Chapter Twenty-Eight
Felix
June
In the seconds that it took me to reach Bennett, I felt every single emotion that he must have felt when I was in the hospital.
Fear.
Despair.
Panic.
Anger.
Desperation.
The truth was, I would have sold my soul to the devil himself if it meant that Bennett could live.
I gripped his shoulders, searching him for a wound, completely unable to process how he was still standing. Where’s the blood? Am I hallucinating? What’s happening?
Bennett enveloped me in his arms and pulled me against his chest, holding me tighter than I ever thought possible. “I’m fine, handsome,” he said, directly against my ear. “He didn’t shoot me.”
I looked up at him, relief filling every inch of space in my body as I realized he was telling the truth. He was fine.
But the gun!
I whipped around and gasped. Bennett pulled me back toward him. “Felix, no.”
“I have to,” I said, already moving toward the figure on the ground. Ryder lay in a pool of his own blood, Wyatt at his side. I looked around for the source of the shot and saw Donovan standing with Reid just behind Bennett, gun drawn.
My relief at Donovan arriving in time to save Bennett was palpable, but the sadness I felt at seeing Ryder dying in front of me was hard to reconcile.
I ran to his side, sensing Bennett following me from a distance. I dropped to my knees, landing in the blood pooling on the pavement. Ryder looked at me, his face pale and his body shaking, the one wound in his chest spilling a steady flow of blood.
“He’s not going to survive this,” Wyatt whispered, his fingers on the pulse at Ryder’s wrist. “If you have anything to say or ask him, you need to be quick.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and squeezed Ryder’s hand. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I wish this could have ended differently.”
Ryder gave me a crooked smile. “Pretty sure this is all my fault, remember?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, chest tight. “Just let me stay with you.”
“Felix?” he asked, his voice uneven and weak. “Please don’t forget me. I don’t want to be forgotten.”
“I won’t forget you,” I promised, my eyes filling with tears.
At least this time it was the truth. I may not have been able to honestly say that what we had was love, but it was something meaningful.
It was a relationship that had shaped me early in life and I truly wouldn’t be able to forget Ryder.
I didn’t want to. We’d had good times together, despite everything else.
Ryder looked over my shoulder to where Bennett stood, sending his support through the bond. “I’m sorry about busting up your garage.”
“It’s not important. Apology accepted,” Bennett said.
“Take care of him,” Ryder said, his eyes flickering closed.
“I will,” Bennett said.
A few seconds later, his chest stopped moving.
“He’s gone,” Wyatt said.
I dropped Ryder’s hand and immediately felt Bennett lift me off the ground and wrap me up in his arms. “I’m so sorry, handsome,” he said.
I sobbed against his shoulder. “He shouldn’t have died like that,” I cried. “No one should die like that.”
“I know, Felix,” he said, rubbing my back soothingly. He surrounded me with the scent of pine. “Let’s go back inside the bar.”
I nodded and let him walk us in that direction. Wyatt and Donovan were talking over Ryder’s body and other police from the surrounding towns had started to arrive. Reid stood outside the bar door, and I pulled out my key as we approached.
Something soft brushed my legs and I gasped, looking down at the pure white wolf standing next to me. “Ally?”
She rubbed her head against my hip, and I lifted my hand to pet her. “Wait, can I pet her?” I asked, looking at Bennett.
“Yeah, she can understand everything we say. She just can’t respond in her wolf form,” he said. “She’s trying to comfort you.”
He took the key from me and opened the door to the bar as I pet Ally’s head and scratched behind her ears. “Your eyes are so pretty,” I said, the bright blue entirely captivating. “Are they that pretty when you’re human?”
She nipped my hand.
“Ouch!” I said, petting her head again, feeling myself instantly relax.
“Yeah, she bites,” Bennett said. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Petting her is soothing though, right?” Reid asked. “Ally used to sleep with Oakley in wolf form after their parents died because Oak liked the feeling of petting her until she fell asleep. I assume the comfort you get from her is an omega thing.”
“Apparently,” I said, feeling calmer with each stroke of her white fur. I glanced over my shoulder at the sound of sirens as an ambulance arrived.
“No,” Bennett said. “Don’t look again, Felix. You’ve already seen enough.”
I let Bennett guide me inside the bar and sat down at a table against the far wall. Reid and Bennett sat with me while Ally disappeared into the back. A few minutes later she appeared behind the bar in human form wearing a pair of jeans and a white tank top.
“I’m sorry, Felix,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, wiping my eyes and settling back against Bennett’s chest. “I feel like such an asshole. I left him to get sober, came back and begged him to break our bond, and all the while I had no idea what was going on with him or what he was mixed up in.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Bennett said before kissing my temple. “And you couldn’t have done anything about it if he didn’t want your help.”
Donovan came through the front door as Ally slid into the booth next to Reid and passed each of us a beer.
“I’m going to have to take your statements individually,” Donovan said, looking exhausted. He’d been parked outside our house so many nights lately that Bennett and I had often wondered when he was sleeping.
“Sit down and have a drink with us first,” Reid said.
Donovan shook his head. “I’m on duty.”
“You just killed a man, bro. Sit down,” Reid said, offering Donovan his beer.
Donovan nodded and sat down next to Ally, taking a long swig of the beer. “Wyatt said there was no sign of Calvin? Just Ryder tonight.”
“Just Ryder,” Bennett said, pulling me closer. “No sign of Calvin anywhere yet?”
Donovan shook his head. “Nope. He’s just vanished.” His eyes met mine. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Thank you,” I said, “It might make me sound awful, but I’m grateful you shot him when you did. You might have saved Bennett’s life.”
Bennett tipped his chin at Donovan. “Thanks, man.”
“What’s going to happen next?” I asked, nuzzling back into Bennett’s shoulder. All I really wanted to do now was go home and sleep for days.
“Wyatt said he wants to talk to the police in the surrounding towns. Put our information together and see if we might be able to start piecing things together. It’s safe to say there is more going on than we thought,” Donovan said.
“Guess your job just got a lot more interesting,” Ally said.
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Wyatt’s not going to let this one go.”
“No,” Ally chuckled, pressing her beer bottle to her lips. “He’s not.”
Reid sighed. “Whatever is going on is clearly a lot bigger than just your ex-boyfriend feeling jealous, Felix. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
He was right. There was something far bigger than just the history between Ryder and me happening in Mirror Lake, and the thought terrified me.