Chapter 6

I opened up my eyes. I felt a little dizzy. I lifted up my head and looked around. This wasn’t my room. I was in a little library it seemed. I felt a sharp sting in my head and reached my hand up. I slumped back down on the soft pillow.

“Doctor injected you with something, it should ease up soon.” I heard someone speak.

I lazily turned my head to the person speaking. I was shocked to see Adrian there.

I slowly sat up and looked to the other side to see Xavier. I didn’t think he knew me. I seemed to have taken notice of everyone that was in this pack. I knew everyone’s name. I doubted he knew mine.

Xavier came from a fighter family like I did. Mid rank wolves. I have never spoken to him. I wasn’t sure why he was here.

I kept looking around and realized I wasn’t in a library. I was in the doctor’s office. The high bookshelves confused me.

I remembered I fainted and then I remembered why I fainted. Thankfully Death wasn’t anywhere near. He was the last thing I remembered.

“How did I get here?” I asked. Someone must have carried me.

“We brought you here!” Adrian said but from the other side Xavier spoke.

“I brought you here. He held the door.” He said smugly, smirking at Adrian.

So Xavier was the one to carry me here. “How long was I out?”

“About twenty minutes,” Xavier said.

I swung my legs off the couch and was about to stand up but Adrian ran up to me. “Maybe sit for a while. You’ll get dizzy again.” He spoke so caring and calm.

I listened and stayed seated for a bit. “Why are you here?” I asked, looking at Adrian.

“My question exactly.” Xavier mumbled from his side.

Adrian shot him an angry look but then softened when looking back at me. “You fainted. We’re friends. I worry for you.” He answered.

“you should be with Magdalena, she was crying when I left.” His eyes shifted.

“Is she okay?” he asked instantly.

I nodded. “Yes. She’s just worried. You should go to her.”

He stormed out of the office. I looked down on the tiles. He cared? He didn’t even ask if I’m fine. I get it… he had a mate now. Priorities change.

The footsteps approaching startled me. I forgot that Xavier was still here. “Does that hurt?” he asked.

I thought about how I felt. I was okay. It seemed like the fall didn’t hurt me. “I’m fine, the fall wasn’t that bad.” I shrug my shoulders. “probably embarrassing but not painful.”

He sat down next to me. “I meant him.”

He looked ahead of himself while I at the side of his face. “What about him?”

“You were really close.” He pointed out. Did he really notice it? Adrian had also never mentioned that they talked.

“He found his mate.” I felt the need to defend him.

“And he forgot his friend,” he said. “He could have done both, yet he decided not to.”

“He waited a long time for his mate. You should understand how important that it is to a wolf. We were really close… Do you expect us to stay just as close? I doubt you would choose your friends over your mate.” He looked at me puzzled.

“For someone who hasn’t got a mate you defend the bond as if you ever felt it.”

He was really ticking me off. “For someone who has a mate you speak as if mate means nothing to you.” I cut at him but he went quiet.

“How old are you?” he asked.

It seemed out of nowhere but I still answered. “Twenty two,” I said, suspicious to answer.

“By twenty six you will feel the same,” he said and lifted himself up from the couch. He offered me his hand and I took it steadying myself on the ground. Getting used to standing. “okay?” He asked and I nodded.

He made his way to the door leaving me standing there. “Why do you say that?” I questioned.

He looked back at me. “By time you understand that there is more than finding your mate. You will heal… just like I did.” He walked out leaving the doors open.

He was also without a mate. I didn’t know that. I knew his name yet I knew nothing about him. I hoped. Did I offend him?

I walked back out to the hall where the injured were still being treated. Many more people were now helping. I spotted the doctor and walked up to him. “How can I help?” I asked.

I eyed me up and down. “Go home. You can’t handle this much trauma. We will manage.” The doctor was a nice man. He was just very harsh with his words. He seemed mean but in reality he was one of the good ones. I was about to leave but he caught my arm and looked over his glasses at me. “Go home and rest!” he warned me. He must have known my plan to do the opposite. I still nodded at him.

Going home wasn’t even an option for me. I walked to Vincent’s place. I knocked on the door and was greeted by one of pack’s caretakers, since the pack needed many experienced doctors Jasper was asked to come to hospital while Julian would look over Vincent. Julian was a lot older than Jasper but he never actually did surgeries or anything like that, he only looked over the sick. Julian wasn’t as kind and friendly as Jasper and often he acted as if he hated me. There wasn’t anything to prove me right or wrong but I did always feel like he judged me.

Julian didn’t say anything to me, he didn’t even greet me, just looked at me up and down. He left the door open and walked back inside. He already knew why I was there, I was positive that he also was one of the people who thought that I had an affair with Vincent. It’s quite hilarious to think that he was so old and completely oblivious of the word friendship. He hasn’t got a single friend in this pack, at least I had never seen him with anybody else. And what would I do when Vincent died? He was my only friend. Would I be as grumpy as he is my whole life?

I walked up to Vincent’s room and he looked at me right as I walked in. “my light, my rain, my thunder finally here!” He said in a half smile of course he wasn’t as cheery as yesterday. No one was after learning about the attack.

I took a seat next to him in my chair. “Did you hear about the attack?” I still asked him.

He nodded at me. “I heard. They are genius in their tactics. They wanted to make allies with our pack, but they did not mention that they wanted to take over our whole pack. But we must have fought greatly if they stepped back considering that they will be enemy’s to every other pack because of their failure.”

Vincent kept his stare on me. “Were you at the hospital?” he asked me.

“How…how did you know?” I asked him, still stuttering a bit.

“You look frightened and sights at hospitals are never the thing to seek for young eyes,” he pointed out. I tried to keep my emotions in check but I failed. “How is it there?”

I hadn’t realized that I was still in half a shock. Probably that’s why the doctor made me go home. “It’s bad. A lot of them are hurt badly, some with only scratches, some made out with not a single scratch at all, and some…” I thought about the sight I saw there, the terrifying sight that I was cursed to see. “Some even died.”

“Is that what scares you?” he asked. He spoke like that man, like Death. “Is death the thing you fear most of all?”

I made the room fill with long silence while Vincent waited for my answer. “Yesterday…” I started speaking slowly. “when we talked about dying…” I had difficulties speaking now. I even looked back to see if he was there, because last time he was. “I was scared of death, but… I had no reason to because I had not met death. That’s what you said.”

Vincent shifted a little in his bed. “I said that. Does that mean you are no longer afraid of death?” he asked.

I shook my head and made a confused look appear on his face. “what if I said that I have a … reason now?”

He slowly nodded. “People often feel that they have met death once they see others dying… yet somehow I believe that is not the reason for you. Maybe it is…” he said, taking a look at the ceiling lost in his thought. “If it is I am curious to find out why this death made you feel so connected with it that you finally feel like you met death?”

Would he understand if I told him? Vincent was a wise man and he understood a lot of things, even the things that were out of ordinary. Somehow this made me think that it’s so impossible that even he wouldn’t understand. “You have never met death,”’ I pointed out.

Vincent chuckled. “I will soon.”

“What do you think he is like?” I asked him.

“he?” he questioned. “Death as a person…” he thought out loud. “old man with hunting face, the one you see in nightmares, with hollow stare and screeching voice, but good in his heart and mind.” He was a little amused by my question.

“You have taught me so much and I will never be able to repay you. Not in this life and not even in another life.” I took a deep breath. “but for the first time I have something to teach you because no else can tell you this. Death is nothing like that, he is quite young looking, not an old man at all. He looks mostly like any other human being, he has dark hair and dark eyes. From what I can tell he likes to torture people, because he scared me and enjoyed doing that.” I explained to him.

Vincent didn’t answer for a while, making me overthink if I said something I shouldn’t. “Did Jasper already tell you that you are crazy?” he asked me.

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Yes.” I admitted but wasn’t sure how he knew that.

“That’s just because he doesn’t know any better, he has called me crazy for as long as I can remember. I don’t think that there are crazy people… there are only people with different truths and that’s what scares everyone.” He looked deep in my eyes. “I am not going to ask you because my peace will be better not knowing how you know that, but I want you to know that maybe even death has his reasons for torturing.”

And that’s exactly what I expected from him… making excuses even for death…

Death

I entered Jasmins house not even knocking. She looked back at me from her armchair with a cup in her hands, probably one of her herb teas. “What’s new about her?” I asked her, but she just scrunched her eyebrows together. I moved my hands in a circle like motion. “You know… that woman that has absolutely nothing peculiar about her… oh wait no she actually does have that.” I put my hand on my mouth, mocking her. “I heard she can see me.” I whispered to her.

Jasmin rolled her eyes. “I already told you that she has nothing to do with death angels or any dark magic. I got all the information I could get from her family history, her usual activities, and her childhood. There is nothing that shows any kind of relation with you or afterlife.” She sipped her tea as loud as she could. “I thought I made it clear a few hours ago.”

“You know… sending these kinds of telegrams to afterlife is not the most popular way to communicate.” She actually used one of her spells to send a letter to me.

“Do you have a phone number I can rather call to?” she asked. “Besides, I found out everything you wanted to know. When will I get my reward?” she asked.

“Incorrect!” I said excitedly, mocking her. “You didn’t find out what I wanted to know, you only found what you could find. I need to know why she is able to see me.”

Jasmin put her cup down on the table “how am I supposed to know that?” she asked angrily. “I can only tell what I know about her.”

“Do you want your reward?” I asked and she eased up. Gave up. “Find out why and then I will get Alexander out for some time.” That seemed to shut her up at least from her eye rolling comments.

“Fine... what are some basic things about her that you know now?” I asked. I will still make her look for an answer but I will need to take this in my own hands if I want to figure her out.

Jasmin turned towards me. “Her name is Meredith Boswell she has a sister, mother and father in her family. She, her sister and her mother are half werewolves and half water nymphs. She is soon turning twenty three but she has got no mate. And I don’t think she will ever get one since, she is already passed her mate finding age.” She shrugged her shoulders. “She didn’t let me look into her. She didn’t let me touch her hand for long.”

I already heard she was mateless when she was talking to Vincent… mostly information that had no value to me. Or maybe…

“Do you think her mate has something to do with the fact that she can see me?” I asked.

Jasmin tilted her head in thinking. “It sometimes happens to werewolves but… maybe this has something to do with it. Or maybe she has a mate but can’t exactly see him, or feel him. Making her other half oblivious too. Maybe if we found her mate....”

She started but I interrupted immediately. “She is not a charity case. I don’t have time to find mates for every werewolf.”

She laughed out loud. “Maybe you just don’t want to let go of your little girlfriend!”

“Excuse me?” I asked again. Giving her a chance to correct her statement.

She smirked. “Is she a sensitive topic to us?” she said with her lips pouted up. “Don’t worry I won’t tell you have a little crush on her.”

I swear she was testing me. And I knew that she wouldn’t stop.

I put my hand on my heart. “Thank you so much. I’m playing hard to get, wouldn’t want you spoiling it.”

I went to the door before she could say anything else but she still managed to. “You can’t be playing hard to get if no one want you!”