The Biker Alpha Who Became My Second Chance Mate Chapter 117

Tristan

"We'll figure it out," I said, but the words felt hollow in my mouth. "All of us together. We won't let anything happen to you or anyone else."

Athena stared at me with those brown eyes that had always been my anchor, and now they looked lost. "What if there isn't a solution? What if this is just who I am now?"

The question hit me square in the chest, but I forced myself to stay steady. "Then we'll learn to live with it. Whatever that means."

"Even if I can never touch you again without hurting you?"

I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell her it didn't matter, that we'd find a way around it. But sitting there, looking at her gloved hands resting carefully on her lap, I could picture our future.

No more casual touches. No more holding hands while we walked. No more skin against skin when we kissed.

Everything would have barriers between us.

"Even then," I said, and I meant it, even though it felt like swallowing a needle.

She smiled, but it was wrong. All crooked and broken. "I love you."

"I love you too."

We stood up and headed for the door. Athena kept her hands at her sides like they were loaded weapons. She moved differently now, like she was afraid of her own shadow.

Voices drifted up from downstairs. Sarah and Orion were talking in the kitchen, their words too quiet to make out. The conversation stopped when they heard our footsteps on the stairs.

"Good morning," Sarah said when we walked in. She looked relieved to see Athena on her feet, but worry lines creased her forehead. "How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"Better," Athena said. The lie came out smooth as silk.

"Sleep well?" Orion asked his sister.

Athena nodded.

Sarah had made breakfast. Scrambled eggs and toast sat steaming on the counter. It smelled good, and I realized I hadn't eaten a real meal in two days. But my stomach felt like it was tied in knots.

We sat around the kitchen table and pretended this was normal. Athena kept her distance from everyone, like we all had some disease she might catch. She pushed her eggs around her plate but barely ate anything.

"Dr. Graze wants to see you today," Sarah told Athena. "Just to make sure you're healing properly."

Athena nodded without looking up from her untouched breakfast.

"He doesn't know about..." Orion started, then caught himself.

"About what I can do," Athena finished. "I know. What did you tell him?"

"That you had a rough shift," I said. "That it took more out of you than usual."

"That's not really lying," she said quietly.

After breakfast, Orion suggested we get some fresh air. "Maybe sit on the back porch for a bit. The weather's nice."

But Athena shook her head hard. "I don't want to go outside. What if someone sees me? What if I can't control it?"

"You will," Orion said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"You don't know that," Athena snapped. "None of us know that. We don't know anything about what's happening to me."

The silence that followed felt heavy and uncomfortable. Sarah started clearing dishes just to have something to do. I offered to help, but she waved me off.

"Why don't you two go watch TV or something," she suggested. "Try to take your minds off things."

Athena and I went to the living room. She sat on one end of the couch, I sat on the other. There was enough space between us for another person. She turned on some morning talk show, but neither of us watched it.

"I keep seeing their faces," she said out of nowhere.

I knew exactly who she meant

"Athena, don't do this to yourself."

"I can't stop thinking about how they looked afterward. Like empty shells. Like I sucked out everything that made them people."

"They were going to kill you, they were going to kill all of us," I reminded her. "You saved our lives. You saved yourself Ath."

"By becoming something horrible."

"You're not horrible."

She turned to face me, and I saw something broken in her eyes. "Then what am I, Tristan? What do you call someone who kills people just by touching them?"

I didn't have an answer. I wanted to have one, but I didn't know what she was becoming or how to stop it.

"I dreamed about it last night," she continued. Her voice got smaller. "About the cave. But in the dream, it wasn't them I killed. It was you. And Orion. And Sarah. Everyone I care about."

Cold fear shot through me. "That was just a nightmare. Dreams don't mean anything."

"What if it wasn't just a nightmare? What if it was showing me what's going to happen?"

Before I could answer, someone knocked on the front door. We heard Sarah answer it, then footsteps heading our way.

Dr. Graze appeared in the doorway with his black medical bag. "Good morning, Athena. How are we feeling today?"

"Fine," she said automatically.

He studied her face. "You have more color than yesterday. That's good."

"The IV helped."

"Excellent. I'd like to do a quick check-up if you don't mind."

Athena nodded and Dr. Graze sat down across from us. He pulled out his stethoscope and listened to her heart, then her lungs. He checked her pulse and looked into her eyes with a small flashlight.

"Everything sounds normal," he said. "Heart rate is back where it should be, breathing is clear. How's your appetite?"

"Getting better," she lied.

"Any dizziness? Nausea?"

"A little, but not too bad."

Dr. Graze scribbled notes in his chart. "I think you're recovering nicely. But I want you to take things slow for the next few days. No heavy lifting, no running around. Rest and plenty of fluids."

"Okay."

"And if you start feeling worse, or if anything strange happens, call me right away."

I saw Athena's whole body tense when he said "strange."

After Dr. Graze left, the house felt too quiet. Sarah went upstairs to make some calls. Orion locked himself in his home office. Athena and I sat in the living room with nothing but our fears for company.

"I should probably try to sleep more," she said after we'd been silent for twenty minutes.

"Want me to stay with you?"

For just a second, I saw her want to say yes. But then she shook her head. "I think I need some time alone."

It stung, but I got it. She was trying to protect me from whatever was going on in her head. Maybe from whatever was going on with her hands too.

"Okay," I said. "But I'll be right here if you need me."

She got up and walked toward the stairs. At the bottom, she stopped and turned back.

"Tristan?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for not running away."

My chest tightened. "I would never run away from you. Never."

She gave me a sad smile and disappeared upstairs.

I sat alone in the living room and tried not to think about what would happen if this got worse. If whatever was inside her got stronger. If she stopped being able to fight it off.

But the thoughts came anyway. They crawled into my head and made themselves at home. What if she hurt someone by accident? What if she hurt me? What if she hurt herself trying to stop it?

I heard Athena moving around upstairs. The floorboards creaked as she paced back and forth. She was probably doing the same thing I was - thinking about all the ways this could go wrong.

Sarah came back downstairs an hour later. She looked tired.

"Everything all right?" I asked.

"I called in sick to work for the rest of the week," she said. "I can't leave her right now."

"What about the kids? When will they get back?"

"They're staying until we figure this out. I told them Athena has the flu."

More lies. We were all getting good at lying.

"She's scared," Sarah said. "She's terrified of what she might do."

I nodded. We were all terrified.

"Maybe I should try to talk to her," Sarah said.

"She wanted to be alone."

"Sometimes being alone is the last thing someone needs."

Sarah went upstairs. I heard her knock on the guest room door, heard Athena's muffled voice telling her to come in. Their conversation was too quiet for me to make out the words, but it went on for a long time.

When Sarah came back down, she looked even more worried than before.

"She asked me what happens if she can't control it," Sarah said. "What we would do if she hurt someone."

"What did you tell her?"

"That we'd cross that bridge if we came to it. But honestly, Tristan, I don't know. I have no idea what we'd do."

Neither did I. We were all just making it up as we went along, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

Orion came out of his office around noon. He looked like he'd been wrestling with something.

"I've been doing research," he said. "Looking into stories about shifters with unusual abilities. Trying to find anything that might help."

"Did you find anything?" Sarah asked.

"Maybe. There are some old legends about shifters who could absorb life force. But they're just stories. I can't tell what's real and what's folklore."

"What do the stories say?" I asked.

Orion hesitated. "That it usually ends badly."

The words hung in the air like a death sentence. We all knew what he meant. The people in those stories didn't learn to control their power. They either died trying or became monsters.

"Those are just stories," Sarah said firmly. "This is real life. We'll find a way to help her."

But I could see the doubt in her eyes. We all wanted to believe there was a solution, but none of us knew what it was.

Athena came downstairs around two in the afternoon. She looked pale and shaky.

"I heard voices," she said. "Thought I should come down."

"How are you feeling?" Orion asked.

"Like I'm falling apart," she said, and for once, she didn't try to pretend everything was fine.

My phone rang disrupting our conversation, I pulled it out. Derek's name flashed on the screen.

"Hey," I answered.

"Tristan, I need to talk to you guys. I found something. Information about what happened in that cave."