Chapter 95: Chapter 95

Charlotte quickly prepared the food and called Azraiel. He came within minutes and took her to Kira's house. They rode in silence but her mind kept asking questions and she literally had to bite her tongue so that she wouldn't say something that'd upset him.

When they reached her house, Theo was sitting on the sofa seeming to be lost in thought and since there was no one else there, she assumed Matt and Ayleen were with Kira.

Theo glanced up when he heard them come in.

"Hey! Thanks for bringing food!" He smiled sadly at her.

"I'm happy to help." She said and carried the containers to the kitchen while Azraiel said, "I'll check on her and come back."

Charlotte nodded and started emptying the containers. Theo joined her in the kitchen and started helping her silently.

She felt anxious in the kitchen, as if she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be. As if she is intruding into something that she isn't supposed to know.

Nevertheless, keeping her mate in mind, she served food for everyone. She could feel that everyone was upset and shaken up and rightfully so, but somehow it felt like they weren't surprised.

"Is she okay?" She asked Azraiel in a low voice as he joined them in the kitchen.

"She is." He sighed. "Dr. Humphrey has her on medication. She won't wake up for a few more hours." Charlotte nodded.

"Will Ayleen and Matt eat upstairs?" She asked.

"Yeah." Azraiel nodded. "I'll go give them these." He said while picking up two plates and Charlotte stopped him to pile more food on those two.

Theo and Charlotte carried the rest of the food to the dining table.

"You have questions, don't you?" Her hands stop mid air as she hears him.

"Yeah." She keeps her face neutral.

"Let's have a walk after dinner?"

Charlotte smiles and says "sure". She has a feeling that Theo needs this walk more than her. He seems like he needs to talk to someone and judging from the silence in the house, everyone else is lost in their own thoughts.

Azraiel comes back soon and they eat in silence, the sound of cutlery clinking against the plate being the only sound that could be heard. It is awkward as hell and Charlotte feels like she is the only one who is not at ease here.

"Do you mind if Charlotte and I take a walk outside after dinner?" Theo breaks the silence.

"Of course not." Azraiel speaks without missing a beat.

"I'll stay here today." Azraiel turns toward Charlotte. "Is that okay?"

Charlotte smiles at him. "Of course it is." She understands him. If it were her childhood friend instead of Kira, she wouldn't want to leave too.

The rest of the dinner goes by in silence. Theo and Azraiel help her in washing the dishes and cleaning the table. While she is putting the dishes away, she hears the two men talking at the dining table.

"I can barely feel her wolf anymore, Azraiel." Theo says, sounding as if he is in physical pain while uttering those words.

"I know." She hears the distress in her mate's voice. "I haven't felt her for a while now. I knew she was struggling when I talked to her on Kain's death anniversary but I had no idea that the situation was this bad."

"Yeah..I -I don't think she meant to harm herself to this extent though."

"Neither do I." We know how Kira feels about this, but I do think she has been harming herself just enough to heal. Her room stinks heavily of blood and we all know it couldn't be just from today." Charlotte hears Azraiel say and feels like she shouldn't be listening into this conversation but then, they could've easily mindlinked if they didn't want her to hear that.

"I'm going to tell Charlotte about this, or you can if you want to." She hears Theo speak.

"No, it'd be better if you narrate that story. I- I don't want to think about him and get angry!" She hears her mate and feels like he is already angry.

"Okay.. but we both know we are all angry at him anyways." It becomes silent after that and Charlotte finishes her walk and walks out.

"Come on, let's take a walk." Theo says to Charlotte and she looks at Azraiel.

Azraiel nods at her. "I'll be upstairs."

Charlotte nods and follows Theo out.

They walk in silence for a few seconds, the light breeze a warm welcome after the caginess she felt in the house.

"How are you doing?" Charlotte asks Theo as they continue to walk.

"Like I could have done something…I should have definitely done something." He sounds pained.

"Don't blame yourself, Theo. You couldn't have known. Hell, I met her in the afternoon when she came to train me, she seemed happy. You couldn't have seen this coming." Charlotte tries to say the right words and yet she knows they are falling on dead ears.

"She has been through a lot, Charlotte." Theo says, gulping hard.

"What happened?" She finally asks, unable to suppress the curiosity.

"It's messed up. A lot of things have happened. The pain of everything has made her stronger and weaker at the same time."

They have walked till the park and Theo gestures for her to sit down on the bench.

"It all started eleven years ago." Theo begins. She could literally see the pain in his eyes as he recalled whatever that happened.

She almost says that he doesn't have to tell her if he doesn't want to but realises that he probably wants to talk about this to someone.

"Kira had an elder brother, Kain." Charlotte doesn't blinks for a second as he starts speaking.

"We all grew up together. Azraiel, Matt, Kain, Kira and I. We were around the same age with Kain being the eldest amongst us. He sort of was a babysitter for every one of us." Theo chuckles.

"When we were young and our parents were alive, we played together everyday. Hell, we were together for almost all the day. Kain was a great strategist. Since their father was the head warrior, everyone assumed that he would be too. But Kain didn't want to be the head warrior. He wanted to study medicine while Kira wanted to become the Head Warrior. She started training for the same at an early age while Kain studied medicine, to become a doctor."

"It was all well until the attack." Theo's voice grew hard.

"Eleven years ago, rogues attacked our pack. They were too many in number and at that time a lot of our warriors went to Azraiel's aunt's pack for training. We were outnumbered and surprised. Th-that day changed everything and everyone in our pack."

Charlotte let the pause linger.

"We lost a lot of our men that day. The rogues attacked from the eastern border and the first one to lose lives were the people in the medical wing. Kain died while protecting other patients that day." Theo's voice had the pain of losing a dear one and Charlotte certainly knew how that felt.

"Azraiel lost his father day, Matt lost both his parents and I lost my father too, and while Kira's parents were alive, her father lost his leg." Charlotte couldn't even imagine what these people must have gone through. The pain of losing so many dear ones in just a day. It could tear anyone apart.

"After that attack, Azraiel became the Alpha, Matt the Beta, I the Gamma and Kira the Head warrior. We all threw ourselves in our new responsibilities to forget the pain lingering in our chests. Kira's father had a hard recovery but just within a year of this attack, he was diagnosed with cancer. Kira submerged herself in her duties while her mother devoted everything to save her mate."

Theo glanced up at the sky and closed his eyes for a moment.

"We lost her father after two years."

Charlotte felt pained. Losing two members of your family within such a short time at such a young age and that too by cruel means is just heartbreaking.

"Kira and her mother were the only one left. They gave each other support, helped each other get back on their feet, but it never could become the same. They tried, they tried so much Charlotte." Theo's throat was closing up. Charlotte rubbed his back with her hand.

"His mother, aunt Jemma, tried for Kira. She tried to forget the pain of losing her mate and the first born child. She tried to remain sane so that Kira wouldn't feel alone. But in the end, she lost. The pain of her mate's death broke her. Her wolf slowly stopped responding and it felt like she wasn't there at all anymore." Theo sighed.

"Just after seven months of Kira's father's death, her mother committed suicide."

Charlotte gasped involuntarily. Oh God !

Theo obviously looked like he was reliving it all but it also felt like that none of them had talked about what they have been through all these years. They just buried the pain and put on a mask for the sake of their pack. In order to fulfill their responsibilities, they used their pain to fuel their motivation.

"Kira was the one who found her." He spoke up again after a few minutes.

"I was the one who was nearest when I heard Kira panic through the mindlink. Her mother was found just like we found Kira today, Charlotte." A tear escaped his eye.

Charlotte put her hand on his and squeezed it lightly. Theo squeezed her hand back.

"Kira changed after that. She closed herself. She stopped laughing, stopped talking to us. She would only talk to us about work and nothing else. At first, we thought she needed some time so we let her be. But we soon realised that she wanted it to be the same always."

"We tried so hard. Azraiel, Matt and I would go to her house every day to persuade her to talk to us, to let the pain out. But we had our own demons, Charlotte. After a few months, we stopped. We still cared for her but we stopped trying to get her to talk. We made sure she was okay while she was with us but she had made walls so strong around herself that none of us were able to pierce through them and make her let it all out."

Charlotte now knew why Theo and everyone else were so worried. They somehow blamed themselves for not trying enough. But it wasn't their fault. They were young and all of them were dealing with their own pain. That's the thing about pain, it makes other's pain feel like nothing in front of your own.

"Just when we thought that we had lost Kira forever, something happened. She went to another pack with our warriors for training and there she found him.Her mate." Even though finding a mate was a good thing, Charlotte somehow felt that none of these men were so thrilled about the man who was Kira's mate.

"He was a scumbag, Charlotte. He was a warrior in his pack and a player at that. He moved to our pack and joined our pack. Even though none of us liked him, we were happy for Kira. She was starting to become who she was before everything went down. We tolerated Josh because of Kira. However he was, he made Kira and her wolf happy and that's all we cared about at that time."

"It was all great for her for three years. She still missed her family but we got our Kira back. Josh helped us to tear down the walls around her to make her get professional help to deal with the pain of losing her family. After therapy, she improved a lot. She started laughing again. She started behaving like our Kira, the one we had known since birth. But then tragedy struck again."

Theo's face became hard .

"Five years ago, she got pregnant. We were all so happy for her. She even took leave from her duties so that she could take care of herself and the baby. Josh too took great care of her. Since she was the only one amongst us who had met her mate and was about to start a family, we were so excited for her. She wanted all three of us to be her baby's uncles."

Theo's eyes watered as he recalled that day.

"Just two weeks before she was due for delivery, Kira miscarried the baby."

Charlotte controlled herself to not cry. That poor woman has been through so much and yet stands tall and strong.

"That's when everything went down the hill again. Even though she had already stopped working when she got pregnant, Josh blamed her for losing the baby. Instead of standing there with her and lending her strength, that fucker blamed the mother of his child for losing the baby."

Charlotte didn't know Josh but she was starting to share their sentiment about him.

"Kira was hospitalized. When she realised she had lost the baby, she got hysterical. To calm her down, Dr. Humphrey had to make her sleep. While she was lying in the hospital bed, Josh left. He fucking left, Charlotte." Charlotte couldn't help it anymore. Tears streamed one after another down her cheeks.

"And as if that wasn't enough, he got drunk in the human land and had sex with a human. Yeah, he cheated on her." Theo's face was painted in rage.

"The pain of getting cheated was so bad that Kira woke up despite being on medication. She felt every fucking thing while Josh fucked the human." Theo's nostrils were practically flaring. Charlotte and her wolf felt Kira's pain and were angry at how Josh had hurt her.

"She never recovered from it." Theo spoke up after a long silence.

"She altogether stopped laughing, stopped talking to us. She started working again and most of the days slept in the packhouse. She avoided any kind of talks with anyone. Only Ayleen got through her. She was the only one that Kira would talk to but that too was limited to make Ayleen not feel alone." Theo said, wiping his tears off.

"Three years ago, she accidentally took too many sleeping pills and we almost lost her." Theo sat straighter.

"I know she wouldn't kill herself. After her mother committed suicide, she vowed to never repeat the same. But the pain keeps killing her everyday. She was so embarrassed when the news got out and everyone assumed that she tried to take her life."

Charlotte realised that this might be the reason they didn't want to get this news out.

"Did Josh never return?" Charlotte asked him when she was sure he felt better.

"He did. That idiot had the nerve to come back, once."

Theo's face grew angry again.

"He came back after a few months, to beg Kira for forgiveness. Azraiel almost killed him. Kira even forgave him, making excuses that he was in pain at the loss of his child and did something irrational." Charlotte's mouth dropped open at that.

"But that man couldn't change. After a few months, he left the pack after a small fight he had with Kira." Charlotte's heart broke for Kira.

"He calls sometimes to see if Kira is alright but his concern is meaningless. He hasn't broken the mate bond and he still keeps sleeping with other women. Thank heavens that the mate bond has weakened over the years and she doesn't feel it anymore. From what I know, he hasn't called her in months and it has drastically affected her Wolf's health. He is alive or else we would have felt him die through the mate bond, but I'd bear that fucking pain if it means releasing Kira from that pain."

Theo paused.

"I panicked today because I couldn't feel her wolf at all. It's like she is human and not a werewolf. Her earlier cuts may have healed because her wolf was active and present, but today" Theo sighed, "Today, she wasn't there Charlotte. She'll..lose her mind if she loses her wolf completely."

Charlotte pats his back.

"She'll be okay, with or without her wolf. We all will make sure of that, Theo." Charlotte tried to console him.

"We'll be with her, I know. But how long…for how long can we take the place of someone such as a mate?" Theo wondered.

"Can't she reject him?" Charlotte asked.

"The pain of rejection is unbearable, Charlotte. She'd definitely lose her wolf and herself if she does that. I'm afraid that's the only reason she has endured it all along." Charlotte nodded. Kira was stuck then, in a vicious cycle of pain.

They both sat there silently.

Charlotte tried to let everything sink in. What happened to Kira was horrible and she has no idea how the fuck she managed to survive for so long.

Most importantly, judging from the way these men have kept Kira's secrets safe, she wouldn't be surprised if they have their secrets buried in their heart too.