Page 48 of The Alpha's Bullied Pregnant Mate

Strangely, she was right there, but he couldn’t feel her presence. Was he finally dying and his treacherous mind playing one final joke on him by showing him the one thing he wanted to see the most in his final moments?

He frowned and sniffed the air. Isla blinked in confusion and then exclaimed. She twisted a ring off one of her fingers—her barrier ring—and tossed it away from her.

For the first time in months, awareness of Isla returned to Fannar and it had the force of water pouring through a collapsed dam. It was intoxicating and he drowned under it. His heart raced then. He wasn’t dying. This was real. Isla was really here.

Tears flowed like twin spring rivers down her cheeks, dampening the round collar of her white cardigan. Fannar blinked in disbelief, and it took him a few seconds to realize that she was squeezing his two hands. The touch sent heat and life into his body, and he closed his eyes, savoring the relief that came with that sensation.

“Oh Fannar,” Isla said through sobs, “What have I done? Look at you… Look at what I did to you… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Fannar. I didn’t know the price would be this great. Can you forgive me? My Fannar…”

She lay her head on his chest and wept into the blanket bunched around him. He wanted to say something comforting but he didn’t know what to say. Why was she here? What game was she playing? He didn’t want any part in it. What stopped her from leaving again?

He didn’t have the answers. But her presence was soothing, that much he could admit, like balm on an itch. He wanted to hold her, but it seemed like too much effort. So he lay still, enjoying the flowery fragrance of her hair as she wept relentlessly.

Without warning, Isla bit him on the shoulder. The pain was white as her canines cracked through flesh and muscle and found blood. He let out a soft cry of pain and surprise. He opened his eyes and watched her, blood dripping from the corner of her lips.

And then she bit him again. And again, and again, sobbing the whole time. “Ugh! It’s not working! Why is it not working? It should have worked already.” She bit him again and this time it hurt more than the others.

Fannar could not understand what she was trying to do and his surprise was slowly turning into concern. His wounds were barely healing, and blood soaked his clothes and blanket. Isla’s teeth and lips were covered in his blood, her eyes red and filled with tears. What a mess.

Two wrinkled but firm hands grabbed Isla on the shoulder and despite her protests, they pulled her off of Fannar. He followed the movement and saw his mother pinning Isla to the ground, shouting at her. He tried to make out the words they were saying, but their voices sounded distant, as if they were talking from far away.

Hi mother hugged Isla tightly and the two women started crying. For the first time in weeks, Fannar wished he was stronger, so that he could find out what was going on here. He tried to move and his vision blurred. He sank back in the seat, and allowed sleep take him.

Chapter 21 - Isla

The next two months were the scariest of Isla’s life. Fannar seemed to perpetually be on the brink of death in those two months. When Juniper had informed Isla about the dire state of Fannar’s health, she’d not expected to find him as bad as she had done.

His hair was papery, his eyes sunken, and his skin a pale ash. He looked like a sick old man, and the life had left his eyes. She was shaken with grief that her selfishness was the reason he looked like such a shadow of himself. Worse than a shadow really.

According to the secret book she’d read, all she needed to complete the mark was to bite Fannar while half transformed. She’d done it a little too much and had managed to worsen his health in the process. It had taken him more than a few days to heal from the several bites she’d inflicted on him.

At first, she didn’t understand why it didn’t work, even though she followed the instructions of the book to the letter. It said to bite him, and boy did she bite him.

“It won’t work now, Isla,” his mother had informed Isla after she’d managed to subdue and calm her. “He’s already broken the bond, you see? He needs to mark you again, but that would be when he gets stronger. He’s in no condition to initiate a bond as it is.”

“Do you think he will live?”

“I hope so. I believe so. Up until now, he didn’t have a reason to fight. He had ultimately lost his will to live. Now that you’re back, you’ve given him more than the rest of us have managed to do in months. You have given him a reason to live. And for that, I thank you.”

Isla wept bitterly to hear the former Luna speak so kindly to her. “How can you say this to me? How? This is my fault. I should never have run away. I just got so scared and… I wasn’t thinking. In a selfish moment, I risked the well being of an entire pack.”

“And yet here you are,” the older woman replied, smiling kindly although Isla could see pain behind her red-rimmed eyes. “We can choose to play the blame game, but to what end? Where does it start, and where does it end, my dear?

“You’re here now. We can choose to either focus on the fact that you left, or on the fact that you returned.” She took Isla’s hands in her wrinkled ones. “I choose to focus on your return, as does everyone else who loves my son. And I believe deep in my heart that you are going to do everything remotely possible to make sure my son becomes whole again, won’t you?”

Crying, Isla nodded. “I will. I promise.”

And she’d done so to the best of her ability over the last two months. Everything else became secondary for her. Nothing mattered but Fannar. Not her parents, not her life, nothing.

She took it upon herself to care for him and nurse him back to strength. Every morning she went to him, washed him, clothed him, fed him, and administered his healing potions. She combed his hair and oiled his skin, and each action soothed her deeply.

When he wanted to sit outside, she sat with him, reading a book and giving him the silence he had come to enjoy so much. On one such afternoon, Fannar had startled her. “What are you reading?”

His voice had been so soft that Isla had almost not heard him the first time. She looked up in astonishment and saw him watching her with watery eyes. “It’s a fantasy novel. Sinking Moon. A load of nonsense, really.”

He nodded slowly, the gesture so akin to an old man’s that it ripped Isla’s heart to shreds. He leaned back on his inclined seat and closed his eyes. “Would you please read aloud so I can hear you? You don’t have to start all over. Just continue from where you stopped. Thank you.”

And so she’d read to him that day, and she continued to do so everyday after his lunch. Fannar always fell asleep half an hour in, but Isla never stopped reading. Once, his mother had joined them, and she’d covered her mouth, crying at the scene.

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