Chapter 6 The Cruel Jest
1638 Words
I woke to the sterile, sharp tang of disinfecting herbs stinging my nostrils.
My head spun in a nauseating whirl. I tried to push myself up, but a large, firm hand pressed down on my shoulder, pinning me back to the mattress.
I blinked several times, my vision slowly stitching itself together until I saw the face that had haunted my dreams for seven years.
It might be because of the shock of the near-death experience or the sheer ache of longing, but a wave of profound grief crashed over me, and I wanted nothing more than to fling my arms around him and sob until my lungs gave out.
"Ai... Aiden..."
My voice was a pathetic, gravelly rasp. The man's brows knit together in a sharp furrow, his tone hardening. "What did you say?"
The spell shattered.
My Aiden would never speak to me with such a jagged edge. The man standing over me wasn't Aiden; he was Alpha Ethan.
Falling from that brief heaven back into the gutter left me hollow.
A crushing exhaustion settled into my bones, and I lost the will to even part my lips.
The pack doctor hurried in, performed a flurry of checks, and, finding my vitals stable, beat a quiet retreat.
I had cheated death by a hair's breadth. By wrenching the wheel with everything I had, I'd avoided a head-on impact. My forehead had slammed into the deploying air shield, leaving me with a concussion and a map of abrasions, but nothing was fatal.
As for the others—Ethan in the passenger seat and Jessica with her four pups in the back—they had escaped with nothing more than superficial nicks from flying glass.
Ethan watched me, his face uncharacteristically pale. When he spoke, his voice held a strange, strained quality.
"You were out for a week. Do you... Do you really love me that much?
"Even in a life-and-death crisis, you chose to give the chance of survival to me."
I noticed then that his eyes were shot through with broken red veins. He was still wearing the same clothes from the accident, his collar rumpled and chaotic. It was obvious he had been keeping a vigil by my side for a long time.
I burned to tell him no. I wanted to tell him I did it for Aiden and that I was terrified that if he died, I would be shackled to his legacy and never see Aiden again.
But remembering his mother's repeated warnings to keep Aiden a secret, I clamped my mouth shut.
My silence seemed to unnerve him. The air in the room grew too heavy for him to breathe, and he turned to leave with a haste that looked suspiciously like a retreat.
A while later, he returned with a bowl of bland chicken soup. He cranked the bed up and began clumsily trying to feed me.
After he nearly choked me twice, a nurse took the bowl from his hands. Ethan paced the room restlessly before finally settling on the edge of the bed, painstakingly carving an apple into the shape of a little wolf.
"When I was sick as a kid, this was how Jessica used to cheer me up."
He lowered his gaze, his voice softening. "Just focus on recovering. I've hired the best healers and staff. You'll be fine."
"Mm," I hummed tonelessly. "You've been here so long. Shouldn't you go back to Jessica and the kids?
"Your phone has been buzzing non-stop."
Ethan stood up, his expression a complicated knot of emotions. "Clara, you really are..."
He swallowed the rest of the sentence and left, heading back to soothe his traumatized second family.
I signaled the nurse to c***k the window. It was only after the cloying scent of Jessica's rose perfume finally drifted away that I felt like I could breathe again.
Ethan had no idea that I was born with a sensitive nose; overpowering scents suffocated me.
I never used fragrance, and neither did Aiden.
And I didn't crave Ethan's belated, hollow concern.
I spent the days scrolling idly through the pack's internal forums, only to realize that the headlines—the ones that had spent years dragging my name through the mud—had vanished.
I didn't see this as a kindness or compensation. I saw it as a joke.
Ethan always had the power to silence the vitriol, yet he had stood by for years, watching me drown in insults. He had even fanned the flames himself.
"I'm picking you up when you're discharged next week," a text from Ethan read.
I replied with a succinct, "Fine."
I didn't want to see his face ever again, but with total liberation so close, I wasn't about to rock the boat.
Discharge day arrived under a leaden, overcast sky. A bitter wind howled through the streets. Ethan messaged saying he'd be there in fifteen minutes and told me to wait at the entrance.
I bundled up in my down coat, shivering as I stood in the gale.
It was the coldest day since the start of winter. The wind cut like a serrated blade across my face; within minutes, the chill had seeped into my marrow, and my teeth were chattering uncontrollably.
In this frozen air, even breathing felt like labor.
"Traffic's bad. Wait another ten minutes."
I glanced back at the hospital doors but gritted my teeth and stayed put.
"Almost there. Ten more minutes."
My face had turned a sickly shade of blue, and I could no longer feel my fingertips.
One ten-minute interval bled into another.
One message followed another until I could barely grip the phone. Only then did I realize I had been standing in the freezing cold for three hours.
I managed to type out a shaky text: "Are you here yet?"
A long silence followed before a picture message arrived.
In the warm, amber glow of a living room, Ethan was cradling the infant, laughing. The twins were sprawled on the floor with a puzzle, and a steaming pizza sat on the table. It looked cozy, warm, and utterly content.
"Idiot."
"You actually believed me when I told you to wait?"
It was a blatant prank, dripping with unmasked malice and mockery.
''Of course.
''Did I really think Ethan had changed? How could I let my guard down?'
Numb with cold, I dragged my leaden legs toward the curb and called an Uber.
By the time I reached the manor, my head was swimming. I was burning up and shivering all at once. I practically stumbled into the arms of a terrified maid.
"Luna? Luna! You're burning up!"
My fever spiked to 104°F. I was drenched in a cold, sickly sweat.
If the Pack Doctor hadn't been on-site, the maid would have called the emergency sirens.
My sleep was a kaleidoscopic nightmare. I relived every moment of public shaming, interspersed with flashes of Aiden's smiling face.
I didn't realize I was crying until a warm hand wiped the tears from my cheek. I bolted awake to find Ethan sitting by the bed.
"Alpha Ethan," I rasped, my throat raw. "Did you have fun playing with me?"
Ethan took a deep breath. "I really did set out to get you. But Jessica called... she said the pup wasn't feeling well, so I went back to check. I didn't mean for it to happen..."
And then the twins had begged him to play, and he had simply wiped me from his mind.
"And those texts?" I asked coldly. "Were those 'accidental' too?"
Ethan's face stiffened.
"I've been spending too much time on you lately. Jessica was feeling insecure, so she...
"She didn't mean any harm. She just wanted you to wait a little while. She didn't think you'd actually stand out there the whole time.
"She felt terrible when she heard you had a fever. She's the one who insisted I come here to take care of you."
The way he championed her was nauseating. It was like a bucket of ice water poured over the embers of my rage.
They were the ones who told me to wait outside.
And they did that after I saved their lives!
Besides, they both knew I had just walked out of a hospital bed, as fragile as tissue paper.
Ethan knew exactly how cruel Jessica's intentions were, yet he still chose to coddle her.
"I want to sleep. Get out."
It was the first time I had ever issued such a blunt, disrespectful command to my Alpha.
Ethan looked momentarily panicked, his throat tightening.
Since the accident, he hadn't been able to summon his usual cruelty toward me.
"Fine. Rest up. Call me if you need anything.
"I've pushed the Moonlight Isles trip to next week. You're coming with us."
The sheer arrogance of his "gift," the certainty that I would follow him like a dog, made my stomach turn.
I sneered in my mind. 'Next week? There would be no next week.'
Today was the final day of the one-month countdown.
Once Ethan left, I surveyed the hollow, empty room. Then, I walked out the door with nothing but the clothes on my back.
Ethan's mother had finalized my tribal exit papers a week ago. My thirty-day promise to her was officially fulfilled.
Everything was in place, and all that remained for me to do was to leave.
The maid stepped forward to wrap a scarf around my neck. "Luna, must you go out? The Healer said you aren't fully recovered. You shouldn't be out in this wind."
"I'm just heading back to the Goldmane Clan's territory for a bit," I said, lowering my eyes to hide the spark of life in them. "I'll be back soon."
It was a lie.
I would never, ever come back.
- Writer
