My mother lay still beneath thick blankets, her breath shallow but steady now. The sharp rise and fall of panic from two days ago had eared into something fragile, but survivable. Her cheeks held a faint flush again, and the dark hollows beneath her eyes had softened slightly
It should have been a relief. It was.
But it didn’t feel like enough.
I sat beside her bed, elbows on my knees, hands clasped like I was praying. Maybe I was. Not to any Gods, but to the wolf inside her, to the strength i knew she had and only just started to reclaim with resuming treatment.
Mom’s hand was limp in mine. I was afraid to squeeze too hard and break something, but at least it was warm. That warmth grounded me more than anything else could’ve in that moment.
I rested my cheek against our joined hands, closing my eyes.
And my mind drifted to Damon.
I could clearly see the way he’d looked at me in the conservatory, candlelight dancing in his eyes. His voice so rough and reverent. I felt the warmth of his palm against my back like it belonged there. The way his lips had trembled before he kissed me like he’d been waiting eons to do it.
I kept telling myself it was a mistake. That it wouldn’t matter in the end, he could never be mine.
But every time I tried to believe it, the lie tasted sour in my mouth.
I hadn’t just kissed him. I had fallen, head first and completely, into some minor obsession. I couldn’t keep him from my thoughts.
And still, I would have to lie to him when I returned. I would have to look Damon in the eyes and pretend to be someone else. Again.
He thinks I’m Elena. And if I tell him who I really am, I could lose everything. My mother. My Pack, for whatever they were to me…
I squeezed my mother’s hand tighter, as if clinging to that one point of clarity could anchor me. But the more I thought about returning to the palace, the more I wondered if I was already lost.
Ruby was quiet in my mind, but I could feel her watching. Listening. Holding space for my heartbreak like it was her own. In a way it was, she believed he was our Mate.
I wish you could tell him, she whispered eventually.
“So do I,” I murmured aloud.
My mother stirred faintly at the sound. Her lashes fluttered. Her lips moved without words.
“I’m here,” I said quickly, brushing a thumb across her wrist. “I’m right here, mom.”
She didn’t fully wake. But her expression eased, her body sinking deeper into the mattress. Her trust in me, even half–conscious, was a blade and a balm
all at once.
She would live. For now. Because I had stood tall in front of Henry and pushed back enough.
But I wasn’t done lying. Not yet. And gods, it was killing me.
By the time I looked up, the light had changed in the infirmary, softening with the afternoon sun as it filtered through the frost–glazed windows.
My mother still slept, her breathing the same. Sasha moved quietly in the corner, restocking tinctures with the precision of someone who had done it a
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Chapter 57
thousand times but still cared each time she did.
I rose slowly from my chair, my knees aching from hours in the same position. I stretched, joints popping, and wandered toward the little cabinet where the tonics were kept.
I didn’t really need anything. I just needed to move.
Sasha glanced up. “She’s stable now,” she said, voice low. “I think the worst has passed.”
I nodded. “Thank you for staying with her.”
“I wouldn’t leave her,” she said simply, then paused. “Neither would you.”
The words warmed my heart, even as they scraped the edges of guilt. My mother had no idea how many masks I’d been wearing lately–how many parts of myself I’d carved off just to survive.
I reached out, brushing the edge of the worn wooden cabinet. “Can I ask you something?”
Sasha arched a brow, the familiar twinkle in her eye. “You can always ask. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
I gave a soft huff of air–close to a laugh. “I know I asked you earlier, but I need to ask again. You told me once that my wolf might be… suppressed. That there was something unnatural about it.”
Sasha stilled.
I turned fully to her, arms crossed over my chest now. “I need to know what you meant. Please.”
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” she muttered, turning back to her work.
“But you did.”
She was quiet for a long moment, then sighed and closed the drawer with more force than necessary. “I overheard it and because I’ve worked with wolves my whole life, I knew it wasn’t just rumor. Yours never felt like she should have.”
I bristled. “What does that mean?”
“It means when you were a child, your wolf was strong. Almost too strong for your size and age. You were fast, instinctive, more intuitive than most. And then… it changed. After your father started taking you to those Pack Council training camps. When you came back, it was like something inside you had gone still. Dimmed.”
I stared at her. “Are you saying he did something to me?”
“I’m saying I don’t know what happened,” Sasha said softly. “But I know what I saw. A flame that was burning bright… suddenly snuffed out.”
The room seemed colder than before, the air tighter.
I swallowed hard. “Could it be reversed?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.” She stepped closer, her voice gentler now. “Wolves aren’t meant to be caged, Lila. Not even the ones inside us.”
Ruby’s agitated pacing inside me meant she was in full agreement with Sasha on this point. I just nodded and turned back toward my mother, whose face had smoothed out again in sleep.
Sasha went back to her cabinet, and I stood in the stillness, feeling that tight coil in my chest twist again.
What had Henry done to me? What else had he taken without me even realizing? Was it even him?
Ruby growled faintly at the edge of my thoughts. We were loud once. You remember that, don’t you?
Chapter 57
I do, I whispered back.
But my memory of that time had faded until I questioned whether it was real. I had been taught it was genetic, just the way it was. There were days I fell
more human that were.
I shook those memories from my mind and sat beside my mother again, taking her hand, letting my thumb drift across her knuckles.
If Damon knew what someone had done to me–if he knew how much had been taken from me before I ever met him–would it change anything? Would
it matter?
Would he still think I was the liar?
My mother’s hand twitched in mine, and I looked up. Her eyes opened slowly, clouded but aware.
“Lila…” Her voice was thin, a breath more than a sound.
“I’m here,” I said, leaning forward.
She blinked, her gaze focusing. “You look strong, my girl.”
The words hit me like a crack in the ice–sharp and unexpected. “Trying to be,” I said softly.
Her lips curled into the faintest smile before her eyes fluttered shut again.
Stronger, yes. But I felt like I was still breaking.
And still… in a no win situation.
AD
