The Awakening Aidan - By Abby Niles Page 0,73
him away from Jaylin and across the room, stunning him. He blinked as a wall of shoulders surrounded the woman he loved, protecting her from him. He lunged against the people holding him, wanting to get to her side, to hold her, to apologize for failing her. “Let. Go. Of. Me.” He yanked again.
“Calm down. We need to make sure you’re back to normal.”
He froze, staring up at Liam’s and Brit’s faces as they folded around him, shoving him back.
“What are you—” he stopped mid-sentence, becoming aware that they were no longer on the island. That he was being pushed through some cage into another room. “Where am I? Liam, what the hell is going on? What did I do? Is she—”
He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“I don’t know,” Brit said, his tone tense.
“I can’t leave her.”
“You just had her neck in your mouth,” Liam reminded him. “We can’t chance a repeat performance.”
That ceased his struggles, and he slumped forward. “I can’t believe I did that.”
Brit looked him square in the eye. “That wasn’t you or your beast, Aidan. No matter what the outcome is, you have to remember that.”
His friends ushered him down the hall and into another room. Aidan blindly sat on a chair and stared at the floor, his head cupped in his hands. How could his beast turn on its mate? He could still feel the pressure of its jaws locked around her delicate neck. How the beast had wanted to snap it. If he hadn’t come to, it would have.
But it may have still been too late. The lingering taste of her blood made him gag and he wiped the back of his hand across his lips trying to erase the metallic tinge. A canned soda appeared before him, and he glanced up at Brit, who held it out for him. “Drink it.”
The can shook in his hand as he took it. After cracking the top, he chugged half the contents, thankful that the dewy carbonation washed away the reminder of what he’d done. If only it could wash away his thoughts just as easily. Nothing would ever get rid of those. He’d killed his mate, the woman he was made to protect forever. Tore her apart with no conscious mind.
He fisted both hands and pressed them to his forehead, and clenched his teeth against a wave of grief so intense it threatened to be the destruction of him. “What have I done?”
The door opened, then slammed behind a man dressed in a suit. As he strode toward Aidan, he put on his stethoscope. Without an introduction, without any preamble, the man squatted in front of Aidan and placed the scope on the right side of his chest under his rib cage and listened.
After a few minutes of silences and moving the scope, the man sighed and stood. “Beast is where it should be. How do you feel, Aidan?”
Sick. Horrified. “Jaylin. Is she…”
“No. She has some puncture wounds on her neck, but you shifted before any significant damage could be done. She’s being treated by Pam as we speak.”
If he’d been standing, he would’ve fallen to the floor from the relief that rushed through him. “So, I didn’t…”
“She’s fine. A little shaken up, but fine.”
She had to be terrified of him now. Since he’d met her, he’d proven that everything she’d read in her books wasn’t always gospel, and now she could add this to her list too.
A woman wasn’t safe with her mate.
“What’s the last thing you remember, Aidan?”
Aidan looked up sharply at the tall blond man. “Who are you?”
“Oh. Sorry.” The man held out his hand. “Dr. Trevor Klaus.”
“You’re Liam’s therapist.”
“That’s correct. Now I need some information. What is the last thing you remember?”
He pushed aside the only thing he could think of right now, which was attacking Jaylin. All he encountered was a big black hole of nothing. He thought deeper, and slowly the darkness lifted and he was faced with a new horror. The struggle. The desire to kill. Jaylin dying. He swallowed against the bile rising in his throat. “Fighting the beast after I shocked Jaylin the second time.”
“You remember nothing about the last week?”
“Week?” He snapped his head up, staring at Dr. Klaus. “What do you mean week?”
“Aidan, you’ve been in animal form since you shocked Jaylin.”
“That’s not possible.” He was always conscious when in beast form. Aware of every movement, interaction, and thought. Having final say over the beast’s actions. This time, however, it felt like no time