Chapter 176
RYKER’S P.O.V
It was like there were two warring parts of me. One side wanted to step back and allow Camilla make her choices, allow her do the thing
she thought to be right which included healing Briggs despite the repercussions it might have on her. The other part of me wanted to protect her from everything and everyone- including herself, especially herself. She didn’t realize it yet but she was her own greatest adversary. She put herself in danger more than any foe we had faced and sometimes it scared me.
As I watched her pushing a part of herself into Briggs, I had to dig my feet into the ground to prevent from going to her. I never thought that after everything, it would end with us back here. Of all the places for the coven to have stood, it just had to be this place. Sometimes I wondered if the goddess had a sick sense of humor or if the late king was just a meddling asshole who set his own child up for failure. Every single thing almost always came back to him. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
I had to look away from Camilla and my gaze fell on Lyla. She was staring at the scene in front of her with a mixture of sadness and hope. It was almost as if she was staring through them. I cleared my throat and she turned to me. She tried to hide her expression but it was already too late. I had seen what I needed to. She gave me a small smile in an attempt to pretend but when she saw that I wasn’t buying it, she sighed.
“What are you hiding?” I asked but she shrugged. “This is one of the thin
you saw, isn’t it?” her silence was enough of an answer for me, especially when she looked away. “How does it end, Lyla? Tell me and I will do everything in my power to prevent it.”
“If I tell you, it will happen.”
“It is already happening, I can see it in your eyes. This way, I can prepare for it, I can fix it or at least try to. If you tell me, I will do everything I can. You know I will.”
She shook her head. “I am bound by my oaths to the goddess. If I say it, I will die. I cannot risk my life like that. Besides, the future is filled with many different paths. This is one of the things I saw, yes, but there are still many roads in the future, there are still many alternate endings.”
“How many of them end happy?” I asked and she looked away. “How many end with everyone happy and intact? Tell me, Lyla, I deserve to know. On this path that she has taken, what is the likelihood that we all come out alive?”
Her voice was soft, quiet, barely over a whisper that if I wasn’t standing so close to her, I would not have heard it. “One.”
A gasp cut out conversation short and I turned to find Camilla trying to stagger to her feet. On the bed in front of her, Briggs looked healthier, he wasn’t breathing as hard and he seemed to be resting peacefully. I rushed over to Camilla and as soon as I reached her, she leaned into me as if it was too much of a strain to hold herself up. Her nose was bleeding and I cursed as I put a handkerchief to it. She was weak and one second away from passing out if I was judging by her drooping eyes.
“Can you hear me?” I asked and she nodded slowly. “I’m going to carry you into the main house, can you stay awake from me until then?” she didn’t respond but I didn’t need her to. I lifted her bridal style and walked out of the room with Lyla following close behind me. There was a maid in front of Briggs’ door and she made to go in when I stopped her. “No one goes in to see him until I say so, am I clear?”
To say she was shocked was an understatement but she nodded. “Of course, your majesty, whatever you say.”
She turned on her heels and walked off. I didn’t wait to see where she was going before I rushed towards the main house. Camilla was not speaking at all and I could tell that she was barely awake. I moved on autopilot, the only thoughts going through my mind were about her. By the time I got to the room, she wasn’t bleeding anymore but that didn’t mean she looked any better.
“Is she going to be okay?” I asked Lyla who nodded slowly. “I don’t need a half assed answer, I need facts, Lyla. Will she be fine?”
“Yes, she will,” she sounded more self assured. “She just needs to rest and right now, you are hovering. You aren’t doing her any good like this.”
I realized she was right so despite the war in me, I nodded and took a slow step backwards. I placed a soft kiss on her forehead and watched as her eyes finally drooped closed. It was hard to do nothing but it was what I needed to do. She looked miserable and I didn’t want to leave her but I forced my legs to lead me out of the room. It felt like my chest was tightening more with each step I took further away from her.
“She will be fine,” Lyla said and I hummed. “I cannot tell you much but I can tell you that.”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I ground out a little more harshly than I would have liked. “If you want to talk to me, then talk about something else. If not, I would much rather sit in silence.”
She was silent for a full minute. I turned away from her pacing the length of the living room. A part of me thought she had actually left until I turned and found her seated on the couch. Her hands were crossed in front of her and she was staring at the open fireplace. There was a faraway look in her eyes as if she were here but not here.
“Did you know that this was where the witches would offer sacrifices?” she asked and I furrowed my brows in confusion, “This very spot where we are staying is where they would stay while the leader would stand by that fireplace and make the sacrifices to the goddess.”
“How do you know that?” I looked around trying to see if there were any carvings or markings that could have told her as such but there was nothing. It was a brand new house.
“I can feel them,” she explained. “That would explain why the witch herself wouldn’t come here. The presence of the witches that died is heavy here. They are angry and sad, I can almost taste their emotions. If she were to come here, she would run mad or die, or perhaps both.” She turned to me. “Do you mean to say that you cannot feel it?”
I shook my head. “Everything looks and feels normal. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
She shrugged. “I suppose it is because you are a wolf, I guess. Your kind has never been in touch with the spiritual side of things. You are more brutal, more into bloodshed. If you took some time to just smell the you would be shocked at what you would discover.”
“We don’t have the luxury of smelling the grass.”
“If Camilla was awake, she would be able to feel it.”
grass,
I went silent again as the mention of Camilla brought back the earlier tension. I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder and up the stairs. I wanted to be next to her, I wanted to be with her but I wasn’t helping from there, there was nothing I could do except pace and worry.
“You are sure she will wake up, right?” I asked Lyla and she gave me a pitying smile. I couldn’t help but imagine what it was like to be her. She had no family and no obligations except her work. It was a lonely life, but it was also a simple one.
“She will, I swear it on my life.”
Lyla and I didn’t speak after that. I stayed in the living room for half an hour before I gave up and made my way over to Camilla’s side. I held her hand making sure to stroke it softly as I spoke to her. I wasn’t sure if she could hear me but I wanted to try anyway. I never wanted her to doubt that I was with her and by her side.
I sat there until the sun began to set and she didn’t stir once. Lyla tried to get me to go down for dinner but I wasn’t going to eat a thing until I was sure that my mate was fine. Her words managed to ease some of the tension but I couldn’t trust her. Lyla was a blind follower and like she had said, she was bound by her duties to the goddess. She would risk lying to me if she thought it was what the goddess wanted and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
A small knock on my door had me looking up. Lyla walked in with a small smile on her face and I immediately knew what it was about. Instead of having her hovering around me, I had asked her to monitor Briggs. He was the entire reason we were in this mess and I had to be sure that he was healing well.
“He is awake,” she whispered trying and failing to hide her grin. “He is up and talking and he is asking for her. He says he has something important to say.”
She was grinning from ear to ear and a part of me couldn’t help but wonder if she had somehow forgotten that Camilla was still knocked out. There was no way they could converse if she wasn’t even awake yet.
“Is he healed? Is he breathing properly?” I asked ignoring the latter part of the sentence and she nodded. It was good to know that Camilla’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain. “Good, when Camilla is awake we can tell her.”
“Tell me what?” a small voice asked.
