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‘Good, actually. I was strong enough to heal the wounds slightly, but the wolfsbane is still infecting it. Other than that, it won’t be too serious. In fact, they’re up and about, trying to train harder this time.”
‘That’s my little sister,’ Elias said proudly, ruffling my hair. ‘What did I say? You are strong. Tell me why again.”
‘Because you’re my brother,’ I laughed, reminiscing about the times he used to tell me that when I was feeling down.
‘What about Knox? You haven’t updated me on that kid.”
After the fight with the hunters, we discovered that Knox had disappeared. It wasn’t hard to find him, though. Kieran just sniffed his scent trail, and the blood on the floor was a huge giveaway. He wasn’t far away, either. Apparently, Thomas did try to kill him. Go figure. One hunter had stabbed his leg with a spear, and he was limping into the forest when we found him, washing out his wound in the river.
Kieran noticed Knox’s connection to the pack breaking, but dismissed it, thinking it was his way of dealing with his parents’ death. Kieran was also angered by the thought that Knox had tried to kill his friend, and so, acting on instinct, he tried to kill Knox immediately. However, Maren stepped in and stood up for Knox, despite everything he had put her through.
Knox had a mental illness whereby his wolf shut him off for going against his pack and hurting his mate. This caused him to go crazy. He was therefore admitted to a Wolf Camp and wouldn’t be coming back until he had received proper treatment. In the meantime, Kieran promised to welcome Knox back into the pack, as they were best friends. From here on out, Beck will be taking his spot as Beta.
There was silence for a while, only the sound of crickets in the night sky. The silence actually comforted me, but I could sense Elias’s tension. I looked at him, but he refused to look back.
‘It’s all my fault,’ Elias sighed, running his hand through his dark hair. I looked up at him questioningly and rested my head against his tense shoulder. ‘Dad’s gone because I killed him.’
I froze. Was this what he had been so tense about? Did he think it was his fault that our father was gone? Had he been holding this all in, not knowing how to cope with it? I flicked his ear and watched him flinch and turn to look at me.
‘Elias Ainsley, don’t you dare say or even think that! You protected Mum. If you hadn’t saved her, she’d be dead, and possibly Dad too,” I said, trying to convince him, but it sounded as if I was convincing myself as well.
‘You’re right,’ he finally conceded. ‘I’m just sorry, Tali, that he treated you that way.’
Again, silence engulfed us before he cleared his throat, threw an arm around my shoulder and tried to change the topic. ‘So, my sister being a Healer – isn’t that exciting?’
‘It has its ups and downs. The thing that sucks is that I have no background. I can’t even train properly. I don’t have any resources. For example, I can’t heighten my senses like regular wolves can. I can’t shift like them either. It took me a while to figure that out, and that’s not even half of it,’ I groaned in frustration, replaying the words my dad had said to me.
‘Oh, Tali, Tali, Tali. You really are a poor wolf. You can’t see the hunters hidden in the dark?”
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ He asked, nudging my shoulder.
‘I’ve talked to Mum,’ I said, dropping the bombshell that I had been too afraid to tell anyone. “She said the only way I could do this was to go to Arizona, where the rest of the Sinclairs are.”
“So, are you going to do it?”
I looked at his sad face before nodding. ‘I have to. It’s the only way I can get better. It’s the only way I can stay alive.”
He flinched. “What did you say?”
‘Part of being a healer is healing people properly. I can’t even do that myself. Mum told me that the ancient healers would take my life if I didn’t know how to use my powers correctly. It’s the prophecy.”
‘When do you leave? You do know that’s pretty far from here. We live in Utah, for Christ’s sake,’ Elias said after a while. I could tell he was trying to take it all in. “Did you tell Kieran?”
‘In a week, and no, I haven’t told Kieran.’
“Tell me what?” Kieran jogged up to me and hugged me from behind. He kissed his mark before pecking me on the lips. I could feel my whole body tingling, and butterflies began to flutter in my stomach as happiness swelled inside me. Where his lips touched my skin and where his arms were wrapped around my stomach, fire ignited.
He sat down beside me when Elias made up a lame excuse to help Tasha with something. He smiled his gorgeous smile at me, nuzzled his face into my neck, and pulled me in for a hug. ‘I’m sorry about your dad, babe.’
‘I don’t know how to respond to that,’ I said, caressing his face.
‘It’s OK. I didn’t know how to either when my mum died.” He quickly shook off the sadness in his eyes before turning to me again. “So, what were you going to tell me?”
I looked into his beautiful blue eyes, which I had come to know by heart, before smiling sadly at him. ‘Remember how I told you that I was finding it hard to be a healer and that I needed help from my own species?’ He nodded, his smile faltering slightly. I felt my heart clench. ‘Well, I talked to my mum about it, and she suggested that I live with my family in Arizona for a while. I need this, Kieran. I need to become stronger and put my powers to use.” I left out the part about dying because I didn’t think he could cope with that.
‘So, then, I’ll come with you,’ he said, standing up and looking at the moon. ‘I’ll go with you, and we can live in Arizona for as long as you need, then come back.’
‘Kieran, I don’t want you to come with me,’ I said quietly, but I knew he could hear me. He turned his face towards me and I could tell he was hurting inside. He refused to show it, his eyes growing an icy blue.
‘What do you mean you don’t want me to come with you? I’m your mate.”
‘Kieran, you’re an alpha. You can’t just walk away from your pack. They need you. You can’t –”
“So what? Beck can step up and be the alpha,” Kieran reasoned. ‘Just until we come back.’
I dropped my smile, stood in front of him and looked at him seriously. ‘You can’t come with me.’
‘You’re my mate,’ Kieran said angrily, his voice rising slightly. ‘I don’t care about my position. I don’t care if I’m not in a pack when I go there. I don’t care if I’m surrounded by healers. I just want you. You’re my mate.”
I could feel my heart breaking as I spoke, knowing it would break his as well. However, I couldn’t be selfish with him. I could let him follow me. I could let him drop his alpha duties just for my benefit. But I loved him and the pack, so leaving him here was the best thing to do. From the way he was standing, I could tell that he wasn’t going to give up until I agreed to let him come with me. So, I did what I had to do.
KIERAN’S POV
‘Kieran, this can’t work between us,’ Tali said. A single tear rolled off her cheek.
Her words hit me like a wave, almost making me tumble to the ground. She looked serious, her green eyes calculating my every move. Every word felt like a blow to my stomach. My heart felt as though she was squeezing it herself. I clenched my fists, trying to ignore the growing pain inside me and my wolf’s cry. My vision blurred as tears built up in my eyes.
‘Kieran,’ she said softly, trying to gain my attention.
‘I love you,’ I replied, my voice barely audible. I punched the Moonfire bench as hard as I could; my werewolf strength left a crack in it. My eyes blazed with anger. She was leaving me. She didn’t even care to give our relationship a chance. I knew I’d stay faithful, even if she was miles away. But she didn’t give me a chance.
What if she found someone else while she was there? Would she marry him and have kids with him? I could feel my wolf howling in agony at the thought, and I could feel a low growl erupting from my chest.
‘I marked you,’ I began, my voice faltering. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Don’t you love me?”
‘I do love you, but we aren’t going to work out, Kieran.’
There it was again: the blow to my stomach and the clench in my aching heart. I turned away, feeling a tear trickle down my cheek. Suddenly, I was angry. ‘Bullshit,’ I said, not turning to face her again. I felt my hands clench into fists as I walked away. ‘If you loved me, you’d give it a chance. Have fun in Arizona, Talia,’ I said bitterly. I could feel her flinch when I used her full name.
Ignoring my wolf, I got into my car. He was howling at me to gather his mate in my arms, knowing she was crying too. He wanted me to go back and remind her of the love they shared. But I refused. I growled back at him, letting him know that she didn’t care about us anymore.
As I entered the Pack House, both packs were there. They abruptly stopped laughing and talking as they heard me slam the front door in anger. I stood there while they took in my bloodshot eyes and the tears streaming down my cheeks.
‘Move,’ I ordered. Someone tapped me on the shoulder as I made my way through the crowd, but I growled at them. ‘Touch me again and you’ll lose a finger.’
I locked the door to my room once I was inside. I leaned against the door and slowly slid down to the floor, my chest aching at the thought of Tali. Standing up quickly in another fit of rage, I grabbed everything on my side of the room and threw it across to the other wall. I let out a frustrated groan and a growl of pain, pulling on my hair.
‘Kieran,’ I heard Lila call from the other side of the door, knocking softly. ‘Open up.’
‘F**k off, Lila,’ I commanded. I could already tell that I had hurt her, as I heard her soft footsteps patter down the stairs and the murmurs of both packs grow louder.
The silence that followed was worse than hearing nothing at all. My wolf wasn’t howling or growling anymore. He was staying silent, and I knew he was just as hurt as I was. My anger was diminishing, but that was better than how I felt now.