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Chapter 157
I don’t know how much time has passed when I wake up in Aaron’s bed once again, but daylight is
shining through the curtains
once more, so at least the night must have passed.
This time, I’m not in a rush to get up.
What’s the point?
My baby is gone, and I don’t even know what the point of me being alive is
It seems so cru el that I survived where he didn’t.
After a moment, I roll over, and don’t realize I’m trying to scent Aaron on the pillows until I’m already
doing it.
I growl at myself, annoyed.
Or maybe I should be more annoyed with my inner wolf, since it’s her obsession with her mate that
keeps me longing for him.
Longing for a man who I think I hate now.
I loved him for so long, hating him almost feels the same.
Deep, passionate, all-consuming.
A fire burning within me.
He is to blame for me losing my child, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for that.
But even as I think these things, my wolf is longing for him in a way that leaves my body aching.
Anyway, the pillows don’t smell like him anymore.
So has he simply been sleeping in another bedroom?
Or is he not even living on Rathborn pack lands any longer?
What did James mean when he said Aaron left yesterday?
Eventually I sit up, and find a pitcher of ice water and a platter of fruit, crackers and cheese sitting on
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My stomach rumbles, and I realize I am ravenous.
I begin devouring the food, and somehow it tastes better than anything I’ve ever eaten. I can
distinguish flavors in a way I never have before. I also realize I can hear people moving around in the
house, and pick up scents my human nose hadn’t even
realized existed.
Being human was like living in standard definition.
Now that I have my wolf, I’m living in super-high def.
I never realized how much I was actually missing out on by not having my wolf.
Just as I finish with the food, the door opens and James walks in.
I pull the sheet up around myself, since whoever put me in bed hadn’t bothered to dress me.
“Good, at least you’ve got your appetite back.” James walks over and sits on the bed. Right away, I can
see the guilt in his eyes, and I try not to let it soften me. “I’m sorry, Leah. For everything. You have to
know I’d do anything to change things, to be able to give you back your child. But I can’t say I’m sorry
that you’re here now and alive.
“It’s not your fault, James,” I reply, a lump in my throat.
“That night- he begins haltingly, but I hold up my hand.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now. I can’t talk about it. Maybe later, but not today.”
“Promise you won’t run off like that again,” James says, searching my features intently. “Rathbom pack
lands might have the highest security, but you know from experience that its not infallible.
I nod, drawing my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.
“How long has it been, James? How long was I asleep for?”
“Six months,” James replies, his voice a low rumble. “Like Adam said, we didn’t know if you were going
to ever wake up.”
“It’s a miracle that I have my wolf now.”
Despite how I’d gotten her, I couldn’t regret that I’d gotten to experience life with her, like it should have
been from the start if my father hadn’t bound her in some twisted act of either protecting me, or striking
at Aaron.
“We’re not sure-nothing like this has ever happened before in the history of all the packs-but we think it
was Aaron claiming you at the last second that did it. Becoming your mate unbound your wolf. Between
the mate bond tethering you to this world through Aaron, and then your wolf fighting to the surface, you
survived. You’d died, Leah.”
“I know.”
“I get that this is awful, but you need to know that Aaron could’ve died too. He risked his life to bring
you back from the depths. He followed you over, Leah. We weren’t sure either of you would survive.”
I feel that to my bones.
And I know that. I do. “I understand.”
James looks reflective. “Then why are you so angry?”
“James…I asked Aaron to turn me. Many times when we first married. I wanted to have my wolf. I
wanted to be whole, so he could mate me. So we could have a family. Our lives everything could’ve
been so different!”
If he had put his pride and all those arro gant machinations aside, and allowed our marriage to be what
it should have been all along, then maybe I would now be holding our child in my arms. I certainly
wouldn’t have ever gotten sic k with canc er. Maybe I would still be Alpha and Liam wouldn’t have been
able to betray me like he had.
I wonder, now, if my father thought that transferring his Alpha powers to me would somehow unbind my
wolf and restore me.
I guess I’ll never know.
“And he has my powers now, right? Aaron has assumed control of my family’s pack.”
James looks away from me. He nods, still avoiding my gaze, his feelings of guilt plain as day.
Despite James’s tough looks, he is a good man-good wolf-at heart, who is willing to carry the weight of
things, whether he’s directly responsible for them or not.
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Aaron could stand to take a leaf or two out of his book.
But Aaron probably deserves his ego now. Is there another Alpha more powerful? Not on this continent.
Maybe not in the world.
There was a good chance that should Aaron decide to challenge for a seat on the Council, no other
wolf would stand a chance against him, even the oldest, most powerful wolves amongst them.
“So Aaron must be busy, being the Alpha of three packs,” I say, and yet again, my voice is bitter. “How
is he managing that?”
“Remotely, mostly,” James replies. “He’s not living here anymore, Leah. He hasn’t for months now”
That stings. More than I want it to.
“Then where is he living?” I can’t help but ask.
My wolf is upset that her mate won’t be under the same roof as her.
Not even on the same lands, apparently.
I try to tell her it’s for the best, but she doesn’t want to listen to me.
She’s stubborn, my wolf, but I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise given my own personality.
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“I’m sorry, Leah,” James says, getting to his feet. “I can’t tell you. Everything Aaron wants you to know
is ready for you, down in his office, whenever you’re ready to look at it.”
“What’s the point?” I mutter, feeling another wave of sadness go over me as I remember my lost child
out of nowhere.
Is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of my life?
Battling these overwhelming waves of despair that make my heart feel like it’s cracked into a million
pieces and can never be put back together?
How does any parent survive losing a child?
“The point is that you’re still part of this pack, one of us,” James says firmly, but not unkindly. “I can’t
imagine the pain of losing your baby, Leah. But the pack needs you to find strength for them now. The
pack needs their Luna.”
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