CHAPTER 3; HAZEL

Hazel

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Morning came all too soon, and with a conflicted heart, I signed the document, bracing myself for whatever the future had in store.

Felix had explained that while Elijah might have lost his memory, he could still retain fragments—details he couldn’t fully place but might trigger recognition. To be on the safe side, I had to transform. My black hair was dyed a sharp blonde, and a pair of blue contacts concealed my green eyes. And the woman that stood before me in the mirror looked more like Anna than myself.

Morning faded into day and day into night. The hours passed by, completely devoured by restless thoughts and repetitive advice.

“Elijah will be here any moment from now,” Felix said. “Remember what I told you; the reason you haven’t been able to see him since he got out of the hospital.” And once again, he rubbed his hand against his trousers.

I guess I wasn’t the only one nervous. We both seemed desperate...desperate for the plan to work. He needed to heal his Alpha; I needed to find a cure for my sickness.

As the rev of a car filled the driveway, the churning in my stomach intensified.

“He’s here,” Felix's voice tightened.

The door clinked open, and as the footsteps drew closer, my heart pounding deepened, nearly crashing against my ribs.

My palms clammy, I couldn’t tell if it was the fear or sickness that gnawed at my insides. I hadn’t even met him yet, but my body was already crumbling from the weight of the lie I was about to tell.

When the living room door opened and his towering figure came into view, an unfamiliar warmth burnt on my cheeks. His jet-black hair styled back, but a few rebellious strands fell across his face. His brilliant hazel eyes gazed at me like a predator’s.

The air hung with his dominative presence and the scent of his cedarwood fragrance.

My breath hitched for a second as there was something about his face—his physique—that made him look surreal.

“Anna?” Elijah’s voice came out—deep, velvety…sinful. Casually he shrugged off his coat, exposing his broad shoulders, an expanse of a chest his suit made no attempt to hide. Plopping onto the sofa across from me, he turned to Felix. “What is she doing here?” His voice turned glacial.

When our eyes locked, I averted my gaze. My tongue, suddenly too cowardly to speak.

The air around me tightened. His actions didn’t seem like those of a man who loved his wife.

Felix cleared his throat. “I know you have been feeling abandoned. I mean, it wasn’t fair; she hadn’t come around since your accident.” He shuffled to the edge of the seat. “But, you see, Anna here, with the loss of her parents and hearing you had lost your memory, knew you wouldn’t remember her. To save you and her from further heartbreak, she decided to stay away,” Felix lied.

Elijah responded, “She should have remained away.”

Although I knew the words weren’t for me, I still felt an intense sting of rejection.

“She wanted to stay away, but I convinced her to come back. You need her to heal your wolf,” Felix said.

Elijah shut his perfectly arched brows up before rolling his eyes. A heavy sigh escaped his sharp pointed nose, frustration clearly etched on his face as though he had had this conversation a thousand times with Felix.

“Do you think the Elders would allow you to remain the Alpha once they find out you have a broken wolf?” Felix furrowed his brows.

“I don’t need a healed wolf to lead a pack,” Elijah stated.

As Felix and Elijah indulged in their light disagreements, I caught myself lost in the way his fingers brushed against his stubble, the slight tension in his jaw when he paused to let Felix talk.

And whenever our eyes met briefly, I couldn’t understand why my breath hitched. Despite the nervousness, the uncertainty, and the hope for this plan to work, a feeling—one I couldn’t name—fluttered.

“So, we should just send her back to the Netherlands?” Felix’s voice tightened.

“Exactly,” Elijah responded.

His words snapped me out of the haze I was in, and his rejection struck me like a dagger to my chest. My chest tightened as the little hope I had left burnt right before my eyes, and I could do nothing to save it. But I couldn’t give up, not now. Not after dying my hair blonde and wearing these stupid contacts that itched my eyes.

No matter how many times it felt like I was hitting a dead end, I had to keep fighting to pave another path for myself. It was the only way to save my life.

“You have to heal your wolf,” I finally spoke up, bolstering my voice. “Even if not for yourself, for your pack. To save your wolf from going through any more pain.”

Elijah and Felix’s eyes sliced at me. My pulse quickened as Elijah’s gaze lingered on me, the intensity ripping air out of my lungs. But I held my gaze.

After a while, like he was contemplating my words, Elijah sprang to his feet. “Do whatever pleases you.” He picked up his coat and headed up the stairs.

Felix pinched his nose before turning to me. “He’s such a stubborn man. He might seem difficult at first, but he’s not a horrible person.”

Felix spent the next ten minutes giving me tips on how to win him over. When he was done, he bid his farewell and exited the house, leaving only Elijah and me in the house.

*******

A few days had passed, and Felix's advice—“The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”—seemed to be getting me nowhere. Elijah barely acknowledged my efforts. He didn’t sit for dinner, and most snacks I made for him ended up untouched—or worse, in the trash.

But tonight, I’d reached my limit. Despite my body crumpling in pain, I had pushed through to make him dinner.

Entering the kitchen and seeing the empty plate, I had thought he ate, only to open the trash can—and there it was, the sandwich sitting among the garbage.

Opening the door of his study, my eyes landed on Elijah flipping through a book.

I strode in and halted a few meters away from the small executive desk. “Why do you keep doing this?” My voice came out sharper than I intended.

“Doing what?” Elijah questioned without taking his eyes off the book.

“Throwing everything I make for you,” I said. Was he still angry because Anna abandoned him? I too would have been pissed off if my lover did the same. But I was giving it my all, fixing what I didn’t destroy.

I took a deep breath, remembering why I was doing all this—a cure. “I know you’re angry that I left you alone through your most difficult time. But I’m here now, trying my best to make things right.”

A sharp thud punctuated my words as he snapped the book shut. His eyes, darker than the abyss. “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” His voice, cold and acidic. “I’m the one suffering from amnesia, yet you’re the one who seems to have forgotten what our relationship was like.”

My body tightened.

“You shouldn’t have returned Anna,” Elijah continued. “The love isn’t there anymore; I don’t know what you're fighting for.”

My eyes widened almost instantly. It was as though I was teleported back to the day when Nathan had told me those words. My inside clenched. And as nausea crawled up my throat, I dashed out of his office.

Opening the door of my room, I headed to the bathroom. Ragged retching echoed off the walls as I threw up, my fingers digging into the rim of the white sink.

Pain shot through me, and my body shuddered. Oria, my wolf, was in pain too; the sickness was killing both of us.

Rinsing my mouth, I returned to the room. But I collapsed on the floor instead of the bed; my legs were too weak to go further.

Tears sprinted down my cheeks. It was like I was stuck with this hell of a fate. Even after trying to be another person—she was still a woman unloved by her husband.

As though life hadn’t dealt with me enough, another agonising pain jolted through me, making me fold into a foetal position as I whimpered. Nathan was having sex with his mistress. Since we didn’t reject each other before I ran out, we were still mated and linked together.

Was this how I was going to be in pain every time he touched her? The sickness, the mating link, it felt like I was paying for his sin.

I cradled myself on the cold floor until I fell asleep.

******

My eyes blinked open as the harsh light of morning tormented my iris. Instead of the cold, hard ground where I had cried myself to sleep, I was wrapped in the warmth of the bed. Confusion filled my head as I tried to puzzle out how I had ended up on the bed. It couldn’t have been Elijah—he hated me. As I tried to make sense of whether my health had deteriorated so much that I’d started sleepwalking, a thought struck me—if Elijah is suffering from amnesia, how does he remember he and Anna’s relationship?

But then, if he did remember, he would know I wasn’t Anna. Or was he just playing along?