Chapter 27: Aislin

Chapter 27: Aislin

I was in such a state of shock that night, I barely registered the questions the police had asked me.

“What reason were you visiting your parents’ house for?”

I stared ahead and gaped, wordless, with the blanket draped over my shoulders. “We—We made plans for dinner with me and my boyfriend…” It was a lie, but with Everett right beside me, I figured he’d clue in and corroborate on the story.

“Can you identify the people who invaded your parents’ home?”

“No…” Even if David had set out to slaughter our packs, it was an unspoken rule of the shifters not to expose one another to human authorities, lest we risk exposing our entire shifter community and complicating the cover-up for the Mythguard. But I would have loved nothing more than for David to face the consequences of his actions in court, and to waste away in a jail cell.

“Witnesses identified you and Mr. March at a scene several miles away from here where you were engaged in a gunfight with two deceased, unidentified men. Can you explain that?”

My eyes slid slowly over to Everett who replied for me, “We were being attacked and defended ourselves.”

“Before that, witnesses say you stopped at the Grandbay Hotel and spoke with somebody who had been injured in a conflict prior to the event here. Can you explain that?”

“We were on our way to my parents’ for dinner,” I repeated. “Albin, the hotel owner, he’s a friend of ours.”

“He gave us reason to believe Aislin’s parents were in danger,” added Everett.

The fire devouring my parents’ house had dwindled down into smoldering embers beneath a cloud of steam and smoke. The police officers questioning us made notes on their little pads but looked unsatisfied. Minutes ago, I had watched the paramedics load my mother into an ambulance, and my father into a body bag, and I wasn’t capable of processing anything more than feeble half-truths. It was better that I stayed silent. The officers urged Everett and I to come down with them to the police station, but Everett resisted, and as far as they were concerned, they had no grounds to arrest us. The claims from witnesses weren’t enough evidence that we were dangerous. We were victims. Everett argued that, and ultimately, they let us go. If not for our Mythguard connections in the police force, their investigations might have called us into the station for questioning later, but as we sat in Everett’s battered Lexus and drove to the hospital, he assured me that I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

The hospital received my mother in critical condition. We were told to wait while they stabilized her and tended to her burns. In that time, Gavin had appeared as well, all of three of us bleeding and bruised while we sat in the waiting room, holding our breaths. A few nurses had helped me clean up my arms and bandage them, as well as the various other wounds scattered between Everett and Gavin, but none of us could provide any answers when questioned on what happened. I was sure we all looked disastrous, like we’d just crawled out of a landslide. The humans in the waiting room alongside us stared in disbelief at our bloodied bodies. I avoided their eyes and found respite in the droning noise of the television affixed to the corner of the room.

All I could think about was the intense loss I faced. My father was suddenly gone, and now my mother might not even make it through the night. In the blink of an eye, both of my parents had been taken away from me by David. Thinking too much about it nearly sent me into sobs. I bit it all back and just stared until the doctors finally emerged with news of my mother’s condition: she was stable for now.

All three of us were taken into her room. I stood at her bedside and took in the tangle of wires and tubes attached to my mother. An IV bag was stationed beside her, and the heart rate monitor beeped vigilantly beside that. The smell of raw flesh, bitter ointments, and latex hovered over her like a haze. Most of her was covered in bandages, but there was a fraction of her face left visible, the skin red and pebbled, her eye closed. Seeing her like this overwhelmed me. My shoulders shook as I hid quiet cries behind my palm, smothered with terrible guilt and sorrow and pain. I could think over and over again about all the ways I could have protected her and my father, but it would be futile. This was how the night had ended, and there was no going back. I just wished I could have said something to her, to either of my parents, before this had happened to them.

Regaining my composure long enough to speak, I peered up at Everett and Gavin beside me. “I’m going to stay here a while.”

Everett nodded with understanding. He drew me into one last hug, kissing the side of my head. “Call me if you need anything,” he said.

“Me too,” Gavin contributed.

“I will. Thank you.”

They left me sitting in an uncomfortable, blue-cushioned chair beside my mother’s bed. I pulled my feet up and watched her through teary eyes, wishing I could crawl onto the bed beside her and fall asleep. Right then, I felt like a hopeless child whose only comfort were her parents, and without them, I was lost. Nurses in bland green or pink scrubs occasionally came into the room to check on her—and me—but I’d lost all enthusiasm to speak by midday. At some point, I closed my eyes and drifted into dreams, but when I woke again, nothing about the situation had changed. I was afraid this melancholy would haunt me for the rest of my life.

For two days, I traveled between the hospital and Everett’s house. I only went back to Everett’s place to sleep and shower. Fortunately, my job had given me the week off, my other manager having found coworkers to cover my shifts. I wouldn’t have been able to focus, nor would I have been very effective with the jagged wounds on my arms, but they were healing at least. I didn’t eat as much as I should have. It didn’t matter—nothing mattered while my mother was lying there, struggling to survive her burns.

By the third day, she finally stirred. The moment I saw her move, my heart leaped and I sat up, watching as she slowly opened the one eye not hidden beneath bandages. My mother groggily blinked awake and stared at the dimly lit ceiling above, then turned her head ever so slightly, taking in her surroundings. The twist of her neck elicited a small whimper from her. That sound was enough to bring me to my feet, hovering over the edge of the bed. “Mom?”

She adjusted her body to look my direction, at first without recognition. Then her eyebrows furrowed in and her chapped, dry lips parted. “Ais…?”

Tears sprang to my eyes. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hug her, but knowing how fragile she was, I held back. “Mom… It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve been here the whole time, waiting for you to wake up.”

“What happened?” she asked hoarsely.

Water, she needed water. I pressed the call button for the nurses. “Dalesbloom attacked,” I explained quietly. “They followed you guys from the hotel to your house. Do you remember any of that?”

My mother went silent with thought. She hadn’t replied by the time a nurse appeared.

“She’s awake,” I told the nurse. “Can she get something to drink?”

“I can bring her a cup of ice cubes,” said the nurse, who then went to the side of the bed, checking on the IV and monitors. “Hi, Gretel. How are you feeling?”

I stood by as the nurse delivered a routine set of questions, to which my mother lamely groaned and mumbled her answers. Only once the nurse left, came back with a cup of ice and handed it to me, then disappeared again did my mother seem to collect her response from my last question.

“I remember having to leave the hotel,” my mother said, laboring to utter the words. “Your father and I took Muriel back to the house… Where is he?”

A lump formed in my throat. I didn’t want to reveal the truth to her and see revelation cross her face, or any other emotions that might follow. Reaching for my mother’s unburnt hand, I clasped it in mine and took in a shaking breath. “He was killed.”

My mother blinked, failing to process the answer at first. “Your father?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

She stagnated on the answer for a long time. Those emotions I dreaded unfolded across her face, a slow disbelief ebbing into shock and grief and sorrow. Her bottom lip trembled as tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. “How…?”

“I don’t know who did it. It might have been David or Lothair,” I said with difficulty.

My mother’s eyes drifted away from me and toward the ceiling. The tear that swelled and rolled down her cheek shattered my heart. “Those monsters took Oslo away from me,” she whispered. “I remember more now. He was only trying to protect me from them. Your father… he was trying to keep Muriel and I safe.”

“He did everything he could.” I wasn’t there, but I didn’t have to be to know that my father had given his life to protect his wife and the unicorn. My father was valiant and kind, loving and brave. He’d been Gavin’s parents’ Beta for a good reason, and his absence would leave a void in Grandbay.

“What about Muriel?”

My mother searched for my eyes again. I pursed my lips and swallowed hard. “They have her.”

A long, defeated sigh left my mother as she closed her eyes and laid her head back. The sheer gravity of the situation contorted her face with emotions she couldn’t withhold. I watched her crumble, lying stiffly on the bed, unable to even wipe her own tears away due to the pain of her burns. Watching her cry left me damaged too. With what little strength I had myself, I leaned forward and kissed her temple, embracing her as gently as I could.

It would take a long time before she was well enough to leave the hospital again, but at least her wolf would help her heal faster than normal humans. I spent the rest of the night with her. We grieved over my father and the others that had been lost, as Gavin informed me later that Niko had perished too. Even my sparring partner was taken away from me, so soon after I’d come to terms with him. Nothing would ever be the same in Grandbay after that night.

The moon was little more than a waning sliver on a night that I spent at Everett’s house. Although I would have spent every day at the hospital waiting for my mother to recover, eventually the humming of hospital lights and murmur of nurses and series of buzzes and beeps began to drive me mad. My packmates stayed with her to give me a break. I curled up on Everett’s bed with him, deeply submerged in my thoughts while he ran his fingers through my hair, tucking strands behind my ear.

“We never got to tell Muriel that Kiara’s here,” I said in realization.

“No. And we haven’t detected her since,” said Everett. “I worry that Dalesbloom has captured her as well.”

“How would we even know?”

“Well, we can’t. Unless we managed to track them down.”

I pondered the circumstances that left Dalesbloom in such ambiguity to us. After the attack, the Mythguard had never been able to find Dalesbloom and the Inkscales again. The town was absent of them, except for traces of dragon scent. Hexen Manor was abandoned—again, except for traces of the dragons that occasionally came by, probably to monitor the house and make sure nobody was trespassing. But David, Colt, and Lothair’s whereabouts were completely unknown. If the Mythguard knew where to find them, they would have made another extermination attempt. That was most likely why they were in hiding… and nobody even knew where to look. There was nowhere safe to look, because one wrong step in Dalesbloom could mean another massacre, and neither the Mythguard nor our packs were willing to take that risk.

“Ev…” My voice croaked. “Do you think we’ll survive this?”

Both Grandbay and Eastpeak had already lost so many members. Grandbay was down to nine including me, having lost two, as well as Eastpeak, having lost one. We didn’t know what Dalesbloom’s numbers were, nor the Inkscales, but even with our total of eighteen wolf shifters, I didn’t think we stood a chance against the thirty or more that remained of our enemies. They were slowly but steadily whittling us down to nothing.

Everett pressed closer, taking in a long, slow breath through his nose. “I must have faith we will survive, or else I’ll have already given up. And I can’t let my packmates suffer under David’s cruelty.”

“I know you’ll never give up. But realistically, do you think we’ll come out of this alive?”

He stroked my hair again, and I sensed that my uncertainties harmed him. I was usually the one brimming with unyielding confidence, I was the fire and heat and energy between us. But without my vibrant optimism, where did that leave Everett? Grasping at hope that didn’t exist?

“Realistically, the odds are not in our favor,” he said solemnly.

But hearing that harmed me too. Maybe I had asked just hoping that Everett would unveil some mathematically assured scheme that he had been sitting on. Like maybe he had some Hail Mary he was waiting to unleash, some last minute deus ex machina that would obliterate David and all our worries. Instead, he presented me with the bleak, blunt truth: if David continued with this reign of terror, we would probably die.

“There has to be something we can do,” I murmured. “Can’t we join forces with Grandbay, merge our packs? At least temporarily?”

Everett hummed. “Then who would be Alpha?”

“Both of you.”

A quiet laugh was held behind his lips. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“You and Gavin could make it work, I’m sure.”

“Even though we’re both facing the same threat, Gavin and I still operate very differently. If David doesn’t tear us apart, our own lack of cooperation might.”

“Well, neither of you have a Beta right now. Maybe one of you could fulfill the role temporarily.”

It seemed perfectly reasonable to me, but for two men who had been raised as Alphas, who had led their packs their entire adult lives, it was obviously out of the question to take a demotion of that sort. Everett’s silence told me that much. I didn’t even know who would remain Alpha and who would become the Beta. I definitely couldn’t see Everett stepping down and becoming subordinate to Gavin, but I knew Gavin would see it as a betrayal for me to suggest he become the Beta. What other options were there?

“Gavin will most likely make Gretel his Beta,” Everett said.

“Or he’ll want me to be his Beta,” I said.

Everett’s small smile reversed into a frown. He met my eyes, entwining his fingers between my own. “I want you to stay here with me, Aislin.”

I had suspected as much ever since I had that conversation with Lyssa, but with everything falling apart around us… “I don’t know if I can abandon Gavin now.”

His eyes hardened. His hands gripped mine tighter, and for a moment I was reminded of the emptiness in his stare when he snapped that man’s neck. “You’re my fated mate. I need you, and you need me.”

“I do need you, Ev. But I need to be comfortable making that decision on my own, and right now, I just…”

Everett pulled me closer, his hand on my hip. “Please don’t do this. You’re the only thing I’ve felt secure in lately. Ais, I can’t stand the thought of losing you too.” As he spoke, he maneuvered me underneath him, rolling above me so that he trapped me in his arms, as if my uncertainties would drive me away from him right then and there.

I wasn’t afraid of him. I knew what he was capable of, but the heartache of my tattered family made it so, so hard for me to accept leaving them. I pulled my hands out and pushed his chest away. Everett withdrew enough to allow me to sit up. “You’re not going to lose me. But my family comes first.”

After all I’d lost, I expected him to understand my hesitation to make a permanent decision. Instead, Everett’s frown deepened. “So, what? You want to be my mate but stay in Grandbay?”

“I don’t know, Ev.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“I know it wouldn’t work.”

“Then what? You don’t want to be my mate?”

What was he trying to do, putting this pressure on me? “I’m not in the right state of mind to give you the answers you want,” I said, unable to resist anger from threading between my words.

“I thought we both knew what we wanted.”

“I thought so too. Just give me time, please!”

“You wouldn’t need time if you knew!”

“I just…!” I didn’t know what I wanted. I supposed he was right. Suddenly, I was upset with him and myself, wishing I could tell him directly that I wanted to be his mate and stay in Eastpeak, but the thought of leaving Gavin and my mother—after the abrupt death of my father—seemed more and more unbearable. I squirmed out from under Everett and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands.

Everett hovered on the other side of the bed. I knew from the turmoil in his heart that I could feel through our connection, he was second guessing everything he said. But from the way he got so angry with me…

I was second guessing everything too. Especially being his mate.