Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 489

Chapter 489

Andrei’s POV

The psychologist’s office was in a quiet part of Ashmoor, tucked between a bookshop and a tailor. I stood outside for a full five minutes before I could make myself go in.

This was stupid. I didn’t need therapy. I just needed to get my shit together and move on. But Natalia had asked me to do this, and after what happened in the training arena, I couldn’t say no.

“Just one session,” she had said this morning. “Just try it once, and see if you like it. If you don’t, you’ll never have to go back.”

Just once. I could handle that. I’d handled way worse before.

The waiting room was small and empty. A receptionist looked up when I entered and smiled. “You must be Andrei. Dr. Kline is ready for you. Second door on the right.”

I nodded and walked down the hall. My palms were sweating. When was the last time I’d been this nervous about anything?

The office was warm and comfortable. Bookshelves lined one wall, and there was a couch and two armchairs arranged around a small table. A woman sat in one of the chairs. She was surprisingly young, maybe in her late twenties, and grinned when I entered.

“Andrei,” she said, standing to shake my hand. “I’m Dr. Kline. Please, have a seat.”

I sat on the couch. The cushions were too soft, and I sank into them, feeling like I’d been engulfed. The doctor settled back into her chair and pulled out a notebook.

“So,” she said. “What brings you here today?”

I stared at her. What kind of question was that? “My mate told me to come,” I said flatly.

She nodded and jotted something down in her notebook. “And why did she think you needed to come?”

I shifted in my seat. “She, uh… She thinks I have PTSD. From the war.”

“Do you think you have PTSD?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I looked down at my hands. The bandages were off now, but the scabs were still visible across my knuckles. “I’ve been having these… dreams.” I couldn’t bring myself to say that they were visions, or hallucinations, or whatever the hell they were. It made me feel too crazy.

“Can you describe the dreams?”

No. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to say any of this out loud. Didn’t want to make it real by putting it into words.

“It’s hard to explain,” I finally muttered.

Dr. Kline nodded like she had expected that answer. “That’s alright. We can take this slow. Why don’t you start by telling me about the war? What happened?”

“A lot happened.”

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Chapter 489

+25 BONUS

“Can you be more specific?”

I clenched my jaw. This was already unbearable, and we’d barely started. “The rogue who called himself‘ the Winter King‘ captured my mate. Tortured both of us. I thought she was dead. Then I found out she was alive, went after her, got captured again, and barely made it out. That’s the short version.”

“That sounds incredibly traumatic.”

I didn’t respond.

“How did it feel when you thought she was dead?”

The question hit me like a punch to the gut. How did it feel? Like the world had ended. Like nothing mattered anymore. Like I wanted to die, too. Like I had died, I had jumped over that cliff to follow her, and everything that happened after was a nightmare.

But I couldn’t say that out loud.

“It felt bad,” I said.

Dr. Kline waited. When I didn’t elaborate, she wrote something in her notebook. “Bad how?”

“Just… bad. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

“Did you feel angry? Sad? Hopeless?”

“All of it.” The words came out sharper than they should have. “All of it at once. Is that what you want to hear?”

She didn’t flinch at my tone. “I just want to hear whatever you’re comfortable sharing.”

I stood up and walked to the window. Outside, people were going about their day. Normal people doing normal things. They weren’t sitting in a therapist’s office talking about their feelings like some kind of… I didn’t even want to put it into words.

I could feel her watching me, waiting for me to say something. But I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know how to explain any of this.

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