Page 26 of Bound to Enemy (Wolf Billionaire #3)

CHAPTER 26

ALESSANDRA

M y body surged off the bed and I gasped like I had been underwater for a prolonged amount of time.

I clutched my chest, trying to bring my heart rate down. My mind spun with various events that had transpired.

"Don't die..."

'Daxton...'

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to silence the noise in my head. All the events that had transpired flashed across my memory, hitting me all at once like a two-ton truck.

Blood. His neck was pouring with blood and his eyes were draining of life.

"Jason!" My eyes snapped open. I looked around, thinking of that forest floor.

But then I realized I wasn't there. I was in a bed, a hospital bed to be exact. But that wasn't the thing that was the most shocking. When I looked down at my legs, I realized that I was laying on top of my own body. More like my body was phased into my own like I was some kind of ghost.

I jumped off the bed and stared at myself laying on the bed with various tubes sticking out of me. My face looked battered and bruised. There were purple marks all up my arm and my cheeks were sunken like I had not eaten in days.

What in the world? How was this possible? What was happening to me?

The last thing I remembered was giving my essence to Jason and then those hazel eyes that I adored so much came into view.

My heart sank. Was I dead? I knew that what I did would come at a cost and I was prepared to pay that price. But the reality of what I had done was only just hitting me.

I stared at my body. I had a tube sticking down my throat which I guessed was the ventilator keeping me alive. It was so surreal to see myself like this.

I reached out to touch my face but then I stilled when I heard the sound of a laugh that I had not heard in years.

I whipped my head around so fast that I felt the snap in my neck.

"Mom?"

The laugh filtered into my ears and I began moving toward it. I walked out of the door and followed the gentle sound that had comforted me in my younger years.

Could it really be her?

I walked through the empty hallways following the sound of my mother's laughter. It grew louder and louder until I came to a small garden.

It was beautiful. There were fresh flowers all around and a small pond of fish that swam off to the side. They beamed down with a gentle glow and the breeze blew across the area, cooling the heat.

That's when I noticed her sitting on the bench. Her back was turned to me but even from behind, I could tell that it was her.

I took my first step toward her, my heart hammering heavily in my chest. I tried to fight back the emotion that lodged itself in the center of my chest.

I breathed in deeply but I couldn't pick up on her scent. That familiar sweet scent of honey and vanilla that I always associated her with wasn't there. But I knew that it was her. It had to be her.

I walked around the bench and came to stand only a few feet from where she sat. She turned her head and looked my way and the whole world came to a grinding halt.

I stared into my mother's kind caramel eyes. Many people never gave much thought to brown eyes. But I happened to think that they were the most beautiful of all.

Like a rich coffee on a cozy winter morning. Or the damp soil after the downpour of a storm had come by.

My mother's eyes particularly had little specks of gold swimming in them. They reminded me of the autumn leaves in Washington.

"LeLe," that name, she was the only one who ever called me that. It was unique to only the two of us and had not been one that I had heard in a very long time. "Hello, my sweet girl."

The air in my lungs thickened and my mind tilted on its axis completely blown away at what was happening right now.

My mother stood from her seat on the bench. She was dressed in a long white gown and her long blonde hair cascaded all the way down her back. Her cheeks were rosy and so full of life.

Her lips split into a wide smile, her eyes sparkled to life. "It's been long, my Ale."

The tears pricked my eyes as they pooled in. I tried to hold them back but the emotions were just so heavy to hold back.

"Mom?"

"Hey, baby." She opened her arms to me and I just moved without thinking.

I launched my body at her and fell into her embrace. As soon as I made contact with her body I felt right at home.

She felt like home.

We stayed like that for what could have been minutes if not hours. I wanted to savor this moment for as long as I could. If this is what Earth had in store for me then I would take it.

I pulled away from her with a lightness in my chest that I hadn't felt in years. The last time I had seen her face it had been covered in blood and her body was all bruised and battered. Now I stood opposite her holding her in my arms.

"It's good to see you, sweetie."

I had no words, all I could do was simply smile and pull her in toward me.

"Am I dead?" I brushed away the stray tears that had escaped my eyes. "What is this place?"

It felt warm here, but not the kind of warm that eventually burns you. It was the kind of warm that felt like sunshine after rainfall.

"Yes and no," she smiled. "You are on the other side but you are still tethered to your body, to your wolf. I'm sure you still feel them."

Now that she mentioned it, I could feel my wolf pacing. She was restless about something but I couldn't reach her to ask what it was.

"But you're still dead?"

Her smile slipped and her eyes saddened. "Yes, I'm on the other side. I simply came to see you, LeLe."

The sting behind my eyes intensified with each passing second. All I could think of was that fateful day when the rogues attacked and everything changed. Nothing was ever the same again after that.

"That day when the rogues attacked," I sniffed. I had waited years to finally get these words out, but with her in front of me like this, I didn't know if I could get the words out. "It was all my fault. If I had just listened and not strayed, then you would have lived. Daniel would be alpha and Stefan his beta. I robbed all three of you."

With each word I spoke, I felt the weight lift, little by little.

"That was never your fault, sweetheart." My mother's eyes softened.

The tears streamed down my face. "You were trying to save me. Had it not been for me, then you would have been safe and no one would have died that night. Daniel is dead because of me."

She cupped my face and brushed away my tears with the pad of her thumb. "Don't cry, baby."

A strangled choke left my lips. "I'm so sorry, Mom. I'm so, so sorry."

These were the words that I had been dying to tell her for years now. I wanted to tell her I was sorry for causing not only her death but the deaths of her sons, and my brothers.

"Oh sweetheart," she pulled me into her arms, and I returned her embrace.

I allowed all the pain and grief to flow out of me for the first time in what felt like years. I had gotten very good at pretending to be the perfect alpha. I had gotten so good that no one ever questioned if I was okay or not anymore. They just knew that I would always be okay because I was Alessandra. I was tough as nails and as resilient as a cockroach.

I don't know how long I cried in my mother's arms, but when I pulled away from her, she had tears rolling down her eyes too.

"You have nothing to apologize for, Ale. I did what any mother would do, and your brothers did the same. We protect each other as family."

"But I didn't protect you."

"It was never your job to protect us; you were only a child. And your brothers were born to alphas. It was their innate instinct to want to protect you. You couldn't have stopped them from doing what they were doing. Just like how your friend Jason could not have stopped you. We did what we needed to do for the people we love. It's okay to feel our loss and pain. But you need to move forward, Ale. You have to. You have a whole world and life that awaits you." She stood from her seat on the bench and held her hand out to me. "Come, there is something that I want to show you."

I took her outstretched hand and walked with her back into the healing center. We walked down the hallway, passing people by as we made our way back to my room. I watched my still body on the bed, looking beaten and bruised. But unlike when I had woken up, I was not alone in that room. Sitting next to me was my mate, and he had his head bowed and his hand gripping onto mine tightly.

He didn't move, he didn't cry, he didn't wail. But I didn't miss the silent tear that fell from his eye and rolled down his cheek.

"What you did was an ultimate sacrifice, Ale. The kind of sacrifice that has no chance of reversing. You laid your life down to save Jason." She looked at Daxton with thoughtfulness in her eyes. "But the thing is that you aren't meant to be here, Alessandra. Your work isn't done yet."

I stared at my mate, and I had never seen him look so broken before. His hazel eyes looked far dimmer than I was used to seeing them.

"So I am dead?"

"In a sense," she stepped up to the glass wall beside me. "Her divine sent me. She saw your courage and bravery and wanted you to know that she's proud. You hold the courage of an alpha within you."

"The... you see the divine?"

"We live in the endless forests now, Ale. That is the home where all her children come. You will see them for yourself when the time is right. But for now, you need to return."

"But how?" I turned my attention to my body and my mate. "You said it was an irreversible act."

She grabbed my hand and threaded our fingers together. "Irreversible for you, but not for her divine. She saw the guilt and the hurt in our hearts; that's why she sent me. She wanted you to know that you have no burden to bear and none of us blame you, Ale. When you go back, you need to begin to live your life. You are getting a second chance to be happy, to be free, to be you."

I snapped my neck in her direction. "And what if I want to stay and go into the endless forests with you?"

Her eyes softened, and the tenderness of a mother's love shone brilliantly in her eyes. "Oh sweetheart, we will be here when your time comes. Until then, go and live your life the way you're supposed to. The past will always be a part of us. Those are the lessons we learn and the scars that signify our battle-worn armor. You have survived all that has come your way, and now it is time to live."

Live.

I didn't know when the last time I had truly lived life was. But then it only took me a second to realize that I had, in fact, lived.

Every moment I had spent with Daxton had been unlike any other experience I had felt. Even when I held the knife right up against his throat, my heart had pounded like it had never done before. The world became far more saturated, and I felt like I was seeing colors I had never even witnessed in my life before.

I stared at my mate as he held onto my body.

If you had asked me a year ago if I would find myself hopelessly and irrevocably in love with Daxton Vale, I would have laughed in your face and called you a lunatic. But here I was, head over heels in love with Daxton.

"Okay," I looked at my mother. "I miss you, Mom."

"I miss you too, but I am so proud of the woman you have become. I can't believe that you came from me. You are the very best of your father and me."

"You'll keep watching over Dad and me?"

"Every day, sweetie. Every single day." Her hand tightened around mine. "Ready?"

I nodded. "Ready."

It was time for me to wake up and rejoin the land of the living.

Daxton, I'm coming home.