Chapter 24 Present wound

Chapter 24 Present wound


The dream woke me shaking.

I sat up in bed, my skin slick with sweat, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. The image lingered behind my eyes, a boy with dark hair and a shy smile, pressing something small and cool into my palm beneath a full moon.

A river stone. Smooth and grey, with a vein of white quartz running through it like lightning.

I'd kept that stone for years. Worn it smooth with my fingers, held it when I missed him, cried over it when he disappeared. Eventually, I'd lost it, it got misplaced during one of my family's moves.

I never thought I'd see it again.

But in the dream, it had been there. Perfect and whole, resting in my palm while the boy who became Garrick looked at me with eyes that held no coldness, no weight, no walls.

I couldn't go back to sleep.

Dawn found me in the healing house, working mechanically through tasks while my mind churned. Eira noticed my distraction but said nothing. She'd learned when to push and when to let me be.

By midday, I couldn't take it anymore. The dream clung to me like cobwebs, and I needed answers that wouldn't come from grinding herbs and changing bandages.

I found myself outside Garrick's study without consciously deciding to go there.

Calder stood guard at the door. He looked at me, one eyebrow rising.

"He's in a meeting."

"How long?"

"Could be hours. Council matters."

I nodded and turned away. But I didn't go back to the healing house. Instead, I found a bench in the corridor where I could see the study door and waited.

An hour passed, then two. Servants walked by, some glancing at me with curiosity. I ignored them all.

When the study door finally opened, Garrick emerged with three elders I barely recognized. They walked past me without acknowledgment, deep in conversation. Garrick started to follow, then stopped.

His eyes found me on the bench.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to you."

Something flickered in his expression. Wariness? Hope? I couldn't tell.

"Now isn't a good time."

"When is?"

He studied me for a long moment. Whatever he saw made his jaw tighten.

"Tonight. After the evening meal. My study."

He left before I could respond.

I returned at dusk.

The study door stood slightly ajar, lamplight spilling through the crack. I knocked, heard his low "Enter," and pushed it open.

Garrick sat behind his massive desk, papers spread before him, quill in hand. He looked tired. The lines around his eyes seemed deeper than they'd been weeks ago, and the grey at his temples had spread.

But it was what sat on the corner of his desk that stopped my heart.

A river stone. Smooth and grey, with a vein of white quartz running through it like lightning.

I stared at it, unable to speak, unable to move. My hand rose of its own accord, reaching toward it.

"Where did you get that?"

My voice came out rough, barely a whisper.

Garrick set down his quill. He didn't look at the stone, didn't pretend not to know what I meant.

"I've had it since the river."

"You kept it."

"Seventeen years." His voice was quiet, stripped of command. "I've kept it seventeen years."

The words landed like blows. Seventeen years. He'd carried that stone across time and distance, through his father's death and his rise to Alpha, through wars and losses and the weight of leading a pack.

"Why?"

He stood slowly, moving around the desk until he stood before me. Close enough to touch, close enough that I could see the storm in his dark eyes.

"Because it was all I had of you."

The dam broke.

"You left me." The words tore from my throat, raw with years of pain. "You promised. You looked at me under that moon and promised we'd find a way, and then you left. No message. No explanation. Nothing. I waited for months. Years. I thought you were dead. I thought I'd imagined you. I thought—"

"I know." His voice cracked on the words. "I know what I did."

"Then explain it." I was shaking now, tears streaming down my face. "Explain why you threw me away. Why you let me believe I wasn't worth coming back for."

He reached for me. I flinched away.

"Don't."

His hand dropped. But his eyes held mine, and in them I saw something I'd never expected from the cold Alpha who'd bought me like livestock.

Pain. Raw and deep and endless.

"I was seventeen when my father died." His voice was low, rough. "Seventeen and suddenly responsible for a pack that was falling apart. Rogues at our borders. Neighbors circling like vultures. My mother couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't stop crying. My little sister looked at me like I was supposed to fix everything, and I didn't know how."

I stood frozen, listening.

"I thought about you every day. Every hour. Wondered if you were safe, if you were happy, if you'd found someone else. But I couldn't come back. Couldn't drag you into this life. Couldn't watch you become a target because of me."

"That wasn't your choice to make."

"I know." His voice broke. "Gods, Anika, I know. But I was seventeen and terrified and I made the wrong decision. I've regretted it every day since."

"Then why didn't you say something? That first night, when you saw me, why didn't you—"

"Because I was a coward." The admission seemed to cost him everything. "Because seeing you again broke something in me I'd spent years rebuilding. Because I didn't know how to look at you and admit what I'd done."

We stood there in the lamplight, inches apart, years of silence between us.

"Seventeen years," I whispered. "You let me think I meant nothing."

"You meant everything." His voice was fierce now, desperate. "You meant everything then. You mean everything now. That's why I couldn't face you. That's why I hid behind rules and orders and pretending you were just another debt slave."

"Because if I was just another debt slave—"

"Then I could survive losing you again."

The words hung in the air between us, heavy with truth.

I looked at the stone on his desk. Looked at the man who'd kept it seventeen years. Looked at the boy I'd loved and lost and found again in the worst possible way.

"I don't know what to do with this," I admitted. "I don't know how to feel. I've hated you. I've missed you. I've imagined a thousand conversations where you explained and I forgave you and everything was fine."

"And now?"

"Now you've explained and I don't know if I can forgive you."

Something shattered in his eyes. He nodded slowly, accepting.

"That's fair."

We stood in silence for a long moment. Then, without thinking, I reached out and picked up the stone. It fit perfectly in my palm, just as it always had.

"I'm keeping this."

Garrick watched me close my fingers around it. "It's yours. Always was."

I left without another word, the stone warm in my hand, my heart a battlefield of pain and longing and something I was too afraid to name.