Chapter 88

• HAERA
• I raced off to the place that has been the main course for my feet every single day with my heart pounding from both the distance I covered in less than a minute and from the fear of what I was going to encounter when I get to my mate. As I continued to cover the distance between my previous position and the Alpha's chambers, my mind whirled with thoughts as to what might be wrong and why it was enough for someone to come running to call me. My mind thought of both the positive and the negative meanings that could be behind such a sudden and distressed call. He must have woken up. His eyes must have finally come open. He has returned to me. The moon goddess has returned him to me. What other positive thoughts could cloud my mind if not these ones? I have waited patiently and expectantly for something like that. Several times, I have even imagined it in different versions and different ways. On some days, I imagined myself being by his bedside, speaking to him and then he speaks out in return all of a sudden. How I would react to it is something I have never thought of or imagined but it didn't matter in my thoughts. Other days, I imagined bathing him like I always do and then him springing away from me out of embarrassment just as he wakes up. Those thoughts and a few other ones have always been what I imagined of him and how much I want him to open his eyes and come back to me. But of course, it doesn't change the negativity that flows in sync with my thoughts as well. Although I have never really imagined a negative situation because I just couldn't picture it, my heart couldn't stop beating hard at the prospect of it being a negative situation. "Stop being so negative Haera! I'm sure he's fine." Dezra finally voiced it since I couldn't stop thinking and imagining things. "I'm scared Dezra...I'm so scared." I confessed just as I rushed past the guards in front of the building that housed my immobile mate. They seemed to understand the urgency as well because they were quick to clear out of the way for me to go through. "I'm sure he's fine. He's strong Haera. That I know of." Dezra's words may be some sort of balm to my pain and fear but it sure didn't do much to relieve me of all the burdensome feelings. With my breathing harsh and my legs not faltering, I stepped into the Alpha's chambers only to realize I wasn't the only one breathing hard like my life depended on it. The situation was nothing like I imagined. Enough reason to agree that the situation was anything but positive. Anything at all but definitely not positive. The commotion the room was in first threw me off balance and it made me stop short by the door. Alan, the physician and a few other maids were by the bedside of the man who I have spent my days taking care of and who I have hoped for the best for. Their voices were loud. They were yelling. The bed was jerking with every movement of the man that used to be immobile, motionless, barely breathing and alive... He was moving. It seemed and looked like a positive situation but no soothsayer needed to tell me that it was nothing like that. Alan was the first person to notice my presence. Our eyes met and I got the last answer and assurance I needed in those deep colored eyes of his. His eyes held fear and uncertainty and it had me rushing forward out of panic. "Luna!" The maids noticed my presence as well and all bowed but I ignored their greeting and pushed them aside so I could see my mate and how he was really doing. Bad. He was doing so badly that it made my heart shatter to see him that way. On the bed, Alpha Zachary jerked and breathed out in harsh strokes, his chest heaving with each difficult rise and fall. His skin that has always been pale from the cold his own body emanated was now red from how much he has probably hyperventilated before I even got down here. Beside me, the physician seemed to be so busy trying to stop him from jerking off the bed. I looked around the room and noticed the different bowls of concoctions and herbs littering the floor. A few of them were broken and shattered into pieces and if didn't take long for me to know why they were that way because right there and then when the physician put another bowl of concoction to the lips of my mate, he spit out the whatever content the bowl had and knocked the bowl itself out of the pale and shaky hands of the physician. He was refusing all forms of treatment yet he couldn't stop breathing hard like he was only hanging by a single thread that's bound to snap any moment from then. It was my cue to inch closer because merely looking at him made my heart hurt. The physician shook his head slightly and stepped away from the bed while I fell to the ground beside it so I could hold him in my hands and get him to at least stop heaving like he was seconds away from breathing his last breath. "Alpha Zachary...Alpha...Alpha can you hear me? You have to calm down okay? I don't know what dreams you are having or whatever is making you react this way but please...please calm down okay. It's not real, whatever it is, you're okay." I chose my words carefully even if I was losing it looking at him that way. My words seemed helpless in the situation just as the physician's treatment proved helpless too. My mate was still jerking off the bed and breathing harder than before. I tried to hold him, to touch him, to keep him down on the bed but he wasn't having it. It was like he was determined to keep up with it at the expense of my own pain. Was this my punishment for leaving him in the first place? My heart hurt so much and I tried to hold back tears. Seeing him immobile was one thing but seeing him like this is on another level. At least when he was immobile, I didn't feel helpless. I washed him, spoke to him and sometimes sleep beside him just to keep him company. But now...I felt helpless. Nothing was working. "What happened? How the hell did this happen?" I finally asked the question I should have asked when I first came into the room. The physician's eyes were sad and uncertain. His mouth opened and closed and his eyes moved around their sockets as if he's thinking of ways to tender his words to me. I didn't have the same patience though. "Answer the darn question!" I yelled in a shaky voice ridden with tears that were waiting to be shed. The physician jumped slightly, probably more from the coldness I emitted as an Alpha princess rather than how I yelled in his face. "I don't know how it happened Luna, I was summoned by the his Beta who we both know guards his room every time." The physician finally answered and I turned to Alan who didn't wait for me to speak. "I heard the noise from outside. The sound of the bed drew my attention and I thought he was awake. I came in here only to meet him this way." Alan explained. "Nothing has worked." The physician chipped in after Alan "He keeps spitting them all out and won't even take anything into his mouth again." My frustrations, anger and my fear all came together to form a force bigger than even I could imagine as I sprang up to face the physician. "What do you mean nothing is working? It's your job to try every single thing available to nurse him back to health! Is this your way of saying you're tired of taking care of him?" I spat. "Lu-" Alan started to say but I shut him up with a glare that made him shift back to a position far from me. I turned back to the old man who was at the receiving end of my anger. I just couldn't believe him. How could he say nothing was working? Was I supposed to give up and slowly watch my mate die from having difficulty breathing? "Luna...I understand how you feel but I promise you, I have tried everything, he keeps spitting every medicine out." "Then you get another!" "I have used up everything! He is-" The physician stopped yelling halfway as his eyes left me and trained on the bed beside me going slightly wide. I glared at him, waiting for him to finish his statement and then have me yell at him for yelling at me in return. He didn't say anything for a few seconds and it took me the equal number of seconds to to realize something. The bed had stopped creaking. I turned sharply to see what was going on and then realized something else too. He had stopped breathing hard. My banter with the physician was long forgotten as I rushed towards him on the bed and tapped him. "Alpha...are you okay? Alpha Zachary?" I called out. My heart that seemed like it was in a storm suddenly settled seeing him back to his normal state. The physician however failed to have the look of relief I expected from him. My mate had stopped breathing hard like he was going to lose all of his breath so why was he looking like it's a bad thing? My brows furrowed. "What's wrong? The herbs must have worked but why do you have that look on your face?" I asked. "Excuse me Luna." He asked for me to leave the side of my mate so he could check him. I did as he asked and watched as he brought his fingers to the nostrils of my mate. The gesture didn't sit well with me as it felt like trouble was brewing from God knows where. He moved his fingers for a second and then repeated the movement again. When his hands dropped to his sides like they were lifeless, I knew what the trouble was and where it brewed from instantly. The physician turned towards me with sad eyes and he shook his head. I moved back to my mate without taking my eyes off the physician. "What's wrong? Is he okay? Is he fine? Will it stop now?" The physician turned to Alan instead and both men shared a knowing look that I wanted to slap off both their faces. I was their Luna, at least that's what they refer to me as and I deserved to know what was going on. "I asked a question! What's wrong with him?Is he out of danger now? Talk to me." The physician shook his head again. "I'm sorry." He mouthed quietly. What was he sorry for? He didn't do anything wrong other than giving up on Alpha Zachary at first and then his herbs must have worked again. Why was he sorry? "What are you sorry for? He's fine now isn't he? Should we leave him to rest? Should I tend to him?" I was in total denial of all the things a gesture as simple as shaking a head with a sad smile could mean. I didn't even want to think about it but the more the men threw me into silence and put me in the dark, the more my kind inched closer to that one thought. "The Alpha...he....I'm sorry." I didn't need him to say anything else. It was right there in front of me, glaring and clear for me to see what was going on. Their expressions said it all. My legs weakened slowly and I fell to the ground upon realizing what had just happened. Alan reached out for me but stopped short as if rethinking that decision. It couldn't be. It definitely couldn't be. "No..." I whispered. "Luna." Alan called. "No! No! No! No!" I yelled out, tears suddenly clouding my vision. How many times is he going to make me cry because of him? I moved closer to his bed and grabbed his hands. They were colder than they have always been. It was everything I needed to know and believe that my mate was gone... But I still couldn't believe it. "No! It's a lie. Nothing is wrong with him." I said to no one in particular before grabbing my mate's face in both hands pleading to him to talk to me or move or just do anything to shame the words of the physician. "Zachary? Zachary please open your eyes...you can't be...you can't be dead." My chest constricted as the tears began to fall before I knew it. "I can't feel his wolf Haera. I can't feel it." Dezra wailed and howled in my head feeling the same pain and sorrow that was like a pang through my chest. "No..." I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. I cried hard and grabbed him, my tears staining the sheets and the exposed skin of his hand. I held him to myself and begged desperately for him to come back to me. I stood up and moved towards the physician pleading with him with tears in my eyes for him to do something. "I'm so sorry, Luna. I'm so sorry." He only pleaded with me with his own eyes. I fell back the ground and rested my head on his pale body that was on the bed, crying my heart out for him to wake up. It was hopeless. He wasn't breathing. He was gone. "I will prepare for the wolf rites to send him off properly." The physician said and left. It only made me cry harder. I was in pain. There were a lot of things I wanted to tell him. I wanted to apologize to him. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was for leaving him to suffer. I wanted to say I was sorry for making him go through such a hard time alone. There were also a lot of things we haven't even done together. There were a lot of things I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him how much I cared about him. How much I've grown to care for him in the past few days. I wanted to tell him so much more but he's gone now. He's gone. "Luna...I...I have to go announce this to the pack as well as get other men to come for his..." he paused knowing how sensitive the rest of his words would sound before he continued " I will be back." And then he left. Body... They were coming to collect my mate's body. He was a body now. Nothing but a lifeless shell of his usual self. "Zachary..." I cried harder, grabbing his hand and resting my head on his body. How was I supposed to live now without my mate? It's all over. I finally lost him. I... I felt a hand rest on my head and I assumed it was Alan who and returned and was trying to console me. It was weird that he touched me but I didn't mind. I needed all the comfort I could get. I sniffed and cleaned my eyes. There was only one thing left to do and it's to see my mate off properly. My eyes were blurry from the tears and so I cleaned it off with my clothes. My eyes finally cleared and I was staring straight at a pair of grey black eyes. I shifted back both out of shock and out of the coldness the eyes held. Seconds passed. Our eyes did the talking and then my mind reminded me of who the heck was staring back at me with clear, wide and large eyes. Familiar grey black ones to be precise. It hit me and I screamed in excitement. My mate was awake. Alpha Zachary was awake and he was looking right at me with so much familiarity in his eyes. "He's awake! He's awake! Alpha Zachary is awake!" I shouted in excitement standing up from my position on the floor and looking closely at him to be sure I wasn't seeing things. Even pinched his face until he let out a pained sound from it. He was really awake. I grabbed in my arms and embraced him, released him and embraced him again. His eyes didn't hold confusion, it held warmth and familiarity and it was enough to know that he knew who I was and he was happy I was there. I bounded for the door to announce it to Alan and the physician. "Mum." I stopped on my track and slowly turned around to make eye contact with him again. I thought I heard wrong and raised my brows to signify my confusion. But he was smiling at me with happy eyes and nothing about his expression proved I heard him wrong. I still believed I heard wrong. Not until he said it again. "Mum." What in the world!