Days turned into weeks, that turned into years. He sat in his own lonely castle, watching the leaves change as he drank bottle after bottle of liquor until his entire cellar was empty and he was left with nothing but his thoughts.
The front door stayed unlocked, as did every other door and window on the property. Because no matter what, he didn't fully believe his love wasn't returning. He wanted to believe she'd come running through that door with cheeks tainted pink from the harsh Russian air, with those eyes of her wide as they looked at him.
Those goddamn eyes; they haunted him.
Every hour spent awake was because every time he closed his eyes, he was haunted with memories of her and those beautiful eyes. The silent house never helped much, and now that the beast inside of him was absent, he had absolutely no one.
Yet each day, he'd make the hard walk through the forest to find one specific tree. For in a little clearing, a single tree stood tall and proud, its leaves never falling to the ground, and beneath that everlasting piece of natural art was her. Buried six feet under right beside their mother.
He still remembered the day he and his brother dug the hole and placed her in it. She looked peaceful. Maksim had placed flowers in her hair and all around her body, he'd said they weren't her favorite, simple, sweet white roses that matched the paleness of her dress, but it was all he could get. He himself didn't have the courage to say anything, but simply listened with tears threatening to spill as his brother said the most magnificent words; and that still didn't do her justice.
Grey Clarke was unlike any other and goddamn did she deserve more than this.
He missed her, every second of every day. She'd given him a blessing and curse, in loving him and ridding him of the lycan curse, but now that he was human and his brother was gone too, he'd become quite acquainted with the feelings of complete and utter loneliness. Isolation was not kind to him.
Maksim left for America two months after Grey left. He'd said he couldn't stand the silence anymore and found solace in a place in the Rocky Mountains, somewhere he could embrace isolation with his wolf spirit and no one else. He didn't call, he didn't write, Alexei didn't even know if he was still alive or not but he knew deep down he couldn't die so easily - he was a true-born lycan, he was a fighter. Alexei believed though, that Maksim had harbored more feelings than a protective big brother towards Grey, and her death impacted him just as much as it did himself. He saw the way he lost the spark in his eyes after just a week, he'd lost his will to live, his light had been put out. Maksim loved Grey with every fiber of his being and losing her was like losing a part of him.
Alexei wished he'd lost only a part of him.
His heart stopped beating when Grey's did and his soul got buried with her that day.
He regretted all the times he made her cry. All the times he made her angry and all the times he told himself he hated her, that he didn't want her. He regretted not loving her and embracing her the way she deserved, because now she was cold in the ground and he was alone and cold in his own sense. He regretted everything and he wished he could go back in time to just tell her to leave Russia and never come back. He wished he could've warned her. The only thing that had given Alexei peace after her death was when he tore Petra's head from her body. But that was too short lived to mask the emptiness he felt inside.
The sound of a phone ringing somewhere in the house scared Alexei at first, it was the most noise he'd heard since Grey. It took him a minute to register what it was and practically sprinted upstairs to the room Grey stayed in, her phone buzzing atop the dresser. He didn't even look at the screen as he answered it.
"Grey?"
He knew he was stupid for believing she'd be calling her own phone - she was dead for fucks sake, but there was this tiny bit of hope inside of him that pleaded to the heavens for it to be her, alive and okay.
"Alexei."
Maksim.
He sounded good. He sounded like he hadn't spent the last few years sulking and trying to drink himself to death. He sounded happy. Alexei wanted to cry.
"Brother." He breathed. "Why'd you call her phone?"
"I knew you'd answer." Maksim's voice was smooth and calm. He sounded like he'd finally found peace. "I was worried you wouldn't though. I thought you might've. . ."
He didn't need to say it, they both knew what he meant. "I don't have the courage brother. The one time I can actually die just by even the smallest things, I lack the courage to actually do it." Alexei ran a hand down his face and sank to the floor, his head resting against the wall. As he breathed in the stale, almost gone scent of Grey that lingered in this room. He almost broke again. "How are you?"
He hesitated. "Good, brother. I'm really good."
"I'm glad."
"You should come to America. I found a pack buried in the mountains, their Alpha has become a close friend of mine, they'd greet you with open arms."
Alexei was so silent for the longest time, Maksim had thought he'd hung up. He called his name and he finally answered. "I want to, Maks, I do. I just-I can't leave her. I know she's dead and I know she's not coming back but I keep praying that she will and I cannot leave until she returns to me."
"Alexei, I found her family before I came here-"
"What?!"
"-I had to tell them. I left out the whole curse thing but I told them the human truth. They deserved that much."
Alexei could imagine them: happy and loving, everything that Grey was. "What were they like?"
"She didn't have hardly anyone. All I found was a grandmother and a cousin. Her mom died ages ago and her father was never in her life." He sighed. "They asked about her body and I told them she was with our mother. I gave them the coordinates so that if they ever felt like it, they could see her grave."
"Thank you, brother."
"I'm glad you're alive, Alexei. It'll get better." Maksim wanted to say so much more but the words just wouldn't leave his tongue. He was crying on the other side of the phone but he'd never let his brother know; little did he know though Alexei was doing he same. "Please. Come live with me. The Rockies are beautiful, you'd love it."
"That's a place for a wolf, Maks, not me."
"You can still live here-"
"I can't leave her. It hurts too much."
Maksim was biting back sobs. "I love you, brother."
"I love you too." Alexei's head was buried between his knees. "Take care of yourself."
"You too."
And that was it.
Brother to brother. That was all they had to say, because they both knew deep down they were feeling the same things yet neither wanted to acknowledge it.
And as silence engulfed the mansion once again, with it came the cold fingers of a loneliness so deep Alexei could feel it in his bones. It made them ache as it's sinister fingers coiled around him and made him feel as if he was drowning. Drowning in his own tears and misery. He hated it, hated this weakness. It was a feeling he'd come to despise with every fiber of his being; it made him feel these human feelings that'd he'd never felt before and he hated it.
Although he knew he never could, and that everything that had happened was his fault, deep down he wanted to hate Grey. He wanted to blame this all on her because if she had never come here, he wouldn't be a human. If she had never found him in the trees that day, he'd still have a brother. If she never looked at him with those goddamn eyes, he'd still have a beast. And to him, being a beast was better than being a lonely human with no family or someone to love.
But he couldn't blame Grey, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how much alcohol filled his veins. No matter how much he cursed her name and trashed her old room. No matter how much he cried. He couldn't blame her. He couldn't even blame Petra. He couldn't blame anyone but his own self, because everything that happened that day was his fault. And he could still hear Petra's voice reminding him in his head, her voice driving him to insanity.
{Y'all had me laughing and crying reading the comments on the last chapter 😂😭😭
Before y'all freak out on me I know. . . I'm going to add another chapter after this as like a Q/A if yall want so if y'all have any questions/comments over literally anything at all leave them on this little authors note and i will answer them in the next chapter.
all my love, M xx}