#Chapter 45 A Silent Transition

Third Person POV

The power finally turns back on but the trouble remains.

Olivia is beside herself in grief, in agony, as she weeps over the vessel of her brother’s dilapidated, sickly state. She can’t stop crying, even as the machines have finally come back on and his numbers are climbing back to normalcy, the mention of his unknown status earlier has her thinking the worst has happened already.

Eugene stopped the doctor who said Reese’s body may bounce back, but his soul may have already left in the process of loosing the electricity that kept the machines running. Olivia couldn’t accept hearing this and has practically barricaded herself in the room, dealing with her premature grief as it forces it’s way through her mind.

Although she doesn’t notice it, or care to even think about it, she has an anxious audience still lingering in the hallway. Gabriel rocks back and forth on his heels, his hands pressed into his pockets while he rattles off a million terrible thoughts in his head at one time.

He thinks of how this will break his wife, the one he reluctantly pulled from the sea after she had finally shattered the first time. He knows this could very well send her down the same, depressed path, and he worries he will have to lock her in the palace to ensure her safe keeping.

He still wonders where she had been all night and why her scent early was dripping with Alpha Herold’s but he knows now is not the time to ask those types of questions. Part of him is concerned that Alpha Herold and his wife, his beautiful mate, had done something salacious behind his back but at the same time, he knows his mate hates the Alpha with all her might.

She wouldn’t love another man; not even Alpha Connor.

He knew the night he came back wounded from his run toward Connor’s pack that she had lied about loving another Alpha. She just said that to stay in the hospital with Eugene, the physician beside him who is just as nervous, just as sensitive over the sight of seeing the Queen Luna wailing in misery through the glass.

Eugene hasn’t known pain like this before. He loves Olivia, he wants the absolute best for her, no matter if that involves him or not. He feels responsible for Reese, as he had in her first life, and without knowing the solid answer on if he will live or not, Eugene feels like a failure.

The physician was always that rock for Olivia Opal. He knew who she was even when she lost her joy and her spunk as she slowly faced rejection from her husband, his dense brother. She still showed up at the hospital and looked after Reese, staying in that horrible, declining marriage to make sure Reese’s care would be taken care of financially.

Eugene had always planned to cover Reese’s care, even if something were to happen with Olivia and Herold, and he pictured asking her out on a date or two when it was clear that Alicia was going to overrun the Luna title. If he could have predicted what would really happen, he would have stepped in sooner. His grief is familiar now.

Herold feels a different kind of pain as he watches the Queen Luna absolutely break.

He has always had the suspicion that his mate never fully departed this world, and that her soul had lingered into a different body, no matter how crazy he felt acknowledging that theory. He leans against the glass, wondering how things would have turned out if he wasn’t so caught up in the past relationship with Alicia to focus on the woman that truly rescued him.

He sees Olivia in the Queen Luna. He knows something doesn’t add up.

“Fuck,” Herold groans, his hands shaking as he so desperately wants to comfort the Queen Luna like he thinks he should have comforted his wife in her days still alive. He can’t do that, though. He knows this. “He is going to make it. Right, Eugene?”

The physician shudders, both Alpha’s looking to him for answers he just doesn’t have anymore. “I don’t know, brother. I really don’t know for sure. The power was off for a few hours. While the nurses kept his pulse going the whole time, there is no way to know if he went braindead in that blackout without taking him to an MRI.”

Gabriel straightens up at this bleak sliver of hope. “Then we should do that. Take him to an MRI at once.”

Even though it was said in a commanding Alpha tone, Eugene refuses to move or to give the command to the nurses. He pulls the Alpha’s away from the door, even though Olivia won’t be able to hear his words over her loud, hopeless sobs.

“I won’t take him to an MRI,” Eugene groans.

Gabriel’s brow furrows in rage. “Why not? It could bring her comfort if it turns up good.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” Alpha Herold chimes in, understanding his brother’s position. “If he does the MRI and it comes back as Reese has died, she will probably die in anguish.”

Gabriel understands the predicament they are in but he can’t bare to watch her turmoil much longer. “Well, we can’t just leave her in there to suffer. If he is braindead, it will be horrible either way, but it will be better to get ahead of it and take away the suspense in her mind.”

“It would destroy what is left of her,” Eugene says through his teeth. His eyes are damp, his heart is heavy, and he will not be the reason Olivia falls apart. “If you have the guts, then go for it. The MRI is downstairs, room seventy-four. If you take him into that machine and show the brainwaves are no longer active, then you can tell her how the one wolf in her life that she truly loves unconditionally has dead.”

Eugene gasps, his wolf whimpering at the mere thought of how Olivia would handle that news. Gabriel staggers to keep upright, hating his words but knowing that they drip with some form of truth. Sadly enough, Herold realizes it too, and backs away from the thought of having Reese go through an MRI. He would feel responsible for his death, especially if it had anything to do with Alicia.

They all look back to the Queen Luna, distraught beyond belief.

“So we just wait it out? See if he ever wakes up and drag her along?” Gabriel groans.

“It’s better than telling her he has died,” Eugene gusts. “If he really has, that is.”

“We could be wrong,” Herold says, hopeful. “he could be fine. She could be fine. Everything might turn out to be just—just—”

They all freeze, Olivia staring at the ceiling as she calls out to a higher power.

“Please, moon goddess, please!” Her face is pink, her voice is cracked, and her body trembles in the upmost pain as she trembles in despair and sorrow. “Take me back, instead! Please, just take me back instead! Give him my second chance! Please, moon goddess, please, take me back instead! I don’t want this second chance if it means losing him!”

The reaction through the three wolves in the hallway is mixed between confusion, sympathy, and reaffirming wonderment that the Queen Luna, the wolf in that room crying over the body of a poor, sick wolf, maybe isn’t who she appears to be.

The wolf who questions her plea the most is also the one who loves her the most.

But he wouldn’t tell her that.