If I Were Allowed To Love You

Forty-Seven

Gunk fell from the empty holes of Melissa's eye sockets. Could it have been bits of her brain? Was she going to be okay? Was she going to be someone completely different? Or would she have a miraculous recovery?

Ryan had yet to hear anything from anyone. In his own room with Theo, both getting their cuts cleaned and injuries taken care of, they would result from permanent scars across their arms, legs, chests and backs from the attacks, but they would heal after some time.

Lucas held onto Theo's hand as his leg was sewn up. Ryan watched the two, wishing he could be holding onto Melissa the same way. Without any word on how she was recovering, he was afraid of the worst occurring. Though no news could have been good news, the dire consequences of bringing her in eliminated those thoughts. He could only picture her lying brain dead in the bed and having to pull the plug on her. He knew she would not want to live life that way.

Nurse Lila groaned as Ryan continued to constantly flick his eyes to the door each time someone walked past. "You need to stop moving," she demanded. "I can't focus when you do that."

Ryan glared at her. "My mate could be dead. How am I not going to be anxious?"

"Ryan, just do what she says," Theo stated.

"Easy for you to say," he snarled. "Your mate is alive right there. I may have just lost mine the moment I finally had her."

"Yeah, speaking of mates," Lucas stated as he let go of Theo's hand and walked up to him, "why didn't you tell Melissa she was your mate sooner?"

"She was engaged to you. I didn't want to take away her happiness after she finally got it."

He sighed. "I can understand that, but I don't get why you didn't tell her back when you first met her."

"I wanted her to love me for me, not because we were supposed to be together. She still had a choice to fall in love with someone else, but if she knew I would only ever love her, then there was a chance she'd be with me out of guilt. I didn't want to start out our relationship like that. I wanted her to fall in love with me before she knew who I was."

"And because she decided to be with me, you stepped back." Lucas shook his head. "You both know that you took away our chance to choose, right?"

"We loved you both. We didn't want you to feel obligated to be with us after you created a relationship strong enough to want to marry each other," Ryan explained.

"But you still made a plan to be with us anyway?" he smirked.

Ryan jerked his head over to Theo, who smiled bashfully. "He's my mate. He was insecure that I would allow anything to stand in our way and not confront him with our problems, so I told him about how we planned to have Melissa fall for you first so I could then swoop in and be with him. I just couldn't hold back on my feelings much longer, so that's why I decided to kiss him." He smiled at Lucas as he walked up to him. "It was the best thing I ever did."

Lucas pecked his lips and smiled. "I completely agree."

Rolling his eyes, Ryan pouted as Nurse Lila finished sewing his arm up. She began to tell him about the healing process and how to keep the cuts clean and disinfected. She could tell Ryan wasn't fully paying attention, his mind still on Melissa, so Theo made sure to tell him everything once he was finally paying attention.

"You two are free to wait in the waiting room. I'll make sure the doctor finds you once he has any news on your mate," Nurse Lila said as she exited the room, leaving the door open for the three.

Lucas grabbed Theo's hand as he bounced off the bed, and Ryan followed the two out to the waiting room. "Do you regret the way we got together?" Theo questioned as they sat down on a couch.