Keon shrugged, sure it made him stupid and irresponsible, unhinged.
“Have you grieved the loss of your mate, yet?” Farley asked in a whisper.
The question startled him. Though Keon wondered why he would grieve the loss of someone hepushedaway, it proved one question too many. Keon couldn’t hold the tears at bay. The physical beating had burst the protective barrier around his emotions.
With one more dismissive shrug, he confessed, “I’ve grieved plenty. For the mother I didn’t get enough time with. For a mate who betrayed me. For a brother who died without knowing he’d been living a lie. For Simeon, who betrayed his pack and started this. For my father, who tried to protect me and died alone.” He thought about what he’d lost and could yet lose. “Yeah, I’ve grieved enough.”
“You haven’t grieved for what’s important,” Farley disagreed, in a huff. “Your lost childhood, your stolen innocence. You haven’t grieved for the lad who held on to our traditions. You haven’t grieved for the loss of your faith.”
Tears trailing his cheeks, Keon picked at the label on his bottle of water and shrugged. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
An arm lifted over his shoulders and Farley moved closer. “You’ll know when it’s time. You’ll know when you’ve found the mate to help you move on,” he whispered, with conviction Keon didn’t have but desperately needed. He trusted Farley knew what he was talking about. He was the Meskli. If he couldn’t trust him, who could he trust?
“I hope.” He wanted to move on and pretend Vega had never existed. Forget their mate bond hadn’t been brutally broken and he hadn’t been betrayed or abandoned by everyone he loved.
Farley squeezed, loosening his grip when Keon winced at the press of fingers over a bruise. “Trust in what you know best…your heart,” he advised, pressing a free hand to Keon’s heart, like he needed help finding it. Maybe he did?
“I’ll try.”
“Good. A man in possession of an open mind is set for great deeds.” He grabbed the scotch bottle and filled his glass. Farley planned on living the night Keon wished for: getting shit-faced and forgetting the world existed.
If only it were that easy.
*
WAKING CAME LIKEa bulldozer. One minute Keon was deep in sleep; the next his eyes popped open and the world rushed to greet him, unwelcome and blurry, the smell of coffee and bacon tickling his tastebuds.
Keon scrubbed his face, grateful for the brutal clarity of the disgusting gummy taste in his mouth, the sudden spinning and blurriness being symptoms of the painkillers. He’d never reacted well to Vihaan medicine. Human paracetamol had worked like a dream in Dnara, but Vihaan medicine hit like their animal tranquillisers. An unfortunate experience he’d been ashamed to share with Drew.
Sitting, he mentally thanked Weston for the glass of water on his bedside table. Taking a drink, he swirled the water around his mouth and spat the gummy residue into the bucket by his bed, repeating twice more before he drank the water.
With one less disgusting issue to contend with, he evaluated the situation. The curtains had been closed while he’d slept, and the alarm clock by his bed showed it was after four o’clock. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, calculating. The challenge had started at midnight, and they’d fought for an hour and a half. Add another half hour for treating wounds and talking with Farley, Keon counted on his fingers and thumped his head against the headboard. Whatever the answer, he suffered from lack of sleep.
The consolation was feeling relatively human. His body didn’t hurt; his brain was fuzzy from sleep but lacking signs of disorientation or a concussion. Keon catalogued his injuries, stretching his legs, curling toes, wiggling fingers, stretching to touch fingers to his toes. Everything was in working order. As he lifted the cover, the scent of wet dog hit hard and nearly made him retch. His m’weko had been rank last night. Evidently, he’d shifted in his sleep, instinct urging him to his default healing preference. His m’weko must have decided it was safe, or worth the risk to shift with his injuries.
Keon had never been a good patient, and escaping his bed without pain meant the injuries hadn’t been severe. The break must have been clean, his m’weko genes mending the wound as he slept. Miraculous. Normally it took twenty-four hours for a broken bone to set, with m’weko biology in control. Maybe he’d misdiagnosed and it was a hairline fracture?
Parched and needing answers, Keon made a quick trip to the bathroom, grabbed joggers, and stumbled into them. His brain felt like mush, but he blamed the painkillers, and stumbled from his room, across the hall, and into the living room.
Weston sat curled on the sofa, reading. The smell of unwashed m’weko and sweaty human must have hit him first, because he lifted his head, eyes growing wide as he jumped to his feet, book dropping to the floor. “Alpha!”
“Hey,” Keon replied weakly, heading for the comfort of the sofa. “Those pills should have flattened me.” He wished he’d had a couple more hours to shake off the worst of the unwanted side effects.
Weston bent to rescue his book. “Alpha, it’s four in the afternoon. Your challenge wasn’t last night but the previous one. You’ve slept right through, as I would hope and expect, considering your injuries,” he explained, a pleasant lilt to his tone suggesting amusement and fondness.
Halfway to the sofa, Keon detoured to the window, where the view was less than promising. Dark, dank, an ominous blue hue in the normally rosy sky. Resting hands on the windowsill, he frowned at the inclement weather. “We’re not due rain for months. Why is it dark?” He’d only seen this change during the summer season once, when Dnara had witnessed a devastating storm and the pressure on the doorway created a mirror effect in Vihaan.
According to his father, fascinated by the differences of human and Vihaan weather, the storm in Dnara had been the worst in a hundred years.
Keon eyed the impending storm, high clouds, and a tinge of violent red streaking through the covering, saying a prayer for Drew. It would be a hard winter, if this storm was an indication. He’d sent a team through, with no experience of human weather, their experience of rain and snow limited to their respective seasons. They’d never endured a summer with chilled rain, torrential downpours, or flutters of snowflakes. How would they cope with this storm?
Drew will take care of them. Drew and Rylee would know to delay their mission if the weather made it dangerous for inexperienced Vihaan natives.
“A storm rolled in two hours ago,” Weston explained, returning to the room to place a tray on the coffee table. “The Meskli believes it will last no more than a few nights. The rain will not be dangerous.”
Keon accepted what couldn’t be changed, and sank onto the sofa. He’d forgotten how nice it was to be fussed over.
Weston waited for Keon to get comfortable, lifting the tray and flicking his fingers to extend the legs over his lap. “I made soup, with herbs to accelerate your healing,” he said, taking the armchair and lifting a cup of coffee from the table. “I checked in on you three hours ago, and your m’weko was snuggled under the blankets. I hope that helped.”
