The animal whisperer meets the alpha

Chapter 8

***Arie's POV***

My head was pounding like the worst hangover of a life time.  I desperately needed a glass of water like a man lost in the Sahara.  Beep Beep Beep. An annoying noise kept repeating as I was thinking.  After a few seconds, I realized it was a heart monitor and that I must have been in the hospital.  I started to open my eyes but the light was too much and turned the pounding of my head into a fiery pain.  What happened? I asked to no one in particular.  

Arie!!!!! I heard so many animals scream.  I immediately shut off my ability, praying that the ringing in my ears would stop.  I was soaking wet and felt like I was on fire while also being crushed under a ton.  

We nearly died. A soft voice said.  I recognized it, but I couldn't figure out from where.  I'm Cassie, your wolf. She said.

I don't have a wolf, I'm human. I thought.  I couldn't seem to focus, like I was swimming with no real sense of direction.  Something brushed my hand and I immediately jerked away.  My eyes flew open as I looked at what touched me and came face to face with... a mirror?  The girl looked exactly like me only instead of plain brown hair with blue eyes like me, she had fiery red hair with eyes so pale they almost looked white.  Her eyes sparkled like she still had a purpose to life while I knew mine were dull and on the grey end of being blue from being broken.

"Who are you?" I said, my head was still spinning at 100 miles per hour and I couldn't focus on her very well.

"I'm Azra, your twin sister." She said while scooting a little closer.  I slid further from her, fear coursing through me. She had to be insane.  I'm the lone daughter of Claire and Hank Ledgeston, she was delusional.  The resemblance was uncanny yes but I looked like a perfect combination of my parents.  There was no way that this girl could be my twin sister.  Twins were known to have great abilities among hunters which caused hunters to ensure that they're raised together to strengthen the bond.  It went against everything I was taught that she was my twin.  Never separate twins, especially werewolf twins since they can always find each other.  Rule 176: If you can't get both twins, kill the one you get.  It's too risky to keep it alive because the chance of the other twin finding the one taken is 75%, 82% once the free one shifts, 95% once both shift.  The chance of the other twin dying with the one you kill is 65%.

"You can't be." I said, my voice sounding more like sandpaper on wood than anything else.  She turned and procured a glass of water from what seemed like no where.

"I knew that you wouldn't believe it but you have to believe me Aria!"  She exclaimed, grasping my hand gently yet in a strong grip.  

"My name isn't Aria, it's Arie." I told her as I attempted to pry my hand from hers

"That's what they may have called you since you already recognized your name but they couldn't call you your real name without you making connections."  She said, releasing my hand with a dejected look on her face.

"It can't be true." I muttered.

"It's true and I think you would know if I was lying.  Do you have any idea how much time I spent roaming every inch of land and questioning random strangers just to try and get a slight indication of where you could be?  I searched all of Europe in the past 10 years and it wasn't until about 5 months ago that I finally came across someone who had met you.  Your scent lingered on him even though it clearly had been a while since you'd seen him.  He claimed that he had met you in a town in South Carolina." She paused, "What was it?" She asked mainly to herself.  "It had something to do with a dessert mountain."  

"Mount Carmel?" I cautiously asked. 

"That's it!" She exclaimed.  "He looked stunned to see me actually and mentioned having seen you for only a moment before you were practically dragged away by a couple that appeared to be your parents."

"Yeah, it was a few towns over from ours and I knew they were having a fair of sorts and I wanted to go even though my parents refuse to let me go anywhere.  So I left during the busiest time of the day through the forest because it would be harder to go in my truck.  I managed to have a few hours of fun before my parents found me." I said, cringing slightly as I thought on the memory.  Suddenly my head started pounding at such an intensity that I felt the scream leave my lips but didn't hear it.  The girl jump and immediately ran from the room.  Voices were screaming at me from all sorts of places.  The fire in my skull refused to relent and I felt like my head had been hit by a train as well.  I clutched my head, a popping ringing through my ears as I did so, until a group of people who I assumed were hospital staff came charging into the room and pulled my hands away from my head.  The crimson covering my hands was undoubtedly blood as it mixed with the handfuls of hair.

There was so much movement going on in the room and I couldn't focus on anything other than the ringing in my ears and the shouting going through my mind.  My skull was an eggshell that had cracked, the egg my brain as it felt like it was oozing out.  I barely noticed the nurse jab a needle in my arm before I blacked out.

***Lance's POV****

"What happened!" I shouted as I looked at my mate as she lay on the bed, the bandages on her head barely containing the blood.  Her light skin looked ghostly and almost transparent.  Faint blue veins shown clearly through her white skin.  

"Alpha, please, your mate woke up and crack her own skull open.  We ask that you keep your voice down so that she stays asleep for a long as possible on her own.  We can't have her waking up again, her skull isn't healing properly and if she gains the strength again, she could easily crush her own brain.  So please keep it down."  Laya, one of our nurses said.  I took a few breaths, she could beat my ass into next week if I didn't follow her orders.  I also didn't want to cause my mate anymore pain than she already was in.  

"Will she be okay?" I asked softly, I glanced at her body on the bed, she looked almost dead, if not already.  If it wasn't for her heartbeat I would've thought she was dead.

"We're not sure," She said softly, "her back is covered in scars that were laced with wolfsbane in what we believe was an attempt to keep her wolf weak and unable to come forward.  We also think they used silver to inflict the wounds because wolfsbane isn't enough to cause the scars to still be there."  I felt a growl escape my lips before heading outside.  I walked around the building a couple of times before coming to a stop at a tree outside her window.  I felt the urge to throw my fist into the poor tree but instead I clenched my fist as I slid to the ground, silent tears falling from my eyes.  My mate had been through so much pain growing up and it was my fault.  

[A/n: sooooo, I was writing more before realizing that this would be a super long chapter because I still wasn't close to finishing it and was almost 3,000 words in so I decided to split the chapter into two.  I hope you all enjoy this!]