Maybe getting that this side note isn’t bringing me any kind of solace, Alisha takes another deep breath and says, “I’m sorry, Tee. I hoped my coming here would provide us with some clue that FJ and Olafr made it. But nothing I’ve found leads me to believe they survived the final battle with the dragons. In fact, everything I’ve found points to them not having made it out alive.”
I try to keep the force field going. I keep shaking my head. I open my mouth to tell Alisha why none of what she’s saying means they’re gone. Why they can’t be gone.
But I can’t speak, because someone is already using my mouth and she’s screaming the word “No!” over and over again.
And on the other end of the phone, Alisha starts crying. “Tee, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
48
“Tiara, stop this nonsense. You’ve got to eat!”
Evelyn’s in my room again, insisting I eat the dirt she’s trying to get into my mouth. The fork she’s holding smells like lamb. But it might as well be dirt, as appetizing as it is to me right now.
I turn my face away, just like I have with all the other dirt: pork chops, hamburgers, fish, even beef jerky, which I used to love. It doesn’t matter because I can’t stomach the thought of eating any of it.#p#分页标题#e#
I just want FJ and Olafr. I don’t need food. I don’t need air. Only them.
But they’re not here.
“Well at least eat some of this soup.”
I shake my head. Then slap the bowl out of her hand when she keeps insisting.
Evelyn curses. She goes and I hear her talking to someone outside the door. About how I’m not eating. About how I can’t go on like this...
Minutes, possibly hours later—I lost the ability to keep track of time shortly after my phone call with Alisha—Evelyn returns with another bowl of soup.
And Yancey.
In seemingly perfect agreement, Yancey holds me down by the shoulders while Aunt Evelyn sits on top of my chest and pours soup through a funnel into my mouth.
It works, but it’s messy. And ugly.
By the time they’re done, Evelyn, who I’ve never seen so much as sniffle, has tears rolling down her cheeks. And Yancey’s in super grim mode.
“We can’t do that every time,” he says to my aunt as he lets go of me.
The pack doctor, who I haven’t seen in any official capacity since he tended to my branding wound on my seventeenth birthday, comes soon after. A needle gets pushed into my arm and blood is drawn. Then my night shirt lifts, followed by the smear of cold goop on my belly and the rub of a transducer.
“Can I talk to you outside?” the doctor asks Evelyn who’s hovering on the other side of the bed. “You might want to call her father up, too...”
They leave.
But only for a little while. Eventually they come back. This time with Dad and Yancey.
“I sometimes see this in she-wolves who have lost their mates to a violent death,” the doctor says to the wolves gathered around my bed, while shining a small pin light in my eyes. “But I’ve never seen a case this severe just for a trip, especially this early on in the relationship. Where did you say the new pack alpha was again?”
“Norway,” Dad answers. “Family business.”
Much like a company whose stock prices depend on public perception, it is never a good idea to announce that your pack’s new alpha is in any way incapacitated. So I guess this is the official family lie until next month, when Dad makes the announcement that FJ won’t be coming back any time soon, and that Clyde will be taking over in his absence.
“Can he come back?” the doctor asks. “I can put her on an IV drip, but obviously that’s not the best solution. And given the delicate nature of her pregnancy, I’d rather have her on a healthy diet that includes solids.”
The “delicate nature of her pregnancy” brings my head up. In my wild grief, I’d very nearly forgotten I was pregnant, that the baby inside me hadn’t up and disappeared along with my mates.
My sudden movement makes everyone gathered around the bed jump as if they’ve just seen a corpse reanimate. Which I guess they kind of have.
“Hello, Tiara—” the doctor starts to say.
“Queen Tiara,” Evelyn reminds him with a stern press of her lips. Never mind how even more ridiculous my name sounds with a royal title attached to it, she never lets anyone outside our family circle call us by our first names.
“Yes, of course. Queen Tiara. I apologize,” the doctor says with a bow of his head.
“You can call me Tee,” I answer. Then before Evelyn can open her mouth again, I ask, “What’s going on with my baby?”