Before the Fall

Chapter Forty-One - Bravery and Strength

Aster

I felt the hand holding mine and I was quietly amazed at the strength in it. I mean, I knew Namjoon as a strong man, but I never imagined his hands holding so much of that strength.

His grip was firm, but gentle, and I don't think I could have pulled away if I tried. I had no desire to, however, because at that moment, I wished I could borrow from his strength.

My mind was trying to catch up with everything that had happened and nothing was making sense to me. The traps, Taehyung getting hurt, Li showing up, my once dead husband now very much alive and walking in a completely different skin.

We were now going to have to be extremely careful because every move we made could be our last. Li was clearly unpredictable. I always knew he was a psychopath, but somehow every single thing today had not failed to surprise me at how far down that path he had gone.

For a moment rage bubbled in my chest. I wanted Li dead with everything in me that I could muster up. He, out of every person walking the earth at that moment, deserved to die the most. I was never the type to wish death on people. I had mercy. I had been free with forgiveness.

But none of those emotions or actions applied to Li. He wasn't deserving.

My steps faltered as a crash was heard nearby us. Brush and sticks shuffled and cracked every few seconds and I knew Jungkook was quite possibly running for his life.

"He will be okay," whispered Namjoon, leaning close to my ear.

His warm breath sent prickles across my skin.

"Are you sure? Cheetahs and lions aren't exactly fair foes." I felt him tug me along and I kept my eyes scanning the ground for more traps. We had to be careful. Whoever had done this had been quite thorough.

I wasn't sure how Jungkook and Xander...rather, the lion, were avoiding them.

Xander was now a hybrid. One of the biggest and most deadly Li could have produced.

I had grieved his death when Li showed me his body in the cold storage. My mind had already gone through the process that he was dead and not coming back. I can't say that there will never be a time I won't grieve for him again, but in this type of world I live in now, there's not a lot of time to be wasted crying for someone who was never going to return. Surviving is a much more important ideal now.

But my heart was in upheaval, seeing what Li had done to the man I once loved. To know what Xander must have went through in comparison to my own hybridization, it hurt me to the core. But somehow, while my heart was aching, my brain had more than accepted the fact that the creature chasing a friend through the woods was not my husband. He was merely a creation of a man who had zero ethics.

My brain keep reminding me that Xander is truly gone. That the creature is not my husband. I am no longer the wife of Xander Presley, no matter what form he might have now. My heart just needed to let him go.

"It will take time to process everything, Aster. Don't think I don't know what's going on in your head." Namjoon's rich voice reached out to me and I nodded.

"I know. My mind is well aware of what's happened, it's just my heart that's still torn."

"The heart is a mysterious thing," said Namjoon, directing me carefully over a large, jagged trap.

I felt myself shudder as I imagined Taehyung's leg being caught in one of those.

"The heart is also dangerous. We have to make sure to think with both our heart and our head if we are going to survive this world," continued Namjoon. "You think with your heart too much, you will end up dead. Think with the head too much, you'll end up turning a blind eye to the needs of those around you. It's a precarious cliff we walk."