life ruin it for a second time.
I’ve done well these past few years with keeping him at bay, staying close but not close enough for him to threaten my peace.
This is only a formality—one that I could have done without—but one I can navigate without getting my heart involved.