“Won’t it be too traumatic for her?” Annie asks.
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “But I still remember when Dad died. He was in the infirmary for a couple of hours before he passed, and no one was able to make me leave his side. It might be traumatic, but I am still grateful that I was able to be there for his last hours.”
“I guess Faye feels the same,” Celine agrees. “I am sure she is very much aware of the fact that her mom won’t be with her for long. Let’s give her the chance to say goodbye on her own terms.”
“That makes sense. Maybe it would be more traumatic to force her away from Marina,” Annie adds. “But I am not a therapist, I don’t know for certain.”
“None of us is,” Marius says. “We can only try to listen to our gut feeling.”
“Talking about a gut feeling.” Celine frowns. “Remember when Faye bumped into us, and what she said, about being a good girl?” She pauses. “Didn’t that sound weird?”
“She stays in her room and doesn’t cry,” Marius recites. “Did she ever say that before?”
“No,” I say. “It’s the first time I heard it.”
“Someone must have said it to her,” Annie points out. “No child would come up with that by themselves. The ice cream and her favorite movie, sure, she self-projects while playing with her dolls. My girls do that too. But the other? Someone told her to stay in her room and be quiet.”
“She definitely knows something,” Marius says. “But she probably doesn’t even realize she knows. I have seen this a lot in child victims.”
“You think they sent her to her room, while they did whatever they did with Marina,” Annie concludes.
It’s silent around us for a moment. “Yes,” Marius says quietly.
“Goddess,” I whisper. “No!”
Marius’s gaze is pinned on the door. “Let me try to get a glimpse.”
Celine takes his hand. “Do you want me to come with you or stay here?”
“Come with me, please. It’s usually easier with you around.” He turns to me. “Is it okay if it’s just Celine and me?”
“Of course,” I say quietly. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t know what to do anyway.”
“We’ll wait here,” Annie promises before taking my hand. She waits for Celine and Marius to disappear into the room before she looks at me. “There is nothing shameful about relying on help,” she tells me. “You don’t need to shoulder everything on your own.”
“It’s just so difficult,” I admit. “I feel like I should be able to help Marina. She has been my only friend for so long.”
“And you did,” Annie appeases me. “You did help her. And now you let other people come forward to do what they can because you know you can trust them, and you know that they can provide a type of help you can’t. That’s very mature of you and will help Marina and, particularly, Faye much more than relying on a false sense of pride.”
“I know, Flora and Felix keep saying the same, so does Elden,” I admit. “I will try to keep it in my mind.”
“You know I am just an omega, don’t you?”
I nod. “Felix told me.”
“When I found out I was mated to Liam, I panicked. It wasn’t even because of him or something he said. He was emotionally available and very much wanted me from the first minute on. He never made me feel like I was less than him. It was just me who felt like that. At the beginning, I thought I needed to prove myself by dealing with my problems myself. I had a stalker back then and tried to deal with it myself. Guess what, obviously that was a stupid decision, and Liam had to save me nevertheless.” She chuckles. “The only good thing about it was that we were much better at communicating with each other from thatmoment on. So, you see-“ She squeezes my hand. “We don’t need to feel inferior. It’s okay to rely on those we love. In return, they will rely on us, too. It’s a give and take.”
In a surprising way, her words resonate with me so much. I don’t know why it is like that. Or maybe I do. Annie is an omega she-wolf, and I am half human. In a way, we both come from a world where others looked down on us. I am sure she went through that too, and on top of that, she was mated to Liam, the firstborn son and heir to a royal lycan family. I am sure she didn’t have it easy back then.
“Thank you, Annie!” I say. “Honestly, hearing it from you… it’s different.”
“Here.” She scribbles something down on a piece of paper and hands it to me. “This is my number. You can always call me.” She chuckles. “If you feel like there is something our very royal family doesn’t quite get, reach out to me.”
I smile. “Thank you.”
I don’t know how she did it, but I do feel so much lighter all of a sudden, and definitely ready to face the demons ahead of me. I gaze through the window into the room, noting how Marius has sat down next to Marina on a chair, holding her hand now, while Celine is sitting with Faye, reading one of the children’s books that the infirmary must have provided to her.
The expression on Marius’s face is one of the highest concentration, but there are flashes of frustration in his eyes.
