Sarah
Time is an illusion. I’ve never slept so much in my entire life.
My body feels weak and heavy as I linger on the edge of sleep, refusing to let myself succumb to the inky, black, depthless slumber I’ve been experiencing for days even though my body is begging for it.
I know it’s the tea. It has to be. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to keep down since spiraling back to reality, and Cosette has a habit of hiding her nasty herbal concoctions behind copious amounts of honey and cream.
A burst of pain launches me back into alertness. I sneeze loudly, ripping my eyes open to find myself face to face with Blake, who’s gripping my nose with an iron fist.
He beams at me, his eyes going all squinty with delight.
“Did you just stick your finger all the way up my nose?” I ask, arching my brow at him.
He sucks in his breath and does his best impression of laughing, which comes out as a broken coo, then smacks me smartly on the cheek. I’m under the impression Cosette or Dalia drops him off during his naps, letting him sleep beside me.
“Do not go in there and bug her!” Cosette’s voice rips through the air, muffled by the closed door on the far side of Sydney’s room. “She is fine, Alpha Sydney. And you know it, too. Pestering her won’t speed up her healing.”
“I’m not pestering her. You know I have to get the full story here eventually-”
“And eventually you will,” Cosette snaps, her tone icy and dripping with maternal annoyance. “But not today. In fact, I’ve seen far too much of you over the last ten days. I’m sick of you, Alpha Sydney. You need to leave.”
I hear Sydney scoff, the suck in his breath with a wince like Cosette just jabbed him with her finger.
“Get out of the house. Go to the firm; there’s an idea. Or better yet, go shift and burn off some of this nervous energy you’re drowning the house in. I want you out, Alpha.”
“This is my house.”
“Is it?”
I watch the door while Blake, totally oblivious to the match of wits taking place just beyond the threshold of the room, plays with my fingers. Cosette has no qualms about putting Sydney in his place. I imagine her looking up at him, her hands planted firmly on her hips, while waiting for his answer about who really owns this house.
Sydney does, of course. But he’s not the boss here, despite the fact that he’s the Alpha.
I bite my lip to stop from chuckling as Sydney says, “Would you like to tell me how to run my pack too, Alpha Cosette?”
“Get. Out. Do not darken the doorway until sun down, at least. Leave Sarah alone. She’s fine. She has to be out of bed today, anyway.”
“Why?”
“Your mother called–”
“I said no–”
“She’s in pieces, Sydney. I told her Sarah was horrifically sick, you know, so we could take a few vials from her of your grandmother’s tears without raising suspicions. She’s been calling for updates and is absolutely heartbroken you didn’t allow her to check in on the two of you.”
“What was she going to do? Bring us some soup?”
“This is why I’ve had enough of you!”
Sydney draws in his breath in another wince. Cosette must be pinching him now.
“What does my mother have to do with Sarah?”
“Now that Sarah is feeling better, your mother wants to see her and has invited her over for tea today–at the castle. It’s perfectly safe–”
“No!”
“Kenna is there, remember? Kenna wouldn’t risk Sarah’s secret. I think it would be good for Sarah, honestly, to spend some time with the women in your family. If anyone knows the trials and tribulations of being mated into this clan, it’s them.”
Sydney’s quiet for a moment. I sit a little straighter as the doorknob begins to turn then stops.
“Fine, but I’m sending her with an escort.”
“I’m her escort, and I already have a warrior lined up to drive us with a second one following behind. It’ll be a little convoy, okay? Gabriel isn’t going to jump out of the bushes and kidnap her during the half hour drive to the castle.”
“Don’t let anything happen to her.”
Sydney’s words settle in my chest, suffocatingly heavy. We’ve barely spoken since I woke up two days ago. I’ve been asleep for most of that time, moving in and out of consciousness to find him sitting at his desk, on his computer, or lying next to me but just out of reach as he stares at the ceiling, or scrolls on his phone.
Blake, however, seems to just appear beside me anytime I’m on the verge of going under again. The difference is he’s always happy to see him. Sydney just looks at me like I’m going to disappear again.
It hurts, but I deserve it. There’s nothing I can do, or say, to make this up to him. I’m not sure I can.
When the door opens, it’s not Sydney. Cosette bustles in with her usual breakfast tray and shuts the door behind her with her hip. She smiles at me, looking smug as hell as she motions me to sit and places the tray over my lap.
“I’m sure you heard all of that,” she says with a bit of a lift in her voice. She swoops Blake up, balancing him on her hip. “Sydney is going to work today, finally. He hasn’t been to his firm in over a week.”
I turn the tea cup in front of me in a circle, wondering if she’s spiked it with some sleeping draft again, but if I’m going to see the queen today, I highly doubt it. I take a cautious sip.
“Sydney is going to be fine, you know. He’s just worked up.”
I don’t want to talk about Sydney. I feel like I don’t even deserve to say his name.
Cosette watches me as she bounces Blake on her hip, her eyes narrowing as she watches me drink the tea and ignore everything else she piled on the tray. “Sydney isn’t normally like this. He can be very funny and exciting to be around–”
“I know,” I cut in, my chest achingly tight.
She narrows her eyes even further. “I hope you know,” she begins, adjusting Blake’s weight as she shifts him to her other hip, “that no one blames you.”
“I don’t deserve this, Cosette. We both know it. This kindness, this care… Sydney will never trust me again. I’ve accepted that, but I can’t–” I grip the tea cup so tight I’m suddenly worried it might shatter. I loosen my grip, closing my eyes as I try to untangle the mess of emotions rolling through my mind. “I can’t do this to him.”
“Him being a brooding, bothersome nightmare isn’t because of anything you did!” She laughs, shaking her head.
“I lied to him and wiped his memory! Then I straight up left.”
“I told you once that Sydney is protective. He’s a good, solid Alpha. This is in his blood.”
“It doesn’t mean this is right.”
“You are his mate, Sarah. The knowledge that you’ve been hunted half your life, and were brutally abused in the past, is what’s driving him insane. Gabriel tortured him in Eastonia. He has a vendetta against him already. It’s nothing you did.”
I pale, my eyes downcast on the tea cup.
“The best thing we can do now is go back to normal. Everything is fine. You’re fine. He’s fine. He just needs to get out of the house, and so do you. So, eat something. Drink your tea and get dressed. We’re leaving for the castle in thirty minutes.”
“Has he left yet? I want to talk to him.”
“Neither of you are talking to each other until you’ve gotten out of bed and had a day to just be Sarah again.”
I gape at her as she walks away, Blake gnawing on her shoulder, and disappears through the door, which shuts behind her.
There’s no arguing with Cosette, so I don’t bother. I nibble on the food, brush my hair until it gleams, and walk on wobbly legs to my room on the other side of the second floor, using the wall for support. Over a week in bed, barely lucid, makes my muscles feel like jelly, but I manage to fight my useless body into a smart white cashmere sweater and the burgundy trousers Cosette ordered for me some time ago that always felt too formal to wear around the house.
I haven’t put makeup on in ages, but a few swipes of mascara and some blush make me look a little more human and less like I’ve been rotting away in bed for days on end.
Without a minute to spare, Cosette ushers me and Blake outside to a waiting black car, and then we're off.
The cool morning air is a welcome feeling. I haven’t been outside in so long.
But the closer we get to the castle, the more I’m spiraling back into despair.
“I do like her head housekeeper, but I can never remember her name,” Cosette says to the warrior driving the car, the two of them having been lost in conversation as we drove out of Shadowcrest and into the city center.
My chest is in knots when we pull through the gates, and the castle looms ahead, towering over the trees lining a private road.
It hits me then.
I’m about to go into the castle. The castle. Where the queen and king live.
I clam up immediately and bow my head to hide the crimson red color flooding my cheeks.
I’m not sure how to feel. Being wanted, accepted, and being worried over are new feelings I’m not sure how to process.
I’ve never had a family. I’ve lived my entire life being a tool, something to wield and let run dry, and then hidden away to gather dust, forgotten.
But then I look at Blake, who is fast asleep with his cheeks squished against his car seat straps. He looks like his father. His dark brown hair gleams with copper as the sun pours through the windows. He’s safe, warm, and happy.
He has a shot at the life I never had.
My mind hurtles back to Sydney, and that familiar ache ignites. I don’t have a moment to ponder the logistics of our mate bond–the very thing I tried to bury deep down to protect him in the event Gabriel found me, found traces of Sydney in my soul that led him to Blake.
But I didn’t know Sydney had met Gabriel until the night we spent in the hotel.
I run my knuckle over Blake’s cheek and wonder, just for a second, if things will ever be easy between me and Sydney.
Because I want something easy. I want something normal.
I just don’t know what normal is supposed to feel like.
I also want… I want Sydney. I want him so badly it hurts.
I close my eyes the moment the car jerks to a stop. Cosette murmurs something to the warrior about his lack of skill behind the wheel and tells him to pick us up in a few hours.
I get out, keeping my head down, and lift Blake out of his car seat. He whines, having been so rudely awakened from a blissful, somewhat bouncy ride in a warm car.
But two people appear on the wide front veranda.
Maddy smiles widely at us, her eyes glimmering with true, unadulterated joy to see us; to see me.
But my eyes slide to Kenna, and I’m reminded of the fragility of my situation.
Maddy can’t know. Not about me, and worst of all, not about Blake.
Not until we’ve all figured this out somehow.
It’s also not my secret to tell.
This is Sydney’s family, after all.
“Oh, Goddess, I am so happy you’re feeling better. I was so worried,” Maddy rushes out, planting a kiss on my right, then left, cheek.
“Where’s that baby, Alpha Kenna? I’ve been dying to meet her,” Cosette says behind me as she lugs Blake’s diaper bag up the stairs to the massive front door.
“She’s inside with my grandparents.” Kenna smiles, her expression as sweet as sugar. But as she shows Cosette into the house, her eyes catch mine again, and those wells of liquid silver silently tell me everything is going to be okay.
But I’m about to come face to face with the woman who started it all.
Maddy shows us into a formal sitting room where the smell of tea spices the air. Bright yellow wallpaper sets a sunny, uplifting atmosphere despite the nervous, irregular thundering of my heart.
Pale golden hair catches the light raining down through several stained glass windows depicting the Moon Goddess in her various forms, illuminating the slight, beautiful woman seated in a high-backed armchair.
She turns her head, the corners of her eyes creasing as she bounces a dark-haired toddler on her knee.
“You must be Sarah,” Isla says, grinning.