Viola's Risk (The Twin Destinies Saga Book 2) (13 page)

Dominic heaved a huge sigh of relief when he saw her
beautiful hazel eyes open and heard her voice. It was music to his ears.

“How? I don’t understand,” Dr. Brown sputtered, moving from
the back of the room to Viola’s bedside to take her vitals.

“Like we told you, she had a power imbalance and it was
killing her, but you wouldn’t listen. In fact, if you had succeeded in keeping
us away from her, you would have been guilty of her death when it occurred,”
Sage said with a lot of irritation in his voice.

“I was doing what I thought was best for her since all of
her tests came back negative,” Dr. Brown said, becoming defensive.

“Considering you have no experience with patients who
possess both Solarian and Lunarian powers, it would have been in your best
interests to take what we were telling you more seriously than you did. I can
sense people’s emotions Sir. You listened to what we had to say with a deaf ear
and annoyance. You felt we were wasting your time so we went to someone who has
had experience with doing a power transfer successfully. We had permission from
her parents to do what we did
,
which overrules your permission. If I
were Thomas, I’d replace you,” Sage said with disgust.

“Wait, I almost died?” Viola asked with wide eyes.

“Yes, Beautiful One, but you’re going to be fine now.”
Dominic said, brushing her hair back.

“I don’t understand. I was tired from everything that
happened…” Viola started to say when Cora stepped forward.

“I am so sorry Vi. I should have noticed when we had our
little argument in the hallway that something was wrong, but I was too caught
up in being angry with you for jumping out of that SUV the way you did. You
went back in your room, locked the door and passed out. Dominic was the one who
suggested to me that we have you checked out by medical when I came back
downstairs. I think he was sensing the imbalance in you even though he didn’t
realize it,” Cora said and sat down on the bed across from Dominic.

“Really?” Viola asked, looking up at Dominic with
appreciation in her eyes.

“Yeah, I guess that’s what it was. I just had this nagging
feeling something was wrong with you and you were in danger,” he said, looking
embarrassed.

“Thank you Dominic,” Viola said from the bottom of her
heart. She reached up and brushed her fingers across his jaw before letting it
drop down and grasped his hand in hers.

“He has been amazing Vi. He’s the one who figured it out
about the imbalance and transferred some of his Lunarian power into you to
bring your powers back into alignment. He truly is your savior,” Cora said with
appreciation and admiration for the way he’d taken care of her twin.

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you just doesn’t seem to be
enough,” Viola said, looking at Dominic with awe.

“You don’t have to thank me Beautiful One. Just seeing your
eyes open, hearing your voice and knowing you are healthy are all thanks enough
for me,” Dominic said, wishing everyone would back off. He’d done what anyone
else in the room would have done for her.

“It’s not enough. You went above and beyond Dominic. I am
proud of you son,” Thomas said and put his hand on Dominic’s shoulder, looking
down at him with pride.

“Any of you would have done the same,” Dominic replied.

“But we didn’t. You did all of that. You have more than
proven yourself worthy of my daughter. You have proven you will do whatever it
takes to keep her safe and protected. If you choose to follow destiny and become
mates, you have my blessing,” Thomas said with a nod before leaning down and
placing a gentle kiss on Viola’s forehead and moving away from the couple.

Viola followed her father with a shocked expression on her
face. Never in a million years did she ever expect that little speech from him
nor the kiss on her forehead.

“Wow,” was all she could manage to say.

“Who was that?” Cora asked, just as surprised as her twin
was.

“I don’t know, but I may learn to like him,” Viola said and
both girls giggled.

“Someone want to tell me what happened to Thomas? He’s being
unusually nice,” Sage asked in a whisper.

“I’ll fill you in later,” Cora whispered back.

Sage nodded and went over to where Thomas was having a not
so pleasantly animated conversation with Dr. Brown.

Dominic could not take his eyes off of Viola’s face. He was
so relieved she was going to be alright that he didn’t know what to do with
himself. Cora and Viola were having a conversation between the two of them and
he didn’t notice when Angelica moved over to his side.

“You did a wonderful thing today. Don’t underestimate
yourself or sell yourself short. You are worthy of her. Don’t let your past
dictate your future or you will end up miserable,” she told him, wisdom shining
brightly from her eyes.

Dominic’s head turned sharply as he was startled by her
words. Viola and Cora’s conversation halted as they watched and listened with
rapt attention.

“I’m sorry Ma’am, I have to disagree with you. I don’t deserve
her. She deserves so much better than me as her mate,” Dominic told her with a
deep sadness in his eyes.

“She has chosen you whether you feel you are worthy of her
or not. Fate has chosen for the two of you to be together. Tell me, what do you
know that fate and my daughter do not? What makes you feel like you are not
worthy of her?” Angelica asked him.

“I know of my past. I am not a good guy. I have made bad
choices and chosen the wrong path more often than I have ever done the right
thing. I have committed horrendous acts. She deserves better than me. Far, far
better than me,” the honesty in his voice ringing loud and clear.

“Do you know what makes you worthy of my daughter, Dominic?”
Angelica asked in a soft voice.

“Nothing. There is not one thing that makes me worthy of her,
Ma’am,” he said, sorrow in his voice and eyes.

“Oh, yes there is. Would you like to know what it is?”
Angelica persisted.

When Dominic said nothing, Angelica looked over at her quiet
daughters and smiled with pride at them before turning back to him.

“You are a very special person who loves with all of his
heart. Yes, you’ve been lost for quite a while, because of circumstances out of
your control. You were very young when your family was ripped away from you in
one of the most horrible ways possible. Of course you made wrong choices
because that’s what you were taught to do from a young age. That is forgivable.
What makes you worthy is when you had the opportunity to make the right choice
and help fight for the greater good of our people, instead of continuing down
the path of destroying our people, you chose to fight for the greater good.
You’ve saved more lives than you can imagine by alerting us to Anna’s plans so
we could minimize the damage she caused. You were the one who found out what
Anna was planning to do to our daughters and alerted us to this so we could
extract them and bring them to safety. You were the one who caught that Viola
was in mortal danger and then figured out what was wrong with her and fixed it
so she’s healthy and strong, after a bit of rest that is. All of that makes you
worthy of her. None of us make perfect choices. All of us make mistakes. That
is all a part of life,” Angelica told him in a gentle, but firm, voice. The
conviction in her words making even Dominic’s eyes water.

“But I kidnapped her and delivered her to Anna,” Dominic
objected.

“Although I do not condone that choice, I do understand it.
Besides, it’s obvious that fate had a hand in your decision as the two of you
are destined to be mated to each other. If you fight it, you will cause pain to
not only yourself,
but Viola as well, because we
are not made to survive without our mates. Think long and hard before deciding
you’re not good enough for her, because you’re hurting more than yourself by
denying what is destined to be. I trust you to make the right decision,”
Angelica told him confidently, leaned down and gave him a brief hug before
walking away, leaving Dominic and the twins staring after her stunned once
again.

After being held for twenty-four hours for observation,
Viola was relieved to be released from the medical facility and heading back to
the mansion and her own room. Angelica had already had all of the things they’d
purchased during their outing/mission brought from the Victorian house and
placed in her room so she’d have immediate access to everything.

Walking into her room, she closed the door behind her and
grabbed her things for a nice hot shower. Being in medical made her feel dirty
somehow, she thought it had something to do with all of the different people’s
hands probing everywhere on her body. Getting clean and into some comfortable
clothes was her first priority, before going to meet with her family.

The steady stream of hot water from the shower felt
wonderful so she stood there forever before cleansing and getting out, drying
off and dressing. She took the time to blow dry her hair and apply a light
dusting of makeup before heading down to the dining room where they’d agreed to
have an evening meal together and talk.

Things had been awkward between her and Dominic since
Angelica’s speech in her medical room and she was desperate to find out why he
was pulling away from her. She prayed he was not planning on leaving her
because of his feelings of inadequacy.

When she entered the dining room, Dominic stood up and
pulled her chair out for her as he’d done the last time she’d entered after he
had. She loved that he was such a gentleman. It made her feel special, because
no guy had ever done for her the things he did for her. He made her feel
cherished.

As soon as she was seated, the dishes of food began being
passed around and everyone teased, laughed and chatted amongst each other. The
only one who didn’t seem to join in was Dominic and Viola didn’t understand
why.

She kept giving him worried looks, but he was consistent
about avoiding meeting her gaze. Reaching out with her mind, she found his and
asked,
“What’s wrong? Why won’t you look at me?”

“Let it go Viola,”
he said and blocked her from his
mind. Looking hurt, she pushed her chair back from the table and left the
dining room without saying anything to anyone.

Upon Viola’s abrupt departure, everyone stopped talking and
looked back and forth between the door Viola had just gone through and Dominic,
who kept his eyes down on his plate.

After a few moments, Angelica said something to the group
and directed everyone’s focus away from Dominic, to his relief.

Viola stood outside of the dining room for a few minutes
with her back against the wall waiting to see if anyone pressed about why she’d
suddenly left the table without a word, but no such questions came. With pain
and confusion stabbing her heart, she ran through the house and out through the
front door. She had no particular destination in mind, she just had to get away
from there before she exploded. Fear was clawing at her from the inside out
because of Dominic’s withdrawn behavior.

Without realizing where she’d been heading, she ended up in
the gazebo again. Tired and out of breath, she collapsed onto one of the
benches and burst into tears, the conversation from the day before between
Dominic and her mother replaying itself in her head, over and over again. The
only break from that memory was the one of the conversation between herself and
Dominic, when he’d told her himself he didn’t deserve her.

Viola didn’t know how long she sat there in the moonlight
sobbing and replaying those memories in her mind. It had to be quite a while
because the air turned quite chilly as time wore on and the moon rose higher in
the night sky. Still, she made no move to return to the house and the
loneliness of her room.

“Why? What do I have to do to get him to see reason? We fit
together as one,” Viola said as she closed her eyes and wished for answers.
Only silence greeted her questions.

Lying down and curling up into a ball on the bench, she
tried to clear her mind of Dominic and their confusing situation. She forced
herself not to think of Anna, Camilla and their destiny. Focusing, she went to
that place in her mind that gave her some sort of peace and tried to retreat
for a while.

Her mind would not cooperate with her however. She kept
trying to figure out how to break through Dominic’s low image of himself and
get him to realize how perfect they were together. She didn’t want anyone else
but him. If she was to embrace her destiny, she had to embrace him as her mate
like she was trying to do.

Staring up at the moon, she willed the answers she was
looking for to come to her, but continued to come up with nothing.

Cora found Viola lying on the gazebo bench stewing an hour
later.

“Hey Sis. I thought you could use an ear to listen. Things
seem tense between you and Dominic,” Cora said as she lifted Viola’s head, sat
down and rested it on her lap. Viola made no move to get up.

“I don’t know what’s going on with him. I wish that I did.”
The frustration Viola was feeling, poured out into her words.

“Want me to talk to him?” Cora offered.

“I don’t think it’ll do any good,” Viola told her with a
grateful smile.

“It might, we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well over
the last day or so. Maybe I can get through to him,” Cora said with a shrug and
jealousy raged through Viola.

“What? Isn’t Liam enough for you? You’ve got to go after
Dominic too?” Viola screeched, sitting up and moving away from her sister.

“What? No! We’re just getting to be friends. You took that
the wrong way,” Cora said, raising her hands up as a sign of surrender.

“Calm down Viola,” Sage ordered as he stepped into the
gazebo.

“Why should I?” Viola’s jealousy was taking over.

“Because your powers are tied to your emotions and that is
what caused your power imbalance to begin with. Do you want a repeat of what
happened?” Sage snapped back.

Viola opened and closed her mouth several times, wanting to
make a snide remark, but couldn’t refute what Sage had said.

“We’re here to help you Vi. I don’t want Dominic, he’s all
yours. We all have the same goal of helping him to realize he’s meant to be
with you, despite how he feels about himself,” Cora said, standing and walking
over to her sister.

Viola took a deep breath and looked at the two people
standing close to her. She saw the love and concern in their eyes and the
jealousy she was feeling evaporated.

“I’m sorry. Everything is so crazy right now and I’m
terrified that Dominic is going to walk away without giving us a chance,” she
told them as her shoulders slumped,
and she sank
down onto the nearest bench. Tears were welling up in her eyes again and she
brushed them away with impatience.

“Well, the first thing we need to do is get your emotions
under control. You don’t have enough training in reining in your powers to let
your emotions fly the way that you have been. Second, we need to come up with a
plan to knock some sense into that mate of yours,” Sage said, sitting down next
to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“Sage is right Vi. We’ll get him to come around,” Cora said,
sitting down on her other side.

“I hope you’re both right. I should go for a walk and calm
down though. I’m really sorry I snapped at you like that Cora.” Viola said,
looking over at her sister.

“Don’t worry about it. I can’t imagine what you’re going
through. If I were in your shoes, I’d probably have reacted the same way,” Cora
said with a shrug, dismissing Viola’s apology. She wasn’t mad at her sister,
worried was more like it.

“We’ll get this all straightened out Little Sis,” Sage said
with a squeeze of her shoulders. She looked up at him with an odd expression on
her face at the nickname, completely forgetting about wanting to go for a walk
to cool down.

Cora saw it and laughed. “Just go with it. He’s not gonna
change it. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

They all laughed at that and got down to trying to figure
out how to screw Dominic’s head back on straight.