The Haunted Memories (Forgotten Series, #4)

Memory XII

I didn't even have the energy to wince as Lara dabbed at my split lip with a cold cloth. She muttered under her breath, words I couldn't hear and didn't care too. My heart felt empty, like a tipped over vase no longer holding its contents. I missed Arlo. I drummed my fingers along the small swelling over my stomach. My mind twisted and ached, hating what grew inside of me. The hate was lessening, just as Lara had said it would but it was there all the same.

It was strange being in the conflict between my mind and my body over something that was not Malak. The little female that was nestled within me drew more ire from my mind in the beginning than Malak had. It had been a tough transition and fight to make it as far as I had with it. I had to protect the child, even from myself and the thoughts that I got at times.

Lara repeated over and over again that the little female I was growing would shape the very world she would live in, that she would be a fighting force in the years to come. The moon wished it and I would give the moon what she wanted, even if my mind resented the little life as it I did. Those thoughts were enough to keep some of that resentment at bay but there was the odd occasion where it flared up and it took all I had to not scream at the tearing pain inside of my skull as my mind rebelled against its orders.

I understood its hate. I truly did. Malak had done something terrible and the child was a result of that. It was an unwanted consequence of an unwanted action. My mind was allowed to hate it for that. It was allowed to hate something it viewed as a final raping of my innermost body. I didn't have to agree with it but I understood why. There were times when I hated the growing form myself. Its hard to love something that reminded you of the one person you hate the most.

"You have that look about you again." Lara's voice cut through the painful buzz in my head and I slowly blinked, looking up at her. Her face pinched and her snowy hair waved around her face as she shook her head. "It will take time. Your mind will grow to love the child. When she starts moving, your mind will see her as the beautiful creature she is." She pressed the cloth to my lip again, dabbing it slightly. "I think I have gotten the bleeding to stop." She set the cloth down and handed me a cup of tea, the pungent herbs made me want to sneeze but I dutifully drank what was needed.

"What was the excuse this time?" Lara crossed her arms over her chest as she looked down at me. I stared at the cup that rested in my hands, resisting the urge to rub at my forehead to chase away the pain that I felt from the question. Twisting and grinding, two beings forever fought inside of me.

"I listened when I shouldn't have." Just one excuse out of many. They were getting more and more thin. With Arlo gone he had no scapegoat for his emotions, for his rages. He blamed them on everything else but himself. The excuses for it grew more numerous and less rational. I had to weather the storm that was Malak by myself. I had no soft breeze to fix the carnage that Malak left in his wake. There was no reprieve, no time for calm. Each time he came back his storm intensified, it pushed harder, shoved harder, it hit me harder.

His storm was growing so powerful it would steal the air from my lungs and sometimes it pushed me so hard I ended up with my back pressed against the side of a mountain. While I was shoved around, pushed and tugged and thrown, the mountain stood unbending. The stone had grown only larger, its temperature colder. It had settled itself deep into the earth.

Nexus the stone had become a mountain in his training to take down a king.

I could feel his eyes on me at times, a gaze that held no contempt or derision. A calculating gaze of a challenger cataloging his opponent's weak spots. As Nexus had said the very first night Malak had me. Challengers would see me as a weakness and use me against him. I did not fault him for doing as he said that others would do. If he was a challenger to his king, he would need all the tools he could get to give him the upper hand and he and I both knew I was the biggest weakness that Malak had.

Lara tapped my cheek gently with her hand, bringing me out of my thoughts. "You have that look again, child." She tsked softly as she gently helped me bring the cup to my mouth so I could drink.

After I had swallowed the tea I looked at the silver eyes healer. "What look?" She kept saying that but she never told me what it meant. There was much that I knew Lara did not tell me.

"The look of a female who is merely waiting for death." She brushed some hair from my face but I didn't answer her words. I had been that female for a long time. Since my family had been taken from me. I waited for death, waited for the moment the moon would take me.

Silence fell as I took a drink from my cup and Lara wandered off, crushing and mixing herbs. I loved her little run down cabin. It felt more like home than the big house I lived in with Malak. I knew the pack house would never be my home. Malak had burned my home to the ground. He had destroyed my nest and expected me to love my cage. Lara was someone who had given me back an image of my nest. I loved that about her.

Although the time she spent with me did little to distract me from my empty chest. "I miss Delta Arlo." The words tugged on my soul. I loved Arlo. I had not lied to Malak about that. Arlo was my family and the thought he had been driven away by Malak's jealousy of nothing hurt me deeply. Arlo should have been with me, should have been encouraging me, talking to me, making me feel better. I knew Arlo was the only one who could have made this process so much easier. Lara said I just needed time but I knew I just needed Arlo.

"I know, spirit sister." Lara moved some bundles of drying herbs around before she sighed. "The moon tells me he will return. That he will come back to you, to us, once more." The moon had told me the same as well but it did not ease the ache in my chest. He was a spy for Malak, a position that had a high mortality rate. Everyone knew that Malak had assigned Arlo the position so that he would die. It was an order for death without truly saying the words. How far his jealousy had driven him.

Without Arlo, he no longer had anyone to blame for his anger, his lashing out. He made excuses, justifications for himself, pushing the responsibility onto everyone else. He was losing ground within the pack. They saw the treatment he bestowed upon me and they viewed it as a weakness. I knew Nexus fed the flames those actions created. He was a smart man in creating division where there had been none before. He was reaching out with the cold mountain air, causing fissures in the pack's surface that he could later use against Malak completely.

I was Malak's first and only weakness and not just for myself, not just for being me, but for Malak's treatment of me. A broken Alpha pair created an unstable ground for the pack to stand on. The earth beneath Malak's feet was getting ready to heave and to shake and he was too much of a fool to pay attention to it. Even the moon whispered at me that kings could fall. That an everlasting kingdom of destruction would fall into ruin.

The moon knew what would happen. She already knew and she was waiting for her turn on the chess board. She just needed to make sure all of her pawns were where they needed to be. I slowly looked down at the cup in my hands, the one thing that allowed me to eat, to feed my daughter. The moon wanted her pawns to be ready.

I took another drink.