AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thanks,” he said, holding up the tablet.
“No need to thank me, Kalen. We are mates. What’s mine is also yours. You don’t owe me anything. If anything, I owe you,” Darius said.
Kalen laughed and shook his head. “But I do nothing. I’m useless.”
Darius growled angrily. “You don’t speak like that. You see yourself as unworthy of us, Kalen, when the only one that is unworthy of mates is me. You are more than enough. Do you understand me?” Kalen glares at his feet when Darius grabs his face forcing Kalen to look at him.
“I asked you a question, Kalen.” Kalen goes to argue with him when Darius cuts him off with his demonic gaze. “Am I understood?”
Kalen nodded, and Darius exhaled. “Message her back.” Darius said, letting him go. Kalen watched as Darius left. Even with Darius’ words, he still felt unworthy of Lycus and them, but more so me.
However, Kalen messaged me and then stared at the screen the entire time until I replied. Seeing him hanging on to every message the way he did, made me feel guilty. At first, I felt obligated to until I was just as obsessed with him as he was with me. He was the highlight of my day, and I was his. Until I stopped replying.
#
The scene dissolves again, and I am shoved into other memories. These, however, involve me. Kalen was excited because he would meet me today, and he waited patiently, but today he couldn’t contain his excitement as the memories moved along. That excitement died along with him. Five years, and he was able to tell me who he was, only I never replied to the message he sent. I never saw it because I left my tablet behind. Unfortunately, my silence served as a tipping point and that is what caused him to spiral. I was his catalyst.
I was the last rejection he could take, so he hung himself. He believed he ruined everyone’s chance to have their keeper. He convinced himself he was the reason I ran. Then he convinced himself they would be better off without him. So, he repeatedly killed himself, and each time they brought him back, only each time he became more unstable.
Watching this unfold before me, I feel my heart break. I hadn’t realized I was his last straw in a life of rejection. The one person who should love him most abandoned him. His keeper never came for him. No. Instead, I ran from him, and in turn, I killed him. That knowledge burns my soul, ripping at my heart and bond, jolting me back into real life. The spell the bond has me under eases, lurching me forward. Suddenly, I find myself back in the present, Kalen sitting next to me, staring at me wide-eyed. Seeing his face broke the spell I was under as I’m shoved forward, ripping myself out of his memories and into the present world. Kalen sits next to me, staring at me.
“It was you all along,” I whisper. Tears glisten in my eyes before spilling over. “I never ran from you, Kalen. I was trying to find you, find my internet friend,” I tell him, and he sucks in an unsteady breath.
Kalen drops his head. “You’re not mad I didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head. “No, I am mad I ran,” I whisper, throwing myself into his arms.
ChapterTwelve
Kalen Wraith
She was out cold for hours, her shredding had died off, but we all knew it was only a matter of time before it returned. There were four of us after all, and until she completed it entirely, it would only keep returning, though the first part seemed to have worn off.
“Try to get some sleep,” Lycus murmurs behind me, yet all I can do is stare and watch her eyelids move as she watches the disaster of my entire life unfold.
I hated myself, hated that being our keeper, she would have to endure all my misdoings, all my failures, and most of all, I hated that she would know. She would see how truly pathetic I am. Aleera would know that I am weak. I had nothing to offer her, and I worried she would be upset that she was cursed with a mate like me.
Lycus growls, gripping my face and tilting my head to look up at him. “Get some sleep!” he growls, but I shake my head, gnawing on my fingernail while staring back at her sleeping body.
“Leave him be, Lycus,” Tobias says as he gets ready for bed. He climbs in beside Aleera, tucking her tiny body against him. She reacts instantly to him, rolling into him and clutching his arm as she whimpers at whatever she is living through in my memories. Lycus squeezes my shoulders, kneeling behind me as he watches her.
“She will be fine.”
“I know that. It isn't what I am worried about,” I whisper, and he leans down, resting his chin on my shoulder and wrapping his huge tree-trunk arms around my waist.
“Then what is it?” he asks, nipping at my mark.
“You're not weak!” Darius snarls, and I glance at him over my shoulder. He is sitting by the fire, glaring at it while Ryze perches on the back of the armchair, watching him. A shudder runs through me at the sight of her death pigeon watching him with those creepy eyes.
“Is that what you think?” Lycus growls at me, drawing my attention away from Ryze. His anger erupts through the bond, and I hang my head. Darius always reads me too easily. They all do. Darius, however, is usually the most observant. Nothing gets by him when it comes to me. It's been that way since I met him. No matter how much I’ve hurt him or even upset his father. Darius was always the first to jump to my defense, along with Lycus. Lycus was given, he is my shadow, the first to take on anyone that dares upset me, but somehow Darius morphed into something more than that. He became my armor. Lycus kept the bad getting near; Darius, however, destroyed anything that dared try, his own father, Aleera.
“What if she thinks I am?” I murmur.
“You are not weak. Never say that again. You know I hate when you talk like that,” Lycus snaps.
“Lycus, calm down,” Tobias scolds as Lycus trembles behind me, fighting the urge to shift at my words. Yet I can’t help but believe she would hate me for being weak, hate me for not telling her it was me all along that was talking to her, hate me for them hating her for what I did.
“Lycus, go for a run,” Darius commands, making me jump when he rips Lycus off the bed just as Lycus shifts into his gigantic black wolf. His claws rip apart the rug as he skids along it.
