37. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
My breath was a ragged gasp by the time I made it to Artie’s hospital room, my heart in my throat as I took in the three men inside.
Alexei and Maxim had yanked me off of the ice during the third period, their expressions grave as they filled me in on what had happened during Ciara and Artie’s set.
I’d taken to shutting off my end of the bond while I was playing—to keep from getting distracted—but as soon as the coaches told me that something was wrong I opened it back up and nearly buckled at the level of emotions that were flowing from my packmates.
Ciara’s end of the bond was completely dark and so was Artie’s, but Leith’s and Enzo’s were so palpable that I could almost taste their fear on my tongue as I changed into my regular clothes and made my way to the hospital.
One of the benefits of being a fully bonded pack member meant that I was in Artie’s charts now and they let me right through, sending me to the fourth floor where the omega was currently being held for observations.
“How is he?” I asked as I stepped inside, glancing around for Ciara and not finding her anywhere in the small room. “And where’s Ciara?”
Guilt trickled down the bond from Enzo’s direction and he looked anywhere but at me.
“I’m fine,” Artie called from the bed where he was currently batting Leith’s hands away from him as the alpha tried to fuss. “And Ciara isn’t here because this idiot decided it would be a good idea to lash out at her.”
“Babe…” Enzo began, looking miserable.
Artie didn’t even turn his face toward the other alpha, crossing his arms over his chest. “Don’t babe me. Go fix it.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself for testing, Artie,” Enzo said, a bit of his usual stubbornness returning. “And Ciara will be fine at the apartment on her own.”
I was having trouble keeping up with the conversation in front of me, only catching bits and pieces that didn’t all seem to fit together. “Can someone please tell me what is going on? What did you say to Ciara?”
“This eejit,” Leith pointed at Enzo, “decided it would be a good idea to blame Ciara for the accident.”
“Why the fuck would you do that?” Anger at the other alpha filled me as I imagined how hurt she must have felt. She’d told me once about the accident that Brynn had gotten into when she was supposed to be out with Ciara.
Everything had ended well for her little sister, but Ciara still blamed herself for the whole mess and this situation wasn’t dissimilar from that.
I also had a sneaking suspicion of what Ciara was about to do next.
Enzo dug a hand through his dark brown hair, making it stand on end as he shrugged. “I don’t know, I just panicked. I didn’t mean it.”
“Then you shouldn’t have said it,” I snapped with more anger than any of them had ever seen from me. “I’m going to head to the apartment to check on her—are you guys good here?”
“Can you tell her to come see me? I want her to know it’s not her fault…” Artie looked as if he was about to get out of the bed and go find her himself, but Leith’s hand on his shoulder was keeping it from happening.
“I will.” I nodded, feeling bad about lying to the omega.
With one last glance at the three, I left the hospital room and headed home.
Once I stepped off of the elevator on their floor I used the key that Ciara had given me, not to open the pack apartment, but to open the one she shared with Penelope.
The place was dark and quiet, but I could smell Ciara’s cinnamon scent in the air which told me she was home.
Her bedroom door was shut and I lifted a fist and knocked on it.
There was a beat of silence before I heard her voice. “Go away.”
“I can’t do that, gorgeous, and I think we both know why.”
After another long pause, the door opened slowly and a tear-stained Ciara greeted me, still dressed in her lilac costume.
Over her shoulder I saw her suitcase open on her bed, half-packed, confirming my earlier suspicions.
“Oh, gorgeous,” I sighed, wanting to pull her into a tight hug, but also knowing she wouldn’t welcome that right now. “Where are we going and will I need a passport?”
Ciara frowned and wiped at her wet cheeks. “Ireland, but you’re not going with me, Wiz.”
“The hell I’m not. What airline are you taking?” I asked, already whipping out my phone to book a flight.
“You have preseason starting in a couple of weeks, not to mention practice… and I’m just going as me. No pack.”
I shrugged unbothered by her rejection. “Fine by me. Ciara, do you remember what I said to you on our first date? I told you that if you run away, I’m going with you.”
Ciara’s expression crumpled as fresh tears started again. “I love you Jae-Sun, have I ever told you that before?”
Despite the shitty situation we found ourselves in, I couldn’t help but grin down at her. “No, but I wouldn’t be opposed to you telling me every single day from now on. I love you so much, gorgeous, you’ve got no clue.”
Ciara sank into me with relief, her limbs shaking as I gathered her into my arms and pressed a kiss to her lips.
“Now, what airline so I can get a ticket for myself and then we can head up to my apartment and pack my shit too.”
Easing the door of our hotel room shut as quietly as possible, I listened to the line ring as I waited for the person I was calling to answer.
“Park, I was wondering when you’d call me. Did you two make it to Dublin okay?” Alexei Peterson asked on the other end of the line.
After nearly twenty hours of travel, we’d made it to Dublin in the middle of the night.
“We did,” I said, walking farther away from the hotel room so as not to wake Ciara up. “I just got her to get some sleep. I was worried she was going to drop in the airport. She looked so damned exhausted.”
“Other than that is she okay?”
Ciara had given me a brief explanation of the events preceding the invitational day. The phone call from her biological father’s hospice nurse, learning that Maxim, Alexei, and Aurelia had been lying to her about the monthly pay off, sleeping in her car, and then the guilt that she’d let herself get so distracted by all of it that Artie had gotten hurt.
“No, Alexei, why would she be okay? She’s barely slept in the past three days and she can barely keep anything down. I’m worried.” AndI also shouldn’t be telling you any of this, I added silently to myself.
But I had to call and let them know that I wouldn’t be at practice and why. Neither Maxim nor Alexei sounded surprised by the turn of events and I was pretty sure that if they weren’t the coaches they would also be on the next plane out.
I’d only just barely managed to convince them to let Ciara handle this on her own—that she needed to in order to heal.
A heavy sigh filled my ear. “Just take care of her for me. She may be pissed at me, but she’s still my little girl and I hate that she’s doing all of this by herself.”
“She isn’t by herself, she’s got me.” I wasn’t sure how much help I’d be here, but even if I was just someone to hold on to while she dealt with all of this bullshit, then that was what I would be.
“I know, thank you for that.” There was a pause before he finally brought up the subject that I’d been waiting for him to bring up ever since Ciara and I turned our locations off on our phones and I shut down my end of the bond. “They’ve been asking about her. The others in your pack, I mean.”
Even though Enzo was a fucking idiot for letting his fear get the better of him, I wasn’t actually angry with him or any of the others in our pack. It was a shitty situation all around, but Ciara didn’t want to talk to them or even tell them where we were and she was my first priority right now.
“Don’t tell them anything until Ciara is ready,” I said firmly, hoping the man understood how serious I was.
“Enzo told me what he said to her… it was so close to what I’d snapped at her four years ago that I was having déjà vu. Called him a fucking idiot for it, but I don’t think they deserve to be cut off like this.”
“It’s not about what he said or did.” I’d been trying to wrap my own head around it for almost an entire day and the best conclusion I could come up with was that Ciara was filled with a deep sense of guilt that she couldn’t shake off.
Another sigh on the other end of the line. “I guess you’re right. Listen, I’ve got to go, practice is starting in a couple of minutes and I need to explain your untimely absence to the rest of the team. Promise you’ll take good care of our girl for me?”
“I will,” I promised and we hung up the phone.
Heading down to the lobby, I found the night attendant texting on her phone and she only looked up when I gently rang the bell.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked in a much thicker Irish accent than the soft remnants that Ciara still had when she spoke.
“Do you have any saltines or anything else that’s good for an upset stomach?” I asked, glancing into the glass case that contained all sorts of snacks to be purchased.
“We might have some in the kitchen that go with our room service soups and I’ve got some clear soda as well, is this for your wife?” she asked, putting her phone down.
I nodded, surprised. “How did you know?”
The woman shrugged as she pulled a can of 7UP from the little mini fridge behind the desk. “She looked like she was in bits when you came in earlier. I was the same when I was pregnant, couldn’t keep a thing down and looked like death walking.”
The woman continued to chatter as she ducked into the kitchen and retrieved several packets of saltines. “That’ll be three euros, please.”
I only half-managed to return the rest of her idle chatter, my brain seeming to stutter on her earlier words.
Pregnant. It would make sense with how emotional Ciara had been leading up to the invitational—but she was on birth control. She’d shown it to me and had even packed it yesterday before we left for Ireland.
It couldn’t be true… could it?
Gathering up the crackers and 7UP, I returned to our room where Ciara was still sleeping on the bed.
She was dressed in a pair of sweatpants and my oversized sweatshirt, her normally warm brown skin almost pallid as her brows furrowed in her sleep with whatever she was dreaming about.
Then she rolled, throwing her arm over her head and causing the sweatshirt to ride up, exposing her belly.
Was it rounder than before? It looked flat to me, but I couldn’t be sure it was as flat as it had always been.
If she was pregnant, then that definitely threw a wrench in everything considering that there were four possible fathers. Three of which who weren’t even in the same country as her.
Pushing the thought away I resolved to buy a pregnancy test before we went to the hospice facility where Ciara’s bio-dad was being kept and crawled into the bed behind her.
Ciara didn’t protest when I pulled her flush against my chest and inhaled her cinnamon scent.
But tonight, I’d let her sleep, and then tomorrow we’d talk about everything else.