won’t be the last. It’s hard to wrap the mind around something we don’t understand. My sons have an easier time with acceptance because of the Drall. My daughters are another story.”
Jaylin wished she could see her mother now with this new insight. Would she see her differently or still see the woman who seemed to grieve for her mate twenty years later? “What was it like after your wife died?”
“The days and months after she died were the most horrible of my life. She was by my side every day for thirty wonderful years, and then one day she wasn’t. Walking around the house, the silence was suffocating. I missed her smiles, her laughs. I missed talking to her, holding her. I did feel dead. Was barely able to get out of bed in the mornings.”
“And now?”
“I still miss her. But the grief has leveled off. I’m no longer drowning in it. The Fewshon is filled with peace. I know I’ll hold her in my arms again one day.”
“Do you look forward to death?”
“Not in the way you’re asking, no. When it is my time, it will be my time. Until then, I will live the life given to me here. She’d want it no other way.”
He patted her hand, then went back to preparing dinner, marking the end of the conversation. She stared at his back. Everything he’d said went against everything she’d ever believed.
She was an expert in her field, and yet, she was now discovering, she knew absolutely nothing.
…
Jaylin curled her feet up under her on the cushy wicker chair in the living room, making sure to not put pressure on the site of her sting. She stared out across the beach, her chin propped in her hand. Today had been a day of eye-openers, which was ironic since she had always believed she was an eyes-wide-open sort of person.
Apparently she wasn’t and was instead completely blind to so many things around her.
A hard pill to swallow, and it left her confused, wondering how she was supposed to make sense of everything she’d learned when she’d spent years thinking the complete opposite, her opinion growing more concrete with each Wydow case she’d taken.
An opinion that had been completely solidified the day Stephanie Cross walked into her office, on the verge of making a tragic decision. A woman who didn’t just grieve the loss of her mate, but also the children she’d never have, the dreams that had been taken away. A woman who wanted nothing more than to end her life so she no longer had to face her future.
All at the age of twenty-three.
Yet she’d known suicide would ensure she’d never be with her mate again, as it was forbidden and severed the connection of the Fewshon. She was stuck in a life, hoping some freak accident would end her suffering.
Jaylin’s mom had always insisted that she was happy, that Jaylin was wrong, she wasn’t living waiting for death. Stephanie never had.
She cursed the bond. Became bitter.
Became a shell of her former self.
Was Stephanie the exception and not the rule?
With what her mother, and now Rafael, insisted, it would seem so.
Did the length of time the couple was bonded play into how quickly the living mate found peace?
Stephanie had had less than twenty-four hours with hers. And in three years of therapy, not once had she mentioned feeling any resemblance of peace. She only spiraled deeper, hating herself and everything around her, until one day she’d finally gotten her wish by way of a car accident.
Had she embraced death the moment it was offered to her instead of fighting to live?
The unknown was terrifying.
The Fewshon was terrifying.
Thinking of being without Aidan was starting to be terrifying.
The third one frightened her the most.
Chapter Ten
Aidan stuck his head in the house, scanning the living room for any sign of Jaylin. When he saw none, he stepped inside.
Tiptoeing around his mate. Pathetic.
Truth be told, he didn’t want to see her, but he sure as hell didn’t want to walk around the woods anymore either. What he wanted was to call the mainland, book a copter, and get the hell out of dodge.
Walk away with some pride intact. What minuscule amount he still had left, anyway. Jaylin had stomped on a majority of it, while the instinct had all but obliterated the rest.
The Drall.
A supposedly beautiful gift handed to them by their Dea to ensure everlasting love. In reality it was a pile of shit wrapped in pretty paper.