Chapter 156
Faith’s Pov
My eyes snapped open, not slowly, but unlike every usually day. I remembered exactly what happened and who I saw.
I shifted slightly, and I felt a heavy weight pressed into my left and right side.
Looking down, my breath caught.
Marco was sleeping curled against my chest, his small face buried in my nightgown. Isabella was tucked against my right side, her head resting on my arm. My two beautiful, innocent children.
I reached out and gently touched Marco’s cheek. My fingers brushed against a sticky, crusty line, dried and tight against his soft skin. I touched Isabella’s cheek next. Same thing.
My children had been crying until they fell asleep and it broke my heart.
I lifted my eyes and met Astor’s gaze.
He was sitting in the armchair beside the bed, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees. He
hadn’t been asleep. He was watching me. His dark eyes were bloodshot and haunted.
The moment our eyes locked he looked relieved.
“Faith,” he whispered, his voice rough.
“Hi,” I managed, the word feeling dry in my throat. I looked back at the kids. “My stomach hurts. Did
I scare them badly? I usually just pass out for an hour or two.”
They’ve never seen me pass out nor have they ever known that I do so today must have been
difficult for them.
Astor leaned closer. He didn’t touch me, but I felt his
but I felt his presence.
“Why?” I asked, confused by the strange, controlled anger radiating off him. “Why are you looking at me like that?“r
He swallowed hard, rubbing his unshaven jaw. “You’ve been gone for four days, Faith. Four full days.”
The number hit me like a solid punch to the chest.
Four days?
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “That’s wrong. I can’t be ”
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But the evidence was right here. The tightness in my joints, the sudden, overwhelming thirst, the deep, heavy sleep I had just woken up from. Four days of silence. Four days where my kids didn’t
know if their mother was going to wake up.
I started to panic, but before I could speak again, the movement of my shock disturbed the
children.
Marco sniffled once, then his eyes opened. He blinked when he saw my face, and his features crumbled immediately.
“Mommy!”
He launched himself forward, wrapping his arms around my neck with a strength I didn’t know he
possessed. He wasn’t just hugging me, he was clinging to me, burying himself into me.
“Oh, sweetie,” I murmured, clutching him tight.
His sobs started immediately, loud and uncontrolled.
My own throat tightened.
Marco’s hysteria immediately woke Isabella. She sat up, saw Marco crying, and then,
understanding the situation, she let out a heartbroken wail and threw her arms around my waist.
“Don’t leave me again” Marco cried out, his voice muffled by my shoulder. “Don’t go away!”
“Shh, shh, I promise. I am here. I am right here,” I whispered, rocking them both. “Stop crying, my
sweet boy. I’m okay. See? I’m right here.”
But he just kept shaking his head, repeating, “Don’t leave. Don’t leave me!”
Isabella was sobbing silently now, her body shaking against mine. Tears started to stream down my own face. It was impossible not to cry when they were crying like this. Joy at seeing me was mixed with the trauma of nearly losing me.
As I held my two sobbing children, the simple clarity I had woken up with transformed into cold, hard resolve.
My children are so young. They don’t deserve this sorrow. They didn’t deserve to have a life full of fear that their mother might disappear forever just because she used her powers to protect them. This endless cycle of fear and danger had to stop.
If Kyle lived, this grief and terror would be their legacy.
I squeezed them tighter. “I am not going anywhere,” I said, my voice thick with unshed tears. “I promise you both. I am not going anywhere, ever again.”
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Astor rose from the chair and moved to the side of the bed. He reached out and wrapped his arms
around us.
The Mate Bond between us flared, suddenly overwhelming.
It wasn’t just worry I felt from him, it was a crushing and agonizing grief. He had been sick with
worry, consumed by the terror that I would never wake up. He lived these four days worried that his kids would never see their mother again, I felt his anger, deep and sharp, directed at me for
putting myself in danger, for leaving him.
And just as quickly, all the lingering anger I might have held against vanished. It felt childish,
insignificant. I was loved. Fiercely. I was needed.
I was everything to these people. And they were everything to me.
I looked up at him, my vision blurred by tears.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again, Faith,” he breathed, his voice an absolute plea. “I was worried
stiff. You can’t. You can’t leave me like that.”
My heart ached for him. “I won’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
After another minute, the kids finally started to calm down, hiccupping occasionally, but their
hands were still clamped onto my clothes.
“I have an idea,” I said, trying to make my voice cheerful despite the emotion choking me. I gently
pushed them back so I could look at their faces. “I want to freshen up but when I come back, who
wants to spend the whole day, just the four of us, doing exactly what you want?”
“No work?” Marco asked, rubbing his nose.
“No work. No grown–up stuff. Only fun,” I promised. “But I need ten minutes in the bathroom first.
Can you be brave and wait for me?”
They looked at each other, still reluctant.
“Promise?” Isabella asked, giving me the serious look she inherited from Astor.
“I promise.”
They finally let me go, though their eyes followed me as I carefully slid out of bed.
I swung my feet onto the floor, stretching muscles that felt stiff and unused. Just as I took my first
step toward the door, Astor was there.
“I’ll help you,” he said.
I wanted to snap at him. But I looked at his exhausted face and remembered the Mate Bond
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connection–he needed to be close to me right now. He needed to prove to himself that I was real
and safe.
So I bit back the sharp reply.
“Okay,” I said simply. “Thank you.”
He followed me to the small adjoining bathroom. As I looked in the mirror, I saw the pale,
exhausted woman who had just fought to the edge of death and back.
Astor turned the shower on for me, testing the heat, then stood silently by the door.
I went through the motions washing away the dirt of four days of sleep. When I was done, Astor
handed me a fresh towel. The gesture was small, but the tenderness in his eyes was palpable. He
was silently waiting for me to talk, but I knew today was not the day for strategy. Today had to be
about healing.
“The kids are waiting,” I said, drying my hair quickly.
When we stepped back into the bedroom, the energy in the room had shifted. The kids had dragged pillows and blankets from the storage trunk, creating a big, messy nest on the floor. Astor must have had someone come and ste it up while I was in the bathroom anx there was a white sheet was pinned to the wall like a makeshift screen, and a small projector sat on the dresser.
Marco and Isabella cheered when they saw me, forgetting their previous fear and that’s what I
wanted.
I didn’t hesitate. I crawled right into the middle of the soft pile of blankets. Marco snuggled immediately against my side, and Isabella stretched out, resting her head on my thigh. Astor settled in behind me, putting his arm around my shoulders, anchoring me securely within our little
circle.
He started the movie.
The opening credits of Frozen appeared on the sheet, the snow swirling peacefully.
I closed my eyes for a moment, listening to Marco giggling and Isabella humming along to the
music.
I was safe. I was warm. I was loved. And my family was right here, wrapped around me.
Let it go, I thought, letting the tension seep out of my body. For today, I would let go of the worry. Tomorrow, the fight would begin again. But today, I was just Mommy.
