I walk around my bed and slip into the other side. She immediately turns away from me, giving me her back.
Sucking in a deep breath, I settle into the mattress. We probably should have taken a shower before lying down, but I’m not ready to wash our combined scent off our bodies. I know I shouldn’t have given into my desire to fuck her. This is only complicating things. Yet, when I close my eyes and try to go to sleep, I do so with a smile on my lips.
Chapter 7
Tara
Something is really wrong.
Mom has been sleeping deeply lately, thanks to the pills doc gave her a few days ago. She never used to trust pills, but things have changed. Without them, she can’t sleep at all. She’s been walking around like a zombie for a week, like she’s lost in a dream where her mate wasn’t actually killed. Like she’s still searching for him around every corner, looking up and expecting to see him whenever the front door opens. Declan worries she’s escaping reality by sleeping as much as she does, but I get it. Reality is too painful.
Still, she’s been up in her room for hours and hasn’t eaten since last night as far as I know. “Mom?” I’m as gentle as I can be when I call up the stairs. I don’t want to startle her. “Mom? Do you want to come down and eat dinner? I’ll heat it up for you.”
Nothing. The silence sends dread skittering down my spine like a warning. It’s not strong enough to keep me from starting the climb up the stairs. I don’t want to see, but I have to. My legs won’t stop moving, no matter how much I wish they would.
I reach the top of the stairs and look down the hall to where the door is partly open, and the light is on. “Mom?” My mouthis so dry. When she doesn’t answer, I take one slow step, then another. “Mom? Please, answer me.”
She doesn’t.
I don’t want to move. I don’t want to know why she’s sleeping so much deeper tonight. My feet are lead, but that doesn’t stop them from moving me down the hall even when I want to go back downstairs and pretend I never came up here. “Mom?” I croak, touching my fingertips to the door and giving it a tiny bit of pressure to push it open.
At first, I can lie to myself and pretend she’s just asleep. She found the time to tuck herself in after emptying the bottle that now lies on its side on her nightstand. She took every single pill, then pulled Dad’s pillow into her arms so she could hug it before she died. I was downstairs making dinner, and she was killing herself.
For the first time since Dad died, she looks peaceful and happy. Because being dead makes her happier than being with us.
“Tara. Tara, wake up.”
The sensation of being shaken makes me swing my arms. “Watch it!” Kyran mutters, grabbing me, and holding me still until I realize I was dreaming. Remembering. It was so painfully vivid, like being back in that moment. Finding her. Being alone in the house with her corpse.
Slowly, my heart goes from pounding to regular beating, and my chest expands enough for me to be able to breathe. I’m here. Not back there. Granted, here isn’t all that much better. Here, I’m on the verge of being killed.
Somehow, that’s still better than finding my dead mother a week after losing Dad.
“You were crying,” Kyran tells me before I have the chance to ask why he woke me up. “You sounded like a wounded animal.”
God, this is so embarrassing. “Sorry I woke you up.”
“I wasn’t looking for an apology.” It’s like he just realized he’s still touching me, and he lets go like my skin burns him. “I couldn’t let you keep dreaming whatever it was that made you cry like that.”
There’s so much bottled up in me. I’ve never talked to anybody about what it felt like that night. Not even my brothers. It’s weird, but if I’m going to die, I want to get this off my chest. Sort of like a last confession. “I was dreaming about the night I found my mom dead in her bed.”
“Oh.” Because of course, what do you say to something like that? I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t know what to say, either.
“She overdosed on sleeping pills,” I explain, forcing the words out over the lump in my throat. “It was on purpose. She couldn’t stand the pain of being without her mate anymore. She spent the whole week between Dad’s death and hers falling apart a little at a time. My brothers and I had to learn how to take care of the house because she sort of checked out. She was completely devastated.”
“That tends to happen when one mate dies suddenly,” Kyran muses in a heavy voice. “Especially when they have a family. Shared children. The bond only deepens. I’ve heard it’s the worst psychological torture one of our kind can go through.”
That definitely describes what Mom went through. Sort of floating in a sea of pain for days. Staring out the window for hours at a time, waiting for him to come back.
“My dad did die suddenly.” Just mentioning it brings back so much of the horror of those early days. “You probably remember. It was eight years ago. He was killed by some of your clan.”
When I sneak a peek at him, I see the understanding that scrunches his forehead and pulls his mouth into a thin line.
“But the thing is, he didn’t cross the border for shits and giggles. He was protecting a little girl whose father left her in thewoods to die. He found her there and gave his life for hers. We only found out around a month ago,” I explain. In the middle of all my sadness and sense of loss, a tiny glimmer of pride glows in my chest. Dad died a hero.
Does he feel even the slightest bit sorry? I would if I just found out my clan was responsible for killing an alpha who didn’t deserve to die. I can tell he’s trying to weigh his words carefully, since he doesn’t say anything right away. “Well, the law is the law.”
My god, what is wrong with him? Would it kill him to show even a little bit of empathy? He’s like a damn robot. The law this, the law that. There’s no room for nuance. No extenuating circumstances.
