Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sienna
Lucas drops to his knees in the moss beside Lydia.
The glow from a torch catches on the blood at her temple, the slash across her shoulder, the pale wreck of her face. Her chest lifts slowly. Falls. Lifts again. Lucas’s fingers move to her wrist, then to her throat.
“She’s alive.” His voice is low, clipped. He looks up at the soldier holding the radio. “Find Lillian. I want every wolf we have searching these woods. Now.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
The soldier barks the order into the radio before he has taken three steps. A second soldier shifts and takes off across the lawn toward the east gate at a dead sprint. Behind us, the bell on the eastern wall is still ringing. Down by the gates, I can hear boots hitting the gravel.
Violet pushes past me toward the trees, her bare feet sinking in the wet grass. Her eyes are fixed on the dark beyond the torches.
“I’m going with the search party.”
“No.” Darius’s voice is quiet, but the word lands like a stone. He has shifted back and is behind her in two strides, his palm closing around her elbow.
She wrenches around. “Don’t try to stop me, Darius.”
“You don’t know this terrain, Violet. You’ll slow them down.”
“That’s my mother out there!”
“I know.” His hand stays on her arm, but he looks over his shoulder at Lucas. “What do you say?”
Lucas is gathering Lydia against his naked chest. He stands carefully, her body limp in his arms.
“Darius is right. My soldiers know every inch of these woods in the dark. Anyone who isn’t trained on this ground is a hazard to the trackers. They’ll have to circle back to protect you. That’s time we don’t have.” His eyes find Violet. “I will get her back. You have my word.”
She stares at him. A single tear falls down her cheek.
I cross to her and slide my arm around her shoulders. “Violet…”
“My mother is out there, Sienna. How can I do nothing?”
“Lucas will do everything to bring her back. Trust him. Please.” I press my forehead to her temple. “Standing here on the lawn isn’t going to bring her back any faster. Let the pack do their job. You and I should be with Lydia. She’s the only one who saw what happened.”
She lets me turn her around so her back is to the trees.
We have to move across the lawn quickly, as Lucas is already ahead of us with Lydia in his arms. Darius is half a step behind him, barking into his phone in a tone I have not heard from him before.
I keep my arm tight around Violet’s shoulders.
The bond hums loudly in my chest as we follow Lucas.
His fury is a cold, steady current underneath everything else. Controlled, determined, focused.
The entrance hall is full of staff converging on Lucas—the housekeeper named Florence at the front with a bundle of clean linens in her arms, Marian a step behind her with a basin and towels.
“Her room,” Lucas says without breaking stride. “Healer on the way?”
“Two minutes out, Alpha. Running.”
“Hot water. Clean kit. Whoever is on switchboard, get me Hennessy and Reese on radio.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
I take the stairs two at a time with Violet, Darius in front of us now, Lucas a flight ahead with Lydia. The corridor lights have come up.
In Lydia’s room, Lucas lays her on the coverlet so gently, it hurts my wolf to watch.
The healer arrives in the doorway behind us, a stocky man with gray at his temples, his sleeves shoved to the elbow, a satchel banging against his hip.
His hands begin to glow a low, warm green before he has even reached the bed.
“How bad?”
“Give me a minute, Alpha.”
The healer’s hands move along her ribs, her shoulder, her temple. His mouth tightens.
“Bruising. Dislocation, possible tear. Concussion. The temple wound bled a lot, but it isn’t deep. She’ll wake up. She’ll be hurting.” His eyes flick up to us. “An hour. Maybe more.”
Lucas’s jaw moves once. He turns to me. His hand finds the back of my neck briefly, firmly. “I’m joining the search. Stay with her. The moment she’s lucid, find out what she saw. Every detail. Don’t let her drift back to sleep before you have it.”
“Alright.”
“Darius is coming with me.”
I nod. My hand lifts and curls around the side of his neck. “Lucas, be careful.”
His thumb traces my hairline. “Stay in this room.”
Then, he and Darius are gone. The corridor echoes their footfalls down the staircase—fast, hard, two men running.
Violet drops onto the bed at Lydia’s good side. Her hand wraps around Lydia’s fingers. She doesn’t speak, but her shoulders are trembling.
“Violet…”
She shakes her head without looking at me. “I should be out there.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“My mother is in those trees, Sienna, and I am sitting in a bedroom, holding a woman’s hand.”
“You’re sitting in a bedroom holding the hand of the only person who may have seen where she went.
” I sit down beside her and rub my hand slowly up and down her back.
“Lydia is the only set of eyes we have on what just happened. Our mates are looking for tracks, but we are looking for everything else. We are not useless here. We are necessary.”
Her breathing is shallow. “Necessary.”
“Yes.”
“This doesn’t feel necessary.”
“I know it doesn’t. But it is.”
She drops her forehead to my shoulder, and I let it stay there.
The healer’s hands keep moving in their slow, green sweep across Lydia’s body.
The clock on the mantel ticks. I do not let myself look at it.
Outside the window, the bell on the east wall has stopped at last, replaced by the distant call of one wolf, then two, then a chorus of them.
We sit in tense silence while the healer works. An hour passes before the man stops and stretches his back. He packs his satchel and says, “She’ll surface soon. Keep her propped up. Water if she’ll take it.”
“Thank you.”
Once he leaves, Violet’s head drops to my shoulder again. I press my cheek against her hair. The clock on the mantel keeps ticking. The chorus outside has thinned. Two wolves now. One.
After an eternity, the sound of boots on the stairs.
My head comes up.
More than one set. Two, maybe three. The pace has me worried. They are walking, not running. My stomach turns.
Lucas appears in the doorway, mud up to his knees. Darius behind him. Both are dressed again, but their clothes are dirty and torn. Their faces carry a message I do not want to read.
Violet jumps to her feet. “Mom?”
“Not yet.” Darius goes to her, catches her by the shoulders, holds her steady. “We tracked her to the service road. There were tire marks. Two heavy vehicles. They had transport waiting, Violet. They knew their way out.”
A small sound leaves her. She presses her palm against his chest.
My eyes find Lucas. He hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t crossed the room to me. He is standing just inside the door with his hand braced on the frame, and he is not meeting my gaze.
I get up. “Lucas.”
He looks at me at last.
I walk over to him and whisper, “Come with me. Just for a second.”
He follows me out into the corridor without a word. We take three steps away from Lydia’s open door. I turn to face him, and he drags both his hands down his face. The mud on his palms leaves dark streaks at his jaw.
“Tell me.”
“Sienna.”
“Tell me what you didn’t say in there.”
His hands drop, and his eyes close. He takes a deep breath before telling me, “It was an inside job.”
The corridor disappears around us.
“Two patrols are dead. Sixteen soldiers. We pulled fifteen bodies out of the woods tonight. The sixteenth is…missing.”
“Missing?”
“A shifter named Jacques Renier. Second patrol, eastern stretch. His personal kit is gone from his quarters. We have not found him or any sign of his death.” His hand drags through his hair. “None of his blood is at the scene. Yet, he was on duty tonight.”
Lucas clenches his fist by his side, and I wrap my hands around it.
“They knew exactly where to hit our line. They knew exactly when. The two patrols on that stretch didn’t know they were carrying tracking devices, stitched into their pack-issued kits.
Whoever sewed those in must have left one out.
And whoever told the attackers when the patrols would be on rotation tonight must have had access to the duty book. ”
My hand has come up to my mouth. “So, someone in this house,” I whisper.
“Someone in this house. Someone who knew the patrols. Someone who knew Lillian was here. Someone who has been feeding the enemy the information they needed, probably for weeks.” His voice is very low now. “I was looking for one traitor. There may be more.”
I step closer and wrap both arms around his torso, pressing my face to the front of his ruined shirt. I do not care about the mud or the blood or whatever else is on him. He hugs me back, hard. His chin drops to the top of my head. He does not say anything for a long time. Neither do I.
Sixteen from his pack. Fifteen bodies in the forest. One missing.
“You will find them,” I murmur against his chest. “Whoever they are. You will find them.”
He holds me tighter.
“And we will get Lillian back.” My voice is firm. “I’m with you all the way.”
He sighs. “I’ve never been happier to have you by my side.”
Before I can reply, Violet’s voice calls to us. “She’s awake!”
We rush into the room. Violet is sitting on the bed, both of her hands wrapped around one of Lydia’s.
Lydia’s eyes are open. Fluttering and tired, but open. They find Lucas first, then me, then Violet.
Tears suddenly spill down her cheeks. “I couldn’t stop them,” she rasps. “Lucas…I tried. I couldn’t.”
He approaches her and drops to one knee at the side of the bed. “Tell us what you saw.”
She nods, then pulls in a shallow, careful breath. “We were walking on the lawn…Past the rose beds, down toward the boundary stone…Lillian wanted to see the estate by moonlight. She said the witch in her liked to see new ground at night.”
Her breathing is unsteady, the pain evident.