Chapter 0320

"We discussed it, but then Julian happened. Zachary doesn't understand my grief. I'm beginning to believe our bond is shattered." She grimaces. "The advice I received was to communicate."

"I am communicating."

"To your mate, Isabella. He's the one who needs to understand you. He's the one who can read your thoughts, sense what you're feeling."

"Then why doesn't he comprehend it?"

"Because you were a twin who shared twin wolves. Honestly, I don't fully grasp how it works myself. I don't understand who decides these connections. I'm still learning many things, but perhaps if you talk to Zachary instead of shutting him out."

"I'm not shutting him out."

She exhales deeply. "You've barely spoken to him. He ensured you slept, ate, changed clothes. He gave you the space you needed to handle the situation. He made sure you left the hospital, even if just for a few minutes, to get fresh air. You're mistaken about your bond being broken."

I frown, realizing I hadn't considered that. In my haze of arranging everything for my brother, I overlooked what everyone else was doing. "When did you become so wise?" I muse.

She rises from the floor, takes Evrin from me, and settles into the large chair by the window. "You're not really asking about wisdom, are you? You want to know about my darkness?"

I nod and pick up a whining Logan. "No one discusses it. Are you alright?"

"Zachary and Brianna made me believe I had to fight it. That I needed to restrain it and prevent myself from going insane. Even Lucas Adler suggested something similar, but Nyx never intended to harm me. Not in the way everyone thinks."

"I don't follow."

"She was frustrated. She spent years unable to communicate with me, and when she finally could, I kept trying to suppress her." "So you were never going to turn dark?"

"I could have. If I continued rejecting Nyx, I would have eventually gone Rogue." She frowns and bites her lower lip. "The darkness that drives others Rogue is different; they become their Lycan. But I have a separate entity. Nyx has her own thoughts, opinions, and feelings. We had to unite. It was the only way."

"Alexander mentioned you were practicing?"

Athena nods at me and extends her hand. Claws slowly emerge from her fingertips, just enough for me to see before vanishing.

"It's becoming easier. And I'm not falling on my face anymore."

I smirk, and she returns it. "But you're okay, right?"

"Yes. I finally don't feel that crushing sensation." She pats her chest and smiles. "And Nyx says it's about time. But we don't have to talk about me. We can discuss anything you want."

I didn't want to talk about Julian, not to anyone.

"The new girl, the one Lucas pulled from the fire. She's a Lycan, right?"

"Yes."

"Why did he help her?" She opens her mouth. "I mean, he's a Hunter, right? So he should want to kill her, but he saved her. That's strange, isn't it?"

I look at my red-eyed nephew. He's a miniature version of Alexander, even down to the all-knowing way he looks at me.

"I'm keeping an eye on him." Athena tells me, but it doesn't feel entirely truthful.

Is this what it has come to? I mourn my brother, and they exclude me from certain things unless they decide I need to know.

"Do you think Seraphina started the fire?" I had to know something. They couldn't keep everything from me just because they think I might break at any moment.

"Honestly? I don't know. We haven't seen her. She hasn't appeared. No one has detected her scent in the forest. If it was related to her and she used someone else, then it's possible. But they said the fire..."

"Eliminated the scents," I finish.

She presses her lips together and nods. "You're asking about her because you want to make her pay, don't you?"

"She destroyed my brother, Athena. He gave up his life because of what she did to him. And he never woke up to tell me what she did. He was so stubborn, he kept that information to himself."

"You couldn't have saved him."

"I know that now, but I can ensure she pays for what she did to him."