Chapter 8 Julian #2
My pegasus fights for control once more, desperate to be the one to greet her. But I can’t let him even if I wanted to. Him shifting right now could very well put us back into extremely critical condition. It would split me open, likely beyond repair.
Mate. Mate. Mate.
He’s chanting desperately as I fight to open my eyes. My heart is going crazy on the machine, and I smell more scents.
Some familiar—Hades, Lucifer—and some very unfamiliar but powerful mythicals.
Unsurprising in this place.
My uncle hasn’t come back yet, still in the bathroom taking his call, and I can’t settle myself down.
He wants her.
I want her.
We need her.
“Julian,” she chokes out, and the guttural edge to her words fucking breaks me. I can’t make my body move, I can’t soothe her like my pegasus is demanding I do.
I’m stuck in this bed while she’s out there struggling. I’m useless.
Pathetic.
Broken.
“Easy,” my twin says in an extremely soft tone of voice—well, for him, anyway.
Weird.
“Stay back, both of you,” an unfamiliar voice snarls. “We don’t need another incident.”
Another incident?
What the fuck has happened today? Why is she here? What made her come?
Me being injured? Surely not.
I want to scream at her to run away, to leave, to go back to the pride where she’s safe. There’s a deep tug inside my chest, a burning ache to do something.
My pegasus is enraged at me, and I know that with my missing memories, I’m missing something important. As the day has gone on, my uncle has gotten cagier and cagier about the details, instead keeping everything vague.
And now for Maeve, Hades, and Lucifer to come here… it’s got to be something bad.
“Incident?” Lucifer repeats, his voice as dark and mocking as I remember. A smile tries to tug at my lips, but they don’t move. Nothing does, except the racing of my heart.
“Try saying that again, Ashford, and I’ll make good on these promises. I’ll even let you pick the vein,” Lucifer continues dryly.
A prickle ruffles through my memories.
Ashford.
Surely, this is Torin, then, right? The pathetic pantheral orphan who is extremely desperate to fuck my uncle to get his place on the Tribunal secured.
I’m not impressed that he’s around my mate. He’s an extremely unlikable man with a workaholic complex that would put… well, other workaholics to shame.
I’m fucking wrecked.
My pegasus whinnies at me, but I can’t focus on him when feeling starts returning to my legs. I wiggle my toes under the blanket, unable to do much more.
“Enough,” Torin hisses—at least, I’m pretty sure this is Torin. “He’s restrained, he’s stable, and we’re not here to cause a war.”
I want to hit the cheeky bastard. Restrained?
Why the fuck am I restrained?
And who would be starting a war over me?
Over me.
I don’t understand what’s going on, and it’s pissing me off. My hands twitch, feeling slowly returning to my fingers.
I hear another creak, and based on the hitch in someone’s breathing, it seems they did, too.
“I see you ignored protocol again, Torin,” my uncle says dryly. I can imagine him now, dusting off his pants as he has that mock disapproving look on his face.
We all know that if Adrian didn’t want them here, they’d not be here.
I hear the click of his shoes as his scent washes over me. It tries to drown Maeve’s out, but it can’t. Not to me, and never to my pegasus.
“Hello, Maeve,” Adrian says, and he sounds so calm, so unbothered. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”
I wish she hadn’t.
The thought burns through my brain, backed by a wave of rage from my pegasus.
“You literally begged me to come,” she says, and I know she’s rolled her eyes at him. I just know it.
Breathing comes easier, even with the pain in my stomach and back. I can deal with pain if it means getting to see my mate.
Getting to talk to her in person. Getting to hear her voice without the crackles or imagining her facial expressions.
She’s here. In real life.
And she’s in danger.
It’s like I’ve been struck by a lightning bolt or some kind of bat because my head is fucking throbbing all of a sudden. The pain is immense, and I groan, unable to hold it back, but that’s not the biggest issue right now.
No, it’s the fact that this mental beating I’ve taken has come with something vital—my memories of my attack.
“Julian,” my uncle and Hadrian shout at once, both of them immediately touching my arms, trying to help calm me.
Or smother. Who knows how deep this all goes.
My groan is louder than Maeve’s whimper, but everything else fades away as I open my eyes and see her standing here in front of me.
Her eyes are icy and guarded, the blue glinting under the harsh bright lights, as she glowers at my uncle. Wearing a purple dress fit for a princess, she’s somehow not wavering in heels that are taller than… Lucifer’s dick.
Not mine. Mine’s huge.
Massive.
She seems to have lost a little bit of weight—not much, but enough that it has my hackles up. Sending her to the pride was meant to help her. Not make things worse.
If it wasn’t for the daily updates from my brother and cousin, I’d have gone insane—even more than I already have—due to our distance.
I’m so fucking glad she’s here now.
“Breathe, Brother,” Hadrian commands, but I shake my head.
I can’t.
I yank on my arms, strong enough to break away from the restraints that were holding me down. My abdomen fucking burns as I pull on Hadrian to sit myself up, but I don’t let it stop me.
I pull the shitty pulse reader off my fingers, finally silencing the erratic beeping, and shove the blankets off my legs. It’s rough going, the pain in my head, combined with the agony in my abdomen is enough to nearly knock me down.
If it wasn’t for the power of my pegasus fuelling me, combined with this panic-induced adrenaline, I know for a fact I’d be falling into unconsciousness once more.
“Don’t trust him,” I bark out, still holding onto my brother for support.
“Don’t trust who, Jules?” Adrian asks carefully. His face is darker, more guarded now, and I know he knows.
He knows that we all know he’s the man I’m referring to.
I’m raging, fury filling me with such intensity I can barely contain it. He’s been here all day, pretending to be concerned, lying about what put me in here.
When all along—it was him.
“You, obviously,” I snarl. “You let him free. You released her dad, you son of a bitch.”
Adrian sighs, shaking his head. “While you’ve been sleeping, Nephew, you’ve missed a few things, including the death—”
Death? Someone has fucking died?
“Don’t you dare tell him as if it’s your news to share,” Hadrian snaps. He sits on the edge of my bed, still letting me hold his arm, and there’s a wary look on his face. “He did this, then?”
I grumble and nod, flipping my uncle off as my brother splutters away.
“Boys, you’ve got to see the bigger picture,” Adrian continues, his words dripping with condemnation as if we’re children he needs to corral.
“Okay, the family drama is quite embarrassing for you, Graves, and I’m nauseated having to witness it,” Maeve says, almost too calmly.
The slight tremble in her words is all I can focus on, though, and combining it with the racing of her heart has me nervous.
She’s terrified.
Or anxious.
Maybe both.
“Don’t worry about the release of my step-dad. It was kind of you to try and warn us, but you were beat to the punch.”
My brows draw together, and my brother sighs.
“My stalker killed him and sent me the head as a very lovely gift,” she says a little too brightly. With a shake of her head, she fixes her stare to me.
A shiver wracks up my spine, and my laboured breathing does little to stop the internal whining from my pegasus at getting her attention.
Fool thinks she loves him.
“Enough, all of you,” Adrian says. “Maeve, let’s get some tact, please? Your mate is in a hospital bed after all. Julian, lie down so you don’t injure yourself worse. And, all of you, quiet. We do not need to draw attention to ourselves right now.”
“Well, this is a bit awkward, then,” Torin says, raising his paperwork. “I’ve got a signed letter from the board as we investigate exactly why Julian is in here and why I wasn’t informed immediately.”
Adrian’s eyes narrow. “You’d be informed… why? Maeve is my charge, and as far as I’m aware, the two of you had not met until today.”
“Because I’m her lawyer, of course.” He rolls his eyes. “Ever since she moved to the Phoenix Pride. Alpha Phoenix and her guards”—he gestures to Lucifer and Hadrian here—“thought someone on the compound would be best to manage her affairs.”
Adrian crosses his arms in front of him. “If only that change was put through the courts.”
“I have no fucking words,” I mutter, looking up at Hades for some support.
“Yeah, I know,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “This entire thing is a shit show, Brother. You need to get better so we can get you the hell out of here.”
“Enough of the brotherly bonding,” my uncle demands with a heavy snap to his words. “This is not a public forum. Maeve, you’ve seen him and know he’s alive. Julian, you’ve survived. Perfect. We’re all done here.”
“You’re very quick to try and cover up all the shit you’ve pulled in the last few weeks. Are we meant to just ignore the shit you’ve pulled?
“The fact that you attacked your nephew and had him locked up here on fake trumped up charges?” Lucifer says dryly. “The fact that you summoned Maeve here against her will and withheld the information that the man proclaiming to be her mate is in hospital?
“And that she’s the complainant that supposedly put him here? Or what about the fact—”
“Yes, yes, Lucifer, we get it,” Adrian says dryly. “That’s enough of your mouth. We have issues to go over, but this is not the place.”
His eyes flicker to the camera in my room, and I wince at the little we’ve shared. I don’t want these people getting anything on my mate.
“Uncle, I want out,” I say through gritted teeth. I wish it were from anger, but, sadly, it’s from pain.
“Well, that’s a bit foolish,” Luc says, looking down his nose at me.
Nothing has changed there, then.
“Hey, don’t complain. If we’re lucky, he’ll die instead,” Maeve says, winking at my cousin.
He laughs brightly. “I know, but then Ades here will spend the rest of his life in jail, and you’ll not get to ruin it.”
She groans, causing my dick to twitch. How the fuck that can happen when I’m in immense pain, I’ll never know.
“Enough of this chatter,” Torin says darkly.
“Let’s just involve the entire Tribunal,” the final man says, a singsong quality to his words. “I adore an audience.”
“Good idea,” Lucifer says, nodding. He looks at Torin. “Come on, then, pussy cat. Make a scene.”
Adrian’s smile is thin. “No need. Everything will proceed by the book.”
He nods once at the cameras, and the lock clunks to my room. We’re locked in now, and, strangely enough, I don’t fancy our chances.
A non-shifter, me in my fucked up state, a dark pegasus, an imp, a pantheral, and whatever the fuck the unknown man is against my uncle.
Usually, I’d knock him on his ass any day. But, today, when the four of them will be defending Maeve… I don’t know.
Maeve’s flinch is noted by us all. “I’m going to be honest, the last time I was locked in a room with so many men, I was brutalised beyond repair. How come this situation feels even worse?”
Adrian groans, shaking his head. “Come on, love, you know that nobody here would ever hurt you.”
She raises a brow. “You have. Your nephews have—Luc excluded, of course. Dickhead over there has, and, well, I suppose Kiaan hasn’t. Yet.”
Kiaan. A familiar name, but I don’t know from what lineage. I need a surname or a shifter type.
My pegasus surges forward at the thought of hurting my mate, and for one terrifying second, I think I’ll shift anyway—that I’ll split myself on the bed to get between her and every other person in this room.
“Brother,” Hadrian says again, weight steady on my forearm, voice pinning me to bone. “Pick me over the floor.”
I do. I pick him and hold tight onto him for support. I shove the pegasus back, cutting our connection, even though it causes a wave of lightheadedness to rush through me.
Adrian’s eyes never leave mine. “Julian,” he says mildly, “behave.”
I smile through blood in my mouth. “Make me.”
A siren sounds, and we all freeze—everyone other than Maeve, my uncle, and Torin, that is.
“You forced this to happen, didn’t you?” she hisses, the venomous sound taking me by surprise. Even Lucifer seems shocked, and I thought the two of them were practically besties now.
“As if I’d ever subject you to containment checks, love,” he says, shaking his head, smooth as oil. “Something else is happening.”
Red strobes stutter across the walls, and the intercom cracks alive.
“Containment breach,” the intercom blares. “Ward D. Prisoner J.G.—status: missing.”
Hadrian freezes, his hand still on my arm. “You’re J.G.”
“Apparently,” I whisper, throat tight, “so is someone else.”
Adrian’s expression doesn’t flicker, but I can smell his surprise. He’s already turning away from us as he yanks his phone out of his pocket.
Torin’s doing the same thing, with Kiaan stepping closer to my mate. The little movement has me focusing on him as we all sit in the anxiety of the sirens.
The red light above the door changes from warning to sealed.
Then the vents hiss before a sickly-sweet chemical floods the air. I don’t recognise it, but it’s horrible.
Maeve screams, the sound so high-pitched and full of terror that I don’t even try to hold my pegasus back.
He’s bucking inside me, desperate for me to help her.
Kiaan and Lucifer move to her sides, neither touching as she scratches at her neck.
“Get it off,” she gasps, clutching her throat, as the scent seems to thicken.
The tension in the room increases. Adrian doesn’t move to stop it, and neither does Torin.
I don’t understand what’s happening.
“Oh, gods,” Hadrian breathes, clutching my arm tighter. “It’s not Ward D they’ve locked down—it’s us.”