Page 31 of Blood Loss (The Obscura Saga #2)

LAT H AN

It’s day four, he’s been informed, since he was admitted to the psychiatric unit. He doesn’t remember arriving.

He’s only been conscious for about twelve hours. As soon as his cotton mouth dissipated and he found his voice, he was assessed by some woman with yellow eyes, though he didn’t offer her much information, and basically regurgitated the same answers he gave to the crisis team.

Yes, I feel depressed.

Yes, I want to die.

Yes, I know how I’m going to end my life.

A nurse comes into his room as he’s gazing out the window and sets a tray of food on the rolling table beside his bed. “Come have something to eat. You must be hungry.”

He is, and he isn’t. His throat has a tickle in it, and his sclerae are a soft pink—it’s been about a week since he last fed. And several days since he’s eaten anything solid; his IV was removed a few hours ago. Both of his appetites have diminished, and he’s only been consuming enough to keep going, though often questions why. Until he remembers the promise he made to Kylo on the bathroom floor of their dorm room.

He looks over his shoulder at her, at the food, but doesn’t move. The window has thick iron bars on the outside, preventing anyone from jumping. It makes him think of his open balcony numbly.

She offers him a smile and tilts her head. She almost says something, but he watches her decide against it, her smile simply deepening, and then she walks out. Lathan sighs and moves to the hospital bed, sitting on its edge to pick at the measly food on the tray.

He’s nibbling on a baby carrot, an arm hugging one of his knees into his chest as he slouches on the bed, when the door frame is knocked on. He glances up tiredly, expecting another doctor or nurse or counsellor, but his eyes brighten—a light, even if small, in his stare once again.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” he stammers, splintering the carrot with the pinch of his anxious fingers. “I didn’t know they called you.”

He wasn’t expecting Kylo. He wasn’t expecting him to visit at all ; he knows he doesn’t deserve it, knows he’s hurt him irreparably. But his chest blossoms with warmth seeing him at the door nonetheless.

But he doesn’t know what else to say. Doesn’t know how to apologize, especially when he isn’t entirely sorry. Because he can’t control this, wanting to die—he didn’t feel as though he had any other choice. Still doesn’t .

“Oh, baby,” Kylo starts, striding to the empty chair next to Lathan’s bed, “I would’ve been here every second of the day if I could.”

He swallows and sits back down on the mattress, picking at the gauze bandaged around his wrist, wrapped during his hibernation to help heal his bite from earlier in the week. His neck wilts, head hung, but doesn’t try to hide from Kylo. He’s still here…but maybe he shouldn’t be.

“I’ve hurt you a lot,” Lathan says to the tiled floor. “And you got better when I wasn’t there. I’m not good for you, Kylo.”

This is the root of it all. He’s felt so guilty since the start of their relationship, and it’s only metastasized over time and destructive events. It’s all traced back to him. And he simply can’t live with the notion any longer.

So he’s giving him an out. He knows it isn’t easy, isn’t straightforward. They’re mates. They’re bonded. But Lathan’s even scared that he somehow coerced Kylo into doing that , that he was—is—addicted to him. To his venom.

He’s scared their love isn’t real, on either side. Because he doesn’t think he deserves for it to be.

“I won’t lie, it hasn’t been easy,” Kylo says, reaching to tuck a lock of hair behind Lathan’s ear. “We’ve both been through so much, and we hurt each other. But, mi amor, I got better for you.”

Lathan searches Kylo’s eyes, digs through those golden brown trenches, not understanding. “Why?” he asks simply. “You died. I…I killed you. I felt…” He trails off, dropping his gaze once again, now rubbing the centre of his chest where he felt their bond burn alive when Kylo’s heart stopped.

Kylo moves out of the chair to stand in front of Lathan at the end of the bed. Cupping his jaw gently, he tilts his head up and presses his lips to his forehead.

“I’m so sorry you felt that,” he hushes against his skin, then dips down to press their foreheads. “But you did not kill me. I’m sick. Addiction—it’s a disease. I know that now. And when I was away, they told me to work toward a goal. My goal was a peaceful future with my mate. My goal is you .”

He closes his eyes against Kylo’s warm hands cradling his face, his gentle kiss, the touch of his forehead. His expression pinches with pain, just slightly, and he keeps his eyes shut as he whispers, “Am I your addiction?”

There’s a pause, and his heart sinks, but then he hears Kylo sniffle.

“No, baby. I just can’t have venom anymore. But you? You’re my partner. You’re my choice.”

But I can have venom , Lathan’s inner voice assures, and he breathes through the harmful thought. What he clings to instead is that he is a choice. Kylo’s choice. Whether he believes it yet or not, he wraps imaginary limbs around that word and hangs on tight as he circles his arms around Kylo’s waist and sinks his face into his shoulder.

“I might need to hear that a lot,” he murmurs into the werewolf’s shirt shyly. He doesn’t like asking for help—never has—nor admitting to the things he needs.

Kylo stays still as he’s embraced, like he’s surprised by the gesture. But the moment passes, and he slips his arms around him in return, rubbing his cheek on the top of Lathan’s unwashed hair.

“You’re my choice, and I love you.”

He sighs into the air, and his soft breaths mould into whimpering—a barely there, high-pitched, breathy whine of affection. Lathan widens his knees so he can pull Kylo closer, eyes closed against the canine sounds he produces. The small mannerisms of a wolf—a mated wolf—that Lathan adores. That make him feel truly loved; animals show affection unabashedly.

He’s broken, down to his core, carrying the full deadweight of an emotionally malnourished childhood with him everywhere he goes. But right now that weight is easier to bear on his shoulders. Even for a few seconds.

Eventually, Lathan loosens out of the embrace, but remains close to Kylo’s body.

“Want a devil stick?” he asks, voice still soft, as he holds up a stalk of celery from his cafeteria tray.

Kylo’s body shivers involuntarily, face twisted with disgust, and Lathan cracks a subtle smirk and tosses the vegetable back onto the plate. It tumbles against the plastic the same time there’s another knock at the door. This time his small expression of amusement falls off his face, the light dimming from his eyes.

“It’s nice to see you smile, Lathan,” Dr. Brar says, and then turns her friendly face to the man in front of her patient. “Is this Kylo?”

“Hi, yes, it’s nice to meet you.” Still smiling, Kylo takes a step toward the woman with his hand outstretched to shake, but keeps his other on Lathan. A subconscious gesture to stay with him, even if at the tip of his fingers.

“Dr. Brar. We spoke on the phone. Glad you could make it down—seems to be helping,” she adds a bit cheekily, and Lathan has to physically refrain from rolling his eyes.

She walks around to the end of the bed where there’s a linear table, in which she places a file folder. “How’re you feeling this afternoon? It’s been a few hours now since you woke up.”

“It’s been more than just a few hours,” he grumbles.

The doctor seems unfazed. “You should eat more than that,” she says, pointing a pen at the half-nibbled plate of lunch.

He glances at the plate of celery, a poorly egg salad sandwich, and tapioca pudding.

“Maybe I would if the food wasn’t shit.”

“Guess you have something to argue for, then,” she says, jotting something down with a smile. She seems pleased with his attitude—or at least the fact he’s speaking more. “So I came by to go over the plan for the rest of your stay.”

Lathan crosses his arms. “I’m up. I’m eating. Kylo’s here. I can go, right?”

She looks up from his file, smile unbreaking. “You’re still on suicide watch, Lathan. You can’t leave, legally, until we clear you.”

He tenses with the word. Legally. He mentioned being a law student, and now she’s using that against him.

“Then clear me,” he grinds out of clenched teeth.

“I will,” she chirps, “when you’re ready.”

He avoids looking at her. But after a moment, he looks up at Kylo. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t hear this. It’s too soon, too much, too hard. You’re recovering.

“You can go,” he says, small, “if you need to.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He inches in close, like he was before, protectively. “And I’ll bring you better food tomorrow. How’s Thai?”

Lathan’s face softens. He doesn’t quite smile—stubbornly doesn’t want the doctor to see and comment on it again—but his gentleness is confirming and grateful. He shifts his gaze toward the doctor for her to start her monologue.

She nods at them and tries to hold Lathan’s gaze, as this is about him, but he doesn’t offer his eyes for long. “So right now, we’re taking things day-by-day. As we spoke earlier, I suspect your depression is chronic, that you’ve had this for much of your life without knowing, because you’ve never had a time you weren’t ill to compare it to. There are some counselling techniques I’d like you to be introduced to before you go, and I highly recommend trying medication.”

Lathan flexes his foot, looking bored and like he isn’t listening. But he is .

When he says nothing in response, Dr. Brar’s shoulders relax and she leans over the table more casually. “Lathan, depression isn’t curable. But that doesn’t mean it has to control your life. You can get to a point where you don’t even think of it most days. But you have to want the help.”

“It’s not that,” he mumbles.

The doctor tilts her head. “It’s not what?”

“It’s not that I don’t want it.”

She stares at him wordlessly, waiting for him to finish the thought that’s clearly haunting him. Lets him get there on his own. And it takes a few long moments of nothing but even breathing before he continues. When he finally looks up at her, eyes hard, emotional, he says, “I don’t deserve it.”

The doctor exhales sadly, but she’s clearly not shocked. “Therapy will explain to you how and why that’s just not true.”

Lathan shakes his head and looks at the door. She doesn’t get it. No one will get it.

“This isn’t a long-term facility,” she offers reassuringly. “We give you the tools to get back on your feet, and suggestions on how to stay upright. How long it takes is up to you, but if you want the help—like you just said—it’ll go faster.”

He fiddles with the gauze on his wrist again. The wound doesn’t hurt anymore, but the gauze itches around the edges. It’s hard with the doctor on one side of him, and Kylo—his whole world—on the other. Makes him feel sandwiched, pressured. It should motivate him, he knows that, but he’s still so terrified.

“One moment at a time,” Kylo says.

They’ve already been apart for so long. He wants to go home. Stay in Kylo’s arms. Be quiet together. Just exist, with nothing else. But it’s everything else that is too much. My parents. Trevor. The attack. The internship. The overdose. Maria and David—

Maybe I’m not ready to go home.

He takes a shallow breath. “Okay.” His voice is minute, like a ghost’s breath, a mouse’s pattering across the floor.

Dr. Brar straightens, relieved. “I’ll have your nurse bring your medication, then.”

And with that, she collects her papers and leaves the two of them to be on their own.

“I’m so proud of you.”

Lathan scoffs and shoves the rolling table with his full plate away from the bed with frustration. “You shouldn’t be. This is fucking pathetic.”

“ No ,” Kylo essentially growls, “it’s not pathetic, it’s hard . Harder than most people will ever understand. But I do. And I am so proud. No matter how small the step forward may be, it’s still a step.”

“My mom would beat me if she knew I was here,” Lathan says sinisterly, and then his stomach twists with a nauseating guilt. His mom hasn’t been his mom for a long time. But his real mom is Maria— was Maria. And he destroyed that. Losing her and David, losing his family, is one of the worst feelings he has ever endured. Remembering that simple fact makes him fantasize about dying, every time.

“She never needs to—”

Before Kylo can finish his sentence, there’s knocking at the door for a third time. But this time the handful of raps carry a cheerful melody, rather than the quick beat from any medical staff.

“Hola, mijo! Is it okay if we come in?”

Lathan’s head snaps to the door like a predator aware of its prey. But he’s the prey. A doe stood before oncoming traffic. Eyes sharp and startled. Muscles tensed. Heart racing. He can’t speak. Can barely breathe—his anxiety pitching within him, like a low-grade hum, never-ending. He’d expect his own mother over Maria at this moment. But he can’t say anything about it before she’s already entering the room, with David just behind her. And Lathan doesn’t know if he can look at them—if it’s right to look at them, after disgracing them and their family, their pack, so deeply with his actions, with his existence—so his gaze fights back and forth between them and their feet.

“Mamá, I said I would text you.”

“Oh, sorry, I thought—” She shakes her head; whatever she had thought doesn’t matter now that they’re there. “I brought chicken soup and tamales! I don’t have a kitchen in the motel, so they’re not homemade, but still good, I promise.”

She raises the heavy bag in her arms, her face a concerned smile. David stays quiet but looks a lot more like a sad puppy than an Alpha wolf, remaining a few steps behind his wife .

Lathan is deathly silent. He decides on keeping his sights on the ground. His discomfort is palpable, his anxiety spears straight through his chest. He’s scared to face them again.

They must be here for Kylo. To make sure he’s okay. That I’m not hurting him again. They must be protecting him. It simply isn’t an option that they’d be here to see Lathan . Not after how they both looked at him after Kylo’s overdose.

The hurt.

The disgust.

The rage.

He’ll never unsee it. Unfeel it. It hurts so deeply in his heart, so much more than the treatment from his own parents.

“I, uh, let them know what happened…,” Kylo says sheepishly. “They flew in a few days ago.”

“We wanted to be here, for the both of you,” Maria hops in, setting her bag of food on the nearest surface. “I’ll just place this here for whenever you’re hungry, okay?” She starts unpacking the container of soup, bag of wrapped tamales, plastic bowls and cutlery from her pink reusable bag. “Besides, we haven’t been here in almost a year, so it’s nice to visit again. Oh! And Ridley has this coffee shop called ‘Holy Grounds’—it’s the cutest little thing. You boys would really like it.”

Lathan’s mind becomes an automatic translator. He doesn’t hear her saying ‘both of you,’ or ‘you boys.’ Instead, it filters through as ‘We wanted to be here for Kylo,’ and ‘Kylo would really like it,’ because it isn’t possible she’s actually here for Lathan, too. Not after what he’s done. Not after her baby almost died, and just got out of rehab. All of her concern will be for her son.

Kylo must notice the shift in Lathan’s demeanour, how he’s shut down again like back in their apartment, because he suddenly segues the conversation.

“Speaking of coffee, I could really use one right now. How ‘bout we go grab some from the caf on the main floor.”

“Oh.” It takes a moment for Maria to catch on, but when she does, she folds the pink bag and tucks it into her purse before placing a hand on David’s arm to steer him to the door. “Lathan, honey, did you want anything?”

He refuses to look up, just shakes his head in a small manner, his full hand clamped over his bandaged wrist to cover it from them. Even though Kylo must have also told them ‘oh, and my vampire mate is biting himself,’ too.

He barely hears Kylo’s, “We’ll be right back, baby,” only anticipating the soft click of the closed door behind him.

It’s a lot louder than he expects.

He lets out a shaken breath and looks at the closed door, the empty room. The oxygen in his lungs lurches out in quick pants that ascend. He pops off the bed and paces restlessly.

“Fuck,” he breathes, shaking out his arms. The gauze, from fiddling with it, collapses to the base of his hand. He rips it off and tosses the material to the floor, then fixates on the scarring of vampiric fang marks.

Is this what they want , his addled brain wonders, by coming here? They want me to hurt more? They want punishment?

They want justice .

With the prompt of his thoughts, his fangs begin to surface.

“Hi.”

Lathan looks over at David with round eyes, big and surprised—and almost caught. He drops his arm and closes his mouth to hide his fangs as he wills them to retract. Though his ears are humanoid, and the movement is barely noticeable, tugging his forehead, they pull back like a nervous, cornered dog.

Kylo’s father remains in the doorway, as if intruding on his territory. “Lathan,” he seems to have to force out, and his voice is quiet, meek. “What I said to you is unforgivable. I was so scared for my son, it completely blinded me, and I said things I can never take back. I should’ve said this better in my phone call—I should’ve called again —but I just…I don’t know, I guess I was too ashamed. It’s my duty to protect my family, and in that moment I failed. You are family, Lathan. You are pack.”

Lathan’s memory’s been selective. He forgot about the phone call he let reach his voice mail. He only listened to part of it before deleting it. He couldn’t understand, couldn’t accept an apology from David. Because to Lathan, there is nothing to apologize for. He’s a monster. And they hid that from Maria and David until it took their son’s life . He was brought back, but his heart did stop.

The things he said to Lathan are some of the worst he’s ever been told. And they were exactly what they should have been.

He woke from hibernation hours ago.

He doesn’t remember coming to the hospital or being admitted.

He was interrogated for hours about his mental health.

And now this.

The back of his knees hit the bed and he sits on its edge. Something in him starts to fracture.

“Everything you said,” he says slowly, his voice both flat and defeated—not the Lathan he trained the Garcias to know and like, “was deserved. I hurt you. I’ve hurt Kylo.” I’ve hurt myself. I should be here, in the hospital.

No.

I should be dead already.

“No, it wasn’t.” David breaks the perimeter of the room, entering, and Lathan’s throat tightens. “I didn’t know the full story, and I shouldn’t have needed to, but Kylo told us the truth. Everything you’ve both been through.”

Lathan hasn’t read Kylo’s letters. He hasn’t been able to. So he doesn’t know that Kylo told them more.

He leans back slightly, subtly trying to put more space between him and David as he approaches. His bloodshot eyes still can’t look at him. “What did he tell you?”

“He told us how you met: seeing you struggling and offering himself to help. How he sought out that feeling with other vampires, and you saved him from the dangerous situation it put him in. He told us you were roommates, and when he shifted on the first full moon, you kept him safe—even though it put your life in danger. He told us about…about Trevor, and how you protected him.”

Lathan’s teeth chatter. Quietly, against the rising pain. Against the reality of their past. Their story. Their nightmare.

Kylo’s nightmare.

He braves the truth of David’s face and peeks up at him, a few short feet away. His eyes are glossed, his lips in a tight pout. Lathan abruptly understands where Kylo’s high emotions come from.

“I want you to know,” David continues, words squeaky, “that you are one of the strongest members of our pack. And I am so proud to call you my son.”

David closes the gap between them and pulls Lathan into a firm hug.

His breath is lodged in his throat, unmoving. For the first time in months—stretching well beyond Kylo’s addiction—something gets through to him. And the shockwaves scorch within his body. He folds; it all comes to the surface. With a desperate reciprocated grip, he holds David back, and cries with his full chest. Into his father’s shoulder.

Though Maria and David had welcomed Lathan into their home as if he were a part of their family, they’ve never said it out loud.

At twenty-five years old, he finally has a dad.

And his dad doesn’t say another word, just allows Lathan the space to cry for as long as he needs. So he does. He sobs, because he hasn’t since Kylo was in a hospital bed himself. Because until now, all he’s felt is numbness. And it still hurts—there’s still so much hurt—but this pain is different. It’s a healing pain. One he never thought he’d feel.

Maria and Kylo are gone for a while; Lathan cries for just as long. When he does pull out of the hug, his face tracked with tears, he meets David’s eyes. And he sees love.

When Kylo and his mom return with four cups of coffee, he’s at Lathan’s blubbering side in an instance, trying to step between him and David. “What happened?”

Lathan wipes his face with his arm and takes a deeper breath than he’s been able to for a long time. “I’m okay,” he says to Kylo, and exhales a near laugh, because it’s bizarre how it doesn’t sound like a lie.