LOGINShare
CHAPTER 5
publish date:
2026-07-07 21:55:14Helena
The line instantly goes dead. I stared at the phone pressed against my ear, as a sudden, heavy wave of regret washed over me. Maybe calling Jarrett was a massive mistake. Maybe I should have just hung up and pieced everything together myself, the way I always do. My fingers dig into the rough hospital blanket. Just as I was about to lower the phone and end the call for good, his voice finally cuts through the static. "With the truth." The words hit me like a physical blow, making my chest tighten. I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. "The truth?" I repeated, the bitterness was evident in my throat. "Eight years too late for that, don't you think?" "Helena, listen to me carefully. Do not leave that hospital." My brows furrowed at his words, "What?" "Stay exactly where you are." He said, his tone becoming more stern. Whatever patience I had left had completely evaporated. "Why? Because Brent might try something else?" The silence on the other end stretched out a second too long before Jarrett spoke again, his voice dropping an octave. "No. Brent is the least dangerous person looking for you right now." A cold dread trickled down my spine. I allowed the sheer weight of it to leave me speechless. Just then, my shock morphs into anger, "Enough." I yank the phone away from my ear. "Stop speaking in goddamn riddles." Before he can utter another word, I hit the red button. The screen of my phone goes dark. My pulse, however, refused to slow down. I force myself to believe I don't care what Jarrett thought, I told myself I didn't care that he was suddenly back from the dead... I told myself a lot of lies in the dark, and none of them stuck. Not even five minutes later, the door to my hospital room swung open and standing by the door way was Jarrett Brooks. My stomach twisted into a violent, sickening knot. "Get out." I clenched my jaw. His expression tightened, a shadow crossing his face. "Helena—" "Get. Out." The words left my mouth sharper and meaner than I intended but I didn't care. He took a cautious step closer, that single movement was the tipping point that shattered whatever fragile emotional control I clung onto. "Don't come any closer." My voice cracked, betraying me. "You don't get to just walk in here and act like everything is fine." I saw his jaw flex, "Nothing is fine." He said. I let out a brittle laugh so ugly, the sound surprised me. "Really? That's your defense?" I flung my hand out, pointing a trembling finger toward the door. "Where the hell were you?" I barked the question at him. He didn't reply me. My breathing turned shallow, growing heavier by the second. "Where were you when my parents died?" He didn't utter a single word. "Where were you when I spent years convinced I just wasn't good enough for you?" Still, he chose not to respond. The suffocating hurt I’ve spent nearly a decade burying came rushing back to the surface like a tidal wave. "I thought you were dead," I whispered, the words barely scraping past my throat. "I mourned you, Jarrett." His face hardened, though a flash of genuine pain cut through his eyes. "You just disappeared." I said. Ignoring the dull ache throbbing through my body, I forced myself to stand up. "You abandoned me." The room fell into a suffocating, dead silence. Jarrett didn't try to defend his actions, he didn't argue or offer up some elaborate excuse. He just stood there, taking the brunt of my fury and somehow, his passivity made me even angrier. "Say something!" My voice echoed off the sterile walls. "Yell at me. Tell me I'm completely wrong. Tell me there was a good reason for it!" He kept mute, his silence feeling like a brand-new betrayal. I snap my head away, turning my back to him before he could see the tears trickling down my face. My hand instinctively drifted downward, resting over my stomach...an automatic, protective gesture. A cruel habit that no longer made any sense. My baby was gone. My throat completely closed up. When I finally glance back over my shoulder, I caught Jarrett staring directly at my hand. Just then, something incredibly dark and sorrowful flashes across his features..Instantly, my walls slam back up. "Don't." His gaze snapped back up to meet mine. "Don't you dare look at me like that." His expression shuttered instantly, masking whatever he was feeling. Then the pity on his face vanishes. Better, I didn't want his hollow sympathy, I didn't want a single thing from him. Suddenly, my phone blares to life on the bedside table. The shrill ringing cutting through the suffocating tension like a knife. It was Victor. I snatched it up and answered immediately, desperate for the distraction. "Victor." I called out. I could hear his erratic breathing on the other end. I could tell he was panicking. "Helena, we're in serious trouble."
Latest chapter
Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance CHAPTER 98
Helena's POVThe smell of antiseptic hit me before the light did, coupled with bleach, cold metal and that fake lemon cleaner they use in locker rooms. It burned the back of my nose.I tried to open my eyes but my eyelids felt glued shut, gritty, and heavy like I'd been crying ash for days.Beep. Beep. Beep. The rhythmical sound of the heart monitor echoed right next to my head.I felt something like a warm solid anchor holding my hand.I forced my eyes open. The fluorescents above me were brutal, white and buzzing. I blinked until the blur cleared and I could see Jarrett.He was folded into this tiny plastic armchair that had no business holding a guy who is 6'4", his knees jammed up against my bed. His dark hair was sticking up everywhere, like he'd been running his hands through it for hours. Red rimmed his eyes. Stubble darkened his jaw. His Wolves hoodie was inside-out. He looked like he'd gone ten rounds and lost.When he saw me looking at him, his whole body jolted."Helena,"
Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance CHAPTER 97
Helena's POVWhat did you dream about last night?Jarrett's question was still hanging in the air, but no one was looking at him. They were all looking at me and at the way my hands were shaking.I stared at the field report on the table. The ink was smeared. The priest's handwriting, hurried, terrified. 'Lightning strikes at the third bell. Roof collapse. No survivors found in debris. Only ash and broken stone.'Third bell. We left the hall at the second bell last night. I remembered that. I remembered Brennor handing me the fur-lined cloak. I remembered Jarrett saying nothing, just falling in three paces behind my right shoulder, the way he always did.Or did I remember dreaming it?I had seen white ash in the hearth. A bed of it with a few embers still alive.If we had been the first ones there in weeks, who lit the fire?"You're lying," I said to Edric. My voice was thin. It didn't sound like my own. "You brought a forger. You broke Mother's seal -""Helena." Commander Ilya cut in
Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance CHAPTER 96
Helena's POVI held it out.The iron was freezing against my palm, still carrying the cold from the mountain air. For a second, no one breathed.Edric didn't reach for it. He looked at my hand, then at my face, and his smile finally cracked. Just a little but enough to show the teeth behind it."You still think this is about that?" he said quietly.He stepped past me, past my outstretched arm and past the table where Corvin had gone the color of old parchment. He walked straight to the hearth where Brennor was standing."Brennor, show her."Brennor's shoulders shook. He didn't look up. His hand fumbled inside his leather coat and pulled out something wrapped in oilcloth. He unwrapped it with fingers that would not stay steady.It was a letter. The seal was already broken. It had a dark blue wax and a vane's sigil.And underneath it, was a second seal. One I knew better than my own name.It was my mother's hawk in silver.My knees locked. If Jarrett's hand hadn't still been on my back,
Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance CHAPTER 95
Helena's POVThe hall was already full.That was how I knew Brennor had lied.I had given him ten minutes. Ten minutes to run down a mud-slick goat path in the rain, in full leather, with a message about sixty heavy horse cutting through the low timber. Ten minutes is panic. Ten minutes is captains half-dressed, shouting over each other, benches knocked over.This was not panic. This was a seating arrangement.The long table was laid with a cean cloth and tea steaming. Lord Corvin sitting with his hands folded too tightly, like a man trying not to shake. Commander Ilya wouldn't look at me. And in the envoy's chair - the chair we leave empty at the far end for enemies under white flag - sat a man wearing Vane's grey-blue.He was already warm. His cloak was dripping onto my floor, which meant he had been inside for a long time.He stood up when he saw me, and smiled.And my heart stopped."Hello, little bird."Only two people in the world had ever called me that.One was dead. Buried in
Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance CHAPTER 94
Helena's POVThe cold hit me like a slap the second Jarrett opened that door.It wasn't just the mountain air. It was the way it stripped everything away. For twelve hours, the shrine had been the entire world - small, and stone-walled, and ours. Now the wind was in my lungs and the mud was back under my boots and the crown was suddenly too heavy in my hand.I didn't put it on right away. I couldn't. Not while Brennor was standing there looking at Jarrett like he wanted to apologize for existing."Your Grace," Brennor said again, quieter this time. Rain was still caught in his beard. His eyes flickered to me, to the blanket on the floor behind us, to Jarrett's sword, and then very deliberately back to my face. Good man, Brennor. He had been guarding that path since before I could hold a dagger properly."How many?" I asked.My voice came out wrong. Rough. Used up. I cleared my throat and tried again, and this time it sounded like a queen."Scout count, Brennor. How many?""At least si
Chasing the Riot: The Alpha's Second Chance CHAPTER 93
Jarett's pov Dawn did not break so much as it bled through the cracks in the shuttered windows, turning the black stone walls of the shrine a dull, bruise-colored gray.The rain had finally died down to a faint, rhythmic drip from the slate eaves. Beside us, the hearth held only a bed of white ash and a few stubborn embers that flickered like dying eyes. My right arm had gone completely dead beneath Helena’s weight, the pins and needles crawling up to my shoulder, but I did not dare move a muscle. She was still fast asleep, her forehead pressed against my neck, her hand buried deep in the wool of my tunic.In the faint gray light, the shrine looked colder than it had under the firelight. The stone saints watched us from their niches with blank, unblinking eyes, their carved faces worn smooth by centuries of prayers from people who had probably wanted the exact same thing we did—just a little more time. A few hours of quiet before the world demanded them again.Then came the sound we
You May Also Like
IN THE ARMS OF MY ALPHA
Cassandra M677.5K viewsThe Dark Side Of Fate
Karima Sa'ad Usman2.2M viewsContract Luna
Raelyn Karson543.8K viewsMated To Big Brother-in-law
AlisTae941.3K viewsThe Alpha's Regretful Goodbye
Wealth💅97 viewsThe Lycan's Temporary Vow: Desired By The Lycan King
Purple Acacia 167 viewsThe Human Luna's Goodbye
Jasminewrites1.2K viewsThe Unmarked Luna
F.Flora119 views
