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.
"Not really," Lucas replied. "I do wish I would have known I was your mate. Then my feelings wouldn't have felt insane. I thought I was falling for someone who was never going to love me back. That's not exactly the most romantic thing in the world. I did have my fiancé after all. I thought I was becoming someone I never thought I would become."
Theo hung his head. "I know it would have been easier if I did come out and tell you, but can you forgive me for hiding it?"
"I have," Lucas assured, hanging on tight to Theo's hand. "The moment you told me why, I forgave you."
Theo leaned forward and rested his forehead against Lucas's shoulder, smiling as his mate pulled him in closer to his chest.
Ryan watched the two. He couldn't look away. That was what he was hoping to have with Melissa: her forgiveness. He knew he screwed up by not telling her the truth, both her and her ex-fiancé. And it didn't help to still keep it a secret after Theo was honest about how he and Lucas were mates. He should have done the same. Through hiding it, she felt the need to run away, resulting in her demise.
While they didn't say anything, Ryan knew Lucas and Theo partly blamed him for what happened. While it was the hunter's fault for kidnapping her and cutting her eyes out, he drove her away. It was why honesty was so important.
"She'll grow to love you," Lucas mentioned, wanting to help ease his subconscious.
Glancing up at him, Ryan said, "She told me she was already starting to fall for me. It was why she went back to her trailer in the first place. She spent the night there and was waiting for Mike to take her back to the circus. She wanted to separate herself from me so she wouldn't continue to fall for me and have a repeat of what happened..."
Lucas's arms loosened around Theo, and he hung his own head. It was still a sore subject for him. Despite receiving Melissa's blessing, he still broke her heart. He made a promise he wouldn't be able to fulfill. It didn't matter if he didn't know it at the time, he still broke his promise. Hearing Melissa be excited for him made him feel a bit better, and the fact that Theo was there to show him that it was okay to be with him instead made it a little easier. Knowing Ryan was her mate assured him that she would be taken care of, but after everything that happened, he wondered if she would accept his confession.
Ryan looked around the waiting room, hoping to see a doctor walk towards him. Instead, he spotted two officers approach him. He recognized the one as the officer who drove them all over. He quickly stood up as they stood in front of him.
"Nice to see you're dressed for this conversation," he mumbled under his breath, and Ryan glanced down at the scrubs given to him. "I'm Officer Rage, and this is Officer Grain. She was there this evening due to a fire in the forest that some hunters called about. She saw the house on fire and the massacre that happened. We were hoping to get a word from you."
"What would you like to know?"
"What was the reason of you heading over to Mr. and Mrs. Gulliver's house?"
"They kidnapped my mate, Melissa. She was alone in her old family trailer, and we made plans to talk about how we were mates. But when I showed up, there were some hunters waiting for me."
"Did you kill the hunters?"
"In self-defense, yes."
"And you invaded their house because they had your mate?"
"Yes. All we intended to do was go in, grab her, and get out. And that's what we did. All attacking was done strictly on a self-defense basis. They were shooting at us, stabbing us," he explained as he showed off the scars on his arms. "They were hoping to use her as bait to get us to come over for a rescue mission, possibly hoping to frame us for the whole ordeal. I'm not entirely sure, but they had my mate. I did the only thing I could think of to get her back without trying to kill anyone. Anyone who died did so strictly in self-defense."
"At least on our side," Theo muttered under his breath. The officers stared at him, and he ranted, "No matter what, they had what was coming. They kidnapped a mythical and cut her eyes out, because she never misses her aim. Which is stupid since she doesn't need to see in order to strike her target."
"Go try and get a word from her," Officer Grain said to her partner. Officer Rage nodded and strolled up to the front counter.
Ryan scoffed. "Good luck. We haven't heard anything from anyone about her."
"I'm sorry this happened to your mate, Alpha," Officer Grain stated, and he stared up at her, gawking. "I happen to be a mythical myself, as is my partner. I can control earth to a special degree." She laughed to herself. "You should have seen the hunters when they intended to run away. They admitted to attacking you and to cause intentional harm. I had to create a barrier to stop them from running away."
As much as Ryan wanted to laugh with her, he was unable to. "I just wish hunting would be illegal. We have as much a right to live as everyone else."
"We're working on making some laws in our town. We intend to bring it to the state court. Hopefully it can go national one day, then global. We want hunting to be illegal, too. If we could use your organization's help, it could become quite beneficial."
"Anything," he promised.
"Melissa Duff?" Ryan, Theo, and Lucas all turned around, finally spotting the doctor approaching them.
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