Ava
I couldn’t stop wondering if I had made the right choice by letting the werewolf girl continue the treatment on Ethan. I needed someone to tell me that I had made the right choice.
I had found it hard to believe when Rudolph had sat me down and told me what he had learned from the werewolves. It had been a hard pill to swallow but yet it had been easy to accept when I thought of all the strange attitude that Ethan had exhibited. It wasn’t likely that everything was because of the fall as we had excused him when he started acting differently. He wasn’t the first to fall so why would he be different?
I should have suspected that something was wrong with him when he had gone out of the city to raid the house of the werewolves he never knew. It was my fault that I didn’t caution him harder when he had started throwing his people into the dungeon for reasons that were irritable to the ears. His reasons were all excuses and he was only acting out as a bully towards his people.
I should have shouted louder at him and reminded him that he was going overboard. I shouldn’t have waited till I got slapped and embarrassed on our wedding day to realize that something was wrong with my man, much more than I had thought.
I had asked Rudolph if he knew what was going on and it was then that he had told me of what the werewolves had told him and also what they had said could cure him.
Of course, he needed my permission before he could tell the werewolves to go ahead with what they wanted to do.
I looked at the sleeping form of Ethan and my heart softened. I smiled at him and patted his hair, moving my hands gently through his hair. I loved him. I loved him so much it hurt and it broke my heart to see him like this.
I had loved him ever since we were teens but I couldn’t say anything about it but keep on being his good friends. He was the prince of the race after all and it was bad enough that females were throwing themselves at him, always batting their eyes at him and offering themselves cheaply to him.
I couldn’t lower myself to the rank of those idiots and embarrass myself before him. It would kill me to lose his friendship and have him think that I was a gold digger interested in him because of his position and money.
My pride wouldn’t allow that. I kept my feelings to myself and didn’t utter a word about it. It hurt me of course when I saw him having flings with the girls who threw themselves at him. I kept myself awake at night thinking of how it would be to kiss his lips and scream his name all night. I would blush alone in my room, my head filled with fantasies of being with Ethan and grateful that I was alone at those moments.
He was never serious in any of his relationships and that made it harder on me. I thought maybe I would finally learn to let go of him if he was in a relationship no matter how hard it was for me to see me with another lady.
It had been an epic night that I was never going to forget when he had confessed his feelings to me and asked me to be his mate. I had almost flown to the moon that night. He hadn’t asked me to date him and see where our feelings lead us, he had asked me straight out with love and conviction shining out of his eyes.
I sighed as I got back to the present. He shouldn’t have fallen down that hill. No, he shouldn’t have gone out at all. He would have survived if he hadn’t gone hunting to feed that day. All this wouldn’t have happened and we wouldn’t be in the place.
I felt moisture running down my cheeks and swiped them off with my hands. I had no idea that I had been crying. I missed Ethan even though he was right there with him. He had been doing nothing much but sleeping these days except when he ate to keep him from acting out under the influence of the dark wizard.
I couldn’t wait for my man to be free. I missed the man who had stared at me the night he had confessed to me and not the man who had looked at me on our wedding day. I still shuddered anytime I thought of the look he had given him that day as he slapped me.
It was the memory of that which made me tell Mia to continue her treatment with the sap that they said could weaken the dark wizard possessing my man. I wanted Ethan back. I wanted my love back. He wouldn’t have looked at me like he was disgusted at the sight of me.
I had felt awful for days, replaying that scene of our wedding day in my head until Rudolph had told me that he hadn’t been the one. Ethan’s continuous broken apology made me believe that Rudolph had been right.
I sighed and decided to sleep before it was dawn and I had to start tending to him with Mia. I laid down beside him to sleep, wrapping my hands around him and jerked upright when he suddenly screamed, twisting in his sleep.
My heart raced with panic and my eyes widened as I pulled at his shirt and screamed his name, my scream mixing with his.
“I’m here, Ethan.”
I breathed in relief when he finally opened his eyes. He exhaled when he saw me, his eyes clouding with relief as he sat up in bed and pulled me into his embrace.
“Ava!” He breathed. “Thank goodness you are here.”
“Where else would I be?” I said, holding him closer. “I’m right here so you can relax. It was just a nightmare.”
He shuddered. “It was a horrible nightmare.”
“You are awake now.” I rubbed at his back.
“You don’t want to know what happened to me. I dreamed of fire burning me and licking my skin. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Then, there were vultures eating my skin. The body wasn’t mine but it felt like it was. I was screaming in pain and yet, I could hear another voice screaming with me. I didn’t know how I was screaming out loud until I woke up, saw you and realized that I had been screaming out loud.”
I sighed. “Tell me about it.” I shuddered as he told me of the nightmare.
I petted him back to sleep and wondered if that was his dream or that of the dark wizard. Could it be possible that the dark wizard was getting scared, knew that he was dying and was projecting his fears into Ethan’s brain? The description of where Ethan said he was in the dream didn’t sound familiar at all. It sounded more like places that would be familiar to the dark wizard. I couldn’t wait for him to totally get weakened and leave. That would be great.
I thought that he was done with the nightmares but couldn’t have been more wrong. His nightmares were scarier and vividly brutal by the minute that I was afraid he was going to die in one.
He kept on having his sleep disturbed by nightmares that I couldn’t sleep as well so I could be there and awake when he needed comfort.
I was so relieved to see Rudolph show up in his room to check up on him that I ran to him and cried in his arms. He hadn’t been expecting the embrace and tears. He was stunned but after getting over his initial shock, he wrapped his hands around me and soothed me. I had been stressed out and scared watching over Ethan that I was glad to see another familiar face asides Mia coming in on her routine deliveries of the sap tea.
I missed the days when we were young, when me, Ethan and Rudolph were friends and knew nothing of the troubles we faced now.
“What is wrong, Ava?” He asked. “Is he getting sick again?” He peered at Ethan who was sleeping peacefully on his bed now.
“I’m scared.” I confessed, looking into his eyes as I shuddered with fear.
I sighed. I was truly afraid I might lose Ethan.