Alpha Erased (Alpha Girl 9)

Because she was mine. My home. My heart. My everything.

The sun was rising, and I wasn’t sure I could settle.

It took me a while to realize why I went so crazy when Tessa left—other than the obvious reasons. I’d been so used to being in her head and never feeling alone. I could always hear her thoughts, feel her emotions, know exactly where she was. To go from that level of noise in my head to nothing…

It was like something had been severed inside of me—which it had. My bond was gone. Tessa was gone.

But now I knew where she was, and yet it still left this anxiety in the pit of my stomach that wouldn’t go away.

I grabbed my phone. She still okay? I texted to Claudia. I’d been trying not to hound her while we’d been getting the apartment ready, but I couldn’t stop myself anymore.

Yes. She’s fine.

I wasn’t expecting her to text back right away, but I was thankful that she did.

And then another text came through from Claudia. The doctor came by an hour ago. She’s sleeping normally, and when she wakes up, she’ll be released. But she keeps asking for her mother. I’m not sure who she thinks that is.

Helen? I texted back.

Maybe. Or it could be another fey. Or a human who the fey magicked into believing that Tessa was her daughter.

Has anyone been by?

No, but she has her phone. She called this mother person earlier and left a message. Another person called back—a friend who sounded annoyed at being bothered and even more annoyed that Tessa hadn’t shown up for class. But when Tessa mentioned the hospital, she asked a lot of questions.

What does that mean? Claudia wouldn’t mention it unless she was worried about something, but anyone would ask a lot of questions if their friend was in the hospital.

Maybe I’m being paranoid. I just didn’t love the tone the girl took with Tessa. It’s like she was checking on someone that she hated. We don’t know how closely Tessa’s being watched.

I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad. What did Tessa tell the person?

She said exactly what she thought happened. She collapsed, and someone called 911.

That was good. At least no one caught our exchange on video. That hadn’t been my finest hour.

My phone buzzed with another text from Claudia. You’re going to have to be really careful. If they know we are here, they could act. You need to fix this quickly.

I’m going to do everything I can. Because that was all I could do. But suddenly, that didn’t feel like enough. Maybe we should just take her. Keep her asleep and leave.

No! She only just woke up. A shock like that might put her back in a coma or worse. Too much of a risk!

Everything was a risk. Everything.

I wanted to throw my phone against the wall, but that wouldn’t make this hopeless feeling go away.

It felt like after so long, I was so close to getting her back, but everything was hanging from spider silk. One wrong breath and everything could fall.

I could lose everything. Again.

Only this time, it would be forever.

Chapter Eighteen

DASTIEN

I tried sleeping, but that wasn’t happening. Instead, I sat on the balcony and watched the sunrise. The hardest part of this whole thing was going to be patience. The risk of having her scared of me if I said or did the wrong thing—or worse, ending up in the hospital again—it was almost too much.

The knots in my stomach grew and turned into a city of knots, until I gave up trying to sit still entirely. I paced up and down the small hallway in the apartment from the front door to the master suite.