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So, Eline told him how it was after Ismena came back from the Tower and how she fell sick.

"It was my fault. I should have gone to you immediately when Harhan told us that there might be a risk of Crave Shock after examining her. It was my fault— "

"It was not your fault, Eline. I know how absurd it must have sounded to your ears." A painful expression crossed his face, "I didn't believe Sandra too when she told me. I never knew this would happen, any of this. I let her go before I thought it was the best thing to do..."

A moment passed between them, before Wolfaraine looked at her again, "How did you do it, Eline?"

There was no need for elaboration because she understood what he was asking.

"I was frantic. I tried warming her with my body but it wasn't working.

Nothing I did worked..." A shudder went through her body as she remembered that helplessness, ".

..nothing. I was not what she needed, you were.

I was about to give up when I remembered Ismena telling me everything that happened in the human world and the things she found out from her father.

The part where your blood is running through her veins.

It's the only part of you that was available so that's where the crazy idea came from. "

"What crazy idea?"

Eline walked closer then, raised the corner of the bedclothes that covered Ismena's body, and gently withdrew her left hand. That was when Wolfaraine saw it. The small cut above her wrist.

That was when the smell of fresh blood finally registered on his brain too.

Eline stepped back nervously. "I sucked her blood with my mouth and made her swallow it back.

Repeatedly. I thought that if her body which is desperately craving for her mate remembered a part of her mate was with her.

..in her...that it would keep her alive.

Your blood is in her. I thought it would keep her alive but it didn't."

"It did." Wolfaraine countered softly, "What you did slow down the effects of the Crave Shock. "

"But, if you hadn't come when you did, she would have—"

"Thank you so much, Eline."

That was when Eline swallowed her arguments and finally accepted his gratitude with a bow of her head, her cheeks flushed pink.

"I will see you later. Come by the Tower tomorrow evening. As for today, I'll tell the sentinels off duty to take over your duty so that you can take good care of her as you've always been doing. I am glad she has a person like you and Kassandra by her side."

She acknowledged his words and thanked him too before he dismissed her.

Alone again with Ismena, he simply held her. Every other thing fell away as he surrounded himself with her soft breathing. Time. His worries. His guilt. The past.

When he finally raised his head much later, dawn was looming across the window. Very soon, he would be leaving her and he wished time would slow down because he didn't want to separate from her yet.

The wolf clung to her, still restless and agitated about the near-death experience of their mate.

If he wasn't trying so hard to forget...

to deal with what happened in his own way.

.. If he didn't try so hard to push her away, this wouldn't have happened.

He would have known that she was sick. He would have known that she hasn't moved on. ..like him.

Much later. He will feel the guilt of completely tuning her off much later when he's alone but for now, he tried to push that feeling so far away.

He laid himself bare with words in those wee hours of the morning, finding it easiest to talk because she wasn't awake and even if her subconscious was, there was no way she would remember anything he said when she awakes .

"It was hard, you know." He spoke again for the first time, "That night.

..watching you walk out of that door was one of the hardest things for me.

With every step, I heard you take me through that hallway and out of the castle, I died a little more inside.

I wanted so hard to hold onto you. I wanted so hard to go to you and take you up on your offer to go through this together, but I couldn't. I was giving you an out, you know.

I mean, I was the monster of your childhood, the devil of your nightmares, so how could you possibly want anything to do with me after finding all that out? "

"I thought that you would want an out eventually, even if it wasn't that night because you were still crowded with the grief of losing your father.

I thought you wouldn't know how to leave me when you finally thought clearly of the situation because you, my dear mate, are so softhearted that your pure heart floors me sometimes.

So, I thought I was making the right decision there, even when it was practically tearing my very soul apart.

It was the honorable thing to do." The parroted the words he'd been telling himself over and over and over again in the past few days.

Words that never cease to leave a bitter taste in his mouth.

"I thought you would wake up the next morning and realize that you really did want nothing to do with me and I did us both a favor by making that decision. I thought that was how this will go down. I had no idea..." his head shook helplessly, "Crave Shock...? Jesus, Ismena..."

A shaky breath expelled from his body and he rested his cheek on her soft hair, "You know, I thought that nothing would hurt more than the past, until you left, Ismena.

Then, I felt like my soul has been cut out and handed to me.

It was so hard. So, to keep myself above those suffocating water and to keep surviving—at least for my people—I had to block out my emotions.

I had to tune off from you completely. It was so hard. ..so, so, hard."

It was so easy to admit to it, to say it out loud like this, because she wasn't awake and she would not have the memories of this moment when she woke .

Slowly, he untangled from her, pulling away from her lax body even as everything in him protested the move. "I am so sorry for everything, Ismena. For all of it."

After he dressed, he walked close and kissed her forehead lingeringly. "Thank you for not dying on me as they all did... Thank you for coming back."

Then, he turned and forced himself to walk away. Eline and Sandra were asleep together on the floor of the small living room, their hands entangled together.

Alphose and Degar were waiting for him outside, the rest has indeed left. Somehow during the night, someone had repaired the door he'd broken down in his haste to get to Ismena.

When they saw him, they rose from the pavement where they'd seated and walked to him. No words were said between them as they left together and Wolfaraine was grateful for that. His heart was so heavy as he walked, that he wondered if he had swallowed a huge rock and it settled on his chest.

Long after he left, Ismena's eyes opened.