Chapter 15
1061 Words
BASTIAN’S POV
I walked to the car alone.
I opened the passenger door quietly and sat beside her.
For a moment, I just looked at her.
This girl… this fragile, stubborn, brave girl… had already suffered more than most. And now I was about to take something from her, even if it was for her own good.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured softly, even though she couldn’t hear me.
I reached out slowly, placing my hand just above her heart. I didn’t want to touch her directly.
I’d always been careful about contact. Physical touch amplifies everything - it opens a channel between my ability and another person's emotional state that without it is manageable, like hearing music through a wall. With it, the wall disappears. I’ve shaken hands with grieving people and nearly gone to my knees. I’ve embraced people in joy and had to work hard not to smile for hours afterwards
With Cassie, I already felt more than I should have from three feet away. I could imagine how affected my Lycan and I would be if we touched her.
This power I had was rare. It was a gift and a curse.
Instead I closed my eyes and I reached for her mind. I felt her the moment I touched her consciousness.
Her emotional landscape came to me slowly. It was the most painful thing I had ever touched.
I’d been an empath my entire life. I’d felt grief in its many forms.. I thought I knew the full range of it.
What lived inside Cassie in that moment was something I didn't have a category for. It wasn't one thing. It was layered -there was the shock, and underneath the shock was a grief so deep and so old that it clearly didn't start tonight. It had roots. It had been growing in her for a long time. It grew stronger with every humiliation and every moment of loneliness and every day she had gone to school wolfless and come home to a mother who worked herself to exhaustion yet still couldn't give them more than just enough.
Tonight hadn't created this grief. Tonight had simply ripped the surface open and let me see how far down it went.
I stayed with it for a moment. I didn't rush. That was the most important thing - never rush inside another person's emotional space, because rushing is how you damage things you can't repair.
I reached further carefully. At the center of it all was the memory.
I saw it as clearly as if I had been there myself.
I saw the memory of her mother lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere. The smell, the shock, the disbelief. I felt the moment her heart broke.
Cassie was trapped there, reliving it over and over again.
“No,” I whispered under my breath.
Carefully, I reached for that memory.
It wasn’t something I could just erase. Memories were tied to emotions, to identity. Removing it completely could do more harm than good.
So, I reshaped it.
I softened the edges first. I did my best to dull the intensity of the pain. The blood faded, the horror dimmed, the fear she felt faded. Then I replaced it.
Slowly, I replaced the memories with something else. Instead of a lifeless body, I gave her something else.
I gave her a quiet goodbye. I changed the scary memory into another image of her mother standing in soft light, smiling gently, touching her face one last time. I inserted a sense of peace instead of terror, a feeling of warmth instead of loss.
I wrapped that new memory around her mind, sealing it carefully so it would hold.
It took longer than I expected. Her mind pushed back without knowing it was pushing back - she was strong in there, much stronger than I had expected.
For a moment, everything went still. Then something shifted.
It wasn’t the memory. It was her.
A sudden wave of energy moved through her mind. It was stronger than anything I had felt from her before. It startled me. The response was unexpected. It felt like something breaking free.
Then I opened my eyes.
And Cassie gasped.
Her body jerked slightly. Her chest rose as she pulled in a shaky breath. Her eyes opened. Her eyes were wide and confused, but alive.
And then I felt something deep inside her - Her wolf.
It wasn’t faint or weak like I had expected. It was there, like it had been waiting all along.
"Cassie," I said carefully. "Can you hear me?"
She didn't answer immediately. Her eyes were wide and fixed on something I couldn't see. Her lips parted.
"She's - there's someone-" Her voice came out as a whisper "There's someone in here."
I went completely still.
Darren and Castien had appeared at the car window. I hadn't heard them move but they were there. They had shocked expressions on their faces.
"My chest," Cassie whispered. "I feel something is in my chest" She looked at me for the first time, direct and stunned. "Is this - what is this?"
I looked at her. "Tell me what you feel. Describe it exactly."
"It's like a heartbeat," she said slowly. "But it's not mine. It's - she's separate from me. She's-" She stopped. Her eyes went wider. "She's talking. I can hear her." she pressed her hand against her chest. "Oh my - I can hear her voice."
Darren made a sound behind me. I didn't look at him.
"Your wolf?" I asked.
Cassie was very quiet for a moment. She stared into space. She looked like she was listening to something that none of us could hear.
"She's telling me her name," Cassie said.
Castien, Darren and I stayed silent the whole time. Cassie frowned slightly, like she was trying to make sense of what she was hearing.
"Amara," she breathed.
The three of us looked at each other.
Cassie had finally woken her wolf. That was a good thing.
Cassie’s eyes softened even more.
That’s my mother’s name,” she said with a smile “I… I love it.”
Her smile faded slightly.
“I wish I could tell her,” she added. Her voice dropped low.. “But… she’s somewhere peaceful now. I know she is.”
- Writer
