15. Chance #2
Rena stood first and reached for Alice’s hand before rethinking the movement. Instead, she laid her hand gently on the side of Alice’s face.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For everything.”
“Take care of my boy.”
“I will,” Rena promised.
She moved away from the bed to give me some space, and while I didn’t want her to go far, I appreciated the gesture.
I rose to my feet, and feeling as if I was moving in slow motion, I leaned forward and kissed first one of Alice’s cheeks, and then the other, before pulling back far enough to meet her eyes.
“I love you,” I told her quietly.
“Love you too, pal,” she said. “Go live the life you’ve been waiting for. I won’t ever be far away.”
Walking away from her bedside, knowing that I’d never see her again and someday she and Sven would no longer be there, was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
She deserved her rest. She deserved her mate’s unlimited attention. She deserved to take care of herself for once, instead of taking care of all of us. She’d earned it.
Still, as Rena led me, unseeing, out of the room, I nearly planted my feet and refused to leave. The only reason I didn’t was because Aunt Alice deserved better.
She’d given all of herself for so long.
I could give a little back.
“I love you,” I choked out again as we reached the hallway. “You’re my favorite too.”
We’d barely made it halfway down the hall when Uncle Sven reached us.
“I hate you,” I said angrily, glaring at him.
He smiled. “You always were the most sensitive of the bunch.”
“Fuck you.” I let out a short laugh as he wrapped one of his massive hands around the back of my head and pulled me into a tight hug.
“You filled a place in her that no one else ever could,” Uncle Sven murmured in my ear. “You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded, tears dripping down my cheeks.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.”
“I know.”
He pulled back to look into my eyes, his hands cupping each side of my head firmly as he searched my face.
“We’re going to sleep under the stars,” he whispered. “And warm ourselves by the fire and pretend that the world is once again how it was before.”
“That sounds perfect,” I replied, sniffling.
“You go and find what makes your mate happiest,” he said, smiling faintly. “And then give it to her.” I closed my eyes as he leaned in and kissed my cheeks firmly. “Take our love with you when you do.”
He let go and moved past us, disappearing into Aunt Alice’s room while I struggled to breathe.
“Come on,” Rena said quietly, tucking herself under my arm. “Come on, not here.”
Somehow, she accurately predicted that I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts, and when we reached the family room, everyone was there except Matthias and Adira. I rounded the couch, dropped onto it beside my mother, and pulled Rena into my lap.
The room was silent.
Danny and Rosemary had lost their poker faces and looked as devastated as I felt.
Reese was quietly crying. Lucy and Ambrose seemed stunned.
My father was stoic. My mother, dazed. Uncle Mordecai and Aunt Helen were red-eyed, but keeping it together.
Josiah sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor.
“I don’t understand why they won’t let us visit,” Beau said, breaking the silence as the sounds of Uncle Sven carrying Aunt Alice out of the house filtered down the hallway. “They wouldn’t have to go anywhere. We could go to them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I ground out.
“Of course it matters,” Beau retorted. “It’s not like it would be hard to fly out there. Every single one of us would be happy to make the trip.”
“No,” I snapped, glaring at him. “It doesn’t matter because Aunt Alice fucking asked us not to, all right?
You don’t need a reason. She told us what she wanted.
Time with Uncle Sven. That’s it. She wants to live in the old country, in the home they built, and watch the motherfucking wildflowers out the motherfucking window. Is that okay with you, Beau?”
“Happ,” my father chastised quietly.
“You think you can do that?” I asked, still glaring at my brother. “You think you could maybe do the one fucking thing that she asked for after a godsdamned lifetime of her doing things for us?”
“Gods, Chance,” Ambrose cut in. “Stop.”
“She deserves some peace. She’s earned the right not to be needed by everyone all the fucking time.”
“Beau knows that,” my father said, reaching out to set his hand on my shoulder. “He wasn’t trying to imply otherwise.”
“Bullshit,” I replied softly, losing the will to argue.
“Stop, love,” Rena whispered in my ear before pulling my head to her shoulder.
I sat there with her in my lap and my head on her shoulder as the sound of the plane’s engine grew louder and then faded into the distance.
Then I closed my eyes and wept.
The following week was filled with more goodbyes, but far less emotion.
Cap headed back to the teams. Zack and Suzie recovered enough that they left to meet with a doctor who specialized in her throat injury.
Gordy and his mate planned on checking in with their families and then traveling for a while until they found the place they’d like to settle.
I recommended Oregon again, and they promised to stop by when they were in the area.
Vampires and their mates left two-by-two as they healed enough to do so, thanking us for everything we’d done, with the implicit hope that they’d never see us again. I didn’t blame them a bit. I hoped that wherever their lives took them, they turned out to be good ones.
Billy Filau’s mate hadn’t been at the facility.
When everyone was counted, and the single mates were identified, we hadn’t found her.
I hoped somewhere in the world a human woman was telling her friends about how she’d almost mated a Vampire, but the reality was that she’d probably been killed before we’d known the place existed.
The day after we’d liberated the compound, I’d asked my father what they’d done with Filau.
He said Billy had never made it off the tarmac in Arizona, and I didn’t ask how he died.
They’d buried his body next to Hermann’s. The ultimate disrespect.
We all agreed that the Vampire who’d injured Aunt Alice should be released, even though it killed us to do it. He was remorseful, and he hadn’t once protested his confinement because he knew the gravity of what he’d done.
But there wasn’t a single Vampire on the property who could’ve honestly said that after watching his mate be tortured for weeks without the ability to save her, would’ve reacted differently if she’d suddenly started screaming again when someone touched her.
Plus, Alice had ordered Mordecai to let him go before she left, and it just seemed churlish to go against her wishes.
Aunt Helen and Uncle Mordecai promised to bring the family out in the summer, like old times. All of us were feeling pretty raw, and a little nostalgia was in order.
Then it was finally time to go home.
The flight home was uneventful, and the house seemed particularly quiet when we got there. Gary had been watching the place for us, and Rosemary fell into his arms the moment she saw him waiting for us in the driveway.
The rest of us filed inside to give them some privacy.
“Dinner at seven,” my mom announced as she marched toward the kitchen, my father following behind her.
“Come on,” Rena ordered, tugging me toward the stairs.
I followed her up on weary legs. I was almost completely healed from both bullet wounds.
Ambrose had taken out the stitches that morning, even though I could’ve done it myself.
I knew the exhaustion was from something else, something deeper.
I’d been fighting battles for as long as I could remember, and it was finally catching up to me.
I was tired, body and soul.
“I know you’re excited to get all of this,” I said, gesturing to myself. “But a little decorum would be appreciated.”
“Yes,” she shot back sarcastically, looking over her shoulder at me. “I’m dragging you upstairs to have my way with you. How did you know?”
“I have a sense for these things.”
“Sorry to tell you,” she replied, swinging open the door. “But your sensor is broken.”
“My sensor is never broken,” I argued. “I can promise you that.”
She paused to look at me, raising her eyebrows.
“Okay, unless I’ve been shot,” I conceded as she walked straight through the bedroom to my bathroom. “Okay, I’ve gotta know. What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m taking a bath,” she announced, turning on the tap. “I even packed bubbles when we went to my house.”
Leaning against the bathroom counter, I watched as she went to her suitcase and pulled out two bottles, bringing them back into the bathroom.
“What am I supposed to do while you’re taking a bath?” I asked, grinning as she poured a little of one, then a little of another, and then a little more of the first one into the bath.
“You could clean up the mess in the living area,” she replied, turning to face me as she unbuttoned her trousers. “Or you could get in with me.”
“Cleaning is for suckers,” I scoffed, pulling off my shirt.