Chapter 15 - Shane
The walk back through the woods seems to take forever. My body aches with every step, and I have to be careful where I put my feet in case I fall.
I relied on my wolf too much. Without my powers, I’m helpless, and I hate it.
I can hear Hyacinth’s steps behind me. She seems to be walking easily, not tripping or stumbling. I’m relieved that she doesn’t need my assistance—especially since I feel completely inept at the moment—but I’m also puzzled.
How can she walk through the forest so easily in this darkness? It’s like something changed inside her right after we…
Even though I want to think about the intimate moment we just shared, I push it out of my mind. It hurts that she doesn’t want to talk about it, and it hurts even more that we were so close to each other tonight—and now, we are further apart than ever.
Hyacinth… I wish I could tell you everything that’s in my head and in my heart. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think I want to try. Not for my pack, but for me. For us.
The words lay heavily on my tongue and become stones in my heart. As badly as I want to say them, I just keep my mouth shut.
We come out of the woods and walk around the lake, still moving in silence. There is a bit more light, and I breathe a sigh of relief that we’re back on even ground.
A wolf afraid of the woods. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
When we get back to the car, I rummage around the back seat, searching for my gym bag. I pull it out and hand it to Hyacinth.
“There’s a clean towel in there, and spare clothes and shoes if you want them. It looks like you fell in the mud,” I say.
“I did,” she replies. “Do I look that bad?”
“No. I just thought you might want to clean up a little.”
“Where are you taking me, the Hilton or something?”
“No,” I sigh, trying not to snap. “It doesn’t matter how you look. I just literally thought you might want to clean up.”
Hyacinth looks at me for a second, then grabs the bag. She pulls out the towel, wipes her face, and starts pulling leaves out of her hair. I get into the driver’s side to wait, but I can’t help myself from checking her out in the mirror.
Covered in rust-colored leaves and crowned with tiny, delicate flower petals, she looks like a forest goddess.
I try to put my whimsical thoughts aside and focus on where we’re going next. I feel bad that I went out on a date with Hyacinth and had a good time when I really should have been with my people.
It’s like being in a meat grinder. Building my life with Hyacinth is supposed to help my people, but all it seems to do is make things worse—then I feel bad for neglecting them.
“Okay,” Hyacinth says, getting into the car. “I’m ready.”
“Good,” I reply, starting up the car and pulling out of the lot. Hyacinth looks out the window as if she’s ignoring me, but I can tell that she’s watching me out of the corner of her eye.
It’s like she thinks I’m about to attack her. What on earth happened to her, to make her like this?
It isn’t far to the infirmary, and when we pull up in the drive, I see Hyacinth looking up at the old church with suspicion.
“Where are we?” she asks.
“It’s the infirmary,” I reply. “The pack hospital. This is where my sick pack members are.”
Hyacinth’s eyes widen, and her face pales. She gets out of the car slowly, her eyes on the cross high on the steepled roof.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “This hasn’t been a place of worship for a very long time. It was initially used as a meeting hall, and now it’s the only place we have big enough for this many people.”
Hyacinth nods and walks slowly towards the front doors. I follow behind her, wishing I could take her hand but keeping my distance.
I can’t shake off that feeling of intimacy that joined us when I gave her those orgasms. I’ve never felt anything like that before, and from what I could tell, neither did she.
As she walks through the front doors, she stops dead, her eyes sweeping back and forth across the room. I hear a tiny gasp slip through her lips, and she covers her mouth with her hand.
“I had no idea it was this bad,” she whispers.
“What did you think you were going to see?” I ask, my voice a bit too hard.
“I don’t know… I thought the curse just affected the wolf's abilities. I didn’t realize people were this sick.”
“Well, now you know,” I say. “Maybe I should have introduced you to the pack immediately, so you’d understand why I did what I did.”
“I’m never going to agree that kidnapping me was the right thing to do,” she mutters. “But I can understand how emotional you were. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Before I can respond, Hyacinth strides into the rows of beds, talking to the patients and trying to make them comfortable. The way she leans over each person with a comforting smile and asks what they need touches my heart, and I realize I was genuinely worried that she wouldn’t care.
Who are these people to her? No one. She doesn’t have to care. But incredibly, she does, and it’s more than I could have hoped for.
I watch for a few moments more as Hyacinth talks to the other nurses and follows their instructions with quiet efficiency. Satisfied that she doesn’t need my help, I tend to patients as well and bring in more supplies from the storage area.
After I’ve been working for a couple of hours, I look around, but I can’t see Hyacinth anywhere. Just as I’m starting to get worried she’s left without me, I hear a scattering of laughter over in the children’s ward.
That’s a sound I haven’t heard in here before.
Hurrying over, I find Hyacinth standing in the middle of the ward, making funny faces and flapping her arms as she talks in bright tones. The kids are all giggling in their beds as she tells them a funny story, and I can’t believe my eyes.
She looks utterly ridiculous—and completely beautiful.
Her gestures get more exaggerated as she progresses with the story—something about an ostrich losing its egg—and she struts comically by each child’s bed as she involves each of them in the tale.
I keep my distance, not wanting to disturb her.
The kids all laugh happily, completely distracted from their pain as they get caught up in Hyacinth’s story.
Once the tale concludes, the kids clap and cheer. Hyacinth goes around to each bed, giving the kids hugs and tucking them in. The way she smiles at each of them is gentle and loving, but I can see fear lurking in her eyes.
I know exactly how that feels. I’ve been teetering on the edge of that cliff for weeks now.
As she leaves the kids’ ward, Hyacinth looks up and sees me waiting for her. The joy slips from her face, and all I can see there now is grave concern.
“Those kids are brave,” she says, coming up to me. “I don’t know how they’re holding it together, but they are. I’m amazed at how tough they are.”
“Yeah,” I reply. “You still aren’t giving them enough credit, though—they’ve been watching the pack slowly disappear for months. Now that they’re at death’s door themselves, I’m amazed at how well they’re coping.”
“What’s really wrong with them?” Hyacinth asks. “I have no idea how this curse manifests.”
“It starts with weakness and inability to shift,” I answer.
“That’s where I am, right now. It’s annoying and a bit painful, but not deadly.
The next stage is illness, and it’s different for everyone.
It could be neurological, such as headaches and brain damage, or lung infections.
Sometimes kidney failure. Like, seriously, the next stage could be anything at all, so our healers have absolutely no way to prepare. ”
“You said the elders were worse?”
“Yeah. I’d have to check in with Sadie for details, but all of them are starting to suffer internal bleeding. Neville is almost blind now. They’re still trapped in the manor, too.”
“Trapped?” she asks softly. “I’ve heard you guys talking about it, but what does it mean, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter, rubbing my temples. “I don’t understand magic. It’s like they literally cannot walk out the door. I don’t know if it’s an invisible force field or something mental. I seriously have no clue.”
“Hmm,” Hyacinth says. “Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?”
“Them being trapped there. Don’t worry, I’m just thinking out loud.” She shakes her head. “It’s getting late. We should get home.”
“Yes,” I agree, relieved. “I’m dead on my feet.”
We head out to the car, and in the short drive home, even though we don’t talk, the silence isn’t strained. My heart tries to flicker with hope, but I snuff it out just as fast.
I can’t get my hopes up. Just because she responded well to the ill pack members doesn’t mean she’s ready to accept me.
When we get home, Hyacinth goes straight to the kitchen and sits down at the table with some cookies and a carton of milk. I’m not really in the mood for a snack, but I join her, anyway.
“You’re right,” she says after we’ve demolished half the cookies.
“What?” I ask, a little shocked.
I never thought I’d hear her say those words.
Hyacinth sighs. “I have to do anything in my power to help your people. I feel for everyone in your hospital right now, but I just can’t get those kids out of my head. If I can fix this, then I have to try.”
“It’s a relief to hear you say that,” I reply, stress melting away from my heart. “Maybe now you can understand what I’ve done?”
Hyacinth gives a short laugh, shaking her head. “No, Shane. Not ever. Kidnapping is not the answer to anyone’s problems.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling desperate. “But at that moment, it seemed to be the only course of action. I seriously can’t explain it, Hyacinth. I wasn’t in my right mind. I couldn’t even really think about it until it was done.”
Hyacinth stares at me, her violet eyes widening as thoughts flash through her mind. I see some of the anger leave her face as she ponders my words.
“Interesting,” she mutters.
“You keep saying that,” I say impatiently. “But you won’t tell me what’s so interesting?”
“I don’t have anything to tell,” she says, dismissing my words with a wave. “All of this new information is fitting in with the research I did before, that’s all.”
“Do you think you’ll figure out something that can help us?”
“I do,” she says, nodding. “I just don’t know, exactly. Not yet.”
“We have to do something soon,” I say.
“I agree,” she replies. “But until I figure it out, we’ve got nothing.”
The one thing I know we can do looms in my mind, and I struggle with it.
Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say it!
“Hyacinth?” My voice comes out soft, almost apologetic.
“Yes?”
“There is one thing we can do.”
Her eyes suddenly turn cold, all the warmth of violet petals replaced by cold shards of amethyst.
“I said, I don’t want to talk about that.”
“But Hyacinth,” I say desperately. “Something happened tonight, something huge. It meant something to me, and I know you felt it, too. It was powerful—”
“That doesn’t mean shit!” she snaps, slapping her hands down on the table. “Do you think that just because I had an orgasm, you now have full rights to my body?”
“No, I’m not suggesting that—”
“Do you think that because we bonded over dinner, I owe you affection?”
“No!” I almost yell. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“Am I?” Hyacinth shrieks, standing up and glaring at me. “How dare you.”
“Do you think I even want to have sex with you?” I yell back. “Especially when everything is this fucking complicated? All I know is that I keep hearing it’s the only way, and since we had such a good time earlier, I—”
“Typical,” she says scathingly. “It’s all about your pleasure, isn’t it?”
“Excuse me?” I snap back. “Who had multiple orgasms while I had none?”
Hyacinth glares at me, but something deep in her eyes wavers, as if a thin crack has split the frozen surface, about to reveal the turmoil underneath.
“Fuck you!” she yells. “You don’t get it, and you never will. You don’t know what’s happened to me—” Her voice lowers as if her throat is closing, and she gasps, almost sobbing.
My anger immediately cools, and I feel a tugging in my chest as if my heart is responding to her pain. “Hyacinth—”
“No,” she chokes out. “No.”
She runs from the room, and in her wake, the silence of the kitchen feels almost violent. For the first time, I think about Hyacinth’s past, wondering what happened to her before she came here.
I hear her anguished voice echo in my head. You don’t know what happened to me.
I suddenly feel intense guilt that not only did I never ask her about her past, I also didn’t care until this moment.
It’s a two-way street, though. I don’t know what happened to her, but she doesn’t know anything about my past, either.