Chapter 128

Alaria:

“Hey,” I said, smiling at Yasmin, who was laying on her bed.

She didn’t say a word for a moment, but then she forced herself to sit up and look at me. Her eyes, which held more pain th she could describe, tried to avoid mine as she looked anywhere but into my eyes.

“Hi,” she said, finally responding as I approached the chair beside her bed.

She watched as I sat there, and I smiled, shaking my head in question.

“I thought that you would be coming to dinner? You know, the pack doctor said that you would need to eat to fully recover.” I said, and she looked away from me for a moment.

“I didn’t feel like eating. And it is not like I want to be recovering quickly. I am tired and I just want to go to bed. I want to rest for a while, and I really don’t want to be dealing with ything more than the conflict that I was forced to deal with and the…”

“You went out without your father’s notice.” I said, and she looked away from me.

“You’re here to scold me too?” She asked, and I shook my head.

“The last thing that I am going to do is scold you, Yasmin. I know what it is to be scared and in pain, but what you did could have gotten you killed. And you know..

“I didn’t think that this would lead to that. I just wanted to go out and get some air. I was upset and in pain and 1. didn’t want to keep going through that pain alone. I didn’t want to keep being treated like a kid. I am not one.” She said, and I nodded.

“No one ever said that you are.”

“He did.” She said, looking away from me as tears fell from her eyes. For a moment, I had to admit, I was curious about who she was talking about. But it didn’t take me long to realize that it was Leonardo.

It was the reason why the two of them argued, it seemed. The man saw her as nothing more than a child. “That is all he will ever see me as anyway.”

“He?” I asked, and she looked away from me.

“It doesn’t matter.” She said, and I took a deep breath. I knew not to press on the little girl. She was already upset as it was, adding salt on the wound wasn’t going to do me any good. And it wasn’t going to have her open up to 1. me.

“I know that you are upset and that things have been hard on you; but you need to understand that when you are treated with love and protection, it doesn’t make you any less. If anything, it only means that you are loved, even more than you might think that you are.” I said, putting a hand on hers.

“Sometimes being the pack’s teenager is the best thing that can happen. You are an adult, somehow, when you’re eighteen, but you are also being protected.”

“When can I be free of this ‘protection‘? Because it makes others thin of me as a kid, and I am not.”

She said, and I smiled.

“Sometimes I wish that I was treated as a kid. It would make the responsibilities that I have a lot less hectic. But the older you grow, the more you realize that this protectiveness is an act of love. You are your father’s only daughter, the light of his day, and the one reminder of your mother.” I said, reminding her of the fact that though the man stood strong, he also lost someone dear to him: “Don’t break him with that. He might not be showing it, but it would hurt him dearly and you don’t want to find your father breaking inside because you are refusing to understand how much he and the whole pack value you.”

“What if the man that I love doesn’t love me back?” She asked, and I smiled.

“Sometimes love has different meanings and aspects. He might not love you the way that you love him, but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love you. While I understand that being in love is hard when it is not mutual, it* doesn’t mean the end.” I said, my voice softening as I spoke to her. “It is only the beginning, and you are young and you have the right to find yourself falling in love over and over again.

Eventually, you are going to love someone so deeply that you are going to forget all the heartbreaks that you’ve been through.”

“It is what makes love worth it.” I said, smiling softly at her.

“Does it count for both you and the Alpha?” She asked, making me smile. I put my hand on her cheek, and she leaned in toward my touch.

“You are one nosey girl, has anyone ever told you that?” I asked, and she laughed. “With Enzo things are different, but I know one thing, whatever happens, I don’t regret anything that happened between us.”

“Despite the two of you being divorced and the pain?” She asked, and I nodded.

“That pain made me who I am today. It made me stronger for myself and my son. It made me know my value, my worth, and capability. Yes, it broke me into pieces, but these pieces healed with time.” I said, looking away from her for a moment. “And I know now that the two of us have matured. We have our choices, and we are going with our lives based on that.”

“Do you think that you can get back together? You know, if…”

“That is not something that I will answer,” I said, and she smiled. I got up from the chair and kissed her forehead as a sister would to hers. “Get some rest tonight, but I expect to see you at the dining table tomorrow morning deal…?”