TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 107

One hundred and seven

Cameron

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The room smelled of antiseptic and plastic tubing from the machines we brought home weeks ago.

Evangeline lay propped against the pillows with the blanket pulled tight across her chest. Afternoon light slipped. through the blinds and cut across the bed in narrow bands. Nadia sat beside her with her hands folded in her lap. I stayed near the foot of the bed.

“Eva, you can’t keep refusing treatment and still be upset when nothing improves.”

She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together.

“You don’t get it, do you? It hurts too much to go through another treatment that ends the same way. Another test. Another doctor saying they’re hopeful, then nothing changes. I’m tired of sitting in those rooms while/ people study me like I’m a bloody puzzle.”

She tightened her grip on the blanket. I watched the fabric twist under her grip. I used to think it meant fear. Now I wondered if it meant she had already made a decision and the rest of us hadn’t caught up.

The specialists had asked for another round of tests. Detailed scans. Blood work that would take days. Even the oracle asked us to come for cleansing and prayers.

Evangeline refused all of it.

The worst part was the doctors did not sound hopeless. They pointed at the scans and showed me what they still wanted to investigate. One of them said it clearly.

Her body was still fighting.

I had no idea how to make Evangeline hear that.

“You don’t know it will fail. You decide that before it even starts.”

Her eyes opened and settled on me.

“You think I decided this for fun?”

Nadia shot me a warning look.

“Maybe it would be easier if I stopped pretending,” Evangeline said. “Maybe I should start preparing for the end instead.”

Nadia bristled. “Eva, don’t talk like that.”

Evangeline laughed under her breath. “Why not? Everyone else is thinking it. Cameron especially.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. You just don’t say it out loud.”

Nadia rose and stepped closer to the bed. “We’re not giving up on you, Eva. No one here is thinking about losing you.”

Evangeline stared at the ceiling.

“I feel it inside me. Something isn’t right. My body knows it.” She swallowed. “I’m already a burden. I see it every

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Burden.

I hated that word. People used it when they started measuring their worth by how tired everyone else looked.

“You’re not a burden. We need you to fight and survive.”

“I’m done fighting. You both rearranged your lives around this. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

Nadia shook her head.

“That’s what people do when they care about someone. I still think we should go to the oracle,” she said. “Even if you don’t believe in it. At least we’ll know we tried everything.”

Evangeline turned toward the window.

“Hope makes it worse when nothing happens.”

That line irritated me more than I wanted to admit. Hope was the only thing the specialists had left, and they did not offer it lightly. They looked me in the eye and said the situation was complicated, not finished.

Evangeline heard the same word and treated it like a lie.

Nadia reached over and adjusted the blanket near Evangeline’s shoulder.

“Rest for now,” she said.

Evangeline didn’t respond. Nadia glanced toward me and tipped her head at the door.

We stepped into the hallway and closed it behind us. The corridor felt colder than the room. Nadia leaned against the wall and folded her arms.

“I understand why she feels like this,” she said. “When someone stays sick for so long, they start believing they’ve already tried everything.”

“We haven’t tried everything.”

The words came out harshly.

“It’s starting to look like she refuses treatment because she doesn’t want to get better.”

The moment the sentence left my mouth it sounded cruel. Part of me regretted saying it. Another part still believed it.

Nadia pushed off the wall and tapped my arm.

“That’s a wicked thing to think about someone who’s exhausted.”

“What else am I supposed to think?” I said. “The doctors ask for tests. She refuses. The oracle offers help. She refuses that too.”

“She’s scared,” Nadia said.

“She’s giving up.”

Nadia shook her head.

“You’re angry because you don’t know how to fix this.”

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Maybe she was right. The specialists had given me plans and numbers and explanations, but none of it answered the only question that mattered. How do you convince someone to keep fighting when they have already started preparing for the end?

“We can’t sit here and watch her fade,” I said. “If we have to force her this time, then we will.”

Nadia rubbed her forehead.

“Let’s wait until the weekend. I’ll talk to her again. I’ll coax her into it.”

“And if she still refuses?”

Nadia looked back at Evangeline’s door.

Her shoulders dropped.

“Then we won’t have a choice.”

–

Nadia sat on the couch with one leg tucked under her while she scrolled through her phone. The television muttered to itself in the background. I started past her when a ring caught my eye.

I stopped and leaned over the back of the couch.

“What’s that on your hand?” I asked, pointing.

She kept scrolling.

“What does it look like?”

A knot formed in my stomach.

“Hold on. Don’t tell me Desmond proposed to you.”

“He did.”

She flipped the ring over in her palm. No excitement. No smile. I looked at her hand again. A band with a small

stone.

Nadia loved teasing people with news like that. Normally she would stretch the moment out just to irritate me. The way she dropped it so flat made me uneasy. Either she was hiding something or she had already locked the decision in place and didn’t care what anyone else thought.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked. “And are you sure you even love him?”

“Of course I do. I mean… what else is there?”

That answer sat wrong with me.

“Society already has us on a pedestal,” she continued. “They’re watching us and waiting for us to fail. Bastards who somehow climbed into royal blood.”

She let out a tired laugh.

“Everyone keeps reminding us that if our father hadn’t shoved his cock into our mother, we wouldn’t even smell the position we’re in.”

I leaned against the arm of the couch.

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“That doesn’t mean you should marry someone you don’t love.”

“And how are you sure I don’t love him? What else is love if not safety? Protection. Respect.”

“That’s not love, Nadia.”

“It’s enough.”

“No. It isn’t.”

I already knew where this conversation would go, and I hated it.

Part of me wanted to drop it. Nadia had always been stubborn about the choices she made for herself. Pushing harder usually made her dig in deeper. But the ring on her finger felt like a clock starting to tick. If I stayed quiet now, I would watch her walk straight into a life she didn’t want.

“Nobody is forcing you to get married.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Of course you would say that. You’re looking at it from your own life.”

“What does that mean?”

“Cameron, I’ve already made my decision.”

There it was.

That stubborn tone she used whenever she shut the door on an argument.

“Desmond is fine,” she continued. “He’s not perfect. He disappears when things get messy. He’s not the easiest man to rely on. But he likes me. He’s proven that enough.”

She turned the ring around her finger.

“He buys me things. He introduced me to his family. He doesn’t treat me like I’m a mistake. What else do I need?”

I studied her.

She looked calm. Too calm.

The kind of calm people build when they’ve already convinced themselves of something they don’t want questioned.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she did love him and I was projecting doubts that had nothing to do with her. I had done that before. I had assumed I understood someone’s choices, only to realize later I had been looking through my own problems.

Still, the feeling wouldn’t leave.

“I’ll marry him,” she said.

I turned toward her.

“What about Franklin?”

Her body went rigid.

“What about him?”

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I scoffed.

“You bicker with him all the time, but you like him.”

She shook her head.

“Franklin and I could never be together. He’s a beta.”

She said it as if the explanation should have ended the conversation.

“I’m already questioned every day for not being legitimate. Imagine the scandal if I married a beta

I stared at her. It bothered me how easily she accepted that logic.

We spent years growing up complaining about the same hierarchy. We mocked the people who treated bloodlines like currency. Now she used the same rules to cage her own life. Maybe that was what time did to people. You fought a system long enough and eventually you started obeying it.

“Has a date been set?”

She sighed.

“He wants the wedding before the end of the year.”

I frowned.

“Nadia. It’s October.”

“I know. Shotgun wedding. We have enough people to plan it quickly. If we wanted to get married tomorrow, we could.”

“Are you really sure about this?”

She didn’t answer.

“What about your happiness? What about drinking and your coping methods?”

“I’m working on that.”

I lifted both hands.

“Yeah right.”

“I’m serious, Cameron.”

Her voice softened.

“I get overwhelmed sometimes. Anxiety. Everything we’ve been through. I don’t want my children growing up the way we did.”

She wiped her face. Her gaze dropped to the floor.

“We don’t belong anywhere. The non-royals see us as spoiled brats who had everything handed to us. The royals see us as illegitimate. Like we’re stains on the family tree. I don’t want to bring a child into that world.”

Her voice cracked. She laughed through the tears.

“I hated our father for sleeping with a maid just to produce a male heir. And then I came out as a girl. Imagine that.”

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“I’ll stay with Evangeline more. I’ll give her more reasons to agree to the tests.”

She pointed at me. “But you need to be there for her too. More than anyone.”

She leaned back against the couch.

“So whatever feelings you have for Lisa right now, put them aside.”

She gave a tired smile.

“I’m sure things will return to normal once Evangeline gets better. You’ll have your mate back. Everything wil settle again.”

I nodded.

But the truth settled heavy in my chest.

I wasn’t sure anything would ever return to normal.

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