Chapter 17 017
Chapter 17
Thalia’s POV
I was pacing back and forth in the waiting room, my heart hanging in my throat as I waited to see what the doctor would say to me concerning Liam. By pure fortune alone, my mother had incidentally driven over to the pack house to pay a visit to me and her grandkids, and to also discuss some official pack matters. We exchanged a few words, but when she saw Liam in my arms and the panic in my eyes, she threw her door open and quickly drove us to the pack hospital.
By the time we finally arrived, it felt like my baby’s skin was burning against mine. Tears were clouding up my eyes, and my mother urged me to be strong before we handed him over to the professionals to take care of him. Now, my mother sat in the waiting room looking every bit as worried as I was, her eyes planted on the floor, hands folding and unfolding occasionally. Then she would look at me and tell me I needed to sit down, only for me to promise that I would—but I continued pacing nevertheless.
There was just so much to unpack here. My son was sick, terribly so. This wasn’t unheard of; awakening your wolf form was one of the most exhausting things that your body had to endure. Even though it was a necessity, they were still quite young. Lily was handling it better, so she didn’t need to be admitted into the hospital, however, Liam’s body had not reacted well to the transformation. I was afraid. What if this meant that his wolf would…
I was shaken out of my thoughts as my mother grabbed me and pushed me into the metallic chair in the waiting room.
"Listen to me," she said, her voice strong and firm—the voice of a Beta. If I had been any other kind of wolf, I would have crumbled, but I was a Luna. Even if she was my mother, her voice could not exactly make me fall to my knees, but it had an effect that snapped me back to my senses. "You need to keep your head on your neck. Don’t lose it because of your mate."
"You're right, mother. I shouldn't," I said. I was quiet for a moment, fully processing what she had just said. Then, my eyes met her own again as they narrowed into suspicious slits. "How did you know that this was about Varian?"
She seemed taken aback, her eyes widening and her lips tightening as if she had said something she shouldn't have. She immediately straightened her back, her eyes beginning to avoid my own. "I just took a guess. And I don’t wish to tell you this, but everyone else has been saying a lot about the two of you. And I mean a lot."
I buried my face into my palms. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid: this humiliation of having my dirty linen outside for all and sundry to see.
"Thalia, I’m not blaming you..." my mother said, repeating the very same line she used right before she would start blaming me. "But how could you let it get this bad? Shelly’s family is hardly anything of notice or worth anymore; they are just riding on former glory. If you were worried about them, still, I could have taken care of..."
"Mom, do you think I let this happen because of Shelly’s family?"
My eyebrow rose by an inch and a dry laugh found its way from the back of my throat. Most times my mother was great, but it didn't shake away moments like this when she reminded me that her first thought was what other people assumed and what others were seeing before anything else. Did she think that I allowed my marriage to slowly implode on itself because I was worried about ruffling some feathers and causing chaos in pack politics?
"Shelly basically doesn't know who the father of her child is," I said, deciding to explain anyway. "So Varian stepped in. He said that she needed us now more than ever. And of course, anytime I tried to draw a line or tell him that he was doing a little too much for somebody that was just a friend to him, he would turn it around on me—making me feel as if I was a monster for not wanting to help her to the degree that he wanted to."
Even so, my mother was about to defend him again. She always did that. It was me who had to find a way to convince him to do the right thing when he went astray. Fortunately for me, I was not going to have to hear that speech for about the thousandth time, because the doctor walked out.
I rushed over to her and, with my breath hanging in the air, I asked her, "How is my son?"
She pulled off her glasses and nodded softly. "He is recovering, but he will have to be in the hospital for the foreseeable future."
My heart was beginning to do that sinking thing again. I started to fiddle with my fingers. "What does this mean? What about his transformation? Will it be affected?"
The doctor was patient, her voice painfully low, even though each word reached out and felt like it was being delivered with a hammer. "The truth is, he might relapse at any moment and currently we are just trying to stabilize him. But if that doesn’t work, then we will have to..." She paused, looking extremely uncomfortable. "We will have to consider other options, Luna Thalia."
It was like the carpet of life had been swiped from right under my feet. I tried to hold back the tears, but they came in powerfully. My mother came from behind, hugging me. That was when I heard heavy breathing and stomping steps from behind me.
"Thalia, what happened to our son?"