Chapter 37
We were safe for now.
I’d been right on the money; Annika’s mob guy had come through.
The empty mansion, owned by the Forbes family, was far beyond Ace’s clutches. Zed still hadn’t let her go, and he was carrying her as we stepped through grand doors into a huge home with beautifully kept gardens that stretched for miles around. It was like something from a movie as Zed stepped in with her still in his arms, like a princess stolen from the jaws of a dragon.
With every rise and fall of her chest, my muscles loosened. Her long, dark waves swayed with each step Zed took, and one arm hung limply. As I watched, one crimson drop of blood slipped from the rag I’d tied around her hands.
There was a haunting serenity to her right now, to the silence from the space she’d carved out in the bond.
She was my storm, and these were her few moments of calm before she woke. She was safe, and it was on the back of her own work and friends, not because of me.
I’d missed things I should never have missed, and Glade had paid the price.
I almost lost her forever…
I shoved the thought back as Knight, who was ahead, led us into a grand room with a four-poster pack-sized bed. Zed set her down as I tugged off my backpack, which held the collections of weapons, including the same poison that was surging through her system.
I’d brought poison, but no antidote?
Arrogant.
Stupid.
It wasn’t my proudest moment, holding a pharmacist at gunpoint, but she had been so close to death.
It was something I’d always believed of the Brotherhood: they weren’t able to conceive of a threat unless it was a gun pointed in their face.
And then I’d done the same.
I shut my eyes, grabbing out what I needed before fetching Zed a drink of water. He was fragments of an Alpha, surfacing here and there, made of nothing but agony. Knight was the same, if not as bad, but Zed had seen the worst of it.
An age passed as I stared at them. The threat had passed, and I was left with them, gun tucked uselessly into my belt as I sat on the edge of the bed.
Knight left at some point.
Jesse had dropped us off a car and a shit ton of cash, and Knight was grabbing us essentials.
Zed was finally out cold, arm curled around Glade’s waist as he slept at her side. I wouldn’t admit to Knight that I’d slipped something into the water I’d given him. He was on the edge of mania, and he needed to rest. We couldn’t afford another rut. Plus, now they were both asleep, I could take care of them properly.
They needed that, and so did I; insanity lurked, and I knew I was only a few moments of silence and inaction from ending up like Zed. Slowly, I got to my feet and went to gather what I needed before settling beside Glade.
I unwrapped the strips of cloth I’d placed on her hands. I couldn’t look at anything but her skin, the scrapes along the edges of her palm and along the joint of her thumb. Skin ripped raw as she’d torn her own hands from the cuffs.
My pulse was erratic as I drew the cloth along those wounds, each one carrying a thousand flashes of her fear. Her desperation.
Her scent was as quiet as she was in the bond—the faintest trace of icy static in a cool storm wind.
Carefully, I wiped her other hand, cleaning the dried blood from the wounds beneath. I made the mistake of glancing up at her. Ashen face flecked with red, lips pale, dark bruising around her mouth and cheeks from the gag.
I hadn’t been there for her.
How close?
I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear a world that had stolen her away.
Even when she wasn’t with me, she was a storm in the distance, beautiful and alive; a power that never ended.
Until it had.
For one world-ending moment while I was in the pharmacy, I’d felt my Everstorm die; the other half of my heart swallowed into the void. The gun became a lead weight in my hand as the world drained of colour, and reality stopped making sense.
I was too late.
For the worst few seconds of my life, she was gone, and a whole bleak future began to unravel. I didn’t know how I would survive it. Since the moment I’d met her, we were connected, as if, with every exhale of her lungs, I could draw breath, so without her I didn’t know how to live. There were a thousand seconds before me, in a world she wasn’t a part of, then a thousand after that, and I didn’t know how to leave Knight…
I was lost.
Completely and utterly.
Except, with a bolt of brilliant energy, she’d come back. Not just to this world, but—beyond my wildest dreams—she was in the bond with us.
I took a deep breath, steadying myself as I rested her hand at her side, the wounds upon it now clean. I was still suspended between those two worlds—the one before me, and the one that had, for a brief moment, begun to take shape. Empty and bleak.
I swallowed my fear, wrapping the bandage gently and securing it.
Where was the basin?
That was next. I had to keep going. What if she woke like this?
With both hands done, I washed the blood away, smears of it upon her arms, neck, and face, but as I finished, my panic began clawing its way back up my throat.
My eyes snagged on Zed, whose arm was still curled around Glade’s waist.
He was unconscious, but I felt his echo like a ghost in the bond, terrified and broken.
I blinked, tilting my head as I examined him. Knight wasn’t the only member of the pack who continued to challenge the reality my father had tried to brand into my soul.
Zed had shattered into a million pieces today. I’d felt it in the bond, and heard it in the desperation of his voice as we’d been able to do nothing but listen through comms.
I had been taught to idolise him, born with Maverick blood—someone I might dream of one day being selected for as a pack mate. Zed was raised to be brutal and deadly, the pinnacle of what it meant to be an Alpha.
And he was in pieces. For us.
For her.
When we’d found those roses and cards—when we’d, at last, realised the truth—there hadn’t been a moment where Zed had considered the offer of freedom and money. He had risked his life for his scent match, and when she’d fallen, he had fallen with her.
He didn’t value himself more, as an Alpha. It was endlessly curious to me how far he’d distanced himself from the fathers who had raised us.
I dipped the cloth into the basin, shifting beside him. There was crusted blood across his face in the prints of thin fingers.
Glade’s blood.
He didn’t deserve to wake to that.
He flinched as the warm cloth touched his skin.
I closed my fist in his hair, ignoring his growl of panic, and wiped it off. One stroke at a time. I’d never realised, until now, how much I needed him as a pillar. Just like Knight.
So, I ignored his low sounds of distress, and rid him of every stain of blood, but for the fading pink in his silver hair.
Only, eventually, I was done with that, too.
I had to do more. I didn’t know how to stop. Every time my skin brushed hers, her breathing would settle, but I hadn’t done enough, not yet.
That dress was his. I didn’t want her waking in it.
He would never touch her again, of that, I was sure.
I tugged my shirt off, scent marking it. The faintest trace of roses and redwood remained, but I would drown it. Lifting her gently, I used my knife to cut the dress free without moving her too much.
I was almost finished when my fingers brushed the scars on her back. She tensed, brow furrowing, her whine rising in the air between us.
I froze.
She was shaking, another panicked sound slipping from her.
“No… Sweet Oasis.” My chest was tight, panic catching up as tears began leaking down her cheeks. “You’re safe.” With shaking fingers I drew the T-shirt down, leaning close and drawing my jaw along hers, scent marking her again.
Her tears hadn’t stopped.
I knew what the scars were, now. I’d seen them when Zed had dragged her into the truck. That image would never leave me.
“She’d say the same three words, over and over and over…”
She’d called for us.
Her pack.
Her mates.
I broke, at last, my own tears blurring my vision as I trembled, throat tightening as I curled up at her side and held her tight.
I will never let you fall…
How many times had I promised her that?
But when my Omega had called for me, I hadn’t been there.