Chapter 120

Agnes

After the world went dark, I had strange dreams. I dreamed that I was running through a pitch black forest, stumbling over roots and fallen logs. I dreamed that my throat was raw and cracked from screaming, but I kept calling out her name anyway.

“Isabella!” I cried, branches and vines whipping at my face. “Isabella, where are you?!”

Suddenly, I came upon a little girl, around seven years old, standing by herself at the edge of a ravine. She was crying, her face buried in her hands.

“Isabella,” I breathed, scooping her up. She nuzzled against me, holding me tight. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was her.

But then the wolves came. They crashed out of the underbrush, dozens of them, snarling and howling. They chased us through the forest, nipping at my heels. I knew they were trying to take my little girl away again, but I held her close, letting them cut up my body with their fangs if it meant protecting her.

Just as it seemed they might catch us and rip my daughter away, a familiar voice echoed through the treetops—Elijah’s voice.

“Agnes…”

I followed his voice, chased after it with one hand outstretched. And the further I ran, the clearer it became. The wolves fell behind, fading into the distance.

And I kept running, running, running until his voice was all around me.

“Agnes…”

My eyes fluttered open, squinting against cold fluorescent lights. The beeping of machines sounded like gunshots in my tender ears, and I winced, trying to lift my hand to feel the little girl nuzzled against me.

“Isabella,” I whispered. My daughter.

I never wanted to say the name I’d picked for her—not in my head, and certainly not out loud. Not after I had spent so many nights screaming that name, the name she would never have the chance to know.

Of course, it was just a dream. When I opened my eyes again, I found that I was laying alone in a hospital bed, my body sore and tingling like I’d been lit on fire. My throat ached like hell, and my eyes burned.

Elijah, sitting beside me, furrowed his brow. “Isabella?” he murmured, his grip on my hand tightening ever so slightly.

I swallowed hard and shook my head. Elijah helped me sit up a little and fed me an ice chip to soothe my raw throat. It wasn’t raw from screaming like in my dream, though; it was something else.

“What… happened…?” I managed.

Elijah sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face as he took his seat again. “Agnes, why did you go out in the woods on your own like that?”

I frowned, trying to recall what had happened. I recalled the fear, getting lost in the woods, and then…

“Poison ivy,” Elijah went on. “Did you know you had a life-threatening poison ivy allergy that causes anaphylaxis? Thea has one, too.” He laughed, although there was no humor in it. “I guess I need to worry twice as much now.”

“I didn’t know,” I said softly. I’d never come into contact with the plant, so I never thought much of it. And it wasn’t something that my parents had tested for when I was a child. It was interesting, though, that Thea and I apparently shared the same allergy.

“Well, you’re lucky I was there with an epipen,” Elijah said. “You were on death’s doorstep when we found you. Olivia said you two came to look for us and she lost you in the woods. Thankfully, you weren’t far from our campsite when we found you.”

“She said that…” I pursed my lips. “Elijah, are you certain she was telling the truth?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” I said quietly.

Elijah looked at me for a second, understanding passing over his features. We didn’t need to say it out loud—Olivia might have intentionally left me in the forest. Whether she somehow knew about an allergy that I didn’t even know I had or her initial goal had just been to scare and humiliate me and it had gone further than she’d anticipated, I wasn’t sure.

Either way, something about it felt… off. I trusted Elijah to consider the implications thoroughly, though.

Finally, Elijah sighed, his head dropping into his hands again. I quickly decided to address the matter with Mason, even though it hurt like hell just to speak.

“Elijah,” I said, struggling to sit up a little more, “about Mason—”

“You don’t have to worry about that right now,” Elijah cut me off. His voice was kind, but his face darkened ever so slightly just at the mention of my ex, and I knew I had to tell him the truth.

“No. I want to tell you what really happened,” I insisted softly.

Elijah hesitated for a moment as if considering before he finally nodded and gave me a chance to speak.

Over the next few minutes, in halting words, I told him everything—my fears and worries, the perfume as a desperate attempt to make him feel the same attraction toward me that he felt toward Olivia whenever the mate bond was ignited. I told him about the men staring at me, about the one guy who was so overwhelmed by the pheromones that he tried to kiss me, and about Mason swooping in.

When I was finished, Elijah was staring at his feet in stunned silence. I wasn’t sure if he was still angry. Maybe he was just disappointed.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling mortified by the whole ordeal. “If I hadn’t made that perfume, then none of this would have happened. I just made everything worse. And what’s funny is the fact that you didn’t even like the scent.”

Elijah looked up at me. “Are you kidding me? It was so good I couldn’t bear it.”

I blinked, surprised. “You… You did like it, then?”

He nodded. “That was why I kept covering my nose at the restaurant. It was so powerful that I kept feeling the urge to leap across the table and…” His voice trailed off, and he looked away again, his cheeks turning ever so slightly pink. Mine did, too.

“Anyway,” he went on, “I guess that explains why I felt so… jealous seeing you and Mason talking. And then, when I saw you kissing him the next day…”

“The perfume made you jealous?”

“Terribly so. When I saw Mason kissing you, I wanted to punch him in the face. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I realize that was just because of the pheromones.”

I stared down at my lap, feeling strangely disappointed. I supposed I had thought the jealousy was simply because Elijah cared for me and wanted me all to himself, but it seemed it was just another fabrication of the perfume.

Therefore, not real.

Still, I was glad to clear up the misunderstanding. Elijah patted my hand. “We’ll handle the media troubles surrounding the kiss. You don’t need to worry.”

I offered him a small smile, although he didn’t return it. I could tell he was still put off by the whole situation, which I couldn’t blame him for. I had, essentially, tried to fake a mate bond between us using pheromones. I had tried to manipulate him just as Olivia did with their actual bond.

I supposed I was no better than her.

“Well, um…” I cleared my throat, which was feeling marginally better by now. “Thank you for understanding. I guess making that perfume was a really stupid idea. I’m sorry I did it.”

Elijah glanced up at me, his expression unreadable. Just then, I saw movement behind him, and looked over to see Thea standing in the doorway with James next to her. She was crying, her lower lip quivering.

“Thea—” I began, but it was too late. She turned and ran away.