Eclipse Child
Chapter 44

I rip things apart,

just to prove that they can break.

You are not safe in my hands.

This must be a dream.

It’s the first thought that comes to me as I slowly approach the sobbing child.

I can’t come up with any other rationalization explaining how or why. My mind is in a haze, a thick cloud pushing through my thoughts making them obscure and hard to push though. But that one thought is clear within me as the view of the sobbing back becomes closer.

It must be a dream.

The child lifts his head.

My heart beats to loud. Louder than it should as the noise drums in my ears. I can’t breathe as I swallow back the thrill that runs through me from the sight of blue eyes that match my own.

“Where is daddy?”

His question confuses me.

That’s when I see the discord to my dream.

The sobbing child is not like how I should have envisioned. There is something off, something wrong in my creation of constructing my wonder to life.

Undiluted blond hair shines against the darkness. Hair that is not dirty or tinged with black. It is clean, almost white.

I see it and know whose child this really is as he whispers again, his small voice choking on his tears, “where is daddy?”

“I…I don’t…” I back away from the child, aware within my mind that I could move back from this image that caused me confusion and pain. I could shift my focus away to the object that stared at me with accusing eyes.

“Where is he?”

I don’t want to answer.

And as I raise my hand, to push the child back, push him completely out of my dream- I see blood on my fingers.

And it occurs to me then, that maybe this isn’t a dream.

I freeze when sobbing is the first thing that reaches my ears.

My eyes remain closed. The lids are heavy, unable to raise on their own. I continue to breath in and out normally, while taking in the distant voices.

I regognize Grandma. She cries somewhere to the side.

“I could have helped her Jay…If I still had the- I could have saved them.”

“Daisy, don’t.”

Grandjay’s strained voice cuts through whatever Grandma was about to say.

I feel a warmth beside me.

The familiar smell of the woods invades my nose. Orion is close.

My eyes remain shut. I don’t want to see him. Not yet.

Coward that I was, I didn’t want to see him.

But Leo’s voice puts a stop to whatever plans I had.

“Soraya…are you awake?”

I’m scared. I feel it wash through me. The fear could be smelled in the room. Following it was shame. I was ashamed of my fear to answer him. Ashamed of my fear to open my eyes.

I wanted to stay in this blissful darkness forever.

But I can’t. I can’t.

You’re the Alpha Soraya. Dad’s voice echoes into me. The pack comes first. It always comes first.

This is what happens, when you don’t put the pack first.

Maybe the moon goddess was showing this as a divine retribution towards me for trying to push my happiness above the surfaces of others.

I open my eyes.

They all are there.

Leo, Grandma, Jay, dad, mom, Aunt Quinn, Uncle Mark, Lilah…Orion.

All stare down at me. The tension in the room rises until Leo turns to them.

“Out. Everyone.”

There is a shuffling noise. I wish though that Leo had done that beforehand. I wish I could have opened my eyes to the blankness of the clinic walls, and not the look of dreaded sorrow etched upon all of their faces.

Leo turns to Orion then.

“Even you.”

I expect Orion to protest. To kick up a fit as he sometimes would, or claim that his role as Luna made it necicarry for him to be by my side.

My fear only grows though, when he wordlessly stands and walks away.

I turn to Leo then.

We are alone now, staring at each other in silence.

He clears his throat, raising his chart to look at whatever information it showed him.

“You suffered some damage from the fight. Mainly several abdominal blows. It caused your body to go into shock after your win. You were taken to the clinic. From there Grandma preformed a surgical evacuation. There is nothing heeding your recovery and you-,”

“Surgical evacuation?”

Leo does not pause in talking. The clipboard begins to shake in his hand as he continues pushing through his words, “by later today or tomorrow you should be able to resume all normal activity. We will need you to come in a week from now to-,”

“Leo stop I don’t understand what-,”

“check the status of your recovery.”

He inhales deeply, trying to regain his breath.

He shakes his head. I can see tears beginning to form in his eyes. I can feel them swelling in the back of my own, but I push them back, swallowing down whatever I was feeling in this moment.

Leo goes towards the door.

“I’ll let you talk to your mate.”

Leo’s treatment only served as a reminder to me that I was not his sister. I was his Alpha. I had to act like such. But I can’t answer him back. My voice doesn’t seem to be working.

Orion is at my side before I realize it.

He doesn’t say a word. I flinch back from the unfiltered pain in his eyes.

“Tell me.”

It’s his turn to flinch as he moves away from my question.

There is silence between us until he whispers.

“It was a boy.”

A sob escapes me. My hand covers my mouth, chocking back my own pain. No. No. I couldn’t show this sort of reaction. I had chosen this after all. Accepted this pain the moment I decided to take on the role of Leadership and mate.

“You had a name.”

Orion’s face crumbles at my words.

I have never seen Orion cry. And now looking at the sight, I don’t want to ever see it again.

“What was his name Orion.”

He shakes his head, the motion so much like the animal trying to shake away a bug that was bothering him. Trying to rid himself of something unpleasant.

A strangled cries leave Orion.

He had always been raw and unfiltered, showing his emotions well to whoever saw. He was not a man of words. He was one of actions. And his actions could show anyone who saw, that he was breaking.

He was breaking.

“Soren.”

Ah. I loved it.

How clever to combine our own two names together to create something better.

I don’t say anything.

I don’t say anything as I watch Orion’s pain.

It was torture enough to watch him shatter in my view. This was torture enough.

I had to watch.

After all, this was my punishment for letting something so perfect, come crashing down.