“Hmm. Okay, the thing that doesn’t add up to me, is that the Earth realm has been going to shit the past few decades or so, if you haven’t noticed. Why aren’t you keeping the balance?”
“When you, my chosen one, died in your previous life, the magic on your land died with you, throwing your realm into disarray. In your absence, I have had to try to keep your realm from collapsing under the dark Fae rule, while keeping the earth realm in balance. I can only do so much with the power I have,” she explains, without any resentment or pride. Are Goddesses supposed to be this humble?
“This is why I have my chosen ones to protect their individual realms. This is why I need you, Lana.” She lowers herself to the ground as she kneels next to my sprawled body, her hands folded in her lap. “You will awaken soon, Lana. There is one more thing you must know. Please heed my warning.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, okay. Hit me with it.”
“This is the only rebirth you will get. If you fail in this life and the dark Fae prevail, you will not get another opportunity. Your realm will face the worst destruction, more so than anything that has occurred in the Earth realm that you have seen. It will be lost forever. Until you are ready to return to your realm, you must train every moment of every day to prepare. When you are able to cross over, then, and only then, will your memories and full powers return to you.”
“Why were my memories taken from me?”
She shakes her head gently, the flowers of her hair swishing in the movement. “That is for another time. You do not need to face the sorrows of your past yet, when you are healing from the sorrows of the present.” Hesitantly, she raises her hand, stopping in her movements before caressing my hair in a soothing motion. I close my eyes at the sensation, feeling the love that Beth gave me, the love I think I remember from my birth mother. “It is time to wake up, Lana. Call upon me in your sleep and I will try to reach you.”
Though I am still unsure how real this is, I feel the undeniable urge to stay with her, knowing she would keep me safe.
“Wait, Gaia—”
My sentence is cut off as my vision fades. A warm hand caresses my cheek in a parting touch.
Good luck, my child.
Chapter Eight
Hale
As soon as the group reaches the inn and we receive our keys, we divide the group into the three rooms accordingly. The guys can’t quite reconcile the Lana they know with the Lana that lashed out at them in her grief, uncaring of their own emotional states, so they’re unsure how to act around her.
To give them time to process their own feelings about the whole screwed-up situation, I stay with Lana in the first room, while Zedd and Ash take the second room and, of course, the twins stick together in the third.
Though Lana undeniably had a special relationship with Beth, we all loved her. She was the only, loving, caring parental figure in all of our lives. We know Lana has the distant memory of her birth mother and can likely guess they had a loving relationship. But me and the guys?
Beth was the only source of maternal love for us. For Lana to disrespect not only our feelings regarding her death, but also our relationship with her—I shake my head at the thought. Her grief doesn’t give her the right to do what she did.
She has a lot of apologizing to do to them—especially, to Ash. That was such a low blow, something I never could have expected from her.
Even though she didn’t say anything specifically to me—or likely, because she didn’t say anything aimed at me—I feel the need to set her straight for hurting the others. I’m the only one with enough rationality to deal with her when she wakes up.
I love this woman with every fiber of my being. She’s my reason for living. But the guys are my brothers and I’m not letting her trample all over them.
The way she passed out has me worried. Zedd said it was probably the shock wearing off or the exhaustion of the day catching up. Since he’s the smart one, I’ll go with his theory for now.
I carry Lana over to the bed and deposit her onto the worn-out comforter. I pull off her black converse, speckled with blood and caked with dirt.
I’m almost grateful for the silence, the snark-free environment and the ability to take care of her without her arguing that she’s an equal. A strong independent woman who needs no man as she always says.
Sometimes, I just want to pamper her so she doesn’t have to do everything alone. I hope one day she can see that—and that I live to see that, because good heavens, it’s unlikely.
As I move to put her shoes down on the floor and zone back out of my head, my gaze catches on the fresh blood on the arm that was cradling Lana and my eyes widen.
Oh shit!
I completely forgot about her wounded back. What if she fainted from the blood loss? I don’t remember her bleeding enough to faint but—
I debate ringing reception and requesting a doctor but we can’t afford the fees right now. I’m fucking more than happy to go bankrupt to make sure she’s okay but if she thinks the doctor visit was pointless when she wakes up, I’m a goner.
I might be the makeshift leader of the group but everyone knows she’s the real boss of this gang.
I can only know for sure what the right call is after I assess her back but the idea of taking her shirt off without her permission, despite the seriousness of the situation, has me pacing and wearing holes into the carpet. I know she has PTSD flashbacks from her childhood that she has never fully opened up about. What if she wakes up while I’m cleaning her and it triggers her? We’ve been through enough today. None of us can deal with that right now.
My mind works overtime to come up with a solution and finally lands on a happy medium. I head to the bathroom to grab a washcloth and wet it with warm water. Grabbing the soap off of the porcelain sink, I drape a towel over my shoulder and head back to her side.
Gently, I roll her onto her stomach and lift her shirt as high as it can go.
What the hell…
I double take at the sight of the wound. Surely, it was bigger than that? I remember it being twice the size when it originally happened.
I shake my head, rationalizing that I was hallucinating the extent of the injury because of the stress of the day. Well, that’s one less problem to deal with. At least now I won’t have to face certain death at her hands if she decided I overreacted by calling the doctor.
Untying her bikini string leaves her back bare to me and I take a moment to take in her beautiful, hourglass figure. The way her waist dips, her hips flare—she’s perfect.
Taking the washcloth in hand, I begin to wipe up the blood in small sections, starting from her upper back, careful not to pull and aggravate the wound. Fresh and dried blood alike paint the wound and stain the washcloth, quickly rendering it unusable.
I get up to retrieve a fresh washcloth and almost fall flat on my ass a bad case of vertigo hits me. I place a hand against the wall to stay upright.
What the hell was that?
I shake my head when the moment passes and make my way back to the bathroom to grab a fresh washcloth. I head back to Lana and finish cleaning and drying the wound.
Satisfied, I decide to leave her shirt up so the skin can air dry and isn’t exposed to the dirty shirt again.
I head to the bathroom to shower, fantasies of falling into bed and sleeping to escape life play in my head.