Roan spent the night walking around the Pack house, getting lost down corridors and finding similarly styled rooms. He does not know when but somewhere on his journey he got lost and has not been able to find anyone.
However, finally, after hours of wandering about the place, Roan walks up to a room whose door has been left ajar. When he peaks inside, it is dark but shadows dance across the walls from the flickering of the fire on the furthest side of the room, making it easier for Roan too see inside. He finds Amelia sitting in an armchair in front of the fire.
When Roan approaches her, she momentarily looks up from the fire, looking even more lost than he does. "Roan?"
"Sorry, I got lost." he tries retreating but Amelia stops him.
"Please, sit." Her voice is quiet, but he hears her.
He cannot help but notice the dark shadows underneath her eyes and the hollow expression on her face. The youth has been stripped from her, leaving her looking like a shell of what she once was.
Roan reluctantly takes a seat in the armchair next to hers and watches her for the longest time staring at the flames of the fire. When Roan looks in the fire, he expects to see something too, but the flames are just flames.
"I left my first husband in the middle of the night carrying two bags in my arms and my child on my back. I risked it all. If his father caught me than I would not be sitting with you here, I would be, I would be..." Amelia expels the air from her lungs when she smiles. "Well who knows, probably somewhere underground, most likely a mass grave."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Amelia turns her head towards Roan but does not make eye contact. "I need you to understand that it the type of man my ex-husband is. He is a murderer. He is a beast, a monster, the purest of evil."
"Then...why did you marry him?"
"He was not always a bad man, Roan." Amelia looks down at her fingers when she starts playing with her ring. "Sometimes, evil is created and other times it is born."
Amelia stops playing with her ring and looks Roan in his eyes, two strands of hair cupping her ears. "I left because I did not want my son to become that man. I risked it all to save him from that fate. I did everything I could!"
Her hand shakes as she combs away her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. "I am beginning to think that evil is a little more genetic than we give credit. Even after escaping from his father he became the monster I feared he could be."
"You don't blame his curse? Him being an Alpha and everything?"
"My husband, Dean, he is also cursed but he has never once laid a hand on me and from what I can tell he did not hurt Veronica either...even after she hurt him the way she did." Amelia shakes her head, realizing she is going off topic.
"The power of an Alpha can only be awakened after taking the life of another. I'm only human Roan and the people who hunted us were monsters I couldn't fight against."
Although this is all new information to him, Roan remembers the way Zarion used to talk about his mother. There was always love and respect in his eyes for her that was hard to understand until now. "He saved you, just like you saved him by taking him away."
Amelia disagrees, remembering seeing the blood dripping from Zarion's eyes after his father clawed at him. She lay on her back in the snow, her baby boy facing off against Alpha's three times his age with a ferocity that even Ares would envy.
"I failed him that night. My best was not good enough to save him from the curse of an Alpha and years later my failure put him in prison. My best is the reason you have your scars. My best...wasn't good enough."
"Not all my scars belong to him." Roan tells her.
"My son..." she nods her head in short bursts. "My son is good. He is kind, thoughtful, honest. I know you know that. I know you saw that in him."
When Roan does not say anything, she continues. "I am not asking you to forget what he did to you or even love him like you once did because I see that you once did... I am asking... I am begging you, to forgive him."
A single tear that sparkles brighter than any diamond in the world, trails down Roan's face. "How do I forgive him?" he whispers. "I wish I could but, but I..."
Roan shakes his head slowly, biting down on his molar and tasting the salt lick his tongue. "I do not know how to forget what he has done."
After thinking about it for some time Amelia finally responds to his question. "Before you can forgive, you must heal." she says.
"Time." she says so softly that it send shivers down Roan's spine as she reaches out and takes his hand. "Time is the greatest of healers."
Roan nods his head, exhaling into the relative silence. "Time is all I have left."
"You have us too." Amelia lightly squeezes his hand. "You are family now, forever and always."
Two more tears fall from his eyes, shooting down his face. "I have not had one of those in a long time."
"Well...now, you do."