Chapter 86
Chapter Eighty-Six
~Rhen~
We had to sedate Thane. She hadn’t even left the driveway by the time he came to. Raidon tackled him as he chased after her. If she was still here, I know he would have killed her. In his rage, he had completely forgotten that she is pregnant with our child.
“I can feel him waking up,” Raidon groans as we watch him stir on the bed. Leon sits beside him, his blood boiling; I can feel it through the bond. His temper hasn’t dampened in the slightest, which is worrisome given his hunger. I don’t trust him not to take another bite of Thane.
We don’t bother cuffing him or tying him to the bed.
He can order us to remove them, so it would be pointless.
Our only chance is to reason with him. Getting up, I pull the blanket back to check if his chest has healed.
Thankfully the wound is completely closed now.
All that remains from Harlow’s attack is a faint scar.
When I go to tug it back up, his hand moves with a speed that makes me jump as he grips my wrist. Raidon growls at him as his claws slip free from his fingertips, grazing my skin.
“Where is she?” Thane snarls, ignoring him. He sits up, leaning against the headboard before glaring at Leon. “You nearly fucking drained me,” he snarls, baring his canines at him.
“And you were going to hurt her,” Leon retorts with venom in his cold tone. Thane swallows, and he lets me go.
“You sent her back to the hotel?” Thane asks. I glance at Raidon nervously, but it is Leon who answers him.
“We have no idea where she went. We let her go.”
“You what?” he snarls, tossing the blanket back and jumping to his feet. Raidon shoves me aside and steps in front of him, standing toe to toe with him. My heart beats fast at the clear challenge.
“You dare challenge me,” Thane says as his entire body trembles in rage.
“I should have weeks ago,” Raidon tells him.
“Stand down!” Thane tells him.
“Make me.”
Thane growls and pushes him aside, only for Raidon to grab him and slam him against the wall. Leon gets up, standing on the bed as Raidon holds him there. We all know who would win if Thane decides to take the challenge. Thane is our Alpha for a reason.
He was the strongest of us before we submitted to him, and now that he has our blood in his veins and has marked us, he is far more than just an Alpha.
The man is lethal. Raidon knows this, but he doesn’t seem to care when it comes to Harlow.
Thane, recognizing how much he would have to hurt Raidon to make him submit, relaxes in his hold.
“I am not your enemy; I am your fucking mate,” Thane snaps at him. I watch as Raidon leans closer, so their chests are almost touching.
“And so is she,” he snarls before shoving off him.
Raidon steps back from him, but not too far. Thane could pass him easily if he wanted to.
“So, we just let her go? Let her run with our daughter?” he says before cursing under his breath.
“She wouldn’t have to run if you could control that damn temper of yours,” I tell him.
“Temper? She killed my mother!”
“I don’t think she did. You have a lot of enemies, Thane, and it was no secret that your mother was leaving to pick up our Omega.
It was plastered on the front page of every newspaper that we were caught bidding in the Omega Auctions,” Leon tells him.
He had a point about that. It was plastered everywhere, but no one knew whether or not we won the Auction.
“You need to bring her back. Now!” Thane roars.
“We can’t. We don’t know where she went,” Leon says slowly, emphasizing every word. Yet I have a vague idea of where she might be.
“Fuck! You know she won’t come back, right?” he says, kicking the chair beside him. It flies across the room and into the dresser, narrowly missing Raidon.
“Calm down. She will come back,” I tell him, and he scoffs. “She will. We marked her. The bond will pull her back here, but if you can’t control yourself, she will only run again,” I tell him.
“As if I would give her a third chance to run from me again,” he snaps, and Raidon growls at him.
“When it comes to Harlow, that is no longer your decision,” Leon says, jumping off the bed.
“Excuse me?”
“You fucked everything up. You are the reason she tried to run.”
“And you let her!” Thane screams at him.
“Because she is not a piece of fucking property to be owned!”
“Well, she sure fucking cost me enough!” Thane yells, and Raidon punches him. His head whips to the side at the force. I move quickly, knowing Thane will come up swinging. I’m right, his fist stopping just shy of my face as I force myself between them.
“Everyone needs to calm down,” I say.
“No. He needs to leave before I fucking kill him,” Thane growls in warning, and I swallow. Raidon’s heat seeps into my back before he storms off.
“Where are you going?” Leon asks him.
“To my parents',” Raidon replies, slamming the bedroom door behind him.
I rub my temples at the mess our lives have become. Leon clicks his tongue, making me look over at him.
“If you want Raidon gone, then I’m going too,” Leon tells him. Thane growls, but doesn’t stop him.
“Those idiots want to believe her lies,” Thane snarls, and I press my lips in a line.
“Even if she did do it, Thane, would you really kill the mother of our child? Or put her in rotation?” I ask him. His answer is quick, and I can feel he means every word.
“Yes. She doesn’t deserve to be a mother after killing mine,” he tells me. My eyebrows raise before I nod.
“I was hoping for a different answer, but you are truly blinded by hate for something we aren’t even sure she did,” I tell him.
“We have video evidence!”
“From grainy footage where we can’t even make out their faces. Even you said it was strange that there was no footage of them exiting the parking lot.”
“It’s her car, the plates matched on the traffic cam.”
I shake my head. There is so much that doesn’t make sense about that day.
Why did it take so long for someone to notice Hana’s body in the parking lot?
And the tire marks where the car was found line up with it being run off the road, not Harlow running someone over.
Yet every report had the same conclusion: Harlow’s guilt.
The authorities refused to let us get involved.
We hired a private investigator to look into it, and while he said things didn’t add up, he couldn’t find anything to prove Harlow did or didn’t do it.
All evidence pointed to Harlow, yet why would she kill Thane’s mother?
She could have just taken the keys and run.
Hana probably would have let her. She was non-confrontational by nature; she would have just let her go and then called us.
I just can’t picture Harlow cutting Hana’s throat so badly that her head barely remained attached to her body. Harlow looked so shocked when she stabbed Thane. She looked horrified at what she had done.
“I can’t believe you are questioning me on this when all evidence shows she did it,” Thane hisses at me before clutching his hair in frustration.
“You want someone to blame. You need justice for her death, but that doesn’t mean it was Harlow. Think, Thane. She was willing to let you command her to ask about it. Now, why would she agree to that if she is guilty?”
“Because she knows I wouldn’t. She knows I hate commanding you.”
“Yet you had no issue commanding her down in the Den or at work. She had every reason to assume you would do it, Thane,” I tell him, turning on my heel and moving toward the door.
“Rhen? Wait! You’re not leaving too, are you?”
“We’ll be at Elaine’s. She needs help unpacking anyway. She hasn’t gotten much done.”
“But you’re coming back here?” he asks, sounding almost desperate.
“Not while you can’t see past your fear of being wrong.”
“Being wrong?”
“Yes, Thane. Being wrong. That’s why you didn’t command her. Because if she’s innocent, all that anger you harbor for her will turn to guilt knowing the one person you’ve hated for all these years is the one person you should love,” I tell him before walking out, leaving him on his own.