On My Drowing Day, He Announced His Bonding to Her Chapter 09
John and Nathan tracked the sound and came running.
Scarlett stumbled along behind them.
Without a word, John and Nathan threw their weight
against the locked doors together.
The doors burst open with a crack.
Flashlight beams swept into the chapel.
Behind a broken statue of the Virgin, a scrap of white veil peeked out.
John yanked the torn cloth aside.
Under the beam of light.
My body lay curled up on the floor, pale as death.
But my chest still rose and fell, faint as it was.
I was alive.
John dropped to his knees and crushed my body
against his chest.
His whole body shook. A single tear landed on my face.
“Violet… I’m sorry.”
“This is all my fault. Please, just wake up.”
At the exact same moment, something tore loose inside me.
Lily’s body went limp and hit the ground, and no
matter how hard I called out to her, she wouldn’t wake up again.
I came to inside my own body.
He was holding me so tight my bones ached.
“Violet. Wake up.”
“You’re not dead. Thank God, you’re not dead.”
I tried to lift my hand and push him off. I didn’t have the strength.
The memories pieced themselves back together slowly.
After I went under, I fought that current the whole way down.
The undertow was fast. It dragged me miles
downstream before I even knew what was happening.
Eventually I caught hold of a piece of driftwood and clawed my way onto the bank.
I dragged that soaked, heavy veil through the dark for
what felt like hours, until I found this chapel.
I’d meant to hide behind the statue until sunrise and go home. Instead I’d blacked out cold.
I opened my eyes and saw Lily’s body lying there.
The tears came on their own.
She really had come back for me.
She’d dragged me through that black water with everything she had, then used the last of her life to lead him straight to me.
Seven years ago, I couldn’t save her.
Seven years later, she’d saved me with her life instead.
John saw the tears and reached out to touch my face.
“Violet, don’t be scared. I know I was wrong.”
“I’m taking you to the medical center. Once you’re
better, we’ll bond. I swear it on the Moon Goddess.”
I turned my head away, dodging his hand.
It froze in midair.
I looked at him.
“John. I don’t need you to take me anywhere.”
His voice cracked with panic.
“Violet, you-“|
Footsteps sounded outside the chapel.
Elder Moonsong showed up with a handful of Pack members, torches lit.
The second they saw I was alive, their first move was pointing and shouting.
“This one just won’t die!”
“Even the Groom wouldn’t take her! She’s dragging
bad luck back on the whole Pack!”
“Tie her up! Put her back in the river!”
My mother shoved through the crowd and threw
herself in front of me.
“Anybody who touches my daughter answers to me!”
Nathan stepped forward and planted himself between the crowd and us.
He stood tall, staring them down, ice in his voice.
“Is it really the Groom who won’t take her? Or is it that
some of you have something to hide and can’t stand
letting one of your own go?”
The crowd stirred, uneasy.
That’s when Scarlett, who’d been standing quiet in the
corner, suddenly pointed and screamed.
“That’s not Violet!”
“Nobody comes back alive from that river! The
Groom’s inside her!”
“She’s here to collect!”
The Pack was already spooked, and the second she said that, hands went straight for weapons.
Scarlett ducked behind Elder Moonsong, trying to shove every bit of that fear back onto me.
If I was the monster, then whatever she’d done to me didn’t matter anymore.
But this time John didn’t shield her.
He rose slowly and stepped in front of me instead.
“Enough, Scarlett.”