Julia's baby, Bk 2 - Oh, Mama.

Chapter 23 - Shock

Julia was dead.

Oliver sat, head in hands, barely able to hear the words. His eyes were on the photos. The photos Amanda had sent him.

Julia was dead. He smelt it. He smelt her blood on the photos, he felt no connection to her anymore, and Levi had collapsed onto the ground, more or less in a similar position. They both felt it. They both knew that she was gone. The photos were scattered everywhere, he'd dropped the box, and they were of her. Bleeding, bruised, being kicked and pissed on, and then one of her on the beach, while some man lay on top of her.

The bodies of her father, her mother, her brother. All dead.

It was his fault. If he had made Randy wait, if the plane had waited, if he had fought one last time, he might have gotten her. He didn't care how many times they tried to tell him he'd done the right thing for his daughters. Oliver knew that. He also knew that their mother was the right thing for them. That they should know her. They should know their grandparents.

Yasmine had warned him about Amanda. And he'd ignored her, time and time again, so sure that Amanda wasn't like this.

Levi shut his eyes, shaking, and for a moment he felt it. The desire to end it. Without his mate, without the other half, he felt lost. Cut in two. Like he'd lost part of his soul.

This was why his father had committed suicide after his mother had died. Oliver understood it now. He understood the loss. It wasn't just like loosing a leg. It was nothing he'd ever wish on his worst enemy. And Levi was feeling it too. He didn't know why he'd pushed Levi and Julia to bond, when this was the outcome, when this loss was the result of a mate-bond.

Some part of Oliver, if he were Alpha, would have wanted to create a law banning all bonds from now on.

He couldn't move, not even when he heard his daughters cry, and neither could Levi. He just sat there till Randy came, hours later, and took the photos away, took the twins to feed them.

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When Julia next woke, it felt like she'd been in the sun for ages, her clothing gone, her skin red and peeling, screaming in agony where the wounds were still infected. She lay beside a little lake in the middle of the island, more like a pond than anything, just in the shadow of one of the big mountains on the end of the island. There was a little waterfall running down the hill, barely moving, though maybe in winter it did more- the dirt and stone was washed away pretty good around the trickle.

The sunlight was dimpling through the thick shrub, tea-trees and stuff bent over her and the water, and she saw the remains of something nearby. A cow leg. The end gnawed off. Julia sat up, slowly, using a nearby tree as a prop.

Oh boy. She'd changed. Was that it?

She should have been shocked. Somehow, she wasn't. Maybe it was the logical thing for her body to do when Julia had been as sick as she was, as close to being in a very bad way, and she noticed that her wounds were clean. Still puffy and read but clean.

For a moment Julia though it was, until there was movement through the shrubbery and she saw someone coming. Panic flooded her.

It was Yasmine.

She held up her hands, holding up the clothing, and then held a finger to her lips.

She slid closer, kneeling, and whispered, “It's okay. I had to hide somewhere for a while, so … I found a place on the island. The mountain's made of rock, it has some good shelters, I've been hiding.”

“Oliver know?”

“His idea for me to hide while he was stepping down as Alpha. I haven't formally stepped down as Alpha of the Grassland Pack yet, so I needed to keep out of the way, till I'm ready to handle challengers myself. Just in case. Here.” She was tugging Julia's mothers clothing onto her. “I washed it. I'm sorry, I know you wanted the smell, but it needed washing. It was attracting flies.”