It’s true, but maybe it’s time for more of a nudge.
“Perhaps,” I agree, feeling a flicker of hope ignite within me. “If anyone could understand what Bellamy is going through, I’d have thought it would have been us, but maybe she needs more of a motherly approach.”
Althea lost her husband and child in a tragic car accident about three years before our father was taken from us. Althea isn’t of our bloodline, so at the time, no one spoke of the curse. When my father died, Althea offered to come and stay with me as my royal assistant. I needed her. My mother wasn’t helpful, and I was lost and scared and had no idea what I was doing.
Althea helped me through my grief.
“Come on,” Rowan says, clapping me on the shoulder. “Let’s go find her.”
On our way down to Althea’s office, I spot Bellamy through the window out in the back gardens, standing beneath an ancient oak tree that had been her father’s favorite. It’s where his aide would take him to sit whenever the weather cooperated. Her head is bowed, and ice drips from her dark locks like frozen tears. I hesitate for a moment, my heart aching at the sight of her so lost and broken.
“I’ll catch up to you,” I tell Rowan, jutting my chin toward Bellamy out in the rain.
“Go ahead. I’ll go play with Zayer and Sabrina and then we can speak to Althea tonight.”
“Sounds good.” I slap his shoulder and run to grab our coats and head outside. “Bellamy?” I whisper softly, stepping closer. The sound of my voice startles her from her thoughts, and she looks up, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from crying. I throw her heavy coat over her shoulders. She’s frozen through, but I shove down my ire and urge to yell.
“Sebastian…” she murmurs, her voice barely audible above the patter of icy raindrops on the empty branches.
My normal reaction is to charge in, but for the first time ever with her, I ask, “May I join you?” I don’t want to intrudeupon her grief, but I can’t help feeling a desperate need to be close to her. To want to heal her heart and take away her pain.
But it’s more than that. It’s my own guilt. It’s feeling as though she’s slipping through my fingers like grains of sand I’ll never get a hold of.I did this to her, I can’t help but think.
“Of course,” she replies, her pale lip trembling as she tries to give me that bullshit smile she’s been giving me all week.
I take her frozen hand, pressing a tender kiss to her knuckles before leading her to sit on a nearby stone bench. Under the sheltering canopy of the oak, silence stretches between us, and I have no idea how to fill it.
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell her, suddenly growing frustrated.
“Do what?” she says, not even an ounce of bark or bite to her.
“Put on a fucking brave face for me. Slink around and come out into the fucking sleet without a goddamn coat on without telling me. Stop hiding. I know your heart is broken.”
She sighs, her head falling to my shoulder. “You’re worried about me.”
“Yes. Physically and emotionally.”
“I don’t want you to be.”
I cup her jaw in my hand. “Aren’t you worried about yourself?”
Her chin trembles and she breaks down, her soft sobs shuddering through her.
“Baby, I know this is hard for you,” I begin hesitantly, trying to find the right words to ease her pain. “I know there is no magic wand I can wave and no potion I can give you to drink that will fix this. But I don’t like you hiding from me. That scares me more than your tears. Hiding isn’t grief. Hiding is something else. I will do everything in my power to help you through this, but fuck, Bellamy, no more hiding or pretending.”
She raises her gaze to meet mine, her eyes swimming withunshed tears. “Okay,” she whispers, her voice thick with emotion as it plumes through the air as a white mist. “You don’t want me to hide? Even if you don’t like what I’ll have to say?”
“Yes. Even if I don’t like what you’ll have to say.”
“The truth is, I don’t even know what I need right now. I feel torn apart, trying to be the wife you deserve and the mother the children rely on. I’m afraid I’ll fail at everything because right now, my hearthurts, and I don’t know how to make it stop. I’m worried this won’t ever get better.”
My chest tightens at her words, and I pull her onto my lap. She’s a fucking popsicle, and I wrap my arms around her, holding her close, trying to warm her up.
“My love, you are stronger than any person I’ve ever met,” I assure her. “I have no doubt your grief is consuming, and you feel stuck in an endless abyss, and instead of moving toward the light, you’re being sucked down into the darkness. But your grace and resilience have always defined you and will continue to do so.”
“But what if I can’t get better?” she asks, a tremor of fear in her voice. “What if this pain consumes me, and I become a shadow of the woman I once was?”
“Then we will face that darkness together,” I vow, my grip on her tightening. “You are not alone in this. You have me, our children, Rowan, and Althea. We all love you and want nothing more than to see you heal and find happiness again. Please, let us help you carry this burden.”
