After Six Years The Alpha Begs For My Return Chapter 17
The mask she had worn for six years had finally been torn away.
I sat by my mother’s bed, my hand wrapped around hers, unable to sort through the tangle of emotions inside me.
There was shock. Anger. And more than anything, a belated, dull ache.
But when I looked deeper, all I found was emptiness.
No wild relief. No catharsis.
Once a wound has scarred over, even the truth, delivered late, can’t raise much of a storm. My wolf didn’t lean toward Gideon now that he might be innocent. It remained on guard, its focus solely on my mother in her hospital bed.
I stood, walked past Ophelia, and opened the door to the room.
Reese followed me out. He didn’t ask any questions. He just handed me a cup of hot coffee from the vending machine. An unlit cigarette rested between his lips as he leaned against the corridor wall and waited.
“You’re not going to ask?” I took the coffee, the warmth spreading through my hands.
“Ask what?” He glanced at me. “Whether you’re hurting? Your scent already answered that.”
“What was the answer?”
“That it’s nothing you can’t handle.” He tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Same as in Paris, when you were half-frozen and your healing was failing, and you still told me you weren’t cold.”
I lowered my head and took a sip. It was bitter as hell.
Behind us, the sounds of Ophelia’s breakdown filtered through the closed door, punctuated by Gideon’s sharp, repeated questions.
The noise reached us as if from another world.
I leaned back against the wall and slowly finished the coffee.
Reese’s phone buzzed.