“Have you made up with Aled yet?” I ask, watching as Gareth clamps the IV line.
Gazing further up, I see that the banana bag is empty. Moving onto his knees, he grabs the supplies he’ll need to bandage my arm as he pulls out the cannula. Quickly applying pressure with a cotton ball, he wraps my arm with a black bandage before laying back down.
Catching my raised brow, he shrugs. “My brothers all caught a really bad stomach bug and were severely dehydrated. Dr.Royal taught me how to get their IVs started and managed before he told me to take care of the ‘big babies’. I don’t think he likes that he lives just a few houses down from us.”
“Seriously?” I ask. “He’s that close?”
“If he lived any further or was working at the hospital, I don’t know if you’d have made it,” Gareth says.
I feel a twinge of guilt and Gareth shakes his head.
“You told me what your hard limits were, Olivia,” he reminds me. “I had to witness how firm they were to truly understand them. I don’t ever want you to have to choose that route again. It also forced my brothers to choose you. We’re taking Dylan’s organization from him, along with his life. It’ll cause too many issues if we don’t.”
“Just like that?” I ask.
“Yes,” Gareth says. “We’ve made a plan, and that’s the end of it. Moving away when Dylan suggested it was a blessing in disguise. We were still under his thumb, but there was less abuse. I had to kill less for him too. Unfortunately, we think that he has spies amongst our guards. It’s going to be a bloody road, however, that’s never been a problem for me. Your blood, on the other hand, I’m not a fan of. I want to focus on keeping that inside of your body, yeah?”
Listening to how calm he is as he details upending his life and killing the man who raised him makes my tears come faster.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
There’s a knock on the door, and Balthy growls softly. Seeing that I’m awake, he nudges Gareth out of the way until he’s standing next to me, gazing wryly at his dog.
“Be gentle,” he reminds him.
Balthy barks loudly at him before laying across me and laying his head on my chest.
“His hair gets everywhere, let me wrap your arm,” Gareth murmurs.
Grabbing a wide bandage, he carefully puts it over the stitches. Gareth does this for my other arm as well before walking over to answer the door.
“Hey, baby,” I murmur, giving him gentle head scratches.
My tears continue to flow as I think about how much I would have missed if I’d been successful in my suicide attempt. My grandchild, giant puppy snuggles, watching my son-in-laws freak out about changing a diaper once the baby is born, and Gareth.
My eyes cut over to where three alphas stand outside the door, and my lips purse as I wonder if I’d miss them. My heart twists, the familiar pain sharper than it usually is whenever I think about them, or I’m around them, or I can smell them…
Blinking, I realize that I can smell them, and the full force of the rejection hits me at Mac truck speed. Gasping, I begin to sob. It’s hard and painful, and I can’t get a full breath for a reason outside of having a St. Bernard on top of me.
I haven’t had my medication in over twenty four hours, the sun is beginning to set outside, meaning it’s going to be closer to forty-eight hours soon. My blockers are getting flushed out of my system at a rapid rate, and I begin to mourn what I could have had.
“Gareth,” Maddox murmurs, all of the gazes on me. “What’s wrong with her?”
“She can speak for herself,” Gareth scoffs, leaving the doorway to come over to me. “Is Balthazar hurting you, baby?”
Shaking my head, I hug the dog closer to me. Balthy wiggles over as much as he can without pressing down on me, and shoves his big head against my neck with a soft chuff.
“Tell me,” Gareth begs, dropping to his knees beside me.
“My alpha blockers aren’t working,” I wail. “All I can smell are your brothers. Why wasn’t I good enough? They threw me away!”
“Fuck,” Aled whispers, his arms fisted at his sides as he steps further into the room. “It was never that you weren’t good enough, not really. It’s that we weren’t.”
Maddox and Cai nod in agreement.
“It doesn’t feel like that right now,” I gasp. “Even after everything that I’ve found out and experienced, with my wrists wrapped after my attempt to get away the only way I could think of, every instinct inside of me is telling me that I’m the problem.”
A whine slips from my lips, and the alphas in the room begin to purr. Cai looks the most surprised as the instinct kicks in to console me, and Balthy presses against me. He’s so large, he is almost stealing my breath, forcing Gareth to whistle at him to back up.
