Grannie Alba

"She passed out. My men took her to the pack clinic and.. " I stopped hearing him after these words

I felt the room tilt. I couldn't breathe.

One minute, Alpha Romano was talking, the next minute, I was running so fast that I could barely feel my feet touch the floor.

The pack doctor, Dr Brown, stopped me just as I went through the doors to the immaculately white building. He took one look at my disheveled state and led me into a room.

"Where is she?" I asked, looking around and was disappointed to be in an office, not a treatment room. 

I paused, swallowing mouthfuls of air to catch my breath.

"Luna Selene, please I need you to calm down. Your grandmother....she-"

I shook my head. "I don't care, just take me to her. You can tell me all that after I've seen her."

I made my way to the door but it was locked. I turned to look at the doctor and an irritated sound erupted from my throat.

Looking at the doctor, I wanted to rip him in half. Why wouldn't he just tell me where Grannie Alba was? She was sick, okay, I just wanted to see her.

"Open the door," I instructed, my voice sounding like brewing thunder. It was unrecognisable even to my ears.

"Luna, I can't talk to you in this state."

I growled, the sound was foreign but I didn't have the time to ponder over it. Turning back to the door, I pulled the knob off and the door swung open so I ran.

I paused when one of the health personnel gave me a frightened look.

"Where is she?" I asked, giving no room for excuses. She pointed to the room opposite her and I ran in that direction, just as Dr Brown got to where I previously stood.

By the time I opened the door to the room, the rest of the blood in my head rushed to my feet. 

I stared, wide eyed as a number of people moved in frenzy, circling Grannie Alba's frail looking body on the bed.

"Somebody get the Luna out of here," I heard from a distant.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked, as I took a step closer to her. No one made a move to touch me.

Guilt twisted my insides. 

I couldn't believe that I left that woman for months without knowing anything about her wellbeing or her whereabouts. 

Yet, there I was trying to be a Luna to a bunch of strangers. I couldn't even be there for my own family.

"She had a heart attack, we're trying to stabilize her. Luna, you have to leave now," the nurse said.

I choked out a sob. 

Dr Sofia's words from the last time I visited floated in my head. "She has to be more careful. She wouldn't survive another heart attack."

I felt large arms grab my shoulder from behind, turning me away from the scene. 

I wanted to scream and kick but I felt too weak to move. Grannie Alba was human. These wolf doctors wouldn't know what to do with her.

The person pulled me out of the room and into another.

I crouched down in the middle of the room, burying my face in my thighs as tears flowed freely.

Memories of Grannie Alba flooded me; the first time I shifted, her warm bath soothing my aching bones, the birthdays she made feel special. The day she told me that even if I couldn't feel Makayla, she would always be with me. Just like Grannie Alba would always remain with me.

A loud cry tore from my throat, and my body shook from the pain I felt.

"Find out what's wrong with the electricity," I heard someone in the room with me, instruct another.

Glancing up, I saw that the overhead bulbs were flickering rapidly. 

For the few seconds they stayed on, I could make out Alpha Romano's face at one corner of the room where he stood, watching me.

After some time, I gathered myself together and the bulbs had stabilised. "Why are you here?" I asked, my voice rough from crying.

"My mate is experiencing a difficult time. Not being with her wouldn't be a good look," he replied. It took all my self control not to lunge myself at him and choke him with my bare hands.

I nodded, understanding that he wasn't there for me. "I should have gone to visit her, even once, but I didn't. I didn't and I would forever hate myself for it just as I'm sure she hates me now."

"I have one of the best doctors there with her," he said, ignoring everything I had said.

At that moment, I felt like my whole life shatter all over again. Maybe I shouldn't have been pouring my heart out to the one person who was the cause of it all but I wasn't thinking clearly at that point.

A knot formed in my throat and I swallowed hard. "If she dies here, she will never know how sorry I am."

He opened his mouth to speak and then paused. He walked towards me with an unreadable expression on his face and stretched out a hand for me.

"Why don't you go tell her yourself?"

-

I sat beside Grannie Alba through the rest of the evening and night.

She wasn't awake. Alpha Romano's words made me think she was awake, but she wasn't. 

She was out of danger though and all we had to do was wait for her to wake up. 

"Hey," I heard Isabella say as she entered the room with a plate of waffles and a glass of orange juice.

"Hi," I greeted back, watching her pull a chair beside me.

She stretched the plate towards me but I rejected it, shaking my head ever so slightly. "I can't eat anything right now, I'm sure it'll taste like dust in my mouth."

"Just try some. You haven't eaten since breakfast," she said with a frown. She was right and it was almost 2am so I accepted a piece to make her happy.

"How is she?" She asked, looking over at Grannie Alba.

Her body was hooked to a number of beeping machines. She looked at peace, it made me scared at how peaceful she looked. Almost as though she was....

"The doctor said her vital organs are stable and she should wake up any time soon," I responded.

She nodded.

"How come?" She asked after some moments of silence.

"What? Like how come she's human and I'm a wolf?"

Isabella nodded again. "A human and a wolf can't produce a wolf offspring so I'm really confused."

I let out a small chuckle. 

"You're right, they can't. Grannie Alba took my mum in when she was barely a teenager. Her family had been killed in a battle and she ran away."

"Grannie Alba found her, shaking and blood stained. She took care of her like her very own. You can imagine how crazy that must have been right?"

Isabella nodded, her eyes sad.

"Grannie Alba learned everything there was to learn about us and when my mum found her mate; my dad, he insisted she went back to his pack with them," I continued, trying to ignore the beeping monitors.

"Open Creek was still in very good shape then so it took the then Alpha some convincing before he permitted it."

"Grannie Alba was so loving and caring, it was difficult not to fall in love with her. She still is," I said, my voice cracking at the end as I took her frail hand in mine.

"She sounds wonderful," Isabella said and I nodded.

We sat in silence for the rest of the night until Sofia left so she could go to bed.

On the other hand, I couldn't sleep. What if I close my eyes and by the time i open them, she's....gone.