Page 34 of Lycan Prey
The soft tread of footsteps signals an approach. My gaze snaps up, locking onto the nurse who’s come to deliver news I already know in my marrow. Her expression is gentle, apologetic, the bearer of doom wrapped in pastel colored scrubs.
“I’m sorry, but your grandmother didn’t make it,” she murmurs, her voice barely rising above the ambient sounds of beeping monitors and distant pages. “We were hoping the King would come to pick up his son before we delivered the news, but we must move her,” the nurse whispers. I already knew this by the expressions on the paramedics’ faces when they got to her, by the deathly pallor of her skin, yet officially hearing it, having it confirmed, breaks something inside me.
The words slice through me.
“Thank you,” I manage to choke out, though gratitude is the furthest thing from my heart as I peer back at Max sitting waiting.
“The King is on the way, we have notified him,” she tells me. I nod slowly, turning to Max.
“Can we see her?” Max asks.
“Not right now,” my voice breaks on the answer, “she is sleeping.”
I stagger, the ground beneath me unsteady as if the earth itself mourns with me. The hospital’s sterile walls close in, a blur of white that swallows my senses. Max’s small hand finds mine, his grip firm and searching. “Brielle, are you okay?” His voice is a whisper lost in the storm inside me.
I can’t speak. I peer down into Max’s upturned face, his eyes brimming with worry for me. He is too young to understand the finality of death, yet old enough to sense its shadow.
“Max,” I finally murmur.
He squeezes my hand tighter, seeking reassurance from the one who should give it, but finds none. “I mindlinked my dad. He is on his way,” he tells me, his innocence a stark contrast to the weight of my sorrow. His words pierce through the haze—his father, the King, coming to collect his son, he’ll be furious that I dragged Max here, pulled him into my drama.
My vision blurs, tears threatening to spill. Not here, not in front of Max. I blink them back fiercely, refusing to show weakness.
“Let’s wait outside for him,” I tell Max.
The chill of the night air bites at my skin as I push through the hospital’s double doors. The parking lot is a desolate expanse under the harsh glow of street lamps. My gaze catches on the payphone by the curb. I settle Max on the bench and make my way over to the payphone.
I stumble toward it, my fingers fumbling with the cold coins from my jacket pocket. They clink into the slot, one by one. I punch in the numbers, digits engraved into memory yet haven’t been used since they cast me out.
“Hello?” Her voice, distant yet familiar, crackles through the line.
The receiver trembles in my grasp, a lifeline fraying with every heartbeat. Silence stretches between us, the unsaid filling the void until it’s suffocating.
Tears well in my eyes, spilling over silently. I can’t form the words. Can’t stitch together the syllables to tell her Granny, the woman who raised her, gave her life is dead. I slam the phone down before she can break the silence with questions I’m not ready to answer.
She turned her back on me, on Granny, and I won’t let her indifferent curiosity sully Granny’s memory. Yet for a second I longed for her voice, wanted my mother. I thought I did until I heard her voice, unperturbed, her day not yet ruined like mineis, her grief spared, her voice the same as the day Dad cast me out. Cold and emotionless.
A sudden warmth spreads across my shoulder, startling me out of my spiraling thoughts. I whirl around, nearly losing my footing, and my heart lurches up into my throat.
King Soren stands there, his towering presence unexpectedly close. Moonlight dances off his dark hair, giving him an otherworldly aura. His eyes search mine, heavy with a concern that feels too intimate, too personal for an acquaintance.
“King Soren…” My voice trails off, a mix of surprise and something dangerously close to relief edging into my tone. I should be alone; I want to be alone. But the weight of his hand is grounding, real in a way that nothing else has felt since the chaos began.
“Are you alright, Bree?” he asks, the timbre of his voice wrapping around me like a soothing balm.
I shake my head, my lip quivering as I attempt to build walls around my grief. “No,” I admit, though it’s barely audible—a truth torn from the depths of my soul.
My eyes, blurred with tears, dart to the side as I gesture toward the boy. “Oh right, you’re here for Max,” I mutter, my voice weak realizing I have his son.
Max sits hunched between the sliding glass doors and a stern-looking security guard, his small frame almost swallowed up by the vastness of the sterile environment. The sight stings—I shouldn’t have brought him here. That was wrong of me. He didn’t need to witness all this.
“I know you’re probably angry but I couldn’t leave him at the house. Everything happened so fast…” I try to explain my actions.
King Soren steps forward, blocking my view with his imposing figure, and suddenly there’s no hospital, no bustle, no Max—just his piercing gaze locking onto mine.
“I’m not angry with you,” he says, his tone gentle, a stark contrast to the chaos swirling inside me.
I nod slowly. “Again, I’m sorry, but the nurses were good. I don’t think he fully understands; you should get him home,” I tell him before looking around for his guard when I spot the black SUV’s taking up the parking lot.
