Chapter Twenty Four
Soren
The silence is beginning to bother me more than torture ever did.
For days, there was something. Pain. Questions.
Needles. Torture. Henry’s voice. Julianna has been hovering over me like she’s some fucking scientist taking apart a machine she doesn’t fully understand yet.
Even the thirst has become familiar. It’s a constant burning sensation in the back of my throat that never fades away.
Now, there is nothing. No footsteps, voices, torture.
Nothing. No one has come in here to steal a part of my soul in hours.
Just… Silence.
I sit with my head resting on the table, trying to ignore the weakness creeping through my body.
Every muscle aches. My mouth feels like sandpaper, and every instinct I possess is screaming for blood.
They know exactly what they are doing. They aren’t trying to kill me, but wear me down until there is nothing left to fight.
They can’t fight me normally, so they have to break me down first.
Every flicker of emotion through the bond reminds me that she is alive.
Every surge of fear, anger, frustration, or determination reminds me that she’s still out there somewhere.
Safe. At least, I hope she’s safe. The thought has become a dangerous one.
Every time the bond goes quiet for too long, I start imagining the worst. I imagine Henry finding her.
I mentioned someone feeding information to the wrong people.
I imagine her walking straight into danger because she has never once in her life understood the meaning of self-preservation.
God, I miss her.
The realization doesn’t surprise me anymore. I stopped pretending I didn’t care weeks ago. Somewhere between the biting, the feeding, and her shooting me in the leg, she became the most important person in my life. The woman who was supposed to be a complication somehow became my peace.
The bond stirs unexpectedly. It’s not painful fear, but determination.
Strong determination. My eyes close. Of course, she’s planning something.
I could practically feel it. That stubborn, reckless, infuriating determination that always appears right before she does something that shortens her lifespan by a few decades.
A small smile almost finds its way to my face before the sound of approaching footsteps steals it away.
The smile dies instantly because something is wrong.
I don’t know how I know it. Maybe it’s the sudden activity after hours of silence.
Maybe it’s instinct. Maybe it’s simply the fact that every terrible thing that’s ever happened in my life has started with a quiet moment before disaster struck.
The footsteps stop outside the door, and I straighten as much as the restraints allow. The lock clicks and the door opens. For one impossible second, relief crashes into me so hard that it almost hurts.
Talia. She’s alive.
The tension that has been strangling me for days loosens all at once. She’s breathing. She’s standing. She’s here. My gaze shifts, and I see who brought her.
Micah.
Everything inside me goes cold. Every strange conversation.
Every excuse. Every moment something felt wrong, but I couldn’t quite explain why.
Every time he tried harder to steer Talia away from me.
Every time he looked at her just a little too long.
The pieces slam together so hard that nausea starts to creep in.
He betrayed me. Not Henry. Not the witch.
Micah. One of the few people I trusted. One of the few people I considered family.
I stare at him, and for the first time since they brought me in here, I stop feeling tired.
The thirst disappears. The pain disappears.
Even the weakness fades into the background.
All I feel is rage. It’s not the explosive kind or even the kind that burns hot and fast. This is worse and so much colder.
It’s precise and certain. The kind of rage that waits patiently for its opportunity.
Micah smiles, and all I want to do is tear him apart.
Slowly. I want him to understand exactly what he’s done before he dies.
Talia looks at me, and for just a second, most people wouldn’t notice it, but it’s a tiny glance.
A tiny shift in her expression. Nothing more, but I know her.
I know the woman who challenged me at every opportunity.
The woman who learned how to survive monsters, but became smarter than them.
The woman is reckless enough to walk into danger if it means protecting someone that she cares about.
What I see in her eyes isn’t fear or surrender.
She is far from the broken woman I found hiding in the shower all those months ago.
What I see is calculation, and that’s when the horrifying realization settles into place. She isn’t here because they caught her. She is here because she came on her own. The absolute fucking idiot came for me, and I feel hope for the first time in my entire life.
Micah looks positively giddy as he bends her over the table and attaches restraints to her wrists. She keeps her eyes on mine, but she says nothing. She’s completely nude, but I try not to think about why or who undressed her.
“You,” I growl.
“Good to see you, too, Soren,” Micah laughs.
Our bond surges so violently in my chest, and my eyes snap back to Talia. I can hear a faint sound in the back of my mind, but it doesn’t belong to me. For one terrifying second, I think I’ve finally lost my mind. No… It’s her. It’s Talia. It’s so comforting that I nearly relax.
“Soren?” I hear, but I try not to react when I hear her voice. “Hello?”
“Bunny?” I say, keeping my words internal.
“Don’t fight them. You need to trust me.
Okay? Don’t be stupid,” she says, and it comforts me more than anything ever has.
She has a plan. One that she is confident in.
She knows the seriousness of this situation, and she is just as strong as I knew she was.
The first time she pointed a gun at me and told me to go fuck myself, I knew she would survive almost anything.
I watch in horror as Micah unzips his jeans, his eyes trained on mine. I pull at the restraint with a growl, but it’s her voice that stops me. “Trust me,” Talia says through our bond.
“Bunny…”
“Please,” she says, but the connection fades instantly when he grabs her hips.
For the first time since I woke up in this room, I stop trying to escape.
I am putting my fate in my mate’s hands, knowing she has a plan.
Every instinct I possess is screaming at me to fight.
To break free. To kill Micah and anyone foolish enough to stand between me and my mate, but Talia asked me to trust her—nobody has ever asked me for that before.