Chapter 7

Three days had passed since the attack. I hadn’t stepped in the hospital since the last time.

I was helping the pack all around, I was mostly doing regular pack duties. I helped fill out the paperwork, looked over the deliveries and made a list for necessities that needed to be brought from the human world.

Usually I loved being at the hospital and helping doctors arrange the medicine, working at pack’s pharmacy. I was not good at healing people or taking care of them. I was just good at following orders and I did well with numbers and paperwork. I knew that this was the most necessary time to be at the hospital but my spirit was too weak for that. I couldn’t bring myself to meet him again. I was already too scared that he would look for me again. I did wonder why he couldn’t just let me be. A part of me still thought I was just crazy, only imagining him. And a part of me wondered why I was the only one that could see him.

I noticed how mom and dad were shaken up from the attack, Magdalena seemed somewhat normal. Adrian was with her mostly, he took good care of her. Adrian too was fighting but he didn’t get injured. We weren’t really friends anymore but still I wouldn’t want anything to happen with him, it would break Magdalena.

The day was already nearing the end. I walked up to mom, she was sitting by the kitchen table.

“How’s things in hospital going?” I asked since I heard she was helping there.

“They are getting better. In total five soldiers died.” she said, throwing a cross on her chest with her hand. “Many are still being cured but they will be fine. “I thought I’d see you there. Where were you?” she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, pulling my lips in a thin line. “I felt sick being there and there were plenty of people who helped anyway.” I lied. But what would she think of me if I told her I saw Death. That I saw Death taking a soul.

She nodded. “Everyone is trying to do the best they can.” She smiled sweetly. But I could see through that she was tired from working nonstop and with troubled sleep.

“Where have you been the past three days?” my mother asked after a while of silence, but I didn’t understand what she was talking about.

“What do you mean?” I questioned and sat down opposite her.

“We have always gone together to the lake.” she pointed out. “I understand you are a grown woman…but it’s a little odd for us to not be together.” She said with a small frown on her. I felt sorry. I felt bad that she was feeling like this.

I wasn’t really doing anything together with my family, barely talked with them the past few days.

“I… I just wanted to be alone… and I will go alone tonight too.” I said to her, of course she managed to glare at me disappointed and sad, she has always talked about how she loves this nymph bonding time with us. But lately I didn’t feel good spending time with anyone. I just wanted to be alone, and without anyone asking me how I felt.

Out of nowhere dad entered the kitchen. “You can’t keep spending time alone. What will people say? Young lady shouldn’t walk around by herself.” He said with his voice loud and demanding while he poured himself a cup of coffee.

It was always about what people thought. I sometimes wondered if he would ever have my back if everyone was against me but he knew I was right. Would he still go against his beliefs just because everyone else thought so?

“We are not living in the eighteenth century, people will not say anything.” I lazily said to him, I really didn’t want to fight with him now but I couldn’t answer his tone normally. He spoke to me like I was a child.

“That doesn’t matter. I still don’t want you walking around alone in the forest, you need to find a companion,” he said to me and mom whispered to him in a disapproving manner. I didn’t hear what she said. Even when I looked at her she avoided my stare.

Dad sat down next to mom, he mumbled something to her.

What was happening? They were hiding something…

“Bernard,” she tried to grab him by his hand but he shook it off. She looked really worried… what for?

“Honey, we talked about this before,” he said to her. “Magdalena!” Dad called out as we waited for her to come.

Shortly after she entered and looked around at all of us. Her expression was somewhat surprising that we were all seated here. But she nodded to herself and with her eyes down walked up to sit next to me. Now we were all seated around the empty small kitchen table. It started to feel like a formal meeting.

I looked at Magdalena and she was avoiding me, whatever they had talked about before she knew too. They were keeping something from me.

Dad looked over all of us until his eyes fell on me. “We think it’s best if you get married,” he said. And just like that he got quiet. I coughed out a surprised laugh.

I looked at all of them. Only dad was looking me in the eyes.

“You…don’t think… that…you don’t actually mean it?” I spoke while taking long pauses. I couldn’t even make up a sentence. Were they going to marry me off? I looked at Magdalena and she was nodding at me. Yet there was empathy in her eyes. How much empathy she could have if she knew about this but didn’t mention it to me. Didn’t even try to warn me about what’s to come.

Dad cleared his voice. “There are few werewolf’s who have lost their mates in this pack and I think it would be perfect for you to marry one of them, I already have few great ones who come from good families, but of course you are free to choose whoever you please.” This felt like a joke. I felt like a joke.

I was fighting to hold back my tears trying to mask it with a chuckle. “I can’t marry someone I don’t love.” I tried to tell him, he had a mate. He needed to understand that werewolves didn’t just marry each other like humans did. There were some who were living like that. But they weren’t happy. It wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Even dad now avoided my eye contact. “You need to move on, and I am sure that you will learn to love each other as time passes.” How could he say that? Werewolf’s that are left without mates go crazy without them, how can anyone who has lost his mate could ever be happy with me and how could I love anyone that is not meant for me?

“You just don’t get it. Do you? You have a mate, you live a happy life. I don’t have a mate and I will never have one!” I screamed the last part out loud while standing up.. It hurt but it was the most real thing I could ever tell him. “And there is nothing that would ever make me love someone like that. I am made to be alone. I am meant to be without mate my whole life.” I whipped away my tears with the sleeve of my dress, I have never admitted it out loud but this seemed like finally it was the time, and I was sure that if I had a mate he would be here, but he’s not. “Am I not enough for you as a daughter?” I asked him and I noticed how he shifted in his seat.

“Am I not a full werewolf if I live without a mate? Will I ever be enough for you? The way I am, with this flaw that I have and that can’t be changed?” I asked him and Magdalena tried to hug me but I pushed her away. “And she…” I looked at Magdalene. “she has always been better than me in every single way.” I chuckled under my breath. “Do you remember when I used to dress like Magdalene? In pink dresses, I even contained my behavior to be more like her. You liked that I was finally growing up as the lady I should be. You and mom both loved that finally my lady side was showing and you hoped that it would make us be out like some kind of perfect family. You both wanted to have a perfect life, perfect family and then I was the only one who stood in your way to your dream. I wanted for you to have the family you wanted, I wanted to change because of you, I tried.”

I took in a breath because my throat was dry from talking and my mom was about to speak but I stopped her. “You thought that after eighteen I started to act out more because I couldn’t find my mate. But it wasn’t it. After eighteen I accepted the fact that I will never be the part of this family you want me to be. I gave up and let myself be me. When Magdalena found her mate you finally understood that it’s not just our genes… It’s my own fault that I haven’t got a mate. I will never be enough for you, and you think that finding a husband for me would make me different but it won’t. I am my own person and this is who I am.”

My mom and Magdalena were now crying and I noticed my dad trying to hold himself together. But he was not holding behind tears like mom and Magdalene tried. He was holding back his anger. “changing you is not my goal,” he said. “You need someone with you because we will not always be there, you need a family of your own, it’s what’s best for you.” He stood up from his chair and looked down on me. “Think about it carefully. Because I am not changing my mind. As long as you are under this roof and in this pack you need to do what I say,” he said his final words and mom spoke as he was walking away.

“it may not only be your fault,” she started speaking.

“Melisa, no.” my dad said, warning her.

“why do you say that?” I asked mom.

But dad answered instead. “she is just trying to calm you down. Please understand that we are doing what is best for you. We don’t want you to be alone. We want you to be happy.” Dad took mom by her hand and walked out.

Everything between us has changed on a whole another level after Magdalena found her mate. Will this be our normality from now on? Fighting?

Magdalena stood up. “they want what’s best.” She said with her glassy eyes and sad puppy face.

I nodded laughing. “Of course they do. Because everyone knows what’s best for me. I don’t even have a choice in that. I can’t even choose what’s best for me.”

“I hoped maybe you would try to understand how I feel.” I said to her. “Hoped you would be the one to wish me best.”

“I do wish you best,” she immediately cut back.

“Marrying me off to a stranger is the best I deserve?” I asked with my face cold as stone.

“They decided! What did you expect me to do?” she asked with her voice shocked and confused. Completely unaware of the situation I was in.

“To be my sister.” I said shutting her up. “to defend me like a sister is supposed to.”

I put my palm up to her cheek. She was surprised by my action, not sure how to act. “I would never let them do that to you.” I whispered. “I always thought I at least had you on my side.” I sweetly smiled at her with my head tilted.

“I was wrong.” …