Chapter Seven
Bennett
June
With my sisters at the hospital and able to stay with Felix for a few minutes, I stepped out of his room to use the bathroom.
On my way back, I spotted the family lounge and decided to stop and call Clara.
I had a missed text from her asking me to call when I could since she wasn’t able to visit, so I assumed Wyatt had informed her about Felix’s situation yesterday.
“Bennett,” she said after one ring, sounding out of breath. “Thank God. How is he?”
“He’s stable,” I said, before giving her a rundown of everything that Dr. Tanaka had explained to me earlier.
“It’s really just a lot of waiting right now.
Once his brain swelling goes down and they pull him off the coma meds, we’ll know more about how he’s really doing.
They took him off the morphine, at least.”
“He was getting morphine?” Clara yelled. “Incompetent fucking hospital.”
I chuckled, pleased to finally talk to someone who was as angry as me. “Yeah, my thoughts exactly.”
I stared out the window at the parking lot down below and considered telling her about my suspicions, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea yet.
Clara would never be involved in anything that hurt Felix, so that wasn’t my concern, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell her my theory that Ryder was somehow involved in this and cause her to worry more than she already was.
Additional stress was the last thing her body needed right now.
“Bennett, are you going to keep dating Felix after this?” she asked quietly.
“What?” I gripped my hair in one hand and pulled hard, letting the pain interrupt the anger flooding my system. “Why would you ask me that?”
“It’s one thing to love someone with a drug addiction when you believe that addiction is a thing of the past. It’s another to stick with them through the ups and downs of relapse and recovery.”
I took a deep breath, trying to remind myself that she was probably terrified Felix had relapsed out of the blue. I wasn’t worried about that, because I knew he hadn’t. I knew my mate—Fuck Wyatt for telling me he isn’t my mate. Bonded or not, he is fucking mine. For life. Through it all.
“Clara, I’m not going to pretend to understand what you or your family went through when Felix was using.
I know his actions caused you a lot of pain over the years.
But I want to be crystal clear with you: I love that man more than life itself and I will crawl to hell and drag him out if that’s what it takes.
I will crawl into hell day after day, again and again, as many times as it takes to help him.
And yes, maybe that’s easy to say when I haven’t lived it yet, but I know with certainty that I’d rather die than give up on him. No matter what.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, her voice tight as she responded. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me for loving him. It’s my privilege to love him.” I cleared the thickness from my throat. “Clara, there is one thing I want to tell you though. When I got here yesterday, Ryder was in Felix’s room.”
“What?” she asked. “Why would he be there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how he knew about Felix’s accident but there’s been a few things that made me think he’s been around more than we thought.”
Clara was remarkably quiet.
“Do you know something?”
Clara sighed. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”
“Tough shit. Tell me.”
“You’re not my alpha, Bennett. I don’t owe you an answer,” she said defiantly.
“Please,” I said, my voice cracking. “Clara, Felix means everything to me. If there’s a chance you know something that could explain this, you have to tell me.”
She blew out a long breath. “When Felix wakes up and finds out I told you, you’re in charge of making sure he’s not mad at me.”
“Done,” I said, starting to pace the lounge.
“Felix told me about what happened when you two came to visit me, and I know you know about that. But he also told me last week that Ryder finally agreed to break their bond and he was going to meet up with him yesterday to do it.”
“What? Why the fuck would he do that?” I yelled. “Why would he put himself in a situation where he was alone with him again?”
My pulse quickened thinking about the time he saw Ryder a month ago and how scared he’d been about relapsing because of the encounter.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said dryly. “Maybe because he’s so fucking in love with you, that all he thinks about is spending his life with you.
He used to tell me he never wanted to be bonded again.
And then he met you, Bennett! He wants a chance to have a real future with you, one where he can be bonded to the man who he’s described as the love of his life more times than I can count.
He didn’t want to get your hopes up and he was hoping to handle his past and offer you his future. ”
“Fucking hell!” I yelled, stomping my foot and earning a few wary glances from passersby as my eyes filled with tears. A roar of anger tore from my chest, causing Clara to shriek on the other end of the phone as I knocked over a chair.
“Are you always this angry? Because Felix insists that you’re just a growly, possessive teddy bear.”
I picked up the chair and rubbed my temple with one hand as tears rolled down my cheek. “He’s my true mate, Clara. I’ve known it since the moment I saw him. He doesn’t need Ryder to break their bond, because if he asked me to bite him it would override their connection.”
“Are you shitting me right now? Bennett, you asshole! You’ve known the whole time? Why wouldn’t you tell him? Do you not want him? I’m going to roll myself out of this bed and come kick your ass. I don’t give a shit if you’re an alpha. I’m a pretty tough beta.”
“I wanted him to have a choice,” I said, eyes welling with more tears as I sank down to the floor against the wall.
“I didn’t want him to think he had to be with me because of some fated-mates situation.
After everything that happened with Ryder, I just wanted him to have a choice.
” I choked on a sob. “For fuck’s sake, I figured he’d either feel the true bond too, or we’d talk about it when he was ready and I could tell him then. ”
I dropped my head against the wall and Clara took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry, Bennett. If it helps, he was ready.
He loves you and I know he felt how rare and special your connection was.
I don’t know if he realized what it meant, he never told me if he did.
He probably thought it’s what love felt like when there weren’t drugs in everyone’s system. ”
I closed my eyes, struggling to breathe. “The only thing that’s going to help me now is seeing him open his eyes. I just need to know that he’s going to be okay.”
“He will be,” Clara said confidently. “The only way you can get through this is if we believe in him. He’s a fighter, and he’s not going to leave you. You need to believe that.”
“God, I hope you’re right,” I said, dropping my head onto my knees as we cried together.