CHAPTER 28

~ ISABELLE~

I didn't know how much time had passed since I woke up and found out I had two mates, but it felt like days. It was more than a couple of days. I'd wake up for a few minutes daily to find one of the brothers by my side before going back to sleep.

And I'd dream about the brothers again, about them doing sinful things to me. I didn't want to imagine such things, but my wolf craved the two like I craved water. Yet they wouldn't give it to me.

I woke up feeling less tired each time, and I was awake for longer periods than before. However, my body was still weak. I couldn't feel the left side of my body for some reason, but one day, I figured out why.

It felt like a terrible dream when I found a cybernetic arm in place of my human left arm.

Aiden informed me that I had burnt my left arm in the explosion, and they had to replace it. He had been the one to tell me all about it. I'd only talk to him and ignore or pretend to sleep whenever Damian was around. Even though I despised the two equally, it was easier to talk to Aiden. He was the less serious of the two brothers and had a unique sense of humour that was hard to dislike.

Contrariwise, Damian carried a domineering air that sometimes overwhelmed me because he commanded all my attention. There was a focused power to his presence that made me feel entrapped in his personality. His burning gaze always seemed to hold me captive in it with a suffocating power. I wasn't strong enough to withstand that yet.

However, my wolf didn't discriminate between the two brothers. She'd jump either of them (or even both) if she could.

"So I can take it off anytime?" I asked Aiden one day. Even though I pretended not to care outwardly, waking up to a robotic arm was something...eerie. It was all I could think of. I had lost my arm because of my foolishness.

"No," Aiden explained, looking at me with soft eyes, "It's permanently attached to your bone. It's like a real arm,"

"But it's not," I muttered, and something darkened in his eyes, making me regret saying that in the first place. But he didn't say anything about it. I could tell that the brothers were trying their best to keep me alive, and I should be grateful to them, but.. I couldn't. I didn't want to, even if I could.

However, my wolf was deeply pleased, making her yearn for the two stronger day by day.

"I'm sorry," He returned. "It'll never be your real arm, but it's close enough to that. Even better in some ways," He explained.

"How?"

"There's a chip placed in your brain that's connected to….”

"A what?" I asked.

"A chip in your brain," He clarified, "We needed to work on your head, too, since it cracked open in the explosion, but it's better now. You're healing alright.

The chip in your brain connects to your arm and synchronises it with the rest of your body, making your reflexes sharper. They say you'll get used to it soon.”

I licked my lips, trying to take in all the information. I glanced at my arm and tried to lift it but accidentally smacked Aiden in the face. But he caught my new arm on time and let it down.

"You'd need a good amount of calibration first," He commented, "But that's good enough," he nodded to himself, checking my fingers. My wolf stirred inside me, wanting to hold his hand, wanting to touch him and get closer to him, but I suppressed it all. It was one of the topics I ignored while talking to him.

He studied me profoundly as if I were the most important thing to exist on this planet. I could almost feel his longing and suffering through the mate bond, but I chose not to address it. I pretended I didn't feel it, but it was there and often troubled me in my dreams.

"How long have I been in the hospital?" I asked him.

"A month and a half," He answered, and I let out a small yelp. "We weren't expecting you to wake up soon," He told me. "But I'm glad you're awake, Isabelle.”

I tried to ignore how my name on his lips made me feel. It gave me those annoying butterflies. I glared at him as the machine beside me beeped loudly, indicating my racing heart. Aiden knew exactly what he was doing because he smirked.

"You're so beautiful, Isabelle,” he told me. Lying in the hospital bed with chapped lips, pale skin, a shaven head, a half-swollen face, and a robotic arm, I felt anything but beautiful. I felt like a crumbled leaf, and the person responsible for all this was none other than me. It was the most brutal truth to accept because, deep down, it shook something inside me.

The hatred I had for the brothers was dangerous.

Too dangerous for my own good. It had almost destroyed me. I never thought about it too seriously, but when you wake up to find a cybernetic arm attached to your body and a chip in your brain, you gain a certain kind of perspective that an ordinary arm wouldn't have given you.

"You're lying," I sobbed. I didn't want to cry, but my eyes swelled up with tears when I felt the emptiness inside me. Not that it wasn't there before. It was just that I had been filling it with hate. Becoming aware of it made me feel pathetic.

But still, it didn't change anything. I despised the brothers, especially Damian.

Aiden’s eyes softened, and he kissed my human hand, giving me more sparks and butterflies. The machine was beeping wildly, but no one seemed to pay attention to it.

"I will never lie to you, Isabelle. You're beautiful, and I feel blessed to be your mate," He spoke, kissing my hand again. I wanted to pull away but didn't because it was oddly comforting. I hated that I felt that way about this exchange, but I needed more of it. It made me feel like an ant lost in a stream who had finally found a dead branch to hold onto.

I could've never imagined that a Crown brother would make me feel this way. It made me wonder why the Moon Goddess had chosen them for me.

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