A Gift from the Goddess by Dawn Rosewood

Chapter Thirty-Nine “Miss?” a voice called out to me. My vision had slowly faded after the shocking realisation of what was happening, and I looked up to see Lucy leaning over me. “Aria?” she called again, worried enough to drop the honorifics. I blinked several times, coming back to reality, but I could still feel my entire body shaking. ‘I was going to kill Aleric.’ The thought kept repeating itself in my head and I didn’t know what to do. In the past, my visions had shown me things caused by others that I needed to stop. But this time… this time it was me causing harm. How could things become so bad between us… that I ended up wanting t o kill him?

“Aria?” Lucy called again.

“Lucy… sorry,” was all I could say, letting her know I was fine.

“Miss, you scared me!”

She threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly. It was nice to know that even after all the hell and extra duties I gave her, she still seemed to care about me. “I’m sorry,” I said and wrapped an arm around her in return, still in shock. 

After a few moments of hugging, she finally pulled away.

“What happened to you? It was like you were passed out… but your eyes were open.”

“Oh...,” I said. I had forgotten how freaky it looked to onlookers. I knew that if I told her the truth, it would be too difficult and emotional for me to go into detail right then. But at the same time, I couldn‘t tell her it was nothing. Because obviously, it wasn’t nothing. It was the same predicament I’d found myself in with Cai last year. To give too little detail and I’d be sent to the hospital for a full check–up, yet to say too much would only b e more trouble.

“...It‘s a side effect of the mark,” I finally said. “It gives me nightmares sometimes when I become stressed.”

I told her the same line I’d once fed Cai and hoped it would satisfy her enough to leave me be.

But she only looked at me as if she had so many questions, like nothing I‘d said was making sense, and in all honesty, I couldn‘t disagree with that reaction. But I couldn‘t give her any more answers for now. Not yet anyway. “Come on, Miss,” she said finally, helping me to my feet. “Let’s get you into bed so you can lie

down.”

to realise I had secrets I couldn’t tell her. After everything she’d helped me

be for now. “... Thank you, Lucy.” She held me by the hand and helped me up the stairs to my room, my body still trembling slightly at the graphic scene I’d just lived through. So, when my head finally hit the pillow, allowing me to relax, I was happy for just the small amount of peace it gave me. “Stay here a moment, Miss,” Lucy said once she was satisfied I was comfortable. “I‘ll be back i na minute.” I frowned. “Where

“I‘m just going to go down and let him know you’re fine so he can head home… maybe make you a cup of tea whilst I‘m there.” I tensed up immediately. I could have sworn he‘d left but, after thinking it through, I realised I never actually saw

Why...? 

of the vision that was slowly about t o make me pass out. “Okay...,” I finally managed to say, allowing her to go. The minute Lucy left though, I realised that I was now alone in my own thoughts... and it wasn’t a pleasant place. So much had happened tonight, so many mixed emotions. Aleric had shown me a side of him I‘d never seen before, someone who felt vulnerable. It was something I was struggling to come to terms with since, the image of him inside my head, was one

a bad way, just…

so afraid? But then when I did talk to him, I

at how I had behaved at dinner. But he didn’t show any signs of that at all. In fact, he always spoke to me calmly and politely as we worked

I had only ever witnessed occasionally from afar with others, someone who had never shown their face to me in the past. Was this what it was like to not feel terrified of being around him? Had things really changed so

better idea o f what was going on.

Because the Alpha had

standing before Alpha Tytus in the meeting hall, Aleric to

“Thank you for

both bowed our

see, we’ve been in negotiations with another pack for a few months now and they haven’t exactly been making our lives easy.” I frowned. I wasn’t sure what this would have to do with me. At most, my errands consisted of paperwork based tasks or checking in with warriors for status reports. Negotiation input was definitely above my current job requirement. “It seems the Golden Blade pack believe our conditions for the alliance are unsuitable, and are even underestimating the threat we pose.” I could feel Tytus watching me carefully as he spoke, almost as if he was trying to see what was going on inside my brain. “Well... I told them, of course, that our pack was currently revered by the Goddess herself, so therefore the price of the alliance

understood where this

living Saintess amongst us‘,”