“I can see how confused you are. You hover between life and death right now” she explains, still treading water.
I’m impressed with her endurance. She looks like it’s so easy to remain in the water.
“Alpha Jaxon gave you his blood, but that’s not enough,” she said, while I stared at her mutely “You have to want to live Riley. You have to be prepared to face everything that you are and everything that you will be.”
She was speaking in riddles. I didn’t understand what she meant by what I was, or would be. I was a shifter with no wolf. It was pretty simple. Wasn’t it?
“You question nothing and yet you should question everything,” she said sighing “Why does our father fear us so badly?”
I stared at her in disbelief. Our father didn’t fear us. He had no reason to. We were weak, we were pathetic. We had no wolf. We couldn’t fight. My father was not afraid of us. He wouldn’t beat us if he was.
“Do you think that he took your voice by accident? Do you think that wasn’t intentional?”
I had disobeyed him. I had sung when he asked me not to, but why couldn’t I sing, I thought with realization. Why had that been such an issue?
She raised a brow “To sign is to give you life, to sing is to feed your soul. To take it is to make you powerless.”
More riddles. I scowled. Was she going to help me or not? “Our mother was not what she seemed and when father discovered her true lineage, he killed her. Yet he blamed us, telling us she died giving birth. Why?”
Why indeed? Lineage? Why couldn’t future me give me a straight answer? Future me is annoying, I thought with a huff.
“I’m merely your conscience speaking to you” she pointed out as I scowled “but what I speak is true. Riley, make a decision, do you want to live or die?”
I hesitate. To live would be to endure more pain, more humiliation, and more abuse. There is no guarantee I’ll be treated any better in Alpha Jaxon’s pack than I was treated in my own. For all I know it will be worse if I wake up. I’m not sure I would survive if that was the case. But to die? To never have a family of my own, children, experience the mate bond or love? Could I throw all that away on a case of what if? What did I do?
“Fear is a prison,” the other me said quietly “It prevents you from seeking out what you want for yourself and discovering the truth. Riley, it’s time you faced it. You are not just a shifter,” she said gently as I frowned at her “you have never been just a shifter. You know you’re not normal. You know that there is something more to you. Something far greater than you could ever have imagined.”
But what if I didn’t want to know I pondered. What if the truth was more hurtful or scarier than I could picture?
The water was beginning to slowly rise. It was just below my knees now. It no longer looked as calm and peaceful, but rather it was ominous, and violent waves were crashing through it. “You don’t have much time Riley, the veil between life and death is beginning to close” the other me shouted, her body beginning to violently sink beneath the water, only to surge back up again “a decision must be made” she shouted.
I started to panic. She was asking the impossible. She was asking me to choose. I didn’t want to. I wanted to remain here, where the water was, without having to pick either side. But it didn’t work that way.
Damnit Riley, choose. The water was up past my knees now. I knew when it reached over my head it would be too late.
“Your mate will want you eventually” my other self yelled, before she sank down again under the water and surged back up “hold onto that. Even during the hard times. He will want you. But he’s afraid.”
I was afraid, I wanted to yell back as the water continued to rise. It was like I was being pushed into it. My body trembled. My head was throbbing. My whole head felt like it was about to explode. I couldn’t think. My head was screaming. My voice was gone. Finally, I made a decision.Live. I want to Live.
Alpha Jaxon POV
The merge was going smoothly, despite a few hiccups. I could feel myself tensing as I headed back to the hospital with my Gamma Cody in tow. “What is it about this girl that I can’t get her out of my head” I muttered, my hands in the pockets of my sweatpants and my shoulders hunched over.Cody frowned “Is it possible that she’s your mate?” he asked slowly and I looked at him incredulously.
“If we were mates wouldn’t my wolf have said something before now? Shouldn’t I have felt the mate bond?” I asked tersely “no I’m merely curious about this girl and whether she is indeed the Alpha’s daughter.””You know that the mate bond can take some time to develop when the other mate doesn’t have a wolf,” Cody said reasonably as I scowled at him “and your wolf doesn’t tell you everything does he?” he pointed out.
“My wolf is a pain in the ass” I muttered, “he’s keeping silent on the matter.”
“There you go, so it could be a possibility.”
“I hope not,” I said exhaling as we entered the hospital “for both our sakes. It would be far kinder for the girl if we weren’t.”
Cody looked pained “You’re still spouting that nonsense about not wanting a mate,” he said as we rounded a corner “even now? Jaxon, having a mate doesn’t make you weak or vulnerable it makes you stronger” he tried to argue with me.
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