Read Alpha’s Unhinged Mate by Jessica Hall Chapter 44
Lily POV
I was in my bubble of nothing, just floating. Floating around in the darkness of my mind. No feeling, just darkness and silence. I felt at peace and I was forgetting why I was here. Forgetting if I came here voluntarily or if I was placed here. Yet I felt nothing, so I didn’t care. I wasn’t awake or asleep, just floating, and weightless.
I could hear a buzzing, the buzzing getting closer before I realised it was a voice I could hear. There was something about the voice. I knew it somehow, but I couldn’t figure out why it felt familiar. The voice got louder and louder as they got closer.
“Lily, Lily, d**n it, where are you? Need a torch in here” I listen, trying to remember who it is, only coming up blank until I feel it rush past me.
“Man, time really stands still in here” The voice says and I feel myself questioning them.
“Who are you and how did you get here?”
“It’s me Layla, you don’t remember me?” She asks. The name is important to me. I know that much.
“You know who I am, how can you forget, I am the best part of you. And you me” She says and something in her words makes memories flash back to me. Memories of the day my father died, memories of Kade ripping my father’s heart out of his chest. The look on his face as he looked at me. Memories I was here to forget.
“Why are you here?” I ask her annoyed realising I left her and I feel the pain, the crippling pain of grief starting to s*****w me.
“I missed you” She said, and I felt her presence around me. Comforting and I could almost feel her the closer she got, feel the teether that links us and all its frayed pieces barely holding us together and also dragging us apart. We sit in the darkness, not saying anything. After a few minutes, I hear her voice echoing loudly beside me into the abyss.
“Well this is fun, do you come here often?” She says and I chuckle.
“Don’t suppose you brought a torch, it’s dark down here” Layla whines.
“Go back Layla, you can’t be here” I tell her.
“No, if your quitting I quit too”
“No, go back. You said you would take over”
“Yeah, tried that, I s**k at being you. And there is something wrong with that skin of yours, it made me so itchy. You really need to rub some lotion on it, something is not right with it” She says.
“You promised, I tell her”
“No, I didn’t. I said I would take over, I never said how long for”
“How long has it been?”
“I don’t know, took me a while to find you or maybe it was second I have no idea, time is weird back here,”
“Can you go back please Layla? I want to be alone”
“Maybe that is the problem Lily, we are always alone. I’m alone, you’re alone, maybe if we were together, we wouldn’t feel so alone,” She rambles.
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t want to remember, you being here brings it back, now go”
“I will if you come back” She says tugging on our already broken link.
“It’s not broken Lily, don’t think that”
“We are broken Layla, why am I the only one of us that realises that”
“Because you’re the only one that thinks it, we are perfectly imperfect. Maybe we aren’t broken, maybe the pieces are just lost, we just need to put the pieces back together” I say nothing, just letting her ramble like she does. I don’t know how long we sat there in the darkness when her questions made me tune back in.
“If you could have one thing, what would it be?”
“You know the answer already, Layla”
“Well, I can’t bring Dad back so choose another” She says.
“I don’t know then”
“You want to know what I want?” She asks.
“What do you want, Layla?” I ask, bored with this questioning.
“I want you to accept yourself and forgive yourself”
“Forgive myself?” I say rolling my eyes. “I have done nothing, to need to forgive myself”
“Yes, you have. You gave up, gave up on us. We were never broken Lily, we were never whole to break. How can you expect anyone else to accept us when you don’t. I have always accepted you. I never wanted to be by anyone’s side more than I have wanted to be by yours” She tells me.
“Not even Damien’s?” I ask.
“I would love to do a lot of things to Damien, but If I had to choose, I would choose you. So can you forgive yourself or at least try. We don’t have to do this alone, not anymore. I won’t ever leave you Lily, you are mine”
“As you are mine, Layla”
“So you will do it?”
“Do what?”
“Come back and accept us as perfectly imperfect” She says and I chuckle.
“Yes, Layla. I will try but I don’t want to go back”
“Well, maybe we stay for a bit, probably best that way, your sister scares me”
“Aria? Why, what did she do?”
“Oh nothing, just”
“Layla, what did you do?”
“I will tell you only, if you promise not to get angry”
“Layla?” I growl.
“Okay, okay, I may have tried to attack her, but she was so much quicker. That sister of yours is a real badass, Reid has trained her well. Luckily Ryker got in the way because she probably would have given me a beat down, then Damien drugged me and then I came here and yeah all caught up. So yeah, she is pretty mad at you for nearly hurting Ryker so I thought it best to come get you so you can deal with her and I don’t try to eat her” Layla blurted like word vomit.
“You did what?”
“You said you wouldn’t get mad, I didn’t even leave a scratch on her, I am sure. Pretty sure we got gravel rash in places we shouldn’t have gravel rash but we will be fine, might have scratched that itchy a*s skin of yours glad to be rid of that. Think you need a flea bath”
“I don’t have fleas and will you slow down, you aren’t making sense. Why would you attack my sister?”
“Because I made a list, like you do of what I need to do, to bring you back”
“And attacking my sister was on that list?”
“No, but she was like an added extra. You were upset because she didn’t tell you about Kade, so I wanted to get revenge for you”
“Layla, no she is my sister and what about Ryker?”
“He is fine, said I can’t eat his mother, complained about my well your boob in his ear. I like that kid. Gave me quite the fright when I ran into him, but he is good, everyone is good”
“You didn’t think to tell me this when you first came here?”
“No, kind of slipped my mind, like I slipped yours. But if you come back, we can fix everything. Fix us”
“Maybe, but I don’t even know how to get back”
“hmm, this place needs some neon signs and map”
“Be serious, Layla. How do we go back?”
“I don’t know, I can’t even see you. Just feel you’re near”
“Well, maybe we try to find each other, then we can find the way back together” I tell her, trying to feel anything in oblivion surrounding us. I couldn’t even feel my own limbs, yet I could feel her presence as I struggled to reach out to her, to find her in the darkness. Both of us are pulling on the weak teether that holds us together. Stretching and moving further into the darkness until I felt it. Like a rubber band being stretched before it flings back together.
Smacking into each other with so much force we burst from the darkness and I felt her fur brush against my hand as we both looked out the eyes of our human vessel. I move closer, debating whether I should take the reins back.
“You can do this Lily, I am here with you” Layla says, her fur brushing against me in encouragement.
“I don’t want to feel the pain”
“Then don’t, focus on something else, focus on our mate” She says, nudging me forward.
I go to run back when Layla gets in my way, blocking my way back to the void of darkness.
“I can’t Layla”
“You can, I am right here. Right here, Lily. Where I have always been,” She says her Sapphire and amber eyes burning into me. “We are one. I won’t let you fall, not again. You can trust me”
That’s when I felt it, the overwhelming feeling of every emotion I ever felt rush into me, but that wasn’t all I felt as I felt hers rushing over me to making me gasp and I realised she was giving it to me, showing me she would always be there, that she has always been there. Watching from the shadows, but she was there watching and feeling everything with me. So I let go, let go of everything and I felt stronger and more in tune to her.
Layla always thought we needed a mate to fix us, and I always thought I needed a different wolf, but what we really needed was each other. To let the walls we built up between us come crashing down. Brick by brick they fell, and I snapped back to reality, snapping out of my head and into the present.
Opening my eyes, I felt heavy, like I haven’t moved in weeks. I try to sit up, but even that is a task in itself, as I prop myself up on the headboard. Looking around the room, I try to figure out where I am. I don’t recognise this room. The walls padded with white padding;
I try to reach up and rub my eyes only to find cuffs holding my wrists to the bed, my ankles also shackled to the bed. I yank them, trying to free myself, when that doesn’t work. I feel Layla press against my skin.
“Layla, can we shift?” I ask and I feel her force the shift, I scream from the snapping of bones and I can tell wherever we are, we have been here awhile, because shifting isn’t usually this painful. I feel the cuffs slide off our paws and the hospital gown is shredded on the bed. Jumping off the bed we land on our paws on the floor, which is also padded.
Shifting back, I am left in a coat of sweat as pain wracked every muscle and bone in my body. There are no windows to let us know if it is day or night, turning I see a door. When it hits me, the room upstairs. I recognise the steel door. The prison Damien made for us. The one I thought I would never see the inside of.
“What did you do, Layla, that we would get locked in here?”
“I do not know, I just remember being stabbed by a needle then I went looking for you” Walking to the door, I pressed my hand against the cold steel before knocking on it. I hear no movement outside the door, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the place was sound proof.
“The mind link Lily,”
I nod in agreement with Layla before feeling for the bond.
“Damien?” I ask, and I feel his shock through the bond.
“Lily?”
“Can you let me out?”
“I can’t do that Lily”
“What, why? It is me Damien”
“I’m sorry Lily, it’s not safe”
“What do you mean it’s not safe”
“You’re not safe Lily, I won’t allow you to hurt anyone else”
“What are you talking about, let me out, this isn’t funny Damien?”
“I will come see you when I get home” He says before cutting the mind link.
“I don’t understand Layla, why won’t he let us out?”
“I..I don’t know, I swear I didn’t do anything else. I can only remember what I told you” Layla says and I can feel her disappointment and sadness rush over me. Sitting on the ground, I hug my knees to my chest, suddenly feeling cold.
“I just want it to stop, I want it to stop. I don’t understand, I came back. I came back. Why doesn’t he want us now? Is it because of the baby?” I ask, scared that Damien tossed us aside for Tabitha.
“S**t, I forgot to tell you, that place really messes with your mind. It isn’t Damien’s; she had her blood tested at the human facility and the results were wrong. Damien isn’t the father, Tatum is,” Layla says, making my head snap up.
“What?”
“He isn’t the father Lily, the results were wrong” I feel relieved at her words but that doesn’t explain why he has us locked away. Why he doesn’t want us anymore”
