ANNA'S POV

"You'll be fine," I told Jared, cupping his cheeks and giving them a good squeeze. "I'll be right here when you wake up."

In reality, I was terrified. I wanted to burst into tears, but I wasn't going to do that to Jared. I could tell that he was frightened for his surgery, and I wasn't going to add to his stress. This was what he wanted.

"I'll see you in a couple of hours," Jared told me, pressing his lips to mine. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Clara and I made our way out of the hospital room, and my bottom lip quivered, causing Clara to wrap her arm around me as we walked. "Anna, I promise you that Jared is going to be fine. Nothing will go wrong. He's a strong wolf and Doctor Oliver is incredible at what he does."

I prayed that she was right. I wouldn't be able to carry on without Jared, and although they had reassured me, I was still allowing my obsessive thoughts to run wild in my mind. It was exhausting.

"Emma is waiting for you at home by the way," Clara informed me, nodding towards mine and Jared's house. I sighed.

Jared had offered to postpone his surgery so that I could have my first session with my therapist with him present, but in reality, I didn't really want to unpack everything with him around. Some of the stuff I would say would definitely hurt him and make him feel guilty.

It wasn't his choice that he was a wolf, but finding out he was one and that I was mated to him was slightly traumatic for me. Even if it was the best thing that had ever happened. Humans were never going to be prepared to be thrown into such a world.

"Do you need me to come with you? Or we can cancel it?" Clara questioned, but I shook my head. I was going to be brave and I was going to do this myself. I had been thinking about it all night and I had realised that Jared was right. I needed to talk out my problems or things were going to come back and bite me in the ass in the long run. This was for the best.

"No, but thank you," I told her. "I need to do this, and by the time I'm finished with the session, Jared would have hopefully woken up. It'll be a good distraction."

Clara nodded, letting me go. I wandered slowly towards the house, taking deep breaths as I made my way up to the front door and pushed it open, spotting a warm looking blonde lady seated on our couch. She immediately stood up and beamed, clutching onto her clipboard.

She was younger than I had expected which put me at ease, and she immediately stepped towards me and held out her hand for me to shake. "Hi, Anna. It's great to meet you. I'm Emma."

"Hi, good to meet you." I tried to make my voice sound as confident as possible.

"Today is just going to be an introductory session. We can decipher what I can help you with and talk about the things that you want to gain from therapy. You don't have to go into great detail at all, but it would be helpful for me to know some of the things you've been through so we know what we're working with here."

"That sounds fine to me." I nodded, settling down on the couch.

"Great. If at any point you need a break or want to cut the session short, just let me know. I'm yours for roughly an hour, and I'm hoping that in this hour we can gel and click, but if not, just let Jared know and he can arrange for somebody else to come and see you," Emma told me with a smile, not looking offended in the slightest that Jared had obviously told I wanted to make sure we got on first.

"Will do."

Emma began writing down on her clipboard as I spoke, allowing me as much time as I needed to answer her questions. Like she had said, she didn't ask for anything in too much detail, but I did have to almost re-live my trauma, sometimes having to stop mid sentence to gulp and take a deep breath.

She was incredibly patient with me, smiling and nodding as I spoke. It made me feel as if I was talking to more of a friend than a therapist, and I knew within ten minutes that she was the one that I wanted.

There was probably a reason why Jared had asked her to meet with me first. He knew that I would like her.

We continued to talk for the entire hour, taking a small break in the middle to grab some water and chips. I had quickly learned that Emma's favourite flavour was paprika, much like mine.

I mentioned pretty much everything that had affected me in my life, from the abuse from my Father, to finding out I was mated to a wolf and having Amelia try and kill me. At the mention of Amelia, Emma's jaw tightened, but she remained composed, and my guess was that she knew the girl before she had gone AWOL.

Jared was in the forefront of my mind the entire time, but the time passed quickly as we talked, and before I knew it, Emma was concluding our session. She smiled, standing up. "Thank you so much for being so open with me today, Anna. I understand how hard it is. If you wish to book another session, please just let Jared know, or you can come down to the hospital and ask for me personally. The only days I don't work are Thursdays and Sundays."

"Thank you so much," I told her as she exited, and I inhaled deeply, blowing a gust of air out of my mouth. That had gone so much better than I thought, but, bringing up my Father and Amelia had made me wonder where they were. I was terrified they were somewhere where they were going to be able to escape and come for us. I had been told that that was not the case, but I couldn't help but panic.

Perhaps it was best that I knew where they were? I would ask someone after I knew that Jared was all okay.

I got to work cleaning, something I didn't particularly enjoy, but I knew that it filled the time. I played some music while I was at it, singing along to peppy music in an attempt to try and boost my mood.

My hands were beginning to hurt from all of the scrubbing, and I dropped my sponge into the basin, my skin red raw from all of the chemical products I had been using without protection. I glanced at the clock, my eyes going wide once I realised that I needed to start heading back to the hospital.

I washed myself up, pulling on my jacket and flinging myself out of the door, quickly making my way back to the hospital. I rushed in, heading for the front desk, smiling nervously at the receptionist. "Hello, I'm Anna, Jared Mason's mate. Is he out of surgery yet?"

She fiddled around on her computer for a few seconds before smiling at me. "He is in room 4b down the hall."

Breathing out a sigh of relief, I practically sprinted down the hall towards Jared's room, knocking on it gently, hearing someone shuffling from the other side. The door was opened, Doctor Oliver revealing himself, smiling.

"Anna, come on in."

My eyes instantly went to my mate who was lying unconscious on the bed, looking as peaceful as ever, his face clear from his usual scowl. "How is he doing?"

"The surgery was a great success. I predict he will wake up in the next hour or so, and he'll be walking tomorrow. We have his prosthetic legs here."

I followed Doctor Oliver's gesture to spot two metal legs sitting in the corner of the room, placed against the wall. I was unsure what I was expecting, but they looked robotic, wires and strings of metal lacing through one another to create a strong looking limb. Jared was going to be so much taller than me.

"He stated he preferred the metal look," Doctor Oliver told me, making me laugh.

Moving over to Jared, noticing that Doctor Oliver had left the room, I took his hand. "I know that you're asleep and you can't hear me, but I'm so proud of you."

Jared stirred slightly, and I widened my eyes, sighing in disappointment as he remained asleep. I was glad to see movement though.

"You're going to be up running soon," I said, laughing. "And you can train just like how you've always wanted to. We won't need elevators anymore either, and maybe we could even get another renovation done on our house to get stairs put in when we need an extra room for a...baby."

Tears sprung to my eyes, but I willed them away. This was a happy moment. Life was finally falling into place for the both of us and I was so excited.

"I met Emma. She was great. I really like her, and I definitely want to continue getting therapy from her," I told him, knowing full well that he couldn't hear me. It was peaceful speaking to him when he was asleep though. "I can see why you chose her."

I cleared my throat, thoughts of my Father and Amelia filling my mind.

"I also think I want to know where my Father and Amelia are being held and what you plan to do with them. I'm worrying about it. I just want to know so that I can move past it. Emma was telling me all about closure and I think that's what I need when it comes to the both of them. I need closure."

Jared stirred slightly again, but only for a second before he settled back into his original position.

"Please, wake up soon," I whispered, brushing his hair out of his face. "I'll be here by your side until you do. Always."

•••

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