Chapter 37
Konstantine
My sister was in a state, pale to where her skin had taken on the blue of her veins, her eyes wide and darting everywhere at once, glossy with a thousand worries. We were back inside, I sent Arax to find some clothes of mine and pulled Penelope aside.
“Stan,” she said, fretting. “It has to be them, no beacon.” Her body was shaking violently, and I knew flashbacks of that day over a year ago were running fresh in her mind.
I laid a hand on her shoulder, sparing her the horrors of having to bring me up to speed. “Where are Mom and Leni?” I asked as I looked around, trying to keep my sister focused.
“Waiting by the elevator. The castle guards have already escorted the staff and everyone else down. I made sure they’d stay with them.”
“Why aren’t Mom and Leni down there already?” I snapped, “and why don’t you have a guard with you?”
Penelope wrung her hands. “Stan, there wasn’t time. Cyrus and Drake were with the first wave that went, Vallon and Jason too. We couldn’t find Rox, and I couldn’t… Stan, I can’t be separated from my daughter. With her dad gone, I can’t—”
The first tear fell, and I caught it with my finger, then flicked it away.
My sister was no weakling, but the trauma brought on by the first attack and the thought of losing Eleni had changed her.
She’d always put on a brave face, but the cracks that day had caused were very much there.
Even so, Penelope wasn’t the type to run and hide.
I squeezed her shoulder. “Pen, take Arax and get yourselves underground. Link a guard to meet you here.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “The guards are busy as it is.”
“That wasn’t a request, Penelope. Now.”
She frowned at me, but her eyes clouded over, and I hurried back into my suite. Arax was standing where I’d left her, buttoning up a shirt she’d found.
“Konstantine, what is going on? Is everything all right?” she asked, her voice on the edge of quiet panic as she sought answers I was disinclined to provide.
“Here, wear these,” I said instead, handing her the smallest pair of joggers I owned and a pair of socks. “You need to go with Pen to the underground bunker.”
She tucked them under one arm and held out her hand, seeking comfort where there was none.
“Get dressed, Arax. Quickly,” I barked and felt her recoil at the abruptness of the directive.
I turned away and closed my eyes, thinking of my next move, itching to let my wolf out. Figures this would happen during a time when all I’d hoped for was a few hours spent unchained to my role.
“You’re not coming with us, are you?” It was more a statement than anything else, and I heard the disappointment, sadness, and drone of underlying anger her tone carried.
The shift in the atmosphere of the room was incontestable.
Questions hung heavy on the walls. The air became dank with her indignation at being brushed aside, left on her own to connect the handful of dots she had.
“You need to hurry,” I replied, evading yet again.
She pulled the drawstring of the joggers as tightly as it would go, rolling the waistband a few times so their length wouldn’t trip her. My heart sank as I watched her try to make sense of the situation.
“Does this have anything to do with what you wanted to talk about, that you apparently won’t tell me now? It must, if it involves an attack and an underground bunker.” She answered her own question, and Arax’s expression was vacant, growing more distant in the thick of my reticence.
I glanced at the clock, then back at her, seeing the downturn of her eyes reflected in the downturn of her mouth.
Things had taken a turn so quickly and infuriatingly, and I had as well.
Physically I was present with my mate in my bedroom, but mentally I was in the field with the warriors, with Drake and Cyrus.
I was the Alpha, and I should have been there, leading the charge.
“Ready,” Arax said flatly, conveying no emotion other than frustration.
“Arax.” I made haste in walking to her, trying to salvage what was left of our time together… trying to get ahead of the conclusions that were being drawn. “When this is over, I want to take you out, somewhere we can talk, just the two of us.”
“Talk,” she said, looking through me, not at me, and I knew she was getting past the point of such niceties as talking.
“Yes,” I hesitated, not wanting to say too much, but knowing I owed her this. “This world, Araxia, is not as simple as you might think. Give me time, and I promise I’ll explain everything.”
I took her face in my hands, grounding myself in her features and memorizing every detail as if I hadn’t already done so countless times before: plump lips of dark rose, cheeks painted pink on a smooth canvas of light olive and beige, and eyes whose color I’d so often strived to define but had always fallen short of the words.
The lush dampness of her hair, glossy and black at first, hiding blue in the center of a raven flame.
Her skin, smelling soapy and clean from a shower but now carrying on it the scent of me.
Could she ever be free of my scent after today?
I hadn’t been of hers, not since that morning I took her in my arms, away from that murderous mountain that would have claimed her.
She’d claimed me that day, by the sweetness of her blood soaking into my every pore and filling all the cracks, physical and emotional.
I swept a finger across her cheekbones.
“And afterward, if you decide you still want to be with me—” I stopped myself from saying out loud the things I would do, not giving any weight to the possibility that she would walk away, and went to kiss her.
She turned her head, and my lips took to her temple, the denial a blow striking me deep in the gut.
“To be continued?” I asked, feeling her shutting down.
“Your sister is waiting,” she replied coldly, offering me no conciliation and moving toward the door.
“Araxia,” I hissed, and at this, she pursed her lips and paused to grant me a sidelong glance. “I’m needed elsewhere. I’ll come get you as soon as it’s safe.”
“You do that, Konstantinos.”
Penelope was pacing in the hall and ran to grab Arax’s arm. “Rox, are you okay?”
She nodded curtly, and her eyes fell on the guard who had come to stand beside my sister, silently observing the dagger at his side and the one he gripped expertly in his hand.
“Dorian, right?” she asked, nonplussed.
The young warrior’s eyebrows went up at the recognition. “You remember me, miss?”
“Arax. And yes, how could I so easily forget the constant shadow that was stationed at my hospital suite door?”
“Dorian.” I nodded at him.
“Alpha,” he replied automatically, then stiffened, realizing what he’d said—the urgency of the circumstances behind his deviation from set protocols around Arax.
Though she said nothing, I saw the slight clenching of her jaw at the address. It was too late to do anything about it now.
“Get them there safely,” I told him.
I took both women under each arm in a tight embrace. One returned the gesture, the other remained uncannily stoic. I gave my sister a reassuring smile, then kissed my mate’s hair. She reluctantly accepted it but showed no reaction, keeping her face forward, her eyes trained on Dorian.
“Go,” I said to the three of them, and they sprinted down the hall.
I stayed where I was, keeping watch. They reached the top of the stairs, and it was there that Arax turned and looked back.
She’d let down her defenses, thinking she was far enough away to where I wouldn’t notice the biting of her lip and the creases in her forehead.
The mate bond oscillated with her anxiety, fear, and alarm.
She didn’t drop her gaze until she’d taken the first of many steps down and eventually disappeared from view.
I sighed. From a young age, I’d been taught how to compartmentalize. Putting my emotions on hold and my trust in Dorian, I quickly veered in the other direction and took down my block. As soon as I did, my head became a mess with a dozen voices.
“Beta,” I said over all of them. “Status report.”
“Explosions all over the west sector,” he answered immediately. “Twelve to be exact, set off simultaneously.”
“Casualties?” I asked, breaking into a run.
“None reported,” he replied.
“Targets?” I dove out of the nearest open window and shifted midjump, while Cyrus responded.
Apollo was raring to go, landing easily despite the long descent.
I listened as I ran. The west sector was on the other side, in the rural part of the territory.
Bridges and two watchtowers had been leveled with no sign of the perpetrators behind it.
How the hell did they get past our patrols? my wolf asked, angry at the disruption this had caused with our mate this morning.
I linked the guard in charge of surveillance. “Damiano.”
“Alpha,” he answered, giving me the details without having to be asked. “My team has been watching the footage both in playback and in real time. No one shows up on it except our own.”
“Has the feed been tampered with?”
“No, Alpha. We ran multiple system checks to be sure. It’s like they’re invisible.”
“Run the checks again, then determine the time and point of entry.”
“On it, sir.”
Now that we were far enough from the castle, Apollo looked back and eyed the tower. Nothing. The Fire lay dormant, just as Penelope had stated, same as before.
When I got to the area of the blasts, I was relieved to find it wasn’t as bad as I’d initially thought. Guards were looking through the debris, Drake among them. He waved me over when he saw me. I shifted back and went to him.
“Basic C4,” he said with a shake of his head. “No magical signature, nothing supernatural about it.” His shoulders heaved with a sigh.
“Any sightings?” I asked. “There has to be more than three of them.”
“None yet,” Drake replied, “and we can’t track a scent. They came, set up the charges—sloppily, I might add—and took off. It was a rush job.”