Bastian
It didn’t take long for news to reach us that Rowan was gone—mere moments.
One of her guards had seen her driving off horde lands as fast as physically possible.
He’d called out after her, apparently several times.
He said it was like she couldn’t hear him.
He tried to follow her, but she ran directly to the car, and he didn’t have one to follow her with.
“Are you sure she was driving herself?” Orsen demanded, facing the young dragon with a glare as he paced.
“Yes, sir. She was moving fast, like she was worried about something.” The guy looked like he was going to piss himself, so I didn’t think he was lying. “I tried to get her attention. I swear. I called out several times, but… well, she was fast. Then I came straight to you.”
A crushing pain hit my chest—there was no way we could be losing her… again.
There had to be a sensible reason Rowan would leave. If we could just find out what had happened before she took off, I was sure we’d get to the bottom of this.
At least, that was what I was telling myself.
Nix looked at Greylen. “You said you set up cameras in the clinic, didn’t you?”
“Fuck yeah, I did. I can access them from Rowan’s desk.”
“Then why the fuck are we standing around here?” Orsen growled, already storming down the exit toward the clinic. I was hot on his heels, the sounds of the others quickly filling the hallway behind me.
We rushed to the clinic, and I stopped short when we arrived. The door was wide open. Nina was nowhere in sight, and the scent of an especially upset male dragon lingered in the space. My guts twisted. I didn’t like it. This felt wrong.
There was another scent, one that made my knees fucking tremble uncontrollably.
Fear. Pure, unadulterated human fear.
Rowan.
“Holy fuck.” A whine left Nix.
“Terrified,” Orsen muttered, his tone hollow.
Grey beelined for Rowan’s office, sitting behind her desk and opening the laptop to log in. His fingers clacked over the keys, too fucking loud with the increased pounding in my ears, and I hovered over his shoulder, Orsen on his other side, as my clanmate did his thing.
What felt like eons—the seconds like decades of my life ticking away as Rowan got farther from us—was actually mere moments before Grey had the program up to check the footage on the security program.
And then we just waited there, Grey’s hand resting on the mouse as he stared at the screen.
“Play the footage!” I growled, and he shook himself, typing furiously before hitting enter decisively.
I don’t know what I expected when the screen rippled to life. Maybe someone was being aggressive toward her, or Rowan was dealing with an unruly patient, but what I didn’t expect was to see Tanner on his knees, face wet with tears, eyes wide, as he looked up at Rowan, his body shaking.
Then the sound started:
“Six and a half years ago, Cyrus told me to kill you. His orders were clear: burn you with dragon fire and dump your body where no one would ever find it…”
My father’s name spilled from his mouth.
My father, who’d asked him to… I was sweating, my stomach roiled as bile crawled up the back of my throat.
I shook my head, not wanting to believe it.
This was the man who’d raised me, but there was already a small part of me deep down that, when faced with the information, knew it was true.
I knew my father was capable of horrific things. But I’d denied it. He was my blood, and I’d fallen back on that knowledge like it would change what I’d seen with my own eyes time and time again. He was a bastard. Yet, this was a line I thought even he would never dream of crossing.
More of the recording played, confirming the worst of it.
“You needed to know. Need to know now. He’s coming after you again. The second you arrived and every day since. I’ve said no. But he’s threatened Celia… the baby… It won’t matter if I say no for long. He’ll… he’ll do it himself, Rowan. Cyrus will find any way he can to kill you.”
My father, the man I’d trusted my entire life, the one who, despite everything, I was still trying to please, had wanted Rowan—
I nearly threw up, forcing everything down as I inhaled deeply through my nose, my body dripping in a cold sweat.
He wanted her dead. He still does. He… tried to…
“Cyrus?” Orsen asked beside me in a strangled voice, and he took a step back.
“It makes sense in a fucked-up way. We all know he wanted Bastian to be the only Alpha of the horde,” Nix said, his face grim, eyes pointing at the floor.
Everything I had lost, the last six years of suffering, wondering where my mate had gone, and then having her reappear, had all been because of my own father.
He’d watched me fall apart, watched me become a shell of who I was, more and more each day, and he’d said nothing.
He’d smiled, pretending to be sympathetic.
How had I not seen that?
He’d been right under my fucking nose, posing a threat to my mate, all this time.
Years. An uncontrollable growl left me, my mind replaying all the events that’d led us here.
My father’s insistence, the constant battles with him about treating Orsen, Grey, and Nix with respect.
The way I’d shut down when Rowan appeared again, unable to handle it, to understand, my father encouraging every doubt I had.
The anger, while still present, gave way to a wave of shame, swirling through me, a storm tossing me about, set to drown me in its riptide.
I had been so unsure about Rowan’s motives. I’d questioned everything when, in reality, it was my fault. It was my father who’d ordered her death. She’d just been living her life with us at the cabin. In fact, she’d been about to pack up and join us at North Oak to truly start her life with us.
Emmeline was killed at my father’s orders.
“She’s probably terrified.” My words were detached, like I was outside my own body, looking in at the situation, looking at the mess I’d made of things.
My body couldn’t settle on hot or cold. I wanted to scream, to find Cyrus and drive my fist through him. But I wanted to disappear into the shadows as well, to never look Rowan in the eye, because how could I? After everything I’d done, everything he’d done…
“Where would she go?” My voice was hollow.
“I’m not sure. I mean, she has friends at other—” Grey stopped, his eyes widening as he scrambled in the chair, exiting the security footage in a blink and pulling up something else.
“What are you doing?” Orsen’s rage was palpable, a wave of fury coming off him as if I were next to a volcano.
“I put a tracker in her car, remember? We can see where she’s going.” Orsen leaned in as Grey navigated through more screens, endless fucking screens and computer bullshit, to find our mate. “There. Fuck, she’s driving fast. Where does this lead? She’s going west”
“Okay, well, we need to go west, too.” Grey shot up out of his seat. “She’s out there. I’m not about to—”
I didn’t listen to any more. I was moving before I could think or speak.
Rowan was out there, and we could get to her.
But… my father. He was near. He was right fucking there, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it again.
He’d fucked with Tanner again, threatened his family again, and Rowan had run.
She’d run away because that man had ordered her death and the death of the Alphas around me.
No more.
“Where are you going?!” Orsen called out, several pairs of footsteps loudly following me.
“I’m going to kill him,” I snarled, not looking back.
“Fuck.” It was all I heard from Nix, and then the clinic was hurtling past me, as I bolted across the lawn to my father’s cabin.
“Where the fuck is he?!” My growl shook the empty cabin. My father was nowhere to be seen, and I raced through the space, turning over everything I could get my hands on like I’d find him squatting under the furniture, a roach infesting this horde.
“He left in a hurry. Look.” Grey was near the dresser, nodding at it as Orsen came in from the bathroom. “Still plenty of clothes, but no sign of his phone or keys.”
Orsen cursed, kicking the dresser, sending it screeching across the floor. “He must’ve… Fuck. Do you think he went after her?”
“Has anyone got eyes on Tanner?” Grey asked, shooting a look between us.
He was going to die as well, but I wasn’t as concerned with his fate at that moment. If the video made one thing clear, it was that he wasn’t going to repeat his mistakes of the past.
My father, on the other hand, definitely wanted to.
I knew that man. There was no changing his mind once he’d set it on something. And worse than being stubborn, he was entitled and self-centered.
“He went after her. I’m sure of it.” I nodded once, swallowing down the rising need to roar until my lungs gave out. “We need to move. They don’t have that much of a head start. We can—”
Thundering steps approaching caught our attention, stopping me as the scent of panic rushed into the room.
“Alpha Orsen! Alpha Bastian! Help!” The voice was young. Panicked.
We looked at each other for a moment before moving as one toward the door.
Kieran, the young dragon who had been training to do patrols, was sprinting up the path to my father’s cabin. His face was deathly white, his eyes wide. The color had drained from the guy’s face, and he was shaking even as he ran up to us, near collapsing when he reached us.
“Kieran, what happened?” I questioned; my voice gruff.
“Oh God, Bastian. I… Something’s happened at the den. Something bad.”