Xavier was barely able to hold onto me as I surged across the room to the bed. The little girl was asleep, with a tube like mine in her arm, and chords attached to her chest and finger to monitor her breathing and heart rate. But she was safe. She was here!

Xavier helped me sit on the edge of her bed where I grasped her tiny hand in mine. Her sunset-red curls were spilled across the white pillow in tangles, and she was dressed in a hospital gown that appeared three sizes too big for her frame. But she was breathing, she was alive, she was here!

With my vision swimming, I turned to my mate. "How? Where. . ." I couldn't get the words out, my throat was too choked up.

He squeezed my free hand in his. "She found me. She was frantic, saying her friend had collapsed and wouldn't wake up." I knew she had meant me. "I was hunting the woods for any signs of you, like we had been for months. And she tumbled out of bushes and asked if we knew Alpha Black."

I beamed through my tears, happy she remembered her instructions to find Xavier. My eyes fell back on Kallie again, and Xavier kept talking, his voice soft and incredibly soothing.

"She wanted to lead us to you, but she was in shock, and she was cold and tired and hungry. She couldn't remember the way. We turned in circles until finally deciding it was better to just take her home where she could be treated." I clenched his hand harder as his voice jerked an octave. I couldn't imagine how scared and frustrated he was to have been so close to me, but hadn't been able to reach me, while I lay unconscious in the dirt.

"I wanted to keep searching, broaden the area until I found you, but she wouldn't go with Andrew or Everlee, she wanted to stay with me. She said that you told her to find me." He sighed, but when I peeked at him, his lips were tilted in my favorite smirk. "So of course I took her here. I figured bringing her to people even more familiar with you would help her. We often gathered here before searching anyway, seeing as the majority of your loved ones were staying with the Andersons."

My head jerked up so fast, he had to stabilize me before I fell over from the weight of the action. "You mean. . . My parents. . .?"

His smirk widened into a grin, "are here, yes. As well as your siblings."

I let go of Kallie's limp hand and tried to jump to my feet, fully intending to search the entire house for my family.

Xavier chuckled, pulling me back to the bed. "They're out looking for you right now. But they've been called back and will see you tomorrow."

"How long have they been here?" I asked, "wait, so you've met my parents already?"

"Since pretty soon after you were taken." His eyes gleamed in response to the second question, "yes. They're very lovely."

I buried my face in my hands, "oh no."

He tugged them back down, keeping them in his, "relax, it wasn't even a big thing; everyone was solely focused on finding you. Your siblings didn't fly out right away, but after we started finding random, malnourished girls in the woods, all of which were asking for Alpha Black. . . We knew you were close and your parents flew them out."

My face scrunched again, but this time with relief and joy. My parents were here! May and August were here!

Then it hit me, "wait, you found others besides Kallie?"

"Several, yes. Kallie and some girl named Isadora are the only two that haven't been returned to their homes."

"Isadora?" Who in the world was Isadora?

He mistook my question, "you can reunite tomorrow; you can barely keep your head straight up right now!"

As confused about Isadora as I was, I also was aware of how right he was. My exhaustion had ten-folded after the energy from the food and seeing Kallie had dropped. But I couldn't bear to relax. I glanced down at my torn, grime covered clothes and remembered I hadn't cleaned myself up either.

He noticed, "why don't you rest, at least a few hours, and then we can get you all cleaned up tomorrow, when you have more strength."

"I don't want to leave her." I gripped Kallie's hand again. Not to mention the fact sleeping in my bed when I was this gross was particularly unappealing.

"Fine." He pressed a button on the wall next to Kallie's machines and instantly a petite nurse was coming through the doorway.

He acknowledged her with a wave of his hand, "could we set up another cot in here?"

She looked confused, but didn't argue, disappearing and then returning pushing a folded cot. She set it ip hurriedly, laying out blankets and pillows to choose from. Xavier thanked her and she left.

With his help, I made my way over to the cot, my heart pounding as I remembered my fear. I clawed at his arm until he stopped, and he squinted in puzzlement.

"April?"

"What if- what if I don't wake up?"

He softened, pulling me even closer against him. I hadn't realized we had moved again until I was sitting on the cot. Clever, Xavier, clever.

"You'll wake up." He told me.

"How can you be sure?"

He kissed my forehead, his lips lingering against my hairline. "Because you just got back, and neither of us can lose each other like that again."

His words did little to ease my fear, but I was already on the cot and my brain was fuzzy, my body heavy. My eyelids drooped and before I could stop it, I fell asleep.

Xavier turned out to be right, because I woke up to find sun coming through the windows and the time to be twelve hours since I had been brought inside. I actually probably hadn't slept enough.

Blinking the haze out of my vision, I attempted to sit up. Twice. I resorted to just propping my head up and taking in my surroundings.

More machines had been brought in, and chords were attached to my chest to monitor my heart and lungs. Kallie was still asleep, in the same position she had been last night. Suddenly my fear of a coma directed itself to her. What if she never woke up? The child was so tiny, so fragile, she was definitely more at risk than I had been. Besides, apparently I had been out for days before she even went looking for help! Maybe that had been my coma, and now it was her turn to let her body catch up.

I was laying there, picking at the dirt on my arm when Xavier came through the doorway. I cracked a smile, opening a cut on my lower lip.

"How are you feeling?" He murmured against my cheek after he kissed it.

"Okay." I coughed when it came out hoarse, "better." I smiled again, "I woke up."

He matched my smile, "of course you did. I told you."

"You did." My eyes shifted to Kallie's bed, "she didn't."

"She will," he stated matter-of-factly, as if he were the doctor. "She needs rest."

"When did she go to sleep?" I wasn't able to keep the worry out of my voice.

Snaking an arm under my spine, he lifted me into a sitting position so I could see her better. "A few hours before you showed up. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet, don't worry." I could hear the please in his voice at the end and I melted against him.

"Okay."

"How about some food?" He pulled back so I could see his face, which was bright, almost excited.

That made me suspicious.

"Someone's waiting for me in the kitchen, aren't they?"

He chuckled, "just c'mon."

I was expecting my parents, maybe May and August too. Instead, when I walked around the corner, it was the dark hair swishing over her shoulder that gave Everlee away. And naturally, Andrew was next to her.

"April!" She exclaimed, jumping from her chair and bolting over. She was careful, though, when she put her arms around my shoulders and gave me the most tentative hug I'd ever had.

Laughing, I pulled her in tight, encouraging her to properly squeeze me. Andrew joined, and the three of us just held onto each other for several moments, laughing with pure joy of seeing each other again.

"We wanted to come by last night, but Xavier wouldn't let us." Andrew told me, pushing his alpha with his shoulder. Xavier growled, but it was light-hearted.

"Sorry I stink," I was suddenly aware of how gross I was again.

"Girl, why are you apologizing about anything?" Ev asked at the same time Andrew deadpanned: "yeah, Freckles, you do."

It was my turn to shove, but my skin and bone of a shoulder did absolutely no damage. Xavier growled at Andrew, harder this time, and the Gamma threw his arms up defense, his eyes still shining.

"Where is everyone else?" I was really asking about my parents, but I wondered why Emerald and River hadn't made an appearance yet either.

Everlee's expression sobered, "they're here. Everyone is just assuming that all at once would be a lot, considering. . ." She glanced me up and down as inconspicuous as she could manage. "They're waiting their turn."

I chuckled with a shake of my head, knowing I would probably be just fine. But I was grateful, too. "Well, I think I should clean up before anyone else has to endure my awful scent."

Andrew nodded seriously, scrunching his nose. That earned him another growl and another weak punch to the shoulder.

Glancing to the side, I asked Xavier with my eyes and he immediately started helping me to the stairs. It's wild, how yesterday I had been able to run through the woods, but today I couldn't stand on my own. I hoped it was just the adrenaline fading and my body healing and not anything more.

We made it up a back stairwell that connected from the kitchen — one I had never realized existed — and reached my bedroom. It looked the exact same as it had in the fall, how I had left it the morning Xavier had come over to find me in the bathroom doing my makeup. That felt like centuries ago.

In the bathroom, he had me sit on the lid of the toilet while he collected everything I would need. I instructed him from my seat on where the towels and my clothes were. Though, I doubted my clothes would even fit the same anymore.

Setting the clothes on the counter, he handed me my brush I had requested and then started the bath. We both knew standing in a shower was not going to happen today.

I got to work on my ratty hair, section by section, untangling each knot with the brush. I had to take breaks though, and let my arm rest. It was pathetic; I couldn't even brush my hair!

But without a word, Xavier plucked the tool from my grasp and sat on the edge of the tub behind me. And, with more tenderness than I would have ever expected, he raked the brush through my strands, over and over until it ran smooth. I swear my heart grew wings, sailing higher and higher for every thing this man did for me.

He placed the brush on the counter and then kneeled in front of me. "April-" he started to ask.

"It's okay." I cut him off and he nodded before slowly peeling my shirt over my head. It stuck to me on some spots, and when the nasty cotton rubbed against some of my old wounds, it stung like venom.

I hissed and he paused until I would nod for him to continue. "You're not going to like what you see." I murmured the warning, knowing we both had probably imagined this in a much more romantic way, but the situation had ruined any chance of heat or romance. And I had to focus hard on his face, on his hands that were undressing me, or my mind would spiral back to the basement of that pack house, where these such events had been the main act of my nightmares.

When my shirt was removed, he sucked in a breath, and my eyes stayed on his as they lingered on the colorful display that had taken over my pale torso, caused from beatings and needles and machines over the past months. Apart from the bruising and scarring, there wasn't much else to look at; everything was flat and sunken-in from lack of nutrients my body had received. I bit my lip to prevent more tears from falling.

"I'm going to kill him." Xavier muttered under his breath in a growl.

"It's not all him." I said, even though I wasn't sure why I was even defending Jacob. Jacob deserved to rot in hell for his traitorous actions, not to mention the kidnapping of his Luna. "But his loyalties are definitely with the Black Mountain Pack."

His eyes finally returned to mine, clouding with confusion as he ran the pack's name across his tongue a few times.

I shrugged, "it sounds made up to me. And they've been hidden in the forest so they don't even count as a real pack."

"They're scoundrels, rogues." He growled, but continued with what he was doing, working on getting my pants down my legs. I stood up to help, resting my hands on his shoulder for stability.

"But they're not." I explained. "I've seen their wolves, Xavier, and they're not mangy and flea-ridden, and they're not red-eyed. They're normal."

"They're evil."

"Well, duh."

He looked up at my eyes, letting himself smile at my words. "C'mon," he said, guiding me into the bath. I sank into the water, and it was like heaven compared to that pond in the woods.

I scrubbed my arms and my legs, and anywhere else I could see, but Xavier washed my hair — twice to really get it clean — and my face and back, with the same care he had brushed my hair with.

"Thank you," I whispered as he lifted me from the water, which had turned black with the amount of dirt that had rolled off my skin. The towel wrapped around my shoulders and he patted me dry, careful around the wounds that remained open.

When I was dressed — sure enough, the clothes that were normal, even tight, in October, now hung loosely off my frame — he brushed through my hair again quickly and then we picked our way back down the stairs. This time, we took the main stairwell to the house entrance.

As we descended, the forms of people in the sitting room became clearer, and my heart rate quickened at the thought of seeing my parents. Nine months was a long time for a girl who had never spent even a week away from home, especially when those months contained the horrors they did.

Instantly, my mother jumped from the seat, darting up the last few steps to engulf me in a hug that seemed to last forever, but at the same time was over in a split second. She was freely sobbing as she clung to me, pulling back only far enough to see my face.

"Oh, my child!" She cried, grazing the ends of her fingers across my eye lid — sure to be still be darkened after the last punch I had received — and my healing split lip. She gently squeezed my shoulder and arms, reminding me how that was the reaction Emerald had when she first saw me. Finally, she pulled me into another hug, and I leaned my forehead on her shoulder.

She took over from Xavier, helping me down the last couple stairs and leading me to the sitting foyer. I noticed Emerald and River there as my eyes passed over the room — Emerald smiled at me and River gave a nod of acknowledgment — but the only person I went for was my dad.

His embrace was stronger than Mom's, enough that I squeaked in pain. Of course, Xavier instinctively growled at my father, who in turn snapped "oh shut it." So, in the end, I was laughing and pushing out of his arms to catch my breath.

"Thanks Dad," I said when I could speak again.

His eyes shifted to Mom's with confusion. "For what?"

I giggled, but mostly it was the giddiness of being in the same room as my parents again, "for making me laugh. I haven't laughed in. . . a while."

He crushed me in a hug again, and this time I didn't even feel the pain as I hooked my arms around his back.

"You're welcome, sweetheart." He whispered against my ear. "I'm just glad you're safe."

"Me too."