Lib Novel Page 21
When Triste starts to chant something in Latin, Rosa rolls her eyes, and I reach out and take Olivia’s hand. I feel everyone in the room watch the movement but ignore them.
“…surgit!” Triste says, heaving with her effort, her chest rising and falling quick. We all stare down at Olivia, waiting, watching, praying she will wake up.
Chapter 8 – Olivia
The moment Byron disappears into the woods, there’s a bright light in my eyes, and the entire scene flicks away. The first thing I feel is his hand in mine—his long, thin fingers, like a pianist, callused from playing video games but strong from all his training.
I would recognize his hands anywhere.
My brain grapples with the reality appearing before me, comparing it to the reality of what I was just living. Byron and Rosa are leaning over me, crying and saying my name. Triste stands to the side, assessing me coolly while drying her hands.
There’s some sort of paste on my chest and forehead, and it smells awful.
“What’s going on?” I ask, a moment before I feel the sharp, stinging pain in my palm. I glance down at it, trying to remember when I cut myself, and then, all at once, I feel the strongest tug from the center of my body, pulling toward the left side of the bed.
Pulling toward Byron.
I look up at him and see that feeling reflected in his eyes, this insane kind of vertigo like our souls have just gotten off a roller coaster together. I open my mouth, trying to find the anger I’ve been carrying for him, but it’s like it’s been washed away.
Then, I glance down at his other hand, resting on the cot beside me, and all the air leaves my lungs. Digging my heels into the mattress, I scramble up into a sitting position, ignoring the way my head spins and nausea claws at the bottom of my throat.
“What—” I start, eyes darting between Byron’s bandaged hand and mine. “What the fuck—”
“Olivia—” he starts, but I shake my head, my entire body shaking, gasping with panic and just trying to get away from him,
My body screams at the distance, and I feel like I’m going to pass out.
“What the fuck?” I say, my voice shrill, stuck between a scream and a whisper. “What the fuck? Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is? Rosa?”
“I don’t…” she says, her eyes following mine, clocking the bandages. “I didn’t—”
“No, no, no,” I say, shaking my head, touching the bandage on my hand. To my left, a monitor is starting to beep rapidly.
“Olivia, you need to calm down,” Maisie says, her voice gentle as she squeezes between me and Rosa, her face coming into view through my tear-filled eyes.
“Calm down?” I shriek, still shaking my head. “Please, please, someone tell me I am fucking wrong, but from the look of it, Byron and I are—are—”
“Olivia—” he starts again, moving toward me, and I rock backward to stay clear from his touch. I see the hurt in his eyes. I don’t care.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Honey,” Rosa says, taking my hand, and a sob rips out of my chest so violently that I think I’m going to be sick. For the past few months, the only thing I’ve wanted in the entire world was to get away from Byron, to pray that the mating bond between us would weaken, relieve me from some of the pain of his rejection, and now, here I am blood-bound to the man who ran away when I told him I loved him.
“Okay,” Aris says, his voice loud, commanding, my body instantly settling at the sound of his direction. He’s the Rosecreek Alpha. His influence over me is natural, instinctive, but the panic inside me is still violently roiling beneath the surface of compliance. “Everyone out. Now.”
“Again?” Rafael chuckles, but one scathing look from Aris shuts him up. I watch as everyone starts to clear from the room. Rosa grips my hand tightly, the pinched look on her face telling me that she’s sending to Aris through the pack’s mental bond that she’s staying.
“I need to take her vitals,” Maisie says, quietly, and when Aris nods at her, Maisie starts to move, tapping the machine, then grabbing her stethoscope from around her neck.
“I need to stay for obvious reasons,” Triste says, and Aris also nods to her. Then, he looks to Byron, who looks physically pained, staring down at me as I stare away from him.
“Byron,” Aris says, “why don’t you give Olivia some room to breathe?”
I don’t look at him as he backs away from the cot and steps out of the room, but my body feels the absence, senses that he’s just in the hallway, so close, so far, not far enough—it’s like my brain is at war with my body, and the casualties are endless.
“What happened?” I ask, my brain feeling blank and mushy. Why am I sitting on this cot when I was in the pavilion with Bryon a moment ago? Logically, I know that was a memory, but it felt so real and lifelike that my skin still felt wet from the rain.
“You were cursed,” Triste says, her voice calm and almost musical from the lilt. “You were on assignment in Minneapolis, walking with the mayor. Someone cursed you, and the mayor tried to kidnap you, but Byron stopped it.”