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“No, Cory. Don’t you ‘Tia’ me. Do you know what it feels like to be good at one thing…only one thing to keep your family safe and then be told your nephew told the medical staff not to let you do that one thing in order to help them unless it was a last resort?” She had tears in her eyes, and I was starting to feel guilty.
When I took over as alpha, and even before, I left instructions that if a wound was healable within twelve hours by our own wolves, we should not be asking Aunt Nat to heal it. Only when the wolf required assistance or was in danger of passing while healing should she be called. It was meant to stop our people from taking advantage of her gift. I didn’t think she would take it so personally.
I sat up, sighed, and stretched my hand out to her. At first, she wouldn’t move, but Uncle Helios nudged her forward and she took my hand so I could hold it between mine.
“Tia, you have an amazing gift, but it comes at a cost,” I started. She opened her mouth to argue, but I shook my head. “Our health should not be your burden. It isn’t a fair thing to put on you. I would rather have you ready and rested when we truly need your amazing gift than tire you out every day on things our wolves were born with the ability to do.” I pulled her to me and gave her a hug. “I didn’t do this to make you feel useless. You are a luna, and you have many responsibilities. You are the heart of your pack and an important person to ours; to me. I just want you healthy, Tia, because I love you.” I felt her crying in my embrace, and I looked at Uncle Helios for help. Something felt off. Aunt Nat was never this emotional.
“We can’t find Xochil,” he said, and Mom and Dad turned to look at him in alarm. “She missed her connecting flight to California after a five-hour layover in Sydney. She never reached out, and it’s been ten hours since she was supposed to board the flight.” Aunt Nat huddled closer to me, and I hugged her tight.
“We need to send our people to look for her,” I said.
“We’ve already sent some warriors, and Kassie’s got some of her people looking for her,” he said, and Aunt Kassie nodded beside him.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mom asked.
“With so much going on, we didn’t want to burden everyone with more. Xochil does things without thinking sometimes. For all we know, she’s just off doing her own thing and forgot about the flight. We wanted to make sure she was missing before we panicked everyone,” Aunt Nat explained.
“We’ll find her, Tia. Xochil is smart. She’ll find her way home.” Uncle Helios came over and grabbed Aunt Nat, but before she went, she grabbed my face.
“Let me help. Don’t keep me on the sidelines,” she pleaded. I nodded, and I felt her gift finish healing my sides.
“Thank you,” I told her. “What of the guy I knocked out?” I asked Jo and James.
“He killed himself the moment he woke up,” Jo sighed.
“Uncle, he smelled ancient. Can you take a look before we burn him and the other one Tenoch killed?” I asked him. Uncle Helios nodded.
“Can you tell us what happened now, or do you want to wait until tomorrow?” Dad asked.
“Tomorrow. Everyone’s been awake for way too long. If we don’t have someone to interrogate, let’s get some rest.” I said.
The entire time this conversation was going on, Evie was just quietly standing close to the door. She said nothing. She only looked on with a blank look on her face.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ That’s all I got. A one-word answer with zero emotion. I swallowed the hurt and turned to my family instead. “Go get some rest?”
“Well, Alpha, your blood is clean, so you can go home.” Dr. Roswell walked in moments later.
“Thank you, Doctor.” I changed quickly and then we all walked out together. Aunt Nat and Uncle Helios hugged me when we reached outside and leaped away.
“Lalo knows you’re up already. He and Sebastian are on patrol duty and couldn’t step away. Come see us in the morning, or he won’t be able to sleep,” Aunt Kassie said, hugging me.
“Thanks, Aunt Kassie. I’ll try to swing by before work in the morning or at least reach out. We’ll go over everything tomorrow afternoon in detail.”
Mom and Dad headed home, and I began walking with Jo and James toward the pack house, but I stopped when I noticed that Evie hadn’t moved from the front of the door. She appeared to be looking at nothing in the distance.
“Evie? Are you okay?” I asked again. She snapped out of her thoughts and she rubbed her hands on the sides of her dark jeans.
“I’m fine. Mom’s almost off her shift and I was going to wait for her. I was just mind-linking with her. Have a good night, Cory,” she said, trying to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Night!” James said, oblivious to the fact that something was wrong with her.
The boys dragged me home, but my mind stayed with Evie. Something felt off, even if they didn’t notice anything. I went up to my room and went to sleep, still thinking about Evie. I wanted to reach out to her again, but I’d already asked her if she was okay twice. I didn’t want to seem overbearing by continuing to ask her.
I woke up to my alarm, which surprised me because I had been unconscious for hours and thought I might have woken up long before it rang.
We were healing. We weren’t resting, and it was exhausting, Tenoch said, stretching in the back of my mind.
