Page 65 of Losing My Siren Luna (Hidden Cove #1)

Elelira POV

“Lira?” Lachlan entered our room. He knocked first, but I couldn’t bring myself to move or say anything. After waking up back at the packhouse in our bed, I didn’t move at all. I just stared vacantly at the wall before me, only blinking and breathing.

I felt the bed shift beside me, Lachlan sitting next to me and gently placing his hand on my back. “Are you alright?” he asked softly.

Am I alright? No, I’m not. Not at all. Not only are those men here, many of whom were involved with…with the events before my death, but that man, Isaac, the way he stared at me….

It makes me sick to even think about it now. Even before, when he came to this pack in my first life to examine me, he would visit my mother often. I was always hidden or sent away, but I remember my mother’s look of horror whenever she would see him strutting towards her.

I had forgotten that, since it has been so long for me since I was last living in my uncle’s pack, but before I was sent to be Alpha Lachlan’s bride, I was going to be Isaac’s.

When my mother died, he tried to claim me then, and my uncle only put a stop to it because he said he wanted me pure in hope of the alliance happening.

It’s strange to me now to think about it, but my uncle seemed to know that Lachlan would need an alliance with him. He expected it.

Uncle had told Isaac if by my 18th birthday I wasn’t arranged to be married already, he could have me.

I avoided Isaac like the plague back then, always hiding among the servants, but Isaac had let me know on his first visit here to Hidden Cove Pack after he discovered that my virginity was still intact, that he was willing to take what should have belonged to him in the first place.

Only Mimi interrupting his examination stopped him from doing so, and Mimi was with me for the next several visits after, up until she passed away from sickness herself.

Isaac’s visits came less frequently after that, and then they stopped completely months before I left.

I had forgotten all those details, probably locking them away to avoid wallowing in my pain so I could focus on surviving.

Seeing him today made all those memories come flooding back.

Muttering his name made me remember all the times my mother would whisper his name in fear when she saw him coming, then quickly urging me to run and hide in the stables or kitchens until the next day.

I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to experience the same things from my first life. I thought this life would be different. I thought everything was different. Why is this one thing the same?

“Lira?” Lachlan rubs my back again. “What can I do? I need you to tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”

He can’t fix it. This isn’t something that will go away.

Those men haven’t done anything to me yet in this life.

What can I tell him? Those men that are under the protection of the alliance you have with my uncle will rape and mutilate me in the future, and I know this because this is my second life?

If I have them punished for sins they committed against me in my first life, that means, by the same reasoning, Lachlan is guilty of all the hardships he put me through back then as well.

This is all too much. It’s too much to process right now.

How am I going to differentiate between this life and my last?

It’s all too confusing, and the more I try to think about it, the deeper in despair I fall.

I need to be numb. I need to not think, and not react at all.

I need to try and stay in this vegetative state until my body is able to process everything going on.

Val whimpers in my head, wanting the comfort of her mate, but not wanting to upset me by asking for it. She feels that thin thread of sanity about to snap in my head, and knows if I were to let go of the numbness I’m clinging to like a lifeline, I would have a horrible breakdown.

We came so close to forgetting everything and letting ourselves be happy with our mate. Why did they have to come today of all days?

Lachlan lets out a frustrated groan, the bed shifting beside me again until I can no longer feel the heat from his body being near.

“I’ll send Cedric in, since he seems to be able to give you comfort when I can not.”

What? He's leaving? I don't want him to, but I can't make myself move enough to ask him to stay.

Seconds later, I hear the door open and shut, and again, I’m left alone in this room with nothing but my warring emotions and strained thoughts.

Why could Lachlan not just hold me and be with me?

Why could he not just let me feel his touch and help to calm my anxieties?

Is he….is he upset that our plans were disturbed?

Is he upset with me now that I can no longer… .no longer do that with him?

I….I can’t. It will be nothing but pain. That’s what it is…..

Pain.

I thought after hearing so much from Yasmin about her intimacy with Percy that it would be okay, as long as I was with my mate, but I just need his normal, comforting touch now and he’s not willing to offer it. How can I do that with him later?

No…. It’s just my anxieties, right? Lachlan is probably just busy and came to check on me. He has been so busy, and now with the added stress of visitors from my uncle's pack and….and that woman being back, he is probably just busy.

I keep telling myself this, trying to grasp the numbness again, but my final tether to rationality seems to finally snap. I turn my face into the pillow to scream as my tears started to fall.

~

Lachlan POV

“ Mate needs us,” Killian whimpers in my head.

“ She didn’t want us,” I snapped at him, not needing his nagging too after dealing with all the shit we had come up today. From chasing down my mate at a brothel to our time together being cut short by unwelcome visitors, I've about reached my limit.

“ She needs us,” Killian snarls, annoyed with me for not doing what he wanted. “ Want and need are not the same thing.”

I clench my fist, my final shreds of control just seconds from snapping.

Dealing with those shitty warriors from Alpha Waynes pack, arranging last minute accommodations and escorts for them, then also dealing with the disgusting woman who I can not believe I ever touched as she squawked non-stop in the infirmary, demanding for me…

…it’s all made my control wear very, very thin.

One little thing is going to make me snap, and I don’t need my fragile mate on the receiving end of that when it happens.

As I walked down the hall towards my office, I saw Cedric as he was walking towards me, probably to go check on my mate. He had a tray with a teapot and two cups, as well a plate filled with finger foods that Lira liked. His face when he notices me changes to a mask of enmity.

“That useless Delta. I told him not to let anyone disturb her,” Cedric growled.

I sent Cherum away from where he was guarding outside our bedroom door to eat, since it’s now dinner time. I thought Lira might prefer me to stay with her. I didn’t know she wouldn’t even be willing to talk to me.

“Did you upset her more than you already have? I don’t know what you did, but I will not have her-”

“I did nothing,” I cut him off, my voice cold and menacing. “It was those men that came that set her off. I had no clue men from her uncle’s pack would be there or I never would have brought her to the docks with me.”

Cedric’s face remained enraged. “She called for me. If you did nothing, why would she call for me and not rely on you?”

“I DON’T KNOW, DAMN IT!” I snapped, punching the wall beside us. My fist cracked the stone as my knuckles busted open and began to bleed. It hurt, but not as much as my pride. I did nothing to earn this treatment from Cedric or my wife!

I took deep, labored breaths as I tried to get control of myself again. “I did nothing to warrant your accusation,” I told him through clenched teeth.

Cedric just stares at me as I work to try to calm down. “ She is hurting,” Killian whimpers again in my head, his thoughts letting me know that Lira is again having another attack. I want to go to her, but she would likely still prefer Cedric over me.

“I would never hurt her. I don’t know what exactly happened, but she needs….she needs you.” I take my fist out of the wall and take one more deep breath. “Help her,” I strain myself, feeling Killian’s anxiety grow as he longs to run to our mate, “since she didn’t want help from me.”

With that, I walked past Cedric to hide in my office.

Once the door is closed and locked, I finally let myself boil over, shoving everything off my desk in one angry swoop.

I pick up a paperweight, one that used to be my father’s, and throw it across the room, breaking the window so the cool night air comes blowing through, the wind’s sea scent helping to clear some of my raw anger as I drop to my chair, wishing I knew how to help my mate.

We were so close. So, so close to finally being fully mated and bound to one another.

I can’t feel her like Killian can. I can’t comfort her like the siren knight.

I can’t do anything for her, and the hopelessness in that makes me break as I begin to cry, feeling as desolate and helpless as the day she rejected me.

All I want is to love her, but right now, feeling rejected all over again and seeing how little she trusts me, I just don’t know what to do.

~

That filthy dog. I watch him as he storms down the hallway, his hackles raised for whatever reason. He says he didn’t do anything to my princess, but under the circumstances, I don’t know if I believe him.