Chapter 25

Chapter 25

He was fine, Ashley told herself, repeating those three little words that had gotten her through the past week as she lay there, squeezing her eyes shut as she slowly released a shaky breath only to repeat those same three little words through her head one more time as she opened her eyes and…

Regretted that decision when she found herself looking into a familiar pair of silver eyes. Doing her best not to make any sudden moves, Ashley licked her lips nervously, noting that his eyes followed the move before moving back up to meet her gaze. At least he didn’t look like he was about to tear her throat out, Ashley told herself as she cleared her throat while she struggled to think of a good reason why she was sleeping in his bed since he probably wouldn’t appreciate the truth.

He’d scared the hell out of her.

Granted, he hadn’t done it on purpose, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d spent the last week terrified that he was going to die. He didn’t like her, didn’t want anything to do with her, and he wasn’t exactly her favorite person, but…

She didn’t want him to die.

There was probably something seriously wrong with her, but every time he was near her, she felt safe, but it was more than that. He made her feel like she finally belonged and she had no idea why. They barely spoke. She didn’t know anything about him other than what Jacob had told her, which wasn’t a hell of a lot, and she knew that he loved to glare.

Well, that, and he hated her.

He was also the only connection that she had to her mate. Not that it really meant that much to her, but right now, she needed the protection that her mate could offer her. It should be her main concern, but…it wasn’t.

Kale was.

Over the past week, she’d watched over him, sat with him, and held him, running her fingers through his hair when the pain became too much for him and he screamed her name and fought to hold it together while he struggled to take his next breath. Every day, she begged him to shift, begged him to keep breathing only to promise him that everything would be okay when it looked like he wouldn’t make it, and now…

Now, she really wished that he would stop glaring at her.

“How are you feeling?” Ashley managed to get out as she somehow resisted the urge to touch his face and make sure that the fever that had been ravaging him over the last few days was gone, knowing that he wouldn’t appreciate it.

When Kale only continued to glare at her, she decided that perhaps it would be in her best interest to get up. Decision made, Ashley cleared her throat, shifted, and finally sat up and climbed off the bed, aware that he watched her every move as she made her way to the door. Once she reached the door, she couldn’t resist looking back to make sure that he was really okay only to wonder why he made her nervous.

She’d never been nervous around men before, probably because there had never been a reason to be nervous. She’d been trapped in the body of a little girl with absolutely no chance of falling in love, so she’d never bothered to hope for anything more than to be ignored. She’d never expected anything more, never let herself truly believe that she would ever have a chance at a normal life and now that everything had changed…

It didn’t matter.

Biting back a sigh, Ashley headed downstairs to her room where she spent the next half hour debating going back to bed only to decide against it since she was hoping to actually sleep tonight. She knew that if she went back to bed now that she would end up spending another sleepless night on the couch. Then again, she would probably end up doing that anyway, Ashley thought as she forced herself to head to the bathroom, trying to ignore just how exhausted she was.

Over the past week, she hadn’t slept much, too afraid to close her eyes only to finally pass out last night after Kale had finally calmed down. She really needed to figure out a way to fix this, Ashley thought as she took a quick shower, noting that her arms had completely healed and her headache was gone as she got dressed. When she was done, she found herself standing in the living room, looking at the stairs, wondering if she should go check on him only to head to the kitchen with a sigh when she heard Kale moving around upstairs.

He was fine.

Which meant that it was almost time for him to go and time for her to find something else to do to keep herself busy, Ashley realized as she set to work making breakfast even as she couldn’t help but wonder why she was wasting her time. Jacob said that he had to leave this morning and Kale…would probably just glare at whatever she made him, she thought, feeling her lips twitch as she focused on making breakfast.

Thirty minutes later, Ashley had the table covered in food that would probably go to waste, a new book on her Kindle, and was watching as Kale walked into the kitchen with his hand pressed against his side. He didn’t say anything to her as he walked to the refrigerator and honestly, she didn’t expect him to. She watched him grab a Coke and sat down across from her, helping himself to food and-

“Eat up. We have work to do.”

* * *

Williams Mansion

“I love you, Munchkin,”Chris said as he pressed a kiss against the back of her neck as Izzy lay there, struggling to hold it together.

She couldn’t do anything more than lie there and moan as her mate held her, giving her a small reprieve from the excruciating pain that was slowly killing her. Izzy needed this, needed him, and needed to pretend that the pain wasn’t slowly destroying her.

She just wanted the pain to stop, but it wouldn’t. No matter what she did, it only got worse. Hot baths, massages, stretching, physical therapy, and rest weren’t helping anymore. Her only hope was surgery, but even that wasn’t an option anymore. Last night the Council had voted against her surgery, condemning her to a lifetime of pain and-

She hated them.

She hated the fact that she couldn’t even move her legs without wanting to scream, hated the fact that she couldn’t carry her babies or hold them for longer than a few seconds without wanting to scream in pain, and…

She hated Joshua for doing this to her.

“God, I love you,” Chris moaned in her ear as he slowly continued to move, careful of her hip as he made love to her.

“I love you, too,” Izzy managed to get out, only to bite her lip when his next shallow thrust shifted her the wrong way, causing pain to tear through her hip and up her spine.

Before she could stop it, a pained moan tore free as her hand fisted in the sheet and she prayed that Chris didn’t hear it. When he kissed the back of her neck as his hand slid back over her hip and found its way to her breast, Izzy released a shaky breath and closed her eyes and tried to focus on just how good it felt to be in his arms.

All too soon, Chris was groaning her name as he pressed one last kiss against her shoulder before he slid his arm around her and held her close. For several minutes, Izzy focused on lying there, slowly exhaling, too afraid to move as she waited for Chris to fall asleep and once he did…

It took everything she had not to cry as she carefully pushed his arm away and slowly made her way to the edge of the bed. God, it hurt so much, Izzy thought, biting back a sob as she grabbed hold of the mattress and-

Struggled not to scream as agonizing pain shot through her body as she forced herself to keep moving, knowing that it would only get worse if she didn’t make it to the bathroom before it was too late. It took her several tries, but she finally managed to sit up. Slowly exhaling, she risked a glance over her shoulder to make sure that Chris was still sleeping.

When he didn’t open his eyes, she forced herself to stand up and-

Nearly fell on her face when the move threw her off-balance. It took her a moment before she could move. Slowly exhaling, Izzy focused her attention on the bathroom door. Fifteen steps. That was it. She could do this, she told herself as she picked her right foot up and-

Bit back another scream.

Fourteen more feet…

That’s all it would take, Izzy told herself, slowly counting down the steps that she needed to take as she carefully made her way across the bedroom even as she couldn’t help but wonder how long it would be before she couldn’t even do this. Probably not long, Izzy thought as she risked a glance up to see how much farther she had to go as she slowly exhaled and told herself to stop thinking about that look on Noah’s face when Michael broke the news to her.

It was only a matter of time before she would never be able to walk again. She would never play with her kids or do the job that she’d been placed on this earth to do. She would spend the rest of her life sitting in a wheelchair, praying for the pain to end and-

She couldn’t do this.

She couldn’t ask Chris to spend the rest of his life worrying about her, Izzy thought, biting back a sob even as she kept moving, berating herself every inch of the way for letting herself give up. Hating herself, Izzy forced herself to move faster until she was able to grab on to the door and stumble inside the bathroom.

Once she was there, Izzy carefully closed the bathroom door behind her, turned the fan on along with the radio that she’d placed in here several months ago so that she didn’t have to worry about anyone in the house hearing her, and made her way to the shower. As soon as the shower was turned on, she stepped beneath the spray of hot water so that the water hit her ruined hip, pressed her forehead against the shower wall, and slowly exhaled.

There had to be a way to fix this, Izzy told herself as she reached up and wiped away the first tear. Noah could find someone to do the surgery and explain that she had a weird metabolic disorder, something to convince them to give her enough drugs to kill a human and fix her hip, otherwise…

She didn’t want to think about what would happen if they didn’t fix this. After Michael explained why she couldn’t have surgery, Eric had reluctantly explained to her what this meant only to ask if she wanted him to be the one to tell Chris after he’d destroyed her. As she’d struggled to wrap her mind around what he’d said, she’d told him that she wanted to be the one to tell Chris. Only she didn’t know how to tell him that she would not only end up spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair but that she would end up having to do it on a Sentinel Island.

She’d find a way out of this, Izzy promised herself as she waited for the last tear to fall before she turned off the shower and went through the long process of drying herself off and getting dressed and once she was done, she did what she always did when the pain became too much. She made her way back into her bedroom and across the hallway so that she could give each one of her babies a kiss, careful not to wake them up, knowing that her mate would give her a ten-minute lecture on interrupting his precious babies’ sleep.

God, Chris was such a pain in the ass sometimes, Izzy thought, unable to help but smile as she carefully leaned down and kissed Jessica’s cheek before tucking her back in bed and-

Sighed.

Just freaking sighed when her little girl woke up with a glare that reminded Izzy so much of her mate. With a grumble, Jessica slid off her toddler bed, grabbed her blankie and headed for the door with a sleepily mumbled, “Marc,” as she walked into the hallway, turned right, and left Izzy sighing as she watched her baby girl fumble with Marc’s bedroom door.

Once she managed to open the door, Jessica grumbled one last time as she made her way into Marc’s bedroom and had Izzy’s lips twitching when she heard the familiar long-suffering sigh followed by a pained grunt, letting Izzy know that her baby girl had taken over Marc’s bed.

For a moment, Izzy stood there waiting to see if Marc needed her to come grab Jessica only to smile when she heard Marc grumble, “Little bully,” as his bedroom door closed. Knowing that Jessica wouldn’t be getting up again, not when she was happily tormenting her favorite person on earth, Izzy made her way to her office and after she carefully lowered herself into the chair that Ephraim had bought for her with the hopes that it would help, she logged into Tattletale and focused all of her attention on the alerts waiting for her as she did her best to forget everything else.

There were a few alerts on random vampire attacks, but that was it. There weren’t any alerts on Packs, Masters, or anything that would clue her into the reason why everything had gone quiet. A chime drew her attention to find a notification from the blood supply delivery system that the Council ran and felt her stomach drop when she saw that there were more order cancellations, bringing the total up to over ten thousand in the last month.

Vampires were canceling their accounts and they had no idea why. It would make sense if there was an uprising in vampire attacks, but there wasn’t, and they had no idea where they were getting their blood now. It was definitely something that they needed to look into, Izzy thought as she scrolled through the rest of the alerts until she found one that had her frowning in confusion.

Someone ran blood through the system with a Sentinel ID, which normally wouldn’t be an issue except for the fact that the ID belonged to a Sentinel stationed in England and the test had been run from this house. A quick check let her know that Michael hadn’t been the one to run the test and a second check had her slowly exhaling when she saw the results.

There was a DNA match for a Pyte in their system and it belonged to…

Christofer.