My fingers tighten around the phone 147

Ethan’s POV
My fingers drummed restlessly against the armrest of this wretched hospital chair. The rhythmic beeping of Aria’s heart monitor provided the room’s only comfort, each pulse confirming she was still fighting. I shifted my weight, trying to find
any position that didn’t make my back scream in protest, but this thing clearly wasn’t designed for someone my size.
Sleep remained elusive, my mind a carousel of dark thoughts spinning endlessly. The interrogation files on Bella lay
scattered beside me, pages dog-eared from countless readings. Bella maintained she’d only intended to make Aria sick,
not deliver what amounted to a lethal dose, but forensics told a different story. Now she sat in custody, stripped of pack
privileges. Emma remained in the wind, though the blood trail from Aria’s apartment suggested she hadn’t escaped
unscathed.
I abandoned the chair with a frustrated growl, accepting tonight would join the growing collection of sleepless nights. A week without proper rest – what difference would one more make? My gaze drifted to Aria’s still form. The nurses had
positioned her on her side, something about preventing pressure wounds. I knelt beside the bed, carefully brushing a
strand of hair from her face. Zoe had visited yesterday to braid her hair. I watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, my
throat constricting painfully. Even unconscious, worry lines creased her forehead and the corners of her mouth, as if her
dreams offered no escape from pain.
After several steadying breaths, I found my voice, though it emerged rough and threadbare. “I know you can hear me
somewhere in there, sweetheart. You’ve got the entire pack holding their breath.” I traced the furrow between her brows with my thumb. “You shouldn’t be frowning like this. Makes me think you’re trapped in nightmares.”
Silence answered me, as it had every night this week. This had become our routine – Lucas would eventually surrender to
exhaustion on the chair, and I’d take my place beside Aria, talking to her as if she could hear every word. Some nights
found me pleading. One particularly dark evening, rage had consumed me until I’d started shouting, only stopping when
Lucas’s terrified sobbing penetrated my haze, his small body physically pushing me away from his mother’s bed. I was
unraveling, dangling over an abyss of desperation with nothing solid to grasp.
I cradled her face between my palms, my thumbs ghosting over her cheekbones as unwelcome moisture gathered in my
eyes. Alpha wolves weren’t supposed to break, weren’t permitted weakness, but alone in this sterile room with only the
machines for witnesses, I surrendered to the crushing weight.
“You know we were supposed to have dinner last week,” I whispered, voice cracking. “We were going to sort everything
out, start fresh. I’d planned to tell you everything.” My fingers trembled against her skin. “I’m guessing those twins were
your big revelation? Well, surprise successfully delivered.” I attempted a laugh that emerged as something closer to a
sob. “I had this whole speech prepared about wanting you in my life permanently. Guess it’ll have to wait.”
Tears I couldn’t contain splashed onto the white hospital sheets as my shoulders shook. “I’ve never begged for anything
in my life, Aria, but I’m begging now. I can’t do this alone. I need you.”
My fingertips traced the delicate line of her jaw. “Lucas is missing his camp because he refuses to leave you. This brilliant,
stubborn boy keeps lecturing the doctors on proper treatment protocols. Did you know he’s memorized the complete Wolf Medical Guide? He’s extraordinary, Aria. So much like you.” I swallowed hard, pressing my forehead against our
joined hands.
A deep breath shuddered through me. “He’s already planning how to protect his sisters when they arrive. Aria. Our twins.”
The words caught in my throat. “I know I proposed before out of obligation to the promise made to your mother, but
everything’s different now. I want it all – you, Lucas, our daughters. I want us to build the family neither of us had growing
up. But none of that happens if you don’t wake up.”
Desperation crept into my voice, raw and ragged. “I’m running out of strength here, Aria. Please, just open your eyes.”
“You,” came a whisper so faint I nearly missed it. Something feather-light brushed the back of my head. I froze
completely, afraid to move, to breathe, to shatter what might be hallucination born of exhaustion and desperation.
“Always been you.”
When her palm pressed weakly against mine, that small pressure anchoring her touch in reality, my entire body trembled.
“Me?” I managed, the word barely audible.
A soft hum vibrated against my palm as she turned her face into my hand, her lips brushing my skin. Her voice sounded
parched but determined. “The resort… six years ago.”
Ice flooded my veins as I pulled back just enough to see her face. Her eyes remained closed, but her expression had
softened from pained to peaceful. Was I hallucinating? No – her fingers had definitely intertwined with mine. I swallowed
thickly. “Emma told you this?”
The corner of her mouth twitched upward in a ghost of a smile, followed by a sound too weary to be a laugh but too
knowing to be anything else. Relief that she was conscious overwhelmed any shame I might have felt. Aria was awake.
She was back. I stroked her cheek with trembling fingers, rewarded by a soft sound of contentment that sent heat
rushing through me. “Yes, but I already knew deep down.”
1/2
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“You knew?” I whispered, stunned. “How long? Why didn’t you say something?”
Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing those amber-flecked eyes I’d dreamed about, filled with something impossibly like
tenderness. “I was there that night, but my memories were… taken from me.”
My brow furrowed in confusion as I tried to process her cryptic words. She watched my struggle with the faintest hint of
amusement playing at the corners of her lips. She weakly lifted her hand to press against the crease between my
eyebrows. My heart swelled painfully at being included in that intimate circle. She let her hand fall back to mine, murmuring, “We were blind not to see what was right in front of us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my voice hardly more than a breath.
“Lucas,” she whispered, her words growing fainter. “You look alike…”
Before she could finish, her eyelids began to flutter alarmingly. “Aria? Stay with me, sweetheart.” I gently patted her
cheek, fumbling for the nurse call button. I could see her slipping away, her body suddenly going rigid. The heart monitor
erupted in frantic, high-pitched warnings as the steady green line flattened horrifyingly on the screen.
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