Celestial Heartbeat (Book One) COMPLETE

Chapter Thirty Three - The White Wolf

“What do I do?” I blubbered, running my hands through my hair, using all of the strength in me to stop myself from ripping it out of my head.

Ren was dead. Marcy was dead. Rebecca and Sylvia had vanished and I’d already thrown up the entire contents of my stomach after crying so hard that I’d run out of strength. Cosmo was awake and after lots of screaming had resorted to kneeling at Marcy’s side, staring at her silently, unable to fathom what had happened. That didn’t last long though, as his mood grew too unstable and he had reduced to his feline form, lying dormant by Marcy’s arm.

I felt lost. I felt empty. And the worst part was that I had no one to blame except myself. If I hadn’t betrayed Ren and had refused to go with Rebecca, things would be different.

I swore and I screamed, only stopping when I ran out of breath and was reduced to a ball on the ground, gasping for breath and slamming my hands against the ground up until they burned as much as my eyes and throat. It was then that I was numb. For that space in time I felt nothing and that proved to be just as terrifying as feeling everything at once. I only stirred again when I noticed the wolves that were beginning to encase us and I dragged myself to sit up.

Without the influence of Rebecca the wolves had fallen out of their haze and had come to recognize that one of their own had fallen. They stood a little way back from Ren, their heads ducked low letting out small, infrequent whines. The white wolf at the front of the pack looked the saddest, yet something about watching her calmed me. Her tail hung between her legs and she refused to lift her head. She was the only one who dared to come near Ren’s body. She sniffed carefully around him, nudging carefully at his arm and licking delicately at the wound on his side, clearing away the dirt and blood. The white wolf licked Ren’s face too, only lightly on his cheek once before uttering the saddest whine I’d ever heard. I wished foolishly that somehow Ren would awaken under the touch of the white wolf, but he did not. His body gave no response to the fact that she was beside him at all. When she was finished with Ren’s body the wolf came and sat by my side, she gave my hand a timid lick and stared up into my face, her eyes perfectly grey just like Ren’s. There was something familiar about this wolf that I’d been trying so hard to place, but it wasn’t until I glanced down at my arm full of black marks that I remembered. The tattoo that Ren had on his back… it was surely the same wolf.

“A-are you Ren’s mother?” I asked quietly.

The wolf dipped her head very low and lifted it back up again. I understood that to be a nod. I started to cry again. This time it wasn’t for me, it was for her. The mother who had just lost her son. I cried and cried and kept telling her how sorry I was. Unable to speak, she stepped closer to me, laying down at my feet and resting her head in my lap. I wrapped her arms around her, curling my fingers into her thick, bushy fur, sobbing into her neck. She had needed a hug as much as I did, if not more so, she had just lost her son.

If it weren’t for her I don’t know what I would have done. I’d been teetering on the edge of doing something stupid, but being able to cling to the white wolf and her fur kept me grounded, kept me holding onto something physical. Her fur felt the way that Ren’s had and she had the same earthly smell. Closing my eyes it was almost as though it were Ren himself in my arms.

I wondered what she thought of me. It was a natural instinct for Chevalier’s to hate Delaney’s considering our history with one another. But the white wolf was peaceful, she was not bothered by my presence or the overwhelming a grip I had over her. I took advantage of her kindness and held her until long after I lost the feeling in my fingers from holding on too hard and my head was so filled up with her scent that I thought it might explode.

I couldn’t bear to look at Ren anymore. Now that I’d finally looked away I was too scared to look back. I knew if I looked back I’d only be confronted with the sight of his still chest, stiffened body and drained white skin. In my head I could still see him laughing and joking, I was worried that if I looked back now that image would be gone forever and I’d only be able to see him in his current state. Nobody wanted to remember the dead as dead.