Page 88 of Shifting Years
Todd spoke slowly. "So, I never hurt people with my wishes?"
"No," said Dawn. "However, you will pain yourself with one."
My Alpha stared back with shiny eyes. "She's not old."
"Not everyone lives to your age," said Tina. Images of Todd's squad in Vietnam appeared and faded away. Todd's hand fisted before relaxing.
"Would this be the best for her?" I asked.
"If she lives, shewillsuffer." Dawn gestured, showing an older woman with long white hair. She was in a clean hospital room, but the wall calendar showed a date several years from now. It seemed like a warm summer day, but the older lady trembled as if freezing.
Todd turned and the image disappeared. "I love her and still do. Not in the way she deserves, but there is something."
I made my peace with it a long time ago. Todd's heart was big enough for me, three children, and one ex-fiancée. You can't help who you love. Sometimes that means going against society. Other times, it meant sharing. I was his priority, but he'd never stop loving her.
"What do I ask for?" whispered Todd before puffing his cheeks out. My power suggested nothing except quiet. Many times what people needed was nothing except someone's presence.
"I wish… for whatever is best for her to happen." Todd exhaled, gripping his hands. "Did I say it right?"
"As much as you could," said both women.
***
Chapter Thirty
Todd
I'll say this for the ladies. They were cryptic but never flashy with their powers. One moment, I was in my cabin with Mike, then alone in a dark hospital hallway. Sharp antiseptic drifted from individual rooms, along with the sickly-sweet scent of approaching death. People I didn't know rotted alone in beds, while too few had the smell of life.
The soft scent of flowers—hers, always hers—drifted through the hallway, pulling me forward. My feet stayed frozen outside the door. A coward's hesitation. I told myself it was out of respect, but the truth? I didn't want to face what I'd set in motion. She wouldn't see the morning.
The darkened room enveloped me and if Donna sensed my arrival, she gave no sign. The older lady wasn't a surprise because I'd seen her over the years, always from a distance. Sometimes to make sure she and her husband were okay. Other times to whisper an apology nobody but me would hear.
As we helped Angel and her family, we did the same with Donna. Nonexistent relatives died, leaving her money. Connections and favors got who was once 'my girl' a job, and for her husband when needed. From what I saw, he was kind to her and treated Donna as his entire world.
She aged more than Mike and me, and the smooth-skinned girl with blonde hair was a wrinkled lady with slow breaths.Women weren't in the cards for me, but she was still so damn beautiful.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, voice barely holding together. "I tried. God, I tried."
Her ocean-blue eyes fluttered open. Her slow breaths quickened, and her silver hair shifted slightly, as though brushed by an unseen wind. I turned, sensing a hint of someone, but we were alone.
She continued breathing slowly as if testing something. "No pain." With momentary hesitation, she pulled needles attached to tubes out of her arms. Machines should have beeped with warnings but didn't.
Her lips parted in a silent 'wow,' eyes widening with wonder, then something deeper. A quiet grief. "I… know you. Everything! It's like I remember two lives at once."
Now it was my turn to be out of the loop.
She stood and looked up into my eyes. "Todd! My angel."
I shook my head no. "No. Never an angel. Devil maybe."
She repeated her words harder. "Myangel." The old Donna didn't argue, but decades changed a person.
She lifted her arms with a ballerina's grace, laughing and crying all at once. She stopped and wiped away my tears I didn't know had seeped out. "Oh, my Todd. I wish I could have known you all these years, but it's too late for regrets, isn't it?" She paused with a small smile. "I would have understood, eventually. Maybe not the wolf part so soon, but love? Yes. Who couldn't understand that?"
Thank you, ladies.
"I did… dolove you, just not in the way you deserved," I said.
