Part 86

A/N: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 100K!!

(POV - Marcus)

A few hours had passed since Marcus had holed himself up in the gym, and he figured he needed to settle things with Aria, who hadn't left the medical ward at all.

He walked in late in the afternoon, meeting Jonah, who looked a little worse for wear as he fussed about.

"Any updates?" Marcus asked, noting the frazzled gleam in Jonah's eyes. The doctor shook his head and sighed.

"Aria has been talking to her," Jonah informed him. "And she has stopped growling at least, but she hasn't shifted back. I really don't think there's a way for her to recover mentally, the damage has been unthinkable."

Marcus nodded, thinking about how the news might affect Aria. She wouldn't take it easily, and she'd do everything in her power to find a way to bring her best friend back. Marcus was worried that she would end up losing herself in the process.

Just then, she emerged from the back rooms, eyes tearing up the second they locked with Marcus's.

"Marc," she murmured, sniffling and almost running into his arms. He caught her easily, holding her tight and feeling the stress seep from his veins the way it usually did when she held him. She was crying, her body shaking slightly with the force of her sobs. "I'm sorry I snooped around your office. I should have trusted you, I'm so sorry."

His shoulders sagged in relief upon hearing that, and he pressed a long kiss to the top of her head, his hands rubbing her back soothingly.

"It's okay, baby," he cooed softly, uncaring that Jonah was still in the room and would see just how soft Marcus was for his mate. "It's over now, yeah?"

She nodded sadly, sniffling again before scolding him. "Just don't keep something like that from me again," she reprimanded, her voice lulled into a murmur.

"Baby, I had to keep it from you," he said, standing by his decision despite everyone telling him to give in. "It's my job to protect you, and I couldn't bear the thought of you seeing your best friend the way we found her."

Aria huffed and pushed away from him, stalking to the other side of the room. Anger curdled her scent, and he braced for the inevitable.

"I could have handled it!" she yelled, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. He swallowed his retort and walked towards her, his temper icy cold. He grabbed her wrist and practically dragged her into Jonah's office, sitting her down in one of the seats before turning to the filing cabinets that were kept there.

He rifled through the folders, looking for April's and pulling it out. He flipped it open silently, ignoring the way Aria glared at him from her seat. If she insisted on being that adamant about seeing April the way she'd been found, then he would show her exactly what it looked like, even if it hurt him to do so.

He knew what she would feel. He could already predict the knife-like pain that would carve through her chest and stomach when she laid eyes on the photos, but her mouth was still set into a hard line, and this was the only way he could get her to understand why he had done what he'd done.

"You think you can handle it," he murmured, deadly quiet, finding the photos that were kept as a medical record of how she had been found. "Could you have handled seeing your best friend like 'this'?"

He threw the photos down on the desk, all of them scattering across Jonah's desk, revealing the sickening state that April had been brought in.

Each photo was more gruesome than the last, images that still made his stomach turn at the idea that someone could be capable of inflicting that sort of torture on another living creature.

Aria reached out with a shaky hand, lifting one of the nearest photos to get a closer look, and he fought against every instinct to stop her from seeing it. She had to know that he wouldn't keep anything from her unless it threatened to hurt her in any way.

The photo she held was that of the slashes April had sustained to her abdomen, put there by wolf claws. Her ribs had been cracked, almost split apart, according to Jonah, and the meat of her muscle had been flayed apart. He watched as the photo fell from Aria's fingers, as her eyes darted across the rest of the photos. Even he couldn't look at them for too long, and he'd been there when Jaden had brought a sedated April into the medical rooms. He'd seen the severity of her injuries firsthand.

Aria put a hand over her mouth, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and her body went limp. She slid off the chair and fell to the floor, Marcus at her side in an instant.

"S-she could have died," Aria cried, holding onto Marcus's upper arm and sobbing into his shoulder. "And I wouldn't have known until it was too late. How could s-someone do that to her?"

"Shh, it's okay, my love," he soothed, trying to calm her down. He adjusted their positions on the floor so that she was curled on his lap, his arms wrapped tight around her shivering body. "This isn't your fault."

"I have to help her," she wailed, her voice racked with unimaginable pain. "I can't just leave her alone in that room to wither away."

"She won't," he said, even though he had no idea if that were true. "You're her best friend. If anyone can help her, it's you. Just be there for her. You've been talking to her, hm?"

She nodded into his chest, her shoulders shaking. He bent his head to kiss the small patch of exposed skin on her neck, right where the mating mark sat. She went still almost immediately, triggering a rumble in his chest that turned to purring. He couldn't stand seeing her so distraught.

It set his teeth on edge, roused his wolf in a way that made him difficult to control because he wanted out, out, out, because he needed to protect his mate from an unseen threat. But he took a deep breath to calm down, reminding himself that it wasn't about making himself feel better as a mate. No, this was about ensuring that Aria was okay despite being the one who had forced her to that point.

"Then she's going to be okay," he promised. Even if he had to move heaven and earth to make sure it happened, Aria wouldn't have to deal with seeing her best friend in such an alarming state.

"H-how do you know?" she mumbled miserably. "She's been through things I can't even imagine, what good will talking to me do?"

"My darling," he said quietly, hugging her close. She fit into his body like they'd been molded to exist together, side by side. It was something he would never tire of noticing, the little ways her body seemed to be made from the same stars as his, how her fingers fit into the spaces between his perfectly, how her body smoothed his edges. "I know that this is a difficult thing for you to grasp, but you're an extraordinary wolf. You saved me, so I have no doubt in my mind that you can save your best friend."

She whined, extricating her arms from his hold so that she could wrap them around his waist. "You always say the right thing," she sniffed. "I'm so sorry I didn't trust you and I'm sorry I lashed out."

"I didn't come here looking for an apology," he said, but returned her hug anyway. "I just wanted to show you that I had reasons for doing what I did, and every reason was to keep you safe."

She nodded sullenly.

"I get that now," she whispered. "And I'm still so mad, but I understand."

"I'm glad you understand," he said softly, reluctantly pulling her arms away and holding her face. "But we have one more thing to discuss."

She looked confused but let him help her up, following him silently to the next room.

The door swung open to reveal a very tired Inara.

"Alpha," she greeted stiffly, turning to Aria with the faintest hint of a smile. "Luna."

She stood in the doorway, her body blocking the view of the interior. She glared up at Marcus questioningly.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

He knew where her venom was coming from; she was just as concerned for Aria's safety as he was, and he appreciated it. But if Aria knew about April, then she needed to know about this as well.

"You know why I'm here," he said. "Aria needs to know, and she might have information we don't."

Inara regarded him for a long moment before sighing and hanging her head in defeat.

"I don't like this," Inara said needlessly. "We shouldn't have allowed her to stay."

Marcus knew that. Hell, he'd been against it from the very beginning. But he'd also known that doing the right thing sometimes felt like the wrong thing, and he'd been ecstatic at the time over plans for his and Aria's mating run that he'd let his heart guide his decision instead of his head. He only hoped it wouldn't turn around and bite.

"And yet, here we are," Marcus drawled, growing tired of the back and forth. "Step aside."

She did, though with no small amount of irritation, revealing another wolf, this one thankfully in her human form, sitting on the bed.

He heard Aria gasp softly, before her lips moved almost imperceptibly.

"Meredith?"