CHAPTER 144: Blade In The Dark
RHEA
“I thought of seeing you first before anything else,” I say as I lean against the bench beside the lake.
Ethel smiles a little, “It’s so nice of you to come and meet me. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, it has.” I nod softly. “Are you still in the pack house?” I give her a glance. She hasn’t aged much, but perhaps a little since the last time I saw her.
“No, not anymore. No one uses that place. I live by the east border, and there’s a store that we have opened. It’s a herbal store.” Her smile turns a little brighter.
“That’s good.”
“You should come by some day.”
It’s all different now. The new Alpha that is in the position is a man named Jaquin. He was installed as the Alpha by the council a few months ago. He comes from a family of warriors, from what I’ve heard.
I’ve been in town for a week now. Though I’m sure I’ll be asked to meet him soon enough, considering my wolf still belongs to another pack.
“You look quite different, Rhea.” she tells me and takes me out of my own thoughts.
“Well, things are quite different now.”
She gives me a look that says she wants to ask me questions. Everyone here wants to know. The information about Aron’s arrest and the council stripping his titles has already travelled this far. I’m not sure what version they have heard of, or how it is going around, but I’m certain that everyone in this town wants to know the whole story.
“You were right about some things,” I turn to her and say. Her words from when I was pack house still sometimes ring in my mind. “About how not everything was as it was, or how things would be. They were all true.”
“Oh, I always knew you were going places. But now that you’ve come back here, does it mean that you’re back here? Or is it just a short trip?” Ethel asks me, curiosity laces in her voice.
“It depends.”
“On?”
“Things that are beyond me,” I tell her. “I do want to stay here, with my family, but I’ve a feeling that might not be so easy for me.”
“But you’re free from the council, from your mate, from your duties in your pack, aren’t you?”
My title of Luna was stripped the moment Kovas took his position as the Alpha. It was natural. Nothing anyone could do. I nod.
“So what’s keeping you from being yourself, and being who you want to be?” she questions me again.
My gaze lowers.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “For so many years, I was one person, Ethel. And then I was something else after my wolf surfaced again. And now, I don’t know what I’m meant to be.”
“Oh, you don’t have to decide that today.”
“What if I can never make that choice? What if I’ll be always stuck in this place, with these memories that I can’t forget or move on from?” I question her, looking for answers in her face.
She has this gentle smile, and her hand reaches over mine on the bench.
“I know you, Rhea. And you’re a brave girl. You’ve always been. It takes some time to heal. To forget. To let go. But you’ll get through this.”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I will. I don’t have to be anyone but me. But will I be able to forget Aron, and what he did to me? Will I be able to forgive him and forgive myself for doing what I did? Will I ever feel like myself again?
“I hope you’re right,” I give her a weak smile.
“Well, why don’t you come with me? I’ll show you the store and introduce you to some of my friends.”
“I’d like that.”
Successfully unlocked!
We leave the lake and walk back towards the town. The sun gleams down on the buildings, the sky is blue with clouds. The day is warm, and it’s beautiful–to feel it, to be free, to be alive.
Ethel takes me toward the store. The town is different, and new people live here, from what she says, and it’s true.
The shop she takes me to is near the edge of the main street, and it’s a small herbal shop with glass windows. It’s a quint
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CHAPTER 144: Blade In The Dark
small little shop, but it’s beautiful in a strange way.
I admire it as we make it inside.
Time passes by quicker than I think, and before I know it, it’s turning dark outside.
I give my goodbyes to Ethel and the other two women before making my way out of that part of the town and walking through the streets that I once walked years ago.
It feels different.
A good difference.
Far in the distance, I can see the pack house. There are lights switched on, nor any fireworks erupting in the sky. The packhouse was where I first met Aron, where everything began for me, where the end also started.
He shaped everything in my life, forced my wolf to bond with his, all while I never belonged to him. He used magic to bind us together, and he lied about it.
My chest aches with the memories, but I keep indulging in them. I can’t ever move on until I accept the past for what it was, and what happened.
I turn away and keep walking on the sidewalk, behind the trees.
And then, suddenly, the chest ache becomes worse. It’s a piercing pain, a sharp stab of something. My entire body turns hot, and my heart begins to beat faster.
My lips part in shock as my gaze narrows on my chest. Blood stains the shirt, just below my chest, where the pain is coming from. I stagger back, inches further into the silver knife that’s sticking out of me.
“Oh, dear, dear,” Someone comes up to me. “The great mate of the monster. Now you’ll know what it felt like when you killed mine, when you let your Alpha kill him.”
My body tenses, and I look at the woman.
“Catelyn.”
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