Chapter 30 #2
The only way this situation got any worse.
Rhone shoved Timber off of Harper’s. One of his hands gripped the back of her throat before she could get free. The other grabbed her waist, and he hauled her back to her feet like she weighed nothing.
“Please don’t.” My voice cracked. My body trembled.
The Beta ignored me.
I braced myself for the twist of her neck. The crack of her spine. The scent of her blood.
But it didn’t come.
Harper snarled and fought. Blood dripped down her face, arms, throat, and chest. It flung around the room. With the way he held her, she wasn’t hurting—and she wasn’t hurting him.
“Who. Did. This?” Rhone gritted the words out. It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking to me, and that he’d probably already asked once or twice.
Two people flanked him.
Ryker.
Sutton.
“Velour,” I whispered. “He attacked her. He left to find a way to save her, but he was wrong, and he didn’t come back. We came here to tell the Guild. Neve was going to kill her. We thought we had a little longer. I thought we had a little longer.” I was trembling.
Shaking.
Rhone stalked out of the bar, holding my feral best friend to his chest so she couldn’t get free.
Timber moved a little.
My palms met the dive bar’s filthy, scuffed floors as my entire body sagged. The tile must’ve been cold, but I couldn’t feel it.
It was over.
There was nothing else I could do.
Someone kneeled next to me. The scent was familiar. Feminine. I remembered it from the last time everything had gone to hell for me.
“Breathe, Bloom,” Sutton murmured. “Harper’s not dead yet.”
“She’s gone.”
“Come on.” She eased me to my feet, carrying most of my weight.
“If Velour turned Harper, he’s the only one who should die for this,” Timber rasped. “Bloom wouldn’t hurt anyone. She—”
“She’s the Alpha’s mate,” Sutton said sharply. “No one is going to kill her.”
She basically dragged me to the door, her grip much gentler than her voice implied before she hauled me into a car waiting just outside the doors. It was so close, no one could’ve seen past it into the bar.
“Your ex is even more obnoxious than mine,” she murmured.
She was talking to me, trying to lighten the mood, but it didn’t register.
Harper let out an unholy scream from the passenger seat, where Rhone held her securely on his lap. She fought and snarled and yelled.
She was gone.
Whatever else had happened or was going to happen, she was gone.
And if the wolves weren’t going to let anyone in the Guild kill me, I was going to have to live with that.
The drive to the tower was only thirty minutes, but it felt endless.
I disassociated after a few minutes, shutting down and separating myself from the horror of everything that had happened.
My eyes continued water, though.
My body kept shaking, almost violently.
I heard my name, and Maverick’s, but I didn’t look up.
He wasn’t there.
Why wasn’t he there?
I knew he would still be fighting, but I couldn’t process that or anything else.
My brain shut down further. I lifted my feet onto my seat and pressed my face to my knees.
It didn’t help.
Nothing did.
At some point, we parked in the garage of the tower. Someone let Rhone out first. I couldn’t watch where he was taking Harper.
He was going to kill her. She was going to die. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
A new wave of tears had my entire body rocking with the awful, wracking sobs.
A woman hauled me out of the car and carried me to the elevator. It wasn’t Sutton. This woman was taller and stronger.
Elise.
The elevator arrived.
She carried me down a hallway. Some part of me recognized the tile.
Someone typed a code. The door on the silver cage swung open, and the woman set me down carefully on a pile of pillows and blankets in the center of the same cell I’d occupied the first time I was in the Alpha’s prison.
They didn’t smell like vanilla.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
Maybe it was, in some way.
Whoever I’d been that day was long gone.
I pulled the hood of Maverick’s sweatshirt over my head and curled in on myself, trying to stop the tears rolling down my cheeks.
Elise closed the door with her foot. I didn’t ask her where Maverick was, but she told me anyway.
“The Beta asked us not to tell the Alpha what’s going on until after the challenges. If he leaves the estate now, whatever pack tried to kill you will likely make another move.”
“Don’t let him drive here. He’s in bad shape after the fights.” I didn’t recognize my voice. The hoarse whisper was too neutral. Too numb.
The woman didn’t reply immediately. When she did, she said quietly, “You and Rhone are the only ones who can stop him from doing anything he puts his mind to.”
I didn’t respond.
I didn’t have the energy or the strength to put any more words together. I’d spent the last few days in complete control for Harper and Maverick, and it was gone now.
I’d lost them both anyway.
A door slammed.
“What the fuck were you thinking, keeping this from us?” Rhone snarled as he stepped into the room.
I wondered vaguely if the cage was for the wolves’ protection, or mine.
“You guys kill turned vampires, and I was trying to save her.” My voice sounded as hollow as my chest felt. “She didn’t want this. No one wanted this.”
I registered the smell of burning skin. His hands, on the bars.
“We wouldn’t have killed your best friend, Bloom.”
I didn’t believe him.
It didn’t matter anyway, because she was already gone.
Tears kept coming.
I kept shaking.
At some point, he left the room.
I hoped my body would shut down completely to give me a break, but it didn’t.
So I just.
Kept.
Hurting.