Chapter 17

"How is it that you are here?" Zezi asked immediately they were left alone. She hugged her daughter once again. It was like she just couldn't get enough. "I can't believe this."

"I didn't believe it too when Alpha Gery summoned me and said that the BloodSuckers' King had requested for us. We were brought here immediately. Blindfolded and all."

"I missed you so much," she said and grabbed his hand tighter.

"I missed you too."

"When are you coming back home, Mummy?" Mira, who sat by Zezi's bedside, asked.

"Hmmm... soon."

"My friends said, their Mummy and Daddy said, they are not coming back."

"Don't listen to them. They don't know what they are saying," George answered, seeing that Zezi was at a lose of what to say. "Mummy and Daddy wants to talk. How about you stay over there and play with Teddy while you wait for us."

"Yes, Daddy."

Mira hoped off the bed, leaving them alone.

"The Doctor said you got to a breaking point and crashed. Are they hurting you here, Zezi?" He asked with the most tender affection in his eyes that were absolutely filled with worry.

Despite herself, she found herself chuckling at his question.

"Definitely not."

His hands snaked around her, pulling her into a firm embrace.

"I have missed you so much," he sniffed her in, "so much."

He let her go.

"These past few days have been hard without you. It is so hard coming up with excuses for Mira. Aunt Alice is still being helpful but it is rough on her too. She misses you."

"I do too. It has been hard for me too. So hard."

"How does he still let you have that?" He gestured to the mark.

"I lied to him about us being true mates."

"I don't think he will believe that. You can't have two mates, everyone knows that."

"Don't worry about it. I think he believes me."

He pulled away a little, then bent towards her neck sniffing her in his lips brushed against her mark while he mumbled, "I have I have missed oh so much."

This should be calming, this should be bliss, but for some reasons, it wasn't.

She found herself pulling away from his embrace, but he was so engrossed in how much he had missed her that he hadn't taken note of her action. He  placed a finger underneath her chin, so that she could look up at him. Then he leaned in for a kiss, she leaned too, but just when they were close enough to seal their lips together, those black eyes flashed her mind and she pulled away instantly.

George watched her in confusion.

"I can't."

"Why?" His voice was laced with seething rage and a tinge of disgust. "You've accepted your fate as a Bloodsuckers mate?"

Anger brew inside her for some reasons.

"That is not it. I just... I can't."

She couldn't explain it. How could she explain what she couldn't even understand?

He straightened up, his face still filled with a shadow of anger.

"Do you still want to come back home? Your promise, remember?"

"Of course, George!" She answered in a harsh whisper, defending herself against George's tone.

"I was hoping you would say that."

He winked at her and she chuckled lightly.

"I have been making plans, my love." He sat at one small part of the bed, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "If you can can make sure you pull some stunts to have me here a couple more times, then I can map it all out." Then he added with an overconfident certainty. "It will work."

"I don't know about that, George."

She hadn't been here for too long but even she doubt the possibility of her ever escaping.

A glare crossed George's face and he held one part of the bedsheet in a death grip.

"Do you want to spend the rest of your life bounded to a monster or do you want to come back home and live with us, with Mira."

Zezi instinctively turned her head to looked at the right corner of the ward, where her daughter was playing with her favorite brown teddy, while seated on a long chair that she was seeing for the first time.

"Remember what they did to us. There is no way you could possibly pick those monsters over your family."

The memory of what had happened that night when she was 14 flashed before her eyes, and she shook her head, her face filled with a frown, her hands tightened into fists and her nails dug into her palms.

"I want to come home," she gritted. "You know that."

"I do."

His face relaxed, he gave her another wink, but this time, she didn't chuckle.

"I was having that nightmare again."

George sighed.

"Again?"

"Yes." She gulped, nodding lightly. "I heard your voice and it brought me back to life." She reached her hand up to him and caressed his face, her eyes pools of gratitude. "You always save me every time. Thank you."

He placed his hand over hers, but he didn't look quite pleased. Something Zezi had found absolutely confusing.

"It wasn't my voice you heard."

"What?"

That was impossible. She had heard a male's voice while having that nightmare and she was certain that voice was his. That same voice that saved her from that nightmare so many times in the past.

Only his voice and Mira were able to do that. So what was he saying?

"You didn't even react to my voice at all, nor to Mira's." His voice dropped painfully low. "It was his voice."

"His... voice?"

That can't be right.

No way!

She tried to remember the voice she had heard and it played once again in her head. It truly didn't sound anything like George. It was deeper with that powerful dark aura.

It was indeed him!

"We need to get you out of here," George's urgent voice snapped her out of her thoughts. He suddenly became restless, his chest racing and falling at the implication of what was happening and what could happen in future if nothing was done to stop it.

"We have to do it quickly, my love. The more you stay around him, the stronger the bond grows. Soon, I am afraid, you won't be able to fight it anymore. Not even my Mark on you will be able to stop it."

Her head rang bells and suddenly it all grew silent.

She could still hear George's voice though, like a faint whisper.

"I'm sure he knows."

Her hand crawled up to her mark slowly.

That must be why she still had it. He knew that sooner or later it would be useless anyways. That soon enough, she would consumed by the bond and having it on would be hell for her. She could be the one begging him to claim her and take it away.

He was simply waiting, patiently.

Hr heart thundered at her discovery.

She couldn't let that happen.