Twisting Her Fate
Chapter 142

By the time Oscar has walked back inside, Aubrey has already pulled Leilani up the stairs, Sierra and Kelsey have both joined them. Sierra is Arlo's mate and Kelsey is Madden's.

Each new addition slots in perfectly to the group. Leilani was worried that the mates would mind her relationship with the boys but there has been none of that. Each addition just adding to the family without a glitch. Each new person having a certain level of broken in their past. As soon as they join the family, they heal.

Inside the room, the women are listening to thrash metal as they drink shots of coconut rum while they dress up in beautiful dresses and do their hair and makeup. They have a girls nights once a month as it gets a little all-consuming living in a house full of boys all the time.

The girls focusing most of their attention onto Leilani now, but Leilani just waves them away. She thought this was a good idea, but now she is rethinking her plan, she only wants to lock herself in her room and cry. She wants to eat cookie dough and imagine Connor and Evie in their beautiful home. Maybe by now he is rubbing Evie's pregnant belly. Maybe they have a few kids running around.

The girls don't know anything about the truth, the blanket ban stopping the passing of information to an outside source that could communicate it to Leilani.

They don't know about Connor. All they do know is that at this time of year Leilani is extra forlorn, they don't ask about the reason, they only care about cheering her up. Leilani holds herself back from the group, trying not to bring down their moods, smiling when she should be smiling. On the outside she is showing all the things that she should, but it is the inside that is warped and twisted, it is the inside that hurts so much. Still, to this day, the pain has not lessened.

She can only blame herself for being not good enough.

Finally, the girls emerge from the room, looking gorgeous.

Leilani is dressed in a royal blue dress, her white blonde hair is tied in a high ponytail, she has minimal makeup, but she is stunning as she is, she puts a brave smile on her face, but in a house full of people she still manages to feel lonely.

She watches as the other girls kiss their partners, kiss their life mates, the people that the moon goddess gave them, the perfect matching. It just reminds her that she wasn't good enough to have Connor. Oscar kisses Aubrey.

"Make sure you take good care of Leilani"

Leilani smiles a soft smile as she looks away. She used to be the one to protect others, now she is sent with body guards, she can take out every human and even some wolves, but now she is half of what she was. 6 months after separation

The screaming and shouting has finally died down and the massive flow of blood has finally stopped. Gabriel sits on the bed with crossed legs as he cradles Leilani's head on his lap. "Stay with me Leilani"

Gabriel looks up at Dr Jarvis with a pleading look on his face. Dr Jarvis can only shake his head with a solemn look on his face, he has done as much as he can do, every single muscle in his body hurts. He is so tired that he can barely keep his eyes open. "Just stay with her, try and give her wolf strength, try and keep her here"

"I can feel her slipping away"

Gabriel strokes the sweaty hair off Leilani's forehead. All the others have been ushered out of the room, they saw Leilani die over and over again. Dr Jarvis has revived her nineteen times, Oscar and Astrid have become living blood bags. If they donate another drop, they may die themselves. Terrance has been making potions to suit the circumstances he has blisters and burns all over his hands. All of them have been working for twenty-nine hours straight, it has been gruelling and Dr Jarvis was sure at the end of it all they were going to end up with the worst possible result anyway.

Leilani is paler than a piece of paper, her breathing is so shallow that if it wasn't for the machines they wouldn't even know that she is still alive.

Her heartbeat is so quiet that Gabriel has to glance at the monitor to make sure his ears aren't deceiving him. His wolf knows that she is alive but he has felt the pain of her death so many times over. At the moment, he is in a numb sort of space. Gabriel's own wolf desperately trying to call Lani's wolf, but there is nothing there, it is only silence, the aura of power she had before is no more. There is only emptiness.

Aubrey, Arlo and Finlay are caring for the beautiful newborns, but it is hard to enjoy the miraculous event when Lani has been toeing the line between life and death for so long. "I can't feel her wolf"

Gabriel's voice is so soft it is unknown if he is speaking to the doctor or speaking to himself. His hand shakes as he strokes her soft cheeks. When he was asked to help in such a way, he was against it completely, not believing that Lani should risk her life for this purpose.

Believing that nothing can ever come before your own life. But there is something about being in the fusion pack. He finally understood the meaning of family, he understood how many people cared for her, not because she is powerful, not for her blood, not her strength or any tangible gains. They all just love Lani because she is her, because she is a good person.

Even when he walked into this makeshift medical room he wasn't sure, but these last twenty-nine hours have changed his entire life.

He has never seen such raw emotion, he has never seen so many people willing to sacrifice so much. Growing up, he believed that love was shallow, that it was just something others said to make the world feel like it had more meaning.

But what he has seen here today is real, he has seen real tears, felt the heartbreak, breathed the grief.

He has experienced love, the love that was taken away from him when his mother threw herself to the bottom of a cliff. He understands that love is not a requirement from obligation or blood. It is something that people can't control and it is something that has to worked on. It is never one-sided. It is something so raw and so powerful and so uncontrollable.

As he looked around the room in the middle of it all, he saw so much pain and so much hurt. In a room full of people all concentrating and grieving for the one right in front of him, he understood how insignificant he was. He understood how much he had wasted his life if he was in the same situation. If he was on the bed dying, would there be anyone there to care? Would there be anyone to go to excess for him?

Maybe some would. But that is only because he was the alpha. Not because they actually cared, only because they felt a duty.

There was no duty here. It was only what they wanted to put in and what everyone in this room wanted to put in was to hand over their own life to bring Leilani back.

That is how many lives she has touched. So many powerful beings, powerful wolves with so much that they could have all to themselves, but all they cared about was Leilani pulling through.

In the middle, Terrance was feeding him small amounts of the serum. Just enough that he could still feel his wolf. He could still feel that connection to be helpful to Leilani, but not enough that he would fill the full agonizing pain just enough that he could stay in a conscious, in a sane state to be able to help instead of him passing out over and over again each time she flat-lined.

Finlay walks into the room. He has just finished settling Astrid and Oscar. Astrid needed to be carried out. She was so weak and Oscar barely managed to walk himself out of the room.

He looks at Gabriel, who is caring for Leilani. He can't say he approves of the situation at all, there is no trust between the two and Gabriel has done so much in the past to try and hurt Leilani, but watching him now, he doesn't look like Gabriel, the alpha of the half moon pack, he looks like a sweet and caring man.

Finlay watched the whole time, worried that Gabriel would do something to hurt Leilani. He couldn't afford for that to happen, but none of the things he was worried about happened.

Finlay was the one that fought long and hard against the idea, but it was always the best option, even if it didn't make much sense.

"How is she doing?"

Gabriel looks up from Lani's face. He didn't even know that Finlay had entered the room.

"I don't even know, I can't feel her wolf but she is alive"

Finlay looks out the tiny window of the room wistfully. It is not the best result, but it could have been worse. Finlay lowers his head slightly.

"Thank you Gabriel"

Gabriel hears the praise but he feels like they are undeserved, he feels like he has done the least in the room.

"I owe her a lot more than that. I can see that now"

"You know that we are going to need you to be with her to try and pull her through this"

"I understand"

In a strange way, Gabriel actually feels gratified to be needed in such a way, to know that he has such a task that no one else in the world can do. Every other thing can be taken away from him, but he is left with an important task.