Page 86 of The CEO Alpha’s Substitute Mate

She glances down at her leg. “No.” Her laugh is short and brittle. “I don’t think I can anymore. I just wanted to come up here.”

I could tell her now, tell her that the future she’s grieving is not gone altogether. I go and stand beside her instead.

She’s quiet for a while. “I know how it sounds. Luca almost died in those woods, I’m lucky I can walk, and I’m up on a roof being devastated about dancing.”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to. I said it to myself all morning.” She pushes her hair back. “It’s just that dancing was the only thing in my life that ever completely belonged to me.”

I don’t fill the gap. She turns her face up to the sky.

“How old were you when you started dancing?”

“I was eight.” She shrugs. “The community center where I lived had free classes, and my mother enrolled me. I just never stopped. I felt so free, so alive, as if every step burned away my worries.”

The grounds crew has stopped down below. There’s a bird singing somewhere in the trees.

“Losing it felt like losing a piece of my own body.” She looks over at me. “Maybe it’s like you losing your wolf.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she shakes her head. “No. That’s probably way too dramatic.”

“It might be something similar.”

She goes still.

I keep my eyes on the tree line. “Salar brought me your X-rays this afternoon.”

Her hands tighten on the metal railings. “It must have been bad that you’re coming all the way up here to deliver the verdict.”

I study her. “The wound is healing better underneath than it looks on the outside.”

Her shoulders tense. “That’s good, right?” She sounds uncertain, her breathing unsteady. When I don’t immediately answer, she looks at me. “Callum.”

“It is,” I agree. “There’s something else. The old damage in your right knee. It’s begun to heal.”

She doesn’t move, and I continue, “Salar’s magic went in through the new wound and found the old injury on its own. He says there’s a chance that if you do the rehabilitation properly, you may dance again.”

Ariela is frozen in place, not even daring to breathe.

“Like dance dance?”

“Yes.”

She turns away from me to put both hands on the new rail, and I watch her grip it hard enough to go pale across the knuckles. “How long would it take?”

“I don’t know. I guess that’s up to you.”

“I don’t want to hope.” Her voice is a breathless whisper. “Hope is the most terrifying thing in the world.”

“I know.”

Ariela looks at me for a long time, and her lower lip wobbles. Finally she murmurs, “Rehabilitation, huh? You have a place in mind?”

“I’ll find the best one for you,” I promise, and I see something in her eyes tremble before she looks away.

I come around behind Ariela and put my arms around her waist. She doesn’t stiffen, and she doesn’t ask me what I’m doing. Instead, she leans back against my chest, and neither of us says anything for a while.

“You really think it will work?” she murmurs, her fingers digging into my forearm.