Chapter 79

Chase’s POV

Chase was immediately taken aback. “How did you know about that?”

“I’m afraid I have to ask you,” Amber continued, her voice softening in a way he hadn’t heard before, especially while she was donning that doctor’s coat. “Is she still alive?”

His heart ached, as it always did when he thought of her. “There’s no guarantee that she was my mate. We were just children really, only thirteen when we felt a pull to each other. We were just friends for a long time, until I kissed her at sixteen. Sparks flew… I never felt anything like it since.”

Even Chase’s wolf was hung up on Violet, a woman the wolf had never technically met.

“What was her name?” Amber asked gently, and it was so kind for her to ask that, that Chase’s heart, for a moment, hurt in a different way.

“Her name was Violet,” Chase said.

“What happened to her?” Amber asked.

Chase lowered his head. He hated thinking of Violet, not because he didn’t love her still, but because any thoughts of her came with thoughts of this. “She went swimming in the lake alone. I don’t know how exactly, but… I was told she drowned. We were 17.”

He never got to see her body. His parents told him it wasn’t a sight for any young man and he should remember her as she was.

“I must ask another difficult question, please forgive me,” she said.

“I’d never be mad at you, Amber,” Chase said, and found that he meant it. Maybe she only wanted to know about this part of his past for medical reasons, but she was still the only one who ever cared.

His parents wanted to bury it and would scold him for even mentioning Violet. As Violet died before we were of age to start attending the high society parties, most people Chase interacted with now didn’t even know Violet. Her parents moved away, and that was that.

Olivia, nor any of this other girlfriends, cared who he had associated with in the past. They only wanted him for his looks and his charms, and for favors, like Olivia had asked of him in even being here.

He was getting much more than he bargained for.

“Was the funeral closed casket?” Amber asked. “Did you ever see Violet’s body at all?”

“No, I didn’t see her. They only had a picture of her at the funeral, next to the closed casket.” That remained consistently the worst day of my life. Even discovering my own diagnosis, and learning that I might soon die myself, was not as terrible as knowing that Violet had been taken from me and I’d never see her again.

When my parents had told me the news, I hadn’t quite believed it, expecting Violet to walk through the door at any moment.

The funeral had made things real.

What made things worse, her parents weren’t even there. Their grief was too much, my parents had told me then, and said the whole family moved to a different pack because of the tragedy.

“But as I said, we were only 17 when it happened. Our wolves were only barely manifesting then. We felt the pull to each other, but there was no confirmation that we had been fated mates.”

Amber let the words hang in the air for a while, of which Chase was appreciative.

Then she spoke again, “I’m sorry to bring up old memories, but it was essential. The separation of fated mates can cause a strain on a werewolf’s heart, as well as his mind. Perhaps because your bond was not fully formed, your mind seems intact. Your heart, however…”

“Violet… caused this?”

“No,” Amber said quickly. “Your heart is weak. Your slow healing is tied to that. But the anomaly that those other healers see in you, and the tremor in your heartbeat, that is tied to lost mate sickness.”

The other healers had been so quick to dismiss me. They hadn’t investigated further. They never asked the same questions as Amber, all just assuming I was a lost cause.

“If we treat your weak heart and the lost mate sickness as two different entities, we should be able to develop a treatment plan that would lead to a cure.”

“A… cure?” Chase looked at her like she had grown a second head. Never in his life, since his diagnosis, would he have expected something like this. He’d sort of accepted that he would have a short but glorious life. Now… he might live to see old age?

Watching Amber, it was difficult not to feel a sudden, blooming affection for her. Olivia had been right when she had said that Chase would find Amber amusing. She was, and she was attractive too. But this was something else. Something new. Something he hadn’t felt since Violet.

He was suddenly looking at Amber in a new way, not as an easy mark or a quick hookup, but as a genuinely beautiful person. Someone to be admired. Adored.

“Come to dinner with me tonight to celebrate,” he found himself saying. He wasn’t being as over-the-top flirtatious as before. This, he meant genuinely.

“I don’t need something like that,” she said. “I’m only doing my job.”

“I insist, Amber,” Chase said. “You’ve done so much for me. Hells, here you are giving me my life back.”

Amber considered a moment. “Fine,” she said. “But only if others from the staff can come too. We all work together here, so we all celebrate together.”

That wasn’t the romantic night Chase envisioned, but if it meant he could still spend some time with Amber outside of the clinic, then he was for it. “Alright. Tonight.”

Julian’s POV

When I went to the clinic to continue my training for the day, I was surprised when Carla at reception stopped me before I could go into the back hallway.

“Healer Amber told me to tell you, you have the day off,” Carla said. She smiled, likely thinking this was some kind of reward for my progress.

She had no idea that this was Amber simply not wanting to see me today.

I supposed I couldn’t blame her. After what happened, she probably needed some space. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t be professional…

Who was I kidding? All I really wanted to do was fix things between us.

I hated this distance, when things had been going so smoothly so far. But what could I do? I couldn’t force her to listen to me if she wasn’t ready to.

And even if she would listen, I didn’t know if that would have been enough to convince her that there was nothing between Olivia and me. After all, I had spent the night with Olivia in the past, when I had been supposed to return to Amber. That I couldn’t remember it at all was no excuse.

No. The only way to convince her was through action. Words weren’t enough. If I wanted to prove that Amber was the one I wanted, I had to be there for her. Not just flirting with her, but being there in times when it really mattered.

But how would I do that if she didn’t even want to see me?

“Oh! You should still come tonight, though,” Carla said, still smiling brightly.

“Tonight?” I prompted, pulled from my spiraling thoughts.

“Chase is taking the whole office out for drinks and dinner,” Carla said. “He’s such a great guy. You’re part of the office now, so I’m sure you are invited. You should come!”

I highly doubted Chase’s invitation included me, but… if he said everyone in the office, I was a part of the office…

It could be a chance to get close to Amber again, while making sure Chase kept his distance.

I forced a smile of my own. “I’d love to, Carla. Count me in.”