Eclipse Child |✔|

|53|

It takes one moment to hate who you are,

and a lifetime to remember how to love

yourself again.

This is the most important war.

-Erin Van Vuren

***

A shadow stands over me. Darkness clings to his face, obscuring the features of him from my sight, but his voice tells me who it is.

Grandjay whispers to the room, not knowing that I am awake. I am awake and listening to him as he stands over my damaged body.

"Soraya. Soraya. Wake up. Soraya."

He waits. I can see the debate in his limbs as a stiffness comes over the air. Instincts telling me he is deciding if he can touch me to make me open my eyes.

I know I would be able to handle the pain if he does. So I speak.

"Grandjay."

My voice is rough. It scrapes against my throat, raw and low, dragged out against my will from the reluctance of opening my eyes to cast away the darkness.

He sighs, stepping into my eyesight.

"I heard."

I don't want to ask what he heard. His eyes sweep over me. They take in my body, the bandages that wrap it, the casts that hold it. The tubes that connect into me, dripping and easing away the pain. Goddess, the pain.

"They want to send you there."

I don't want to ask where.

I just want to sleep. I just want him to leave.

He must be able to see it in my eyes. He meets my gaze, holding it as he leans further in.

"I won't let them."

I chill runs down my body, nothing related to the pain of my injured spine. It was his voice. His voice that held danger I had never heard before from Grandjay. Sweet grandjay.

"I've seen the wolves that go there. I've seen them. I've sent them there. But you..." He shakes his head, "you don't belong there."

"Where?"

He doesn't answer. He only moves closer, a heaviness coming over him.

"Atlas wants to send you there. Maybe he's right. Maybe he's right to think that but you shouldn't...you don't belong there..."

"Where Grandjay. I don't belong where?"

He stops, realization coming over him. He wasn't talking to me in those moments. His eyes sweep back over me. I wish I could pull away from him as he presses against the side of the bed. Grandjay never came to close. He never was a wolf who wanted much contact. This was not normal. This sense of urgency and desperation was not normal.

"That pack. That pack. You don't belong in that pack. I've seen the wolves that go there. I know what they are like."

I know what he is talking about now.

That pack.

There was only one pack.

My heart speeds up. Dad. Dad wanted to send me there. Send me there...