Chapter 136
Stronger
Annetteâs POV:
I was returning to my daily life all of my responsibilities, and my duties came back like riding
a bike. My body was slowly going back at ease I found myself smiling more, and talking more.
Still, the scars remain from everything I still look at over my shoulder. I still secondâguess people
around me. I didnât give everything away and I watched who I spoke in front of. Part of me felt like this
was some ugly lesson. I had to learn that not everybody was good and that dreaming up wonderful
fantasies couldnât protect you. I now saw the world a little darker I
saw that horrible side of people that you want to overlook. That greediness that we all went about our
lives sidestepping. If we didnât look it in the eyes, it wasnât there, right?
I still couldnât talk to Grayson in my mind everything that had come so easily to us now took practice
and mindfulness. I found myself agitated that we had been set back yet again and I was frustrated he
couldnât tell me exactly what I needed.
I knew this was how everybody else lived but I still hated it I wanted my relationship back the one I
knew where he never left me, always there, fingertips brushing infinitely.
We were going to attempt to connect me to seraphine with a moon pool ritual, wolf disconnection
wasnât often heard of and the elders hadnât ever performed this ritual. It was unnatural to be separated
from your wolf like this. It was heinous.
I felt like everything and changed without me, realizing it I was proud of my husband for allowing all
these rogues and his ingenuity as well as his kindness Grace may still hide it, but he had a big heart.
Still, even this change came with challenges, I found myself entirely jealous of the young girl who had
taken in with her brother she was preparing for her newborn to come into the world. Enviously watching
as she prepared her nursery, as folded blankets that she would wrap him in as she picked out onesies
for him to wear she would get to do all those things she would get to see him in his first learning
everything.
I would look over at my son how big he was how to him. I was still a stranger. There were
days when I couldnât calm him and Grayson. he knew what he liked what set him at ease. He knew
what foods he liked and I didnât.
Every time I put a bottle into his mouth, it made my heart hurt. I was supposed to have done this myself
and experienced this together instead, I felt so detached no matter what I did part of him wasnât mine.
I kept him with me throughout all hours of the day, trying to go over the fact that we had spent so much
time apart. Time that was supposed to be ours, that was supposed to be cherished that was supposed
to cement our relationship.
How did he feel about me when he was older? Would there always be this kind of gap between us? He
always prefers his father.
I would watch that young innocent who had already gone through something horrible and part of me
would hate her because even though she had survived she still got him she got to be with him right
away and she got to enjoy all of those moments. nobody else would touch.
I didnât like this part of myself this part that wanted what everybody else had this part that was so
frustrated so agonized. It was childish it was temperamental and I had never been those things naive
yes, foolish yes, but never wanting for things that didnât belong to me.
I hoped with as much time as I spent with my son, this green beast inside of me would die I would
regain my composure and my sanity. I would act in my head the way I did in public with Grace and
understanding. I didnât like how petulant I thought. How greedy I was.
I know my problems wonât all be fixed by going into the moon pool and I know Seraphine and I have
work to do. Still, I wanted more of my old self back I wanted that connection. I always had. I wanted my
conversations with my husband back.
I shouldnât be so selfish I was lucky to be back where I was to be alive I trained and I strived and I
pushed to turn back the clock to get back I had before I went away. One Look at my son and I knew
there were some things I couldnât get back.
The ugliness in myself reared its head. I wanted to kill him for what he had done to me and for what he
had taken for me. I want to watch him die slowly from the moments that had been stripped from us
when I was pregnant, and Grayson wasnât there the labor I endured
without him, the week of my sonâs life, I would never see. They burn a fire in me. red, hot, and blazing
in my veins seething with every breath.
The worst part is he was coming back one way or another. He was determined to take all of it again to
take more. How could he possibly be entitled to more? but he saw it that way it only made the fire burn
brighter. Thinking of him, his face, his smirk, the green envy of his eyes.
My mind went white hot with rage.
I wouldnât let anything else be stripped from me, no more time with my son would be taken from me. no
more conversations with my husband would be missed. the ease I spoke to my people and the trust I
once had in them would not be broken again. I wouldnât hesitate to speak to my brothers, I wouldnât be
frustrated with my mother, and I would never let him touch these precious corners of my life again.
Him or the man holding his leash, I knew who the puppet was. I saw him dancing with my husband and
his mind. A chess match being played out, waltzing around a boxing ring, One step forward, two steps
back.
He, I hated most of all because he was the reason this was all continuing. If he hadnât stepped in if he
hadnât stuck his fingers into our business this wouldâve ended when I returned home. Instead, he gladly
jumped at the chance to get involved in his sonâs life. to take away that little string of fate that was
always tied around him to snip that loose end.
I knew what he thought of himself; he thought he deserved the world and he wanted mine. He wanted
my people, he wanted my time, and worst of all he wanted to take me from my son. He canât get
everything he wanted, come hell or high water, pain or suffering, I was going to make them pay for all
that I had lost.
They thought my husband was their greatest threat and Iâd let them think that Iâll play their game. Iâll pit
them against him, and Iâll laugh as I put their bodies in the ground.