[Arthur]
I could remember the last time I saw her; she was lying in a bed in the ICU.
"If I see God or your Moon God, I will ask the gods to arrange for your mate to appear by your side quickly. In return, remember to take her to my grave. She must have been the best girl in the world." She said, her voice sounding breathless.
"Chris called and asked me where you were. I've been calling and texting you since last night. Tell me you weren't taken away by some research facility to do research or that you didn't go somewhere dangerous, right?" On the other side of the phone, Emily was still chattering.
Now, hearing her joking with me in a very energetic voice, I felt my eyes sore a little and my stomach churning intensely.
"I didn't. Emily, are you all right? Did he arrange a doctor for you? Did you get the results?" I asked her after quickly getting myself together.
"My wife is perfectly healthy, don't worry about it."
"Will, I'm surprised you're still alive," I grunted, although I wasn't surprised to hear the man's voice on the phone.
"I'm also surprised you're still a 49-year-old bachelor." He said.
Still, as mean-mouthed as I remembered, Will Jones never said anything nice about me, just because I once courted Emily.
"Hey, you two, stop it! Can't you two act mature?" Emily stopped us.
I gave up talking crap with Will because I still had doubts about the accuracy of the test results. I didn't know much about human cancer, so maybe because Emily was asymptomatic or in the early stages of cancer, her medical test results weren't abnormal.
"Have you had a focused liver check? Maybe a Liver DCE MRI* would be better." I said.
(*DCE MRI: Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging)
"Why? I was going to ask why you suddenly emailed me and Will yesterday? We haven't seen each other in six months, and your olfactory sense has been upgraded to the point where you can smell a problem with my liver a thousand miles away?" Emily asked. Her cheerful tone told me she wasn't worried about her health at all.
"I've made an appointment for a DCE MRI tomorrow, and although neither the doctor nor she thinks that's necessary, I'd rather be cautious about it. After all, a dog's nose is always sharp." Will said.
As I expected, the man cared for his wife as much as ever. Except, his description of me sounded unpleasant.
"Even more than the condition of my liver, I'd like to know what could have caused you to be out of touch for more than 24 hours. Are you in trouble? Chris said you left quite abruptly." Emily asked.
"I'm fine. Remember to get a good doctor to help you with your DCE MRI." I said.
[Stephanie]
The human woman named Emily's voice sounded so vibrant that it was hard to imagine she would die of liver cancer a year later.
At the sound of her voice, something changed in Arthur's eyes.
His lips parted a little, and his lower lip trembled for about two seconds.
I'd seen him look like that before, on our first real meeting. Back then, I thought he was intimidated by my awful image.
Now, through his conversation with another woman, I finally realized that he was in tears of joy because of my resurrection at that time. Just as at this moment, he was equally excited to hear again the voice from Emily, the human woman who had somehow also come back to life. She was very special to him.
My heart and stomach ached at the same time after finding out that Emily was very important to him.
Suddenly I wanted to meet her. I wondered what the human lady Arthur had cared about for 30 years looked like.
She must be a gorgeous and very mature woman.
She was probably wearing a beautiful gown, holding a glass of wine in her hand and shaking her 2.7-inch crystal heels. Her charming red lips curved up in a confident curve, swimmingly chatting with Arthur.
I glanced down at my top, denim shorts, and dark sneakers. I looked more like a high school student, although I would have been.
If I had been born 30 years earlier, if I had been human, and Arthur and I were not mates - and then Emily and I had met Arthur on the same day, at the same time, would he have liked Emily or me?
This childish thought planted a seed in my heart. It was growing fast after I heard Arthur ask Emily several questions in a row, showing his concern.
I opened my mouth to say something, but it was hard to get the childish question out of my throat because it seemed to be blocked by something.
I listened quietly to Arthur's conversation with his human friends.
Arthur had said that he only liked some human males. Apparently, Emily's husband was included in the group of human males that the Alpha King did not like.
It surprised me that Arthur acted a little childish when talking to this human male. He had never acted like that in my presence.
The more shocking thing, Emily's words made Arthur and her husband stop their juvenile conversation immediately.
However, judging from the tone of voice of the three of them talking, their relationship must be very good.
Standing here, I seem to be superfluous.
The superfluous one .... Right, Arthur's Phoenix Blood. He said Emily would die on July 22, 2022. I was killed at midnight on July 24. So, he was going to use his 100-year life to get his wacky friend to help bring his Emily back to life and send them back to the past, I supposed. However, after he learned that I was his mate, he chose to save me.
Holy mate!
I pressed my lips in a line, turned around and opened the ward door, and said to my father, "Dad, I'm going home."
Without waiting for my father to nod or say anything, I closed the door and strode down the dimly lit hallway toward the house entrance.
Arthur was right. I was an idiot.
I kept walking and ran my fingers through my hair twice. Something must have been wrong with my head because all I could think about now was the look on Arthur's face when he was on the phone with Emily. I even started imagining him kissing a blonde woman in an evening gown or snogging a sexy, mature black-hair woman with a hot body.
"Steph!" Arthur was calling my name.
"Leave me alone, please," I said, turning around, not daring to look at the look on his face.
I hoped he would stop there. Otherwise, I couldn't help but keep picturing him with other women. I would be insanely jealous.
The wooden floor creaked because he didn't stop.
I opened the white wooden door of the house, wetting my cheeks and the ends of my hair with the rain sent in by the wind.
I looked up. Dark clouds had spread across the sky. A bolt of lightning seemed intent on splitting the sky in half, and the rumble of thunder from afar seemed to be threatening me not to go outside.
Okay, now God sensed my bad mood and was ready to add some background music on my way home.
"Steph, what's up? You okay?" Arthur's voice appeared behind me.
"No, I'm not. I told you to leave me alone." I said, shrugged off his hand on my shoulder.
Still, I didn't dare look him in the eye and just rushed into the heavy rain.