Chapter 126: Why are you here?!

There was nothing but pain.

When she tried to open her eyes, she felt pain. When she tried to breathe, pain followed. It felt like her lungs were being constricted by something she couldn’t control, making her feel like she was suffocating.

She’d opened her eyes to pain many times before. Tonight’s was different. The moment she tried to pry them apart, a vicious stab of pain shot through her skull, behind her eyes and down into her temples. Her vision swam beneath the thin slit of light, and she instinctively squeezed them shut again, a weak whimper escaping her throat.

Then, she tried again, and again.

After what felt like a thousand attempts, she finally managed to open both eyes.

Her breathing was shallow, her vision was swimming, and she badly wanted to close her eyes again, but she didn’t want to be pulled back into that nightmare after she’d just fought to get out of it.

She could hear a distant noise somewhere in the background, and a very dull but heavy throbbing at the back of her head.

When she tried to raise her hand, she was met with even more pain, and another whimper fell out of her lips.

"No...," The distant voice came again, this time sounding very familiar, "Don’t try to move,"

Della tried to turn her head and look at the person, but it was as if her head had been replaced by a mountain.

The person’s face finally came into view as she’d leaned closer, and Della blinked slowly, fighting back pain and trying to make out the face of who she was seeing.

Anne...lise?

"Don’t rush. Don’t move, and don’t speak, okay?" She watched her lips move, and it sounded like everything was happening in slow motion, "You are still recovering. You cannot move,"

Della wanted to ask how her baby was doing. That was the only fear she had right now while awake. She desperately wanted her lips to move and for words to come out, but she could only get one finger to twitch.

"I said, don’t move," Annelise was beginning to sound frustrated, "Rest. You and the baby need to rest,"

Della’s heart clutched. That meant her baby was still alive and well. Whatever chokehold had gripped her lungs settled, and she started to breathe a little better than before.

Every inhale still stabbed her, though.

Just then, Anne whirled her head around, and Della watched her expression change into something cold. Whatever she had seen had just messed with her mood, and Della could almost feel her head turning to the side to see what Beatrice was looking at.

She couldn’t.

She could only stay fixed, and still.

Her body wasn’t responding.

There was a different voice now coming from wherever Anne was looking at, and Della watched her straighten and bow.

An... Alpha?

Could it be Cassian? After all, he was the only one who cared enough to come and see her.

"She’s awake," Annelise was saying.

Then, she nodded tightly at something the other person had just said.

Annelise sat back down next to Della and tried to force a smile on her face when she noticed Della had not stopped staring at her all this time. The smile was warm, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

She looked pissed and was trying her best to hide it.

Just then, another figure came into view.

Della slowly moved her eyes toward the other direction to see who it was. The movement sent pain shooting through her head again, and she whimpered again.

Determined to see who it was, she slowly continued till her eyes completely fell upon the person.

Due to her now blurry vision from the pain she was feeling, she could only make out the body’s stature.

Tall.

Different.

Huge.

Commanding.

Della blinked once.

Her mind had already told her who it was from the moment she’d heard his voice in the background, but she’d immediately convinced herself that it couldn’t be him since they were not at Eclipse Crown Pack.

But...were they really not at Eclipse Crown?!

Which pack had the Market incident happened?

Her vision finally cleared a little more after a few seconds, and now she was definitely staring into the eyes of a man she hated most in this world.

Malachi stood beside the bed, utterly still, his dark eyes fixed on her. There was something different about his expression. Something she couldn’t understand through the haze clouding her mind.

He looked...angry.

No. Not angry. Something worse. Something she didn’t want to care about.

Della tried to move away from him, but her body refused.

Her fingers twitched against the sheets, her breathing speeding up despite the agony it caused her ribs.

"Easy," Annelise whispered, immediately noticing. "Della, don’t—"

She tried to move again, and this time she actually managed to shift her waist about an inch away from him, and white-hot agony ripped through her being so hard that she almost thought she was going to pass out again.

Her vision cleared just in time to see Malachi moving closer, and she instantly found some part of her voice and roared, "Don’t!" The word barely existed. It escaped her as little more than a breath.

It was supposed to come out as a roar, but well, it didn’t.

And from his reaction and the way he paused, she knew he heard it.

Della stared at him, tears beginning to gather at the corners of her eyes—not because she was afraid of him. Because she hated that she was too broken to get away from him.

"Why..." Her voice cracked horribly,

Annelise immediately leaned closer, "Don’t speak."

Della ignored her, "Why...am I here?" A tear ran down her face.

She wanted to scoot away from him even more. She wanted to ignore this overwhelming pain, get up on her feet and run out the door!

Why was she back to Eclipse Crown?!

"Moonfire,"

The world around her stopped. She could feel her blood roaring in her veins, her muscles locking and her core tightening just by the mere sound of his voice.

Why? Because some part of her — a very huge part — had actually missed it. Had actually craved to hear him say her name again day and night. Had actually wished to run back and throw herself into his arms despite knowing the kind of monster that he was.

It was a curse!

The curse of love.

One she had promised herself...to break.

And when she forced her body to move again, she simply didn’t care about the repercussions. When her lips parted, she willed them to stay like that, and she made sure every word came out as clearly as it could be.

Staring him straight in the eye, she said, "Did you come here to finish what they started?"