AURORA
While Ares ran off to train with his pack, I stood at the edge of the forest and frowned, hurt rushing through every one of my veins. He had lied to me about being okay. It had been written all over his face and woven into every one of his words.
My heart ached for him. I wanted to see my mate happy again.
Mars might be gone, but that didn’t mean I loved or thought any less of Ares. Whether he was Ares or Mars, he was still my mate, and I would do whatever I could to protect him even if it was from the monster inside of him.
Dragging my feet toward the pack, I shifted my gaze to Charolette. After exchanging a few harsh words with Marcel and poking a finger against his chest, she disappeared through the forest to walk back toward the pack house.
Quickly, I tugged on my shirt over my sports bra and hurried after her. Maybe if I learned how to control this power, I might be able to help heal her. I needed to try something because if she died, then Ares …
I feared Ares would disappear from this world too.
But before I could run past Marcel, he snatched up my upper arm and yanked me back harshly. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked me, silver hair blowing in the strong Sanguine Wilds wind. “You need to be strong, Aurora. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to tell you that this week.”
“I need to talk to Charolette,” I pleaded.
Marcel pursed his lips. “You haven’t been able to train your wolf without problems for years, decades even. If you don’t train, you will die down in the underworld.” He clenched his jaw. “You saw how terrible those fucking hounds were. There will be more of them down in the underworld, and without you …” He paused. “Without you, we’ll all die.”
Sucking on the inside of my cheek, I crossed my arms. Having the entire Malavite Stone inside of me not only gave me confidence to move freely and fight harshly, but I also had powers that nobody else knew about, except maybe Helios and those other gods.
Marcel was right. No matter how much I didn’t want to admit it.
“Give me forty-five minutes of training, and then you can leave early to talk to her.”
After glaring at him for a couple moments, I finally succumbed and nodded. I loved Charolette, but if we didn’t train, then everyone might die. It was a tough decision, but I had a pup to think about too. I needed to be able to protect my baby girl.
So, I trudged back to the training field, found someone to fight, and gave it all I had for forty-five gruesome minutes until sweat dripped down my body and my chest heaved up and down. I even felt my baby kick a couple times, as if she were training with me too.
When I felt her, I smiled. She was going to be a fighter through and through.
By the time I finished training, the only thing I could think about was healing Charolette. Throughout practice, I had gone through scenario after scenario of ways to jump-start my powers because since that hound attack, I hadn’t even figured out how to use them.
I wiped a towel down my chest and headed directly for the pack house, knowing that I’d find Charolette there. She didn’t go out anymore by herself, like she used to, especially now that we were in a different pack.
Sitting in the grand living room that Mom had decorated with War of the Lycan artwork and canines she had gathered from over the years, Charolette was slumped over on the couch with tears running down her cheeks. When she saw me, she tried to push them away, but they just kept coming.
“Aurora,” she whispered. “Why’re you back so soon?”
Instead of giving her some bullshit excuse, I walked over to her, wrapped her in my arms, and held her to my chest. She was tense at first, but then she pulled me to her as tightly as she could and started heaving back and forth, hiccups escaping her lips and fingers digging into my shoulders.
“I’m sorry … I’m so sorry …” she kept mumbling, shaking her head and sniffling. “I’m so weak. I will never be able to protect this pack anymore. I’ll hold you all back. I’ll … I’ll be a burden to you all.”
“Charolette, you’re not a burden. You have shown an incredible amount of strength throughout your cancer and during your treatments.” I wiped away a couple tears from her cheeks with my thumbs. “Don’t think that you’re going to hold us back when you’re the one person holding us all together.”
“But I can’t even run anymore. I love running. My wolf loves running. We don’t even have the energy to get through a mile.” More tears streamed down her face. “I’m dying! I’m freaking dying, and I can’t do anything about it!”
Tears welled up in my eyes, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t cry. I had to be strong for her and for Ares. This must’ve been the hardest thing for her … knowing that she’s dying and not being able to fix it, feeling herself dwindle away and become weaker by the day.
I had to heal her. I had to try something.
But how? How could I heal someone when I had no freaking idea how to use my power in the first place? Did I try it and hope for the best? Think about using these powers that I knew nothing about? Did I have to be high on adrenaline to heal someone?
“Can you try to heal me?” she asked suddenly. “I heard a rumor that you healed Elijah.”
While I didn’t know how I had done it, I’d guess that it was sort of … a natural instinct, something that had just happened when I was with him. I wasn’t aware of why it’d happened. And I didn’t know if I’d be able to heal her like I’d healed Elijah. His wound had been external, a wound I could physically see and heal.
Could I heal cancer?
“You’re my last hope, Aurora,” Charolette whispered, grasping my hand in her weak hold. Her hands felt so fragile and so thin that I could almost feel all the bones inside of it, poking into my palm.
“I’ll do it, but I don’t know if it’ll work. I don’t know how I even did it,” I whispered.
I didn’t want to get her hopes up for nothing. These new powers were so foreign to me.
“I need this, Aurora,” she said, resting her forehead on mine. “I don’t want to live like this anymore. I can’t run. I can’t enjoy my life anymore. My wolf is getting weaker by the moment. I need this more than anything. And if this doesn’t work, I’m getting off my treatment and starting hospice.”