Chapter 48: 49: Angel vs. Devil

ALEX

My mother is silent as her feet fly down the palace halls. She doesn’t turn back to wait for me.

~She won’t let me see her cry…~

When we arrive at their room, I find my father lying in bed, unconscious, hooked up to countless tubes and machines.

I run toward him, collapsing by his side and taking his hand in mine.

From the shallow peaks and valleys on the monitor, I can tell that his heart is still pumping. But weakly.

“What happened?” I ask my mother. “He seemed to be doing well yesterday.”

“He got up in the middle of the night, ~Goddess knows why~, and he fell on the stairs.”

“And now—?”

“He’s been unconscious for hours. The doctor sent all this equipment from the hospital and said to keep him comfortable.”

I can’t believe that I was gone.

I should have been here to help him.

“Where were you when all this happened, Alex?” she asks me, a worried look in her eye. “I knocked on your door and heard nothing.”

“I was with Ariel. We were away from the palace.”

“Why? Is there a problem? Something I don’t know about?”

“No. There was no problem, Mom,” I say softly, “we were just out.”

“In the middle of the night? Really?” she asks again, looking at me skeptically.

“Yes. Don’t worry about me, okay? We have enough worries as it is.”

“You’re right,” she replies, sitting down on a chair next to my father’s bed and leaning her head onto the plush, high back.

She looks relieved to get at least one worry off her mind.

I kneel down by my father’s bedside and hold his hand once again.

I look at his eyelids, fluttering gently with each breath he takes.

They look paper thin.

Practically translucent.

I scan the rest of his frail form. I guess I never realized that my father, the powerful almighty King of the Werewolves, was so…small.

Seeing him now made me even more proud to be his son, knowing that his true strength as a leader came from within.

I lean over and rest my fingertips on his wrist, feeling what remained of his pulse, grateful that I can feel anything at all. But then, the sensation intensifies. I place my hand in his, and his fingers begin to tighten around mine.

I look at him. Sure enough, he’s looking back at me.

“Dad,” I say, choking back a sob, though I can hear that my mother is unable to contain hers. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, my son.”

“Do you need anything? Are you comfortable?”

“Don’t worry, Alex,” he says, “just happy to be here.”

I grip his hand harder and watch as his eyelids droop, a heavy weight for him to bear.

He drifts back to sleep as my mother and I look on.

~I’m happy you’re still here too,~ I want to tell him.

ARIEL

Alex disappeared with his mother before I could fully understand what was going on.

I wanted to chase after him, but maybe it’s better to give him some time alone with his family.

So instead, I decide to return to his room and wait for him to find me.

But as I enter the hallway, I see someone I wasn’t expecting.

Amy looking unusually exhausted…like she didn’t get a wink of sleep the night before.

~That pretty much makes two of us.~

I approach her, arms outstretched, and, wordlessly, she walks directly into my hug.

“Are you okay?” I ask her. When she doesn’t respond, I press her further. “What’s going on?”

“I’m fine. Really. I’ll tell you everything. But first, coffee,” she says.

“Okay.” I nod. “Good plan.”

***

On the patio now, with piping mugs in hand, I turn back to my friend. “What’s been going on here?” I ask her.

“Well,” she begins, “last night, Angel and I went to visit Dom and Helena at the hospital, and Angel…he…”

~Oh no.~

~What happened to Angel?~

My mind was already racing with all the horrific things that could have happened to him.

Amy can tell that I’ve already jumped to the worst-case scenario. So she interrupts my spiraling train of thought. “He’s fine, Ariel.”

Then she swallows and continues, “But as soon as he entered the hospital, he started getting weird. And then when he entered Helena’s room, he lost it. He shifted, and for a second, it looked like he was going to do something really bad.”

I shoot up from my seat, nearly knocking over my coffee cup in the process. “I need to go talk to him,” I say.

Amy grabs my hand, pulling me back down.

“No, Ariel,” she says, “he’s resting now. We barely got any sleep after I got him back home. Actually, we stayed up the rest of the night talking.”

As she says that, I notice a twinkle in her eye that wasn’t there before.

I guess she might know more about Angel than I realized.

“Does he have any idea what triggered him?” I ask her.

“We think—”

“So you guys are a ‘we’ now?”

Amy swats my arm and continues. “We think it was in response to being in that sterile hospital environment—looking at all that medical equipment—it could have brought back the feelings of being kidnapped and tortured.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I reply. “I really should go talk to him and make sure he’s okay.”

“Ariel, no,” she says, more sharply than she perhaps intended to. “He already feels so embarrassed about the whole thing. He just wants to feel normal for, like, a second.”

“No offense, Amy, but you don’t really understand what he went through like I do. I can relate to his trauma. I can help him.”

“Maybe he doesn’t need someone who can relate to his past. Maybe he just wants someone to hang out with. To joke with. To help him get his mind off things.”

Amy is staring at me with bright, hopeful eyes. I’ve never seen her acting this way about a guy.

And maybe she’s right…

Maybe reminding him of his trauma is not what he needs right now, especially after an outburst like that.

“So…” I say, replacing my strained expression with a sly smile. “You think that you’re what he needs right now?”

“He seems to think so,” Amy says with a smirk.

“Is that so?”

She nods.

“Then go to him,” I say. “Just make sure that he stays hydrated. And well rested.”

“Yes, Mom,” Amy replies sarcastically.

I take the final sip of my coffee, and Amy puts her hand on my shoulder. “Wait. Don’t leave yet. How are you? How is everything going with Alex?”

“Things are really good,” I say, as images from the night before flash through my brain.

“Should I start picking out a dress for a mating ceremony?”

She chuckles deviously.

“No,” I say, “not yet.”

“Come on, Ariel! I’m not getting any younger.”

“So?”

“I want to look hot in the pictures!”

“Ooh. Then we should have gotten mated a long time ago,” I say sarcastically.

“Fuck you,” she laughs. “I already know which dress I’m going to buy, anyway. It’s purple. I look great in purple.”

“Forget about the dress,” I say, “Go check on Angel.”

“I’m going!” she says, and just like that, she’s off.

I watch after her, hoping that she can really help him more than I’ve been able to.

ANGEL

I’m meant to be resting.

That’s what everybody wants me to do.

After my explosion in the hospital, the one that put a newborn baby in danger, I was expecting to be kicked out of the palace.

To be cast away.

To be left for dead.

But instead, Amy brought me back here and stayed up with me until my blood stopped boiling—until my nerves had calmed.

These people continue to surprise me with their generosity.

And it terrifies me. Because I can’t escape the feeling that I’m going to fuck everything up. And then what?

Where would I go?

Who would ever take mercy on me again?

I hear a knock at the door and expect to see Ariel on the other side.

Surely she’s heard about what happened by now. She’ll be worried about me.

But when I open the door, to my surprise, Amy has returned, with a big, bright smile.

“Hope I didn’t wake you,” she says sweetly.

“Actually, I was just about to go to bed,” I say.

“Oh yeah?” she asks me.

“But come in, please.” I motion for her to enter. I don’t want her to leave me alone with my thoughts again.

“I could join you,” she says. “In bed, I mean.”

~Woah.~

“Uh—yeah—sure—really?”

“I’m pretty tired too,” she says, “And it’s a long journey back to my room.”

~What’s going on here?~

I’m not gonna lie, I felt the urge to kiss her a few times last night while we were up late talking.

But I wasn’t sure how she felt, and I didn’t want to give her any more reasons to be scared of me than I already have.

But now, she’s grabbing me by the hand and leading me toward the bed.

I sit down on the edge of the mattress, and she perches next to me. “Is this okay?” she asks me.

I nod. I’m not sure what exactly she has in store for me, but I know I want it.

She leans toward me, inching her face toward mine.

Just as she’s about to kiss me, I place my hands on her shoulders and stop her.

“What’s the matter?” she asks me.

“I just—are you sure about this? After everything at the hospital, I’m not sure that I can trust myself anymore.”

She continues her trajectory, leaning in further until her lips touch mine. “I trust you, Angel. I trust you.”

It’s like having my first kiss all over again because I can’t remember when it really happened.

And it feels incredible.

She kisses me again. A warm wave surges through my body.

I run my tongue over her lips. They’re as soft as they look.

She stands up and walks in between my legs. I hold her with the force of my thighs.

She pushes me down onto the bed, lying on top of me now, her jeans pressing into mine. I wish that I was wearing a lighter fabric so I could better feel her heat.

In one fell swoop, I flip her over.

I kiss my way down to her neck, grinding my hardness into her. She moans, and it drives me crazy.

I grip at her back. Pull at her hair.

But I stop suddenly when I begin to hear a familiar voice creep up in the back of my mind.

~Oh no.~

~I’m losing control of myself again. ~

~I can feel it.~

I jump off of her and put my hands over my ears, but it doesn’t drown out the voice. A voice that doesn’t belong to me or my wolf.

It belongs to someone else entirely.

But it’s commanding me. I can’t ignore it.

I abruptly sit up on the bed.

“What’s the matter?” Amy asks me. “Are you okay?”

“Get out of here,” I snarl at her.

“Why?” she asks.

“Just leave. Please.”

I can’t bear to look at her as she adjusts her clothes and scampers out of the room. I feel awful as I hear the door slam shut behind her.

The truth is, she’s not the one who’s in danger. The voice is telling me to do something terrible, but not to her.

“Take the baby,” the voice says. “Take the baby. Take the baby.”

WHY? I ask the voice desperately.

“You know why…”

“Take the baby. Take the baby. Take the baby.”