AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A woman who loved him and who he loved in equal measure. He was not sure he could ever find someone like her again. And if she was pregnant, then that was just as well. They would handle that together as well.
He took a deep breath outside her door and knocked. He ignored how fast his heart was beating, taking another deep, steadying breath.
After the third knock, he fought down a wave of panic and turned the door handle. He stepped inside the bedroom and wasn’t surprised to find it empty. There were clothes strewn on the bed, and the closet doors were open.
Blake picked his way slowly through the bedroom. He entered the bathroom knowing what he was going to find. Nothing. He’d known from the moment he’d entered the house. He’d known deep in his heart but he had tried hard to ignore it.
There was no ignoring it anymore. What he had sensed earlier wasn’t her presence. He’d only been feeling what was left behind by her absence. Eleanor was gone.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked outside one of the windows, the one facing the woods beyond. He stared at nothing for a long time. His mind had stopped functioning, and he was an empty shell of a man.
It was dark outside when he finally came to. He had not passed out nor fallen asleep, he was certain. But he had fallen into a dark hole in the deep recesses of his mind.
The words echoed over and over in his head, drowning him with the weight of a boulder and the force of a storm. Eleanor was gone.Eleanor was gone.
After an eternity, he picked himself up from the bed and stepped out of the bedroom. Her presence—and her absence—was strongest there. Anywhere but that bedroom. He remembered their first time together in that bed, and…
He shut the door behind him, forcing down the memories that threatened to swallow him. For the first time in his life, he realized how truly lonely it had been living in this house alone.
The emptiness of it was stark as he walked down the staircase, with nothing to accompany him but the echo of his own footsteps. A ghost town after a deadly disease had swept mercilessly through it, claiming everything and everyone in its path.
Somewhere in his mind, he held onto an irrational hope that she wasn’t truly gone. She was out running errands. She just needed some air. She was running through the woods. She would be back soon.
He went outside and stood on the front porch, staring into the dark forest, wondering when she would return.Any moment now, he thought quietly.She would come bursting out of that forest in the form of her dark, beautiful wolf.
He ignored the tugging in his mind that told him that hours had passed, and that daybreak was a few hours away. She was going to come back. That was the only thing he could believe. He didn’t see how it was going to be possible for him to believe anything else.
His ears picked up a sound from the side of the house and he lunged out of his perch, turning the corner faster than should have been possible in his current form.
He gazed over the pool and the chairs surrounding it, looking for the source of the noise. He heard it again and darted forward. And then a squirrel darted into sight, and rushed madly into the thick of the woods.
The silence returned and Blake waited expectantly, waiting for something else to move. The silence that engulfed him was painfully absolute. Even the crickets chose the night to take a break.
The stillness of the night took the blood from his legs and he collapsed in a heap into the nearest seat. He could not ignore the panic that seemed to rise from the pit of his stomach, spreading into every inch of his body.
He couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He knew the truth. He’d always known the truth. It seemed easier to pretend. He’d been up for hours. Hoping, waiting.
And then the sun broke through the trees, and the forest came alive. And he knew it was over. Eleanor was gone.
He wept. He covered his face with his hands and wept. The sobs tore through him like a chainsaw sliding back and forth through his mid-section. The pain was like nothing he’d ever felt before.
He fell asleep at some point, his last thought being that he couldn’t sleep inside the house, not when all that was left of Eleanor was her rich, intoxicating smell.
***
“Alpha Blake. Are you alright, Alpha Blake?”
The voice was nothing but a mild annoyance at first, but as it persisted it turned into something more irritating. Blake squinted and blinked furiously, trying to get his bearings right.
He felt needles of pain in the back of his eyes, and raised his hands to rub at them a little too roughly. He yawned, stretched, and with an effort, managed to open his eyes.
“Alpha Blake? Are you alright?” Laura was bent over him, her expression worried and her body language tense.
He blinked again, clearing his vision and focusing his eyes on her. He nodded. “Laura, hi. Yes, I’m alright. Why?”
She didn’t look convinced. She glanced down at his chest and back to his face. “Are you sure?”
He followed her eyes and saw that he was still wearing the sweatsuit from the previous day. The one that was stained with his blood. It explained her panic. Not to add, she’d found him sleeping outside like a vagrant.
