My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 426

Nina

The morning sun came too soon.

None of us slept for more than a few minutes. Either we were too frightened and just didn’t want to admit it, or our minds were whirling with too many possibilities. I spent the remaining hours of the nighttime laid out on the mattress, letting the shaman’s medicine work its magic, while Daphne and Enzo paced nervously around the little hut.

“The veil here is thicker,” Daphne explained, her nails practically bitten down to nubs from chewing on them all night. “The place where it’s thinner is still days away if we move on foot. And who knows how much time we have left before they find our trail again? God, we never should have stopped.”

Enzo scoffed and shook his head for the millionth time. “If you don’t want to be here, Daphne, then leave,” he scolded. “But I had to get my wife someplace where she could be helped. She’s pregnant. I won’t just wander through the woods with her for days when she’s in so much pain she can barely speak.”

“I’m sorry, guys.” I propped myself up on my elbow and looked at them both with sincerity in my eyes. Sincerity and tears. “This is all my fault-”

“No, Nina.” Enzo rushed over to me and crouched down beside me. He reached out to cup my cheek in his hand, and I leaned into his touch, soothed by his warmth. “It’s not your fault. You have no control over what happens to your body.”

“But I could have made it, if only I had been a little stronger.’

”

Enzo sighed. “It’s not your fault,” he repeated.

Finally, Daphne let out an exasperated breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Enzo is right. It’s no one’s fault. I’m… I’m glad to see you’re better now.” As she spoke, her face reddened a bit. It wasn’t easy for the nervous bird shifter to say such things-I could tell.

I sat up then. I was feeling much better now that the shaman’s medicine had run its course, and had virtually no pain at this point.

“Daphne, you can open portals?” I asked.

She nodded.

The shaman had been very clear with his instructions: we needed to be gone. We had seen the extent of their help, and for good reason. The people here didn’t deserve to get wrapped up in all of this.

If only we had Luke…

“We have to go back,” I suddenly said.

Both Enzo’s and Daphne’s eyes widened. “What?” Enzo hissed. “Nina, are you serious?”

“We need Luke,” I explained. “And Mila’s palace is much closer. With him, between the three of us we could open a portal anywhere.”