Chapter Eleven
Barron
Awareness slammed into me like someone had hurled a freight train at my skull. I barely had a second to react. I woke up gasping. My heart lodged in my throat. On instinct, I tried to sit up but couldn’t. A weight pressed against my chest. Not heavy, but firm. Restrictive.
Blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights overhead, I recognized the familiar stone ceiling of my parents’ castle. The infirmary.
I tried to lift my hand , but the same pressure held it down. Something wasn’t right. The air felt wrong—thick, dreamlike. Like I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Because I wasn’t.
I was supposed to be with—Gwen.
The name kicked my mind into motion. Clarity surged, cold and merciless. Dad fading. The gates of Heaven. Gwendolyn.
Gone.
The angels had taken her from me.
A god-awful, guttural sound tore from my chest before I realized I had screamed. My ears rang long after I slammed my mouth shut and tried to get up again. Then I noticed the leather straps, thick ones, holding me down to the bed.
No wonder I couldn’t move.
I faded—then re-faded instantly, fury pounding in my chest like a second heartbeat trying to rip me apart from the inside. My gaze snapped to the bed I’d been strapped to, and rage detonated inside me.
I’d almost forgotten what my curse felt like.
With Gwendolyn, she’d stilled the wrath. Accepted it. She saw me for what I was and loved me anyway.
But she was gone now.
Taken.
And my rage festered like an open wound. My essence pulsed out of rhythm, erratic, as I tried to process what had happened—what I’d lost. Heaven had dared to take her.
I made a mistake in opening the gate, trying to send her away. I thought I was saving her from what my family was about to face. And they’d given her back—spat her out, dressed in Reaper clothes, thank every realm in existence.
Knowing her—every thought, every inch of her body, every piece of her soul—it wrecked me to imagine losing that. I hoped she was safe. But she wasn’t with me.
And now all I could wonder was…
Would the angels let her remember me?
The thought hit me like a punch to the gut. I wiped my eyes and forced my spine straight.
I want her back.
“Barron,” Joy’s voice called gently as she faded into the room, Payne beside her.
“Don’t.” My warning came out low and guttural.
“After we stop the end,” Payne said, holding up a calming hand like I was a wild stallion ready to bolt, “we’ll go get your girl.”
Cursed with wrath and without my marked mate, I was much, much worse than any stallion. My curse didn’t just rage—it hungered. For her. For Gwendolyn.
“The gate spat her out,” I said, my voice edged with steel. “I tried to do the right thing once. The angels didn’t allow it. Now I want my girl back.” My jaw locked. “And you’re not going to get in my way.”
“You can’t reach her,” Joy said, her voice soft but firm.
“I’ll find a way.” And I meant it. In fact, I already had an idea.
The gate didn’t just take people. It pulled in anyone who was meant to cross over. So maybe all I needed was a willing ghost.
“Barron, just think,” Joy said, stepping closer. “She’s safer there right now. After we fix everything, we’ll figure it out. But if you go charging in—”
I held up a palm and closed my eyes. She was right. But my heart… My damn heart…
The thought of not saving my mate…
It crushed the air in my lungs, and then I broke. “I want her back. How are we supposed to know she’s safe when none of us have ever been where she is? If I can’t see her, I can’t protect her.”
“You need to calm down,” Payne said, his voice gentle but grounding. “Joy’s not trying to hurt you. She’s trying to keep you alive. If you try anything reckless, you could turn mortal. And yes,” he added, “you can die.”
Wrath erupted from my pores. My skin itched and burned like fire licking beneath the surface. Rage tried to consume me from the inside out.
“No one is stopping me.”
“You know we love you, right?” Payne’s voice was quiet as his shoulders drooped.
“I don’t feel like having a heart-to-heart—”
A thick arm suddenly wrapped around my neck, jerking me back. A sharp pinch bloomed at my throat—a needle.
My vision blurred. My body became heavy and useless.
“No,” I slurred, limbs sagging as whatever they’d injected took hold.
“This is for the best Barron,” August said as he lowered me to the ground. His voice was gentle, but his hands were firm.
How?
If his marked mate had been taken, he’d tear the world apart. They all would.
“Don’t look at me like that,” August said, his face flickering in and out of focus. He grimaced and said, “I would have done the same to any of us. And you know you would’ve, too.”
Darkness took me.