Chapter 65

Aria’s POV

The next few days felt like a blur, my hurt persisting even with the passing days. Though, I did my best to continue on as I always had.

One morning I found myself standing in the kitchen chatting with Cathy, when I noticed a calendar beside the phone.

“That can’t be the date,” I said.

“Huh?” Cathy asked, seemingly confused by the sudden change of subject.

“Is this calendar right?” I asked, walking closer to it.

“Yeah…? What’s wrong?”

I didn’t need more reason to hurt, yet here I was faced with fresh pain all over again.

“It’s the anniversary of Lucian and my first meeting,” I said.

“You’re serious?” Cathy asked, walking closer.

Lucian wouldn’t remember, but it was a day I would never forget. For me, it was the day my entire life changed.

I had been a young Healer then, still in medical school, working closely with Silas on the medicine that would extend werewolf life. I’d tried to keep under wraps the nature of my experiments, but someone in the lab must have leaked what I was working on.

Before long, I’d began to be harassed at every corner. Greedy noble werewolves started by simply trying to buy me out, but when I’d refused, saying that my medicines were meant for everyone regardless of their wealth or station, things had turned nasty.

I was being followed, I could tell even if I didn’t always see the culprit following me. I could feel their eyes on me always.

My secret identity was my only saving grace, and the only reason that when the rogues hired by the nobles did finally attack, they hurt the wrong person. Not just hurt – killed.

Silas sat me down when he told me. I’d been so stricken with grief and regret that I’d started to cry. My secret identity had saved my life but it had also lead to someone’s death.

“I just wanted to heal the world,” I told Silas. Pressing my hands to my eyes, I tried to conceal my tears. Silas had seen straight through them, though.

“It’s alright,” he said.

“It isn’t! I never should have made this medicine! I should have just left well enough alone!”

Silas tried to comfort me but he didn’t have any answers that could console me enough not to hate myself for what I’d done. Maybe I didn’t kill that person, but they had still died in my name.

I would never be able to truly forgive myself for that.

Despite my best efforts to keep my identity concealed, in time, the rogues’ efforts paid off. They’d tracked me down to a parking garage. I was not in disguise as Dr. A. As Aria, I had foolishly thought that I might have been safe.

Instead, as I walked to my car, I felt a familiar prickle on the back of my neck.

“Behind you!” Luna warned just in time. I swung around as a pair of strange men approached. I hadn’t seen them before. They were tall and broad, wearing dark clothing. One slid on a pair of brass knuckles.

“Dr. A,” brass knuckles said. “You’ve given us the runaround long enough.”

“Our employers what the formula to your medicines,” said the other. “If you pass it over peacefully, we won’t have to make things ugly.”

Searching for courage, I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s Dr. A?”

“The girl wants to play dumb,” said one of the rogues to the other. “Mess her up some, and she’ll get the message.”

“No!” I shouted, turned, and ran.

They were bigger and stronger than me, but I hoped I could make up for that with speed.

Yet as my footfalls pounded on the concrete, I could hear them gaining speed behind me. I rushed toward the stairwell, hoping for escape.

At that exact moment, Lucian opened the door. I plowed straight into him. It was like running straight into a brick wall. He’d barely moved, but I bounced back and nearly fell. I would have, had he not caught me around the waist.

“Thanks for stopping her,” said one of the goons. “Hand her over and we’ll be on our way.”

I’d been so afraid that my body trembled like a leaf in a storm. Looking down at me, Lucian must have thought I was a pitiful sight.

“Do you want to go with them?” he asked me.

“N-no…” I replied.

Lucian looked at the goons. “Well. There’s her answer.”

“The girl doesn’t know what’s good for her,” one of the goons countered. He was coming closer, his voice growing louder. I shrunk into myself, while inching closer to Lucian.

“Stay back,” Lucian said. “I will not warn you again.”

The goon didn’t care. He touched my arm.

After that, everything happened very quickly, and I covered my eyes.

Two things I knew: Lucian broke that goon’s nose, and within 30 seconds both goons were on the ground incapacitated.

“You alright?” Lucian asked me. He was barely winded.

“I think so,” I said, amazed. It was only then that I recognized him as the Alpha King.

I must have stared, because he replied, “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”

“Alpha King Lucian…”

“Yes?”

His presence created an ideal opportunity for me. Someone as wise and good as the Alpha King would have the answers to the questions running on repeat through my mind.

“You give so much to the pack, and if you had more time, you could give any more,” I said. “If there was a medicine that you could take that would extend your life, would you take it?”

Lucian looked at me curiously for a moment, perhaps wondering why I would ask him such a thing. He didn’t seem to recognize me as Dr. A. But he soon turned serious as he said, “No, I wouldn’t take it.”

“You wouldn’t?”

What he said next made me fall in love with him.

Usually, on this day every year, I would reread the account of the event that I had written in my diary.

The diary, I was now realizing, that I had left in Lucian’s house…

Oh no. He wouldn’t read it, would he? Most likely he would just throw it away. Or have it all boxed up and put in storage somewhere until and unless I came looking for it.

The very last page of that diary hid my deepest secret.

How careless of me to have left it behind! Though, admittedly, I’d had so much on my mind leaving Lucian, setting up as Dr. A, being pregnant. It was difficult to remember to eat breakfast sometimes, let alone anything else.

But it was such an important thing, documenting all of the most important moments of my life.

I couldn’t just leave it behind, even if Lucian wasn’t likely to read it. A treasure like that shouldn’t sit locked away in a storage room.

I needed it back. I wanted to read the words that were written on the pages, to relive my emotions from all those years ago.

Someday, maybe someday soon, I would have to go back for it. To myself, I made a vow not to leave it behind again.