36. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Iknew I should have pulled out of the invitational as soon as we stepped onto the ice.
After leaving the dads’ house last night I’d parked my car at the waterfront and had attempted to sleep in it.
All that gave me was a backache and an almost overwhelming sense of nausea that I couldn’t quite shake.
I’d almost called to tell my pack that I couldn’t skate—not after what I found out yesterday—but my phone had been dead and as soon as I saw Artie all dressed up in his costume I knew I couldn’t let him down.
Which was all well and good, except for the fact that I would have to ease open my end of the bond so that we could feel each other while we skated.
It had been to our advantage before, but now I worried it would be our downfall as we got into position.
Artie sucked in a little gasp as I gave him a taste of what I was feeling—all of the anger, betrayal, and fresh waves of grief that were being yanked out of me by that damned phone call yesterday.
“Ciara—” he began, but the music was already going and it was too late for us to stop now.
I tried my best to shove all of my emotions away while still keeping our end of the bond open so that Artie could feel where I was at any given moment, but as we settled into the routine I found my mind wandering again.
I had almost too much time to think last night about everything I’d learned. All of the hurt from my childhood reared its ugly head as I realized that the man who had ruined it was dying in hospice somewhere and he had no clue how hurt I still was.
How I still struggled to be a barely decent adult that was still learning how to even be in a relationship because I watched him and my mam’s tumultuous marriage for too many of my formative years.
And now he was just going to die? Without me ever seeing him and telling him so?
Rage seeped out of me as Adele’s voice filled my ears.
Artie gave the bond a mental tug, reminding me of where I was.
The music was starting to swell and our final move was coming and my final thought as I reached for Artie was wondering just what the hell I was going to do about the situation.
I didn’t realize I wasn’t in the correct position to catch Artie’s hand until our fingers brushed just past one another.
What was supposed to be a tandem spin using each other’s momentum was now a full tilt fall backward, Artie’s blue eyes widening as we stared at each other for a slowed breath before we fell and everything went black.
When I finally came to, my ears were ringing and someone was holding me in their arms and shaking me.
“Ciara!” a familiar voice called from what felt like far, far away. “Mo ròs!”
Then everything seemed to whoosh back to me all at once and my eyes shot open to find Leith hovering over me, his green eyes wide with fear.
“Artie.” Was the first word out of my mouth as I flipped out of his arms and scrambled across the ice to where my omega was surrounded by people shouting things back and forth.
A paramedic tried to stop me but I dodged past him to where Enzo was hovering next to Artie’s lifeless body.
“No,” I gasped, reaching for him only for my hands to be slapped away by Enzo’s.
Hurt welled out of me when I looked into his eyes to find not only worry, but blame. I could see it on his face and I could feel it lashing out at me from his end of the bond. My mouth went bone-dry as we stared at each other before Enzo finally said, “Don’t touch him, we can’t move him until the paramedics are ready.”
Blood welled just underneath Artie’s head, sending my mind racing to all of the warnings we’d been given by his doctor.
Head injuries had been on the top of the doctor’s list of things to avoid and I’d gone and done exactly that.
What had I been thinking? I should never have gotten onto the ice with him today and it was all my fault.
“Ma’am, we’re going to need to check you out too, you’ve got a nasty cut on your head that might need stitches,” a paramedic said as the rest descended on Artie, putting a neck brace on him as they prepared to put him onto a stretcher.
“I don’t care about that,” I insisted as their fingers began to prod at the cut on my temple and I moved to push their hands away.
“Well, I care,” Leith said, grabbing my wrist to stop me from doing so. He glanced over at Enzo who looked as if the wind had been knocked out of him. “You go in the ambulance with Artie, we’ll follow behind.”
Enzo offered us one stone-faced nod before following the paramedics off of the ice.
“I don’t think she’ll need stitches but I do want her to get checked out as soon as you make it to the hospital,” the paramedic finally told Leith who just nodded.
“I did this.” My words shook as I finally let him help me onto wobbly feet, the paramedic leading the way off of the ice. “This is all my fault.”
“It is not your fault, Ciara,” Leith told me seriously, his grip on my shoulder tightening as we passed Aurelia who looked at me with tear-stained cheeks.
I wanted to hug her. I wanted to scream at her.
Instead, I just turned away and let Leith gently guide me out of the main doors.
“Artie knew and we all knew exactly what the risks were when we let you two get on that ice.”
I shook my head, wincing when it tugged at the butterfly bandage that the paramedic had put on me. “I got distracted. You had to have felt it on the bond. I got distracted and didn’t get into position this time.”
What worried me the most was that Artie hadn’t woken up yet. It had taken me what I could only assume was a minute or two, but the omega had still been unconscious when they took him away. “Oh, gods, what if this wrecks his surgery next week?”
Artie was supposed to have laser eye surgery, but they wouldn’t do it if the pressure and swelling was too much. It had taken them six months to get the surgery on the books and I wasn’t sure when there would be another one ready for him.
Would his eyesight continue its rapid decline without the surgery to slow it down?
Guilt gripped me like an ice-cold fist as Leith put me in the car and we drove toward the hospital, one thought repeating in my mind over and over:
Had I just completely ruined everything?
“There is some significant swelling due to the concussion and we’ll have to monitor it in terms of him having that surgery next week. Omegas tend to heal much quicker from these sorts of things than anyone else…”
The doctor’s words were almost an echo of what Aurelia’s doctor had told her after her piece of shit ex shoved her down the stairs so many years ago and I had to keep from laughing hysterically at the irony of it.
Just because an omega could heal quickly didn’t mean shit to me when I’d watched my two omega sisters struggle from their injuries—Brynn especially as her head injury had been directly my fault.
Apparently, my past wasn’t stopping at bringing my father back into the picture, it also had to repeat the last time that I’d well and truly felt hopeless.
I could still taste the same shame on my tongue as I glanced over at the alphas standing around Artie’s hospital bed.
‘You were supposed to take care of her!’ Alexei’s harsh voice echoed through my mind as my eyes found Enzo who was looking anywhere but at me.
He hadn’t spoken a word to me since we’d arrived and had only updated Leith on the situation as it currently stood.
“Why hasn’t he woken up yet?” Leith asked from near Artie’s head as he gently brushed the omega’s blond hair away from his closed eyes.
The doctor shrugged. “With head injuries everyone takes their own time to regain consciousness, though I hear the more you stare at them the less likely they are to wake up.”
The joke landed completely flat, both Enzo and Leith staring at the man until he sheepishly tucked his tablet under his arm and cleared his throat. “Ahem, once he does wake up, please press the call button so we can do some more tests. I’ll have a nurse check in with you in a bit.”
The man then turned and fled from the room, leaving the three of us alone.
Torn between wanting to hide from Enzo’s anger and wanting to be near my omega, the latter finally won out and I stood, crossing the hospital room.
I’d just reached for Artie’s hand when Enzo’s snarl stopped me.
“Don’t touch him.”
“Enzo…” Leith warned, his expression hard as he glanced between the two of us. “Calm down.”
But Enzo shook his head violently. “No, Leith, I won’t calm down. I knew skating today would be a bad idea—look at her—she looked like she hasn’t slept in days and she just went fucking MIA completely yesterday. We should never have let her onto the ice with him.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t know what to say to make any of this okay.
A wave of nausea rolled through me and I had to clamp my mouth shut to keep from spewing all over my pack.
“I’m sorry,” I finally managed in a hoarse whisper.
Enzo wasn’t done yet, though. “I love you, Ciara, but you don’t seem to trust us with any of your shit. You should have come home and been honest with us about what’s going on with you. None of this would have happened if you’d done that—or maybe it would—I don’t know, maybe you really are a bad luck charm like you said before.”
I could feel his regret as soon as the words left his mouth and we stared at one another in shock. But it was too late for regret now.
I’d told him that in confidence when we were locked in that closet so long ago and to have him bring it up now? While I already felt miserable enough about the entire situation?
“Enzo!” Leith’s bark was rough as he glared at our packmate like he couldn’t recognize him.
Ragged hurt at his words filled me and I knew they could both feel it too. Then I slammed down on my end of the bond, cutting them off so abruptly that all three of us gasped.
“Ciara…” Enzo began, taking a step toward me. He looked contrite now, but my brain was already running wild with his words.
Bad luck charm, bad luck charm, bad luck charm.
The label I’d given myself after the death of the moms, Aurelia’s accident that left her in a wheelchair, Brynn’s memory loss when I was supposed to be looking at her… and now? With Artie lying motionless in the hospital bed and someone I loved verbalizing it?
It must have been true.
Avoiding Enzo’s outstretched hands, I whirled on my heel and ran out of the hospital room, bile crawling up my throat as I made it down the hallway just in time to find a trashcan to throw up in.
“Mo ròs.” Cool hands cupped the back of my neck as Leith gathered my hair, which I’d left floating freely around my head for our routine, away from my face.
“Don’t call me that,” I gasped, spitting what used to be the bagel that I’d forced myself to eat this morning into the trashcan. “Not right now.”
I didn’t want him to call me soft platitudes. I wasn’t his rose right now, I was the reason our omega was lying in a hospital bed.
Straightening, I found Leith’s face full of worry and pity. It made me want to scream at him, to beat my fists against his chest until he got angry at me the way Enzo was.
But Leith would never get angry at me. It wasn’t built into his DNA and trying would only make me feel worse.
“Enzo didn’t mean any of what he said back there,” Leith reached for me but I skittered away from him, afraid that if I let him soothe me that I would walk back into that hospital room and pretend like Enzo’s words hadn’t flayed me raw. “He’s panicked and—”
I cut him off. “I know, Lei, but I need some time away from all of this. I’m gonna head back to the apartment and sleep.”
“I can go with you, I’m worried about you.” Leith’s green eyes were intent on my face and I could feel him prodding at the edges of my mental blockade, trying to gauge my mental state, but I didn’t let him in.
“I’m fine, you stay with Artie. That’ll make me feel better than anything. I’ll be at the apartment, call me when he wakes up?”
The lie rolled too smoothly off of my tongue.
Leith looked as if he wanted to stop me, but his wide shoulders finally sank in surrender. “All right, but text me when you get there?”
I nodded, offering him a weak smile and accepting the forehead kiss that made me want to sob.
Turning, I walked away from him. Every step I took away from him broke me a little bit more, but I had things I needed to do.
And to do them, I needed to go back to where everything started.
I needed to go back to Ireland.