I don’t have an answer for him.
I don’t know why Mom did this to us. I don’t know where she went.
She has to be coming back, right?
Someone’s shaking my shoulder, pulling me out of my thoughts to the sight of blue eyes looking at me with concern. Eyes that remind me I’ll never be alone in this life. I’ll always have Luke.
But we need Lana. We need her.
“Where did Lana go?” I say, a plea in my voice, sounding distressingly similar to Luke all those years ago.
In an echo of the past, sorrow floods his gaze. He flails for an answer but finds no words to comfort me.
Shots of adrenaline spike in my veins and suddenly, I can’t stay still. Pacing, I wear a hole in the floor, my body refusing to relax enough to sit down. It’s better than collapsing on the ground.
For minutes, the room is silent, except for the sound of my steps against the wood paneling. The weight of unanswered questions hangs in the air between us. Is she in danger? Was she taken or—
I come to a standstill. I know he’s thinking the same thing. “Did she leave us?”
Luke takes a deep breath and exhales, lowering himself onto the couch. His gaze locks on the coffee table and I glance over to see what’s caught his attention, my heart stopping at the sight of the paper with Lana’s sprawled handwriting on it.
A part of me hesitates. What if she realized we don’t matter to her as much as Ash? We won’t be able to handle being abandoned by the woman we love.
No. Stop it, Leo. We’re her mates. There must be a reason. She isn’t our mother.
With uncertain hands, Luke reaches for the letter and reads aloud:
“Please forgive me for the choice I have made. I know it will hurt and you may not understand why I had to do this.
I can’t let Anshar take Ash from us. I have to get him back—for us. What if we waited and it was too late by the time we got there? I would never forgive myself for not trying on my own. I have to try everything in my power to reunite my family.
I couldn’t take you with me. I can’t risk your lives. You are too precious to me. The pieces of my soul.
Seeing the way Serenity and her men ache from Reese’s death all those years ago...
I could never live with losing any of you.
Please train hard with Serenity and her men. When you are ready, they will bring you to me. I promise you.
I love you, my mates. In every life we have had together, you are mine. When we pass from this world, you will remain mine.
Until we meet again,
Lana.”
Hot, angry tears stream down my face, my gut wrenching with the all too familiar feeling of abandonment. Though her reasoning resonates with me, it doesn’t soothe the ache. She’s so strong, so powerful, and we’re unfit to be by her side.
Luke passes the letter to me as I take note of the smeared ink, dried in water marks, on the paper. Did she cry while writing this? I stare at the marks, faintly aware of Luke leaning back on the couch with a loud sigh.
“Fuck, this stings,” he says.
I keep my eyes on the twists and turns of her writing as my gut continues to churn. Placing the note back on the table, I lean back next to my brother, a whirlwind of emotion consuming me. Fisting my hands in the material of the couch, I squeeze hard, breathing through the anger that’s beginning to overpower me. Fire licks under the surface of my skin.
Rage. Unadulterated rage.
At myself, for not being strong enough to be by her side.
At Lana, for running off into an unknown realm alone, putting her life in danger.
At Gaia, for keeping something so important from us.
Breathe.
Being angry won’t fix it.
Just breathe.
What is it that Lana always says? It’s okay to feel the fire but don’t let it consume you.
Keep breathing.
I let myself feel the hurt, reminding myself that she isn’t leaving for good. She wants us to join her as soon as we have more training. It isn’t forever.
Taking one final, deep breath, I think of how strong my mate is and choose to put my faith in her plan because that’s our only option at this point. She can do this.
My fire pulls slowly back into my core and I unclench my hands from the couch. Looking over at my twin, who’s sitting with his eyes closed, unaware of how close I came to exploding, I ask, “How are we going to handle this with the other guys?”
His eyes remain closed as he sighs. “This is going to be really hard on all of us. Hale is the calm one who gets all our asses in line. He’s not going to be able to do that when he’s reeling from his own emotions.”
I let his words sink in and nod to myself. “Time to grow up and be there for our family.”
Hale
Present time
The blood in my vein’s ices over. Rage like never before courses through me.
I’ve always been the collected one who guided our family. But my family is broken now.
How could she leave us? As if we’re incapable of helping her save Ash. Like he isn’t just as important to us.
It’s always what she wants. Not what we all need.
Well, maybe we’re just not as important to her as Ash is. That would explain it.
Zedd approaches me like I’m a skittish animal as I sit, crumpling Lana’s excuses of how she just had to do this. “Hale ... Serenity is here.”
A dark, deep chuckle, that I don’t recognize, sounds from me. “I don’t give a shit.”
I uncrumple her note and run my eyes over it, like I don’t have it memorized already. I’ve been pouring over it for hours, ever since the twins woke us up to break the news.
Distantly, I hear Zedd’s sigh as he walks away.
I crumple it again. If I don’t destroy the piece of paper, I may destroy this entire fucking house. Why couldn’t she have said this to our faces? We weren’t worthy of an actual goodbye?
A leather boot appears in my line of vision and kicks me in the shin. A hiss escapes through my teeth and I glare up at the offending attacker.
Serenity. Here to give me a dose of her infinite wisdom, I’m sure.
She looks down at me, an odd mixture of disappointment and compassion in her eyes. “I bet it hurts that she left you behind like she did,” she says. With a shrug, she continues, like she has all the answers in the world, “Let that fuel you to train. Go to her as a man who can hold his own in battle.”
I’m to my feet and in her face in a breath. “Newsflash, Queen: this isn’t something you can snap your fingers at and fix with your powers. She left us. Willingly. Like we’re nothing more than her peons, like we’re incapable of supporting her.”
She rolls her eyes, breezing over my disrespectful address of her, and flicks her hair behind her shoulder. “She has enough blood on her hands from her previous life. She doesn’t want to add to it. Remember, she’s carrying a heavy weight on her shoulders. She has to be the leader of a realm that’s already descended into chaos.” Her facial expression changes to one of contemplation. “Do I think she was ready for this on her own? Likely not. But considering that you were all helpless outside the door as Anshar tossed her from corner to corner like a ragdoll, not one of you is ready yet either."
I open my mouth to protest but she cuts me off, “I’m not done, Hale.”