“My sister’s garden, more specifically, was her garden.” I said, my chest aching at the fact that it’s been a long time, and yet, just mentioning her was still painful to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at her feet and I smiled.
“You don’t need to be.” I said, looking at a rose bush that the two of us tended to before she was killed. “She died a warrior, and I know that wherever she is, she is proud of the woman that she was.”
“She must have loved red roses,” Eleanor said, looking around the garden.
I ran my finger over a red rose, these were her least favorite roses, and yet, the most that seemed to grow around her garden. She never had it in her to pluck any of them out to the point that even taking a few to put in a vase was something that she was against.
“On the contrary,” I said and Eleanor frowned. “She used to hate them with everything that she had. The two of us didn’t even know how they grew everywhere. But she never had the heart to kill them, and I couldn’t do so, not wanting to ruin something that she meticulously took care of.”
The sound of hooves hitting the ground caught my attention and I knew that it was her horses taking their normal morning strolls. “Are those horses?”
Eleanor’s question took me off guard, especially since I knew that she seemed to be too timid to ask. “Yes, these are also hers. Though I don’t really ride them, I wanted to keep her memory alive through them.”
“That is very sweet of you,” she said, wrapping her arm around herself. “The two of you must have been very close,”
“We were,” I said, my chest aching at the memory of her being shot in the head in front of me. “Do you want to go and see them?”
“Am I allowed to?” She asked and I smiled.
“Only if we keep it a secret from Liana,” I said and she laughed, her laughter sounding like music to my ears, knowing that I was teasing her. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to them, then the two of us can get something to eat…”
Eleanor:
“So, now this place is yours?” I asked, growing curious about the story of the beautiful garden that I was in.
“Yes,” Alpha Killian said, crossing his arms over his chest as he walked by my side. “She used to love coming here and was sure to have a print on everything that was in the garden. You can imagine that she was even monitoring the men as they built her stable. I didn’t blame her though, it was her thing and she aimed to make it perfect.”
“But why not use or keep it open?” I asked before looking down at my feet as I feared his reaction. “I don’t mean to be harsh or rude with my question, but I am curious about your own perspective.”
“I would have loved to, but a part of me believes that if the door stays closed, she would never leave.” Alpha Killian said, taking a deep breath. “And another part is refusing to believe that she was killed in front of me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said and he pinched the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. A faint smile played on his lips for a second before he looked at a rose that fell from its branch. I was somewhat surprised about the size of the place considering the fact that we’ve been walking for a good while before reaching the stable.
“Each one of us has his own traumatic past, something that happened that changed their lives for good.” He said and I nodded in understanding. “What about you? What is your story? Your family?”
I froze for a few seconds as my chest ached. I knew that him finding out who I was would be fatal for me. If he wasn’t the one to kill me, it would be Elton, and that wasn’t something that I wanted to risk.
“I was an only child. I doubted that my father ever wanted a child to begin with.” I said, staring into space as the picture of my mom’s body falling on the ground in front of me played in my head. The fact that I was taken out of the house by my own father before he ordered his men to burn the house down played in my head. “My father killed my mother when I was a kid. The building was then burned to mislead the incident.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“You opened a scar to me, I believe that I could have returned the same favor.” I said, stopping the Alpha. The last thing that I wanted was for him to pity me. It was bad enough that I pitied my own self. The last thing that I wanted or needed was to be pitied by someone else, especially not a man that I just met.
I smiled at the sight of one of the horses approaching us, momentarily growing distracted from what I pictured. The pain that I felt was one that I didn’t want to go through here. Mostly because at this point, mourning wasn’t going to do me anything. And weakening when I was at my weakest states already was not something that I wanted.
“His name is Reed,” Alpha Killian said from behind me, watching as the horse stood in front of me. He looked down at my hands and slowly started sniffing them. I smiled at his gesture before gently running my finger over his head, careful not to stir the horse, knowing that he didn’t know who I was.
“Was he hers?” I asked and he nodded. I smiled and started scratching him gently, growing a little more confident with myself and the animal.
“He was her last foal.” He said, running his fingers through the horse’s hair. The horse looked at him and I could tell that he loved the man. To say the least, it seemed like it wasn’t the first time that he’s been here.
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