But I am too weak. My reserves are gone.
I can tell when Tony dies. The unhealed mate mark stops throbbing in pain for the first time since he put it there.
And a deep wave of relief fills me up.
I am free.
Followed immediately by crippling agony.
What have I done? I killed my alpha.
“Xenia!! Oh God, Vinny she’s here, I found her. There’s so much blood.”
My eyelids are sticky as I attempt to unseal them. I am both in the most pain and the happiest I have ever been. The dichotomy of rolling sensations leaves me discombobulated, heavy, light. A feather strapped to a cannonball and launched into the sea.
Drowning?
Free?
The word comes from a dark realm of my subconscious pulling with it a memory, but then it floats further and further out of touch.
Time passes and I take myself away from here. Back to my dreamscape. To a world filled with love and warmth.
“Vinny! Marco! Help me!”
Serena. Serena is here.
My best friend.
My tummy fills with warmth, but then my blanket is being pulled from me and I shiver.
“She’s alive.” This voice is unfamiliar, but it is soft, hoarse,concerned. “How could he do this to her? She’s so young, so small. She’scoveredin bruises and scars!”
“Heisn’talive. Marco, get away from her, get yourself under control. I need you to call Rocco. We must bury this. Set this up as an ambush. No one can know she was involved, she won’t be safe.” This voice isodd. Both familiar and strange.
Calloused fingers force an item from my clenched hand, I don’t mean to fight its release, but whatever it is I must have squeezed for so long I forgot I was doing so.
But once it's gone, I feelweaker.As if that was what was keeping me together, and in its absence, I am devolving.
I want to look, but my eyelids are still superglued together.
“I’ve got you.”
Serena is here. She will make sure I’m safe.
Soft arms wrap around me, tugging me up from the hard ground. Serena’s hazelnut scent intermingles with the syrup that had saturated my lungs; it is a small reprieve that I welcome.
“I’m hungry,” I say softly, snuggling into her. “Tony got busy, and he didn’t bring food again.” I know he won’t like that I’m in another alpha’s arms, but Serena is the one area I will always break the rules.
“She’s in denial.” The unsettling voice from before infiltrates my peace.
I whine and bring my hands up, cupping my ears.
“Let her be.” Serena squeezes me tightly. “I’m going to get you some food, and then we’ll get you cleaned up and changed. Everything is okay, Xenia. You did the right thing. And when you’re ready, we can talk about it. But right now, you need to heal. You aresostrong.”
Her words are a bit confusing, but the warmth they instill is not.
It is just the right amount of comfort to pull me back into the soothing bliss of nonexistence. Enough to instill that I am alive and I will continue to be.
