Baby System: My Mates Can Read my Mind?

Chapter 87: Episode 087: Her Mate?

"If he is still alive..." Rue asks, her voice trembling with pure emotion, "do you want to speak to him?"

Iris does not answer right away. Rue watches her carefully. She sees the deep, painful hesitation flash across Iris’s violet eyes.

Iris slowly pulls her cold hands out of Rue’s gentle grip. She folds them neatly in her lap. Her back is perfectly straight. She takes a very slow, measured breath. She is trying her hardest to keep herself sane.

"Speak to him?" Iris repeats quietly. The words sound entirely foreign in her mouth.

She looks down at her folded hands. The room grows incredibly quiet. The fire in the stone hearth crackles softly, but the warmth does not seem to reach the edge of the bed.

"I don’t know what to do, Rue," Iris confesses softly. Her voice is completely stripped of her usual loud, confident energy. "I honestly don’t know."

Rue just sits there right next to her. Rue knows that when you are drowning in sadness, the last thing you want is someone telling you how to swim. You just want someone to sit in the water with you. So Rue just stays quiet, giving Iris all the time she needs to think.

Iris looks down at the thick gray blanket resting on the bed.

"If he actually survived that day," Iris begins, her voice barely above a whisper. "If his heart kept beating after all that. He might not have returned home for a very good reason."

Rue tilts her head slightly. "What reason?"

"The pain," Iris states simply. She looks up, and her blue eyes are completely haunted. "You did not see him, Rue. You did not hear the awful sounds he made. The burning from my blood was tearing him apart from the inside. It was absolute agony. And wolves are very proud creatures. When a wolf is in that much physical pain, their mind starts to break. The animal side completely takes over to try and protect them from the torture."

Iris stands up slowly from the bed. She doesn’t pace the room wildly. She just walks a few steps toward the cold stone fireplace. She crosses her arms tightly over her chest, trying to hold herself together.

"The agonizing pain might have driven him completely insane," Iris explains quietly. She stares right into the glowing orange flames. "When a wolf’s mind breaks like that, they forget who they are. They forget their family. They forget their home. They just become a creature acting purely on survival and instinct. He might have become a feral rogue wolf, completely lost in the wild."

Rue feels a terrible, cold shiver run down her back.

She tries to imagine the quiet, serious boy Iris told her about. A boy who just stood by the trees and watched his friends play. The thought of that same boy losing his mind and turning into a wild, feral monster in the freezing woods is completely heartbreaking.

"If he is a rogue now," Iris continues, her voice shaking slightly. "He doesn’t remember me as a friend. He only remembers the pain I put him through. If I find him, he won’t want to speak to me. He will just see me as a threat."

A threat won’t recognize you immediately from the otherside of the street...

But Rue didn’t say it out loud.

"The guilt," Iris softly add. "It makes it so hard to even breathe sometimes. It sits right here on my lungs like a giant, heavy stone. I wake up in the middle of the night completely gasping for air. Because every time it snows outside, I know he is out there somewhere. Cold. Alone. And it is entirely my fault."

Rue feels a massive lump form in her own throat.

She is just a fragile human girl atleast inside this body. She doesn’t know anything about wild wolves or feral instincts. She doesn’t know how to fix a broken mind. But she knows exactly what loneliness feels like.

To feel entirely separated from the rest of the world, like a ghost trapped in a sick body. The isolation was completely crushing. It made her feel like nobody would ever understand her.

Rue doesn’t want Skoll to feel that way. And she definitely doesn’t want Iris to feel that way either.

Rue shifts on the soft mattress. She keeps her voice completely calm and entirely human. She drops the mask of the brave, untouchable Matriarch. She just talks like a girl trying to comfort her sister.

"You don’t know for sure that his mind is broken," Rue points out gently. "You are just guessing because you are terrified. You are letting the guilt tell you the absolute worst story possible. Guilt always lies, Iris. It always makes the monsters in the dark look a hundred times bigger than they actually are."

Iris keeps her hand pressed against her chest. She doesn’t turn away from the fire.

"But what if the guilt is right?" Iris asks. A single tear escapes and rolls down her cheek, catching the orange light of the flames. "What if I completely destroyed one of the best person I ever knew?"

"Then you face him," Rue says. Her voice is soft, but it holds a completely undeniable strength. "If he is broken, you help him pick up the pieces. You don’t just leave him out there in the dark because you are too scared to look at what you did. You are Iris. If anyone can bring him back from the edge, it is you."

Iris finally turns away from the warm fireplace.

She looks at Rue. She sees the belief shining in Rue’s soft pink eyes. Rue doesn’t look at her like she is a murderer. Rue just looks at her like she is a friend who made a very bad mistake. It is exactly the kind of grace Iris has been entirely desperate for.

Iris takes a deep, shaky breath. The terrible pressure in her chest eases just a tiny fraction. The heavy stone on her lungs doesn’t disappear, but it feels just a little bit lighter to carry.

She slowly walks away from the fire. She doesn’t go back to the large bed. She walks straight past Rue and heads right toward the back of the room.

She stops at the padded window seat.

The thick glass is completely covered in beautiful, intricate patterns of white frost. The winter storm outside is blowing wildly. The wind howls against the stone walls of the palace, carrying the freezing snow through the dark night.

Iris reaches out and presses her warm fingertips against the freezing glass. The cold bites at her skin, but she doesn’t pull her hand away. She just traces a small, slow circle in the thick frost.

She looks out through the clear spot she just made.

She stares directly at the dark tree line standing at the very edge of the palace grounds. The pine trees look like giant, silent ghosts waiting in the heavy snow. The woods are incredibly deep. They are entirely full of dangerous secrets and hidden things.

Iris stands there in absolute silence for a very long time. Her posture is completely still. She looks exactly like a royal queen waiting for a lost soldier to finally come home.

Rue stays seated on the bed. She doesn’t rush her. She just watches her Iris’s quiet profile against the bright white light of the winter moon shining through the window.

The fire pops loudly one last time, completely settling into a pile of soft, glowing red coals.

Iris leans her forehead gently against the frozen glass. Her voice breaks into a tiny whisper.

"Perhaps he doesn’t want me as a mate..."