Chapter 24 - Zephyr
Dressed in the clothes I had yanked off before I shifted, I let myself fall to the floor, holding Adalyn as she passed out completely. I held my mate in my arms, watching her as her pale face went completely bone-white. Her skin, where she had been clawed by the demon, was webbed with black cracks, as if the poison was in her veins.
I had been clawed by the creatures, but my shifter blood healed me much faster. I would still need an antidote, but I only felt dizzy. It was enough for me to cling to Adalyn. Her forehead beaded with sweat.
“Come on,” I murmured. “Come on, little witch, open your eyes for me.”
I brushed her head off her forehead. Her lips were tinged purple.
“Come on, don’t make everything I’ve just done be in vain.”
I let out a laugh, a helpless sound. My brother’s death flashed through my head, holding him in my arms as he bled out on the floor. I couldn’t lose Adalyn. I couldn’t .
“When’s the damn medical help coming?” I shouted. “Where the fuck are they?”
“Zeph,” Alex said. “It’s okay. Calm down, they’re on the way.”
But I shook my head, standing to my feet, holding Adalyn close to my chest. “I need to help her. She—Alex—look at her face. Look at her skin .”
“I know,” he said calmly, too calmly. “But right now, she needs you to be stronger for her, patient, and calm .”
“Fuck you,” I snapped. “You were a wreck when Harper was injured.”
“Zeph,” Frazer warned. “We know you’re upset, but—”
“No,” I snarled. “No. She’s—she’s my mate, Alex. I can’t watch her die in my arms like I did with my brother. Please— please —I can’t.”
I kissed Adalyn’s forehead. “Wake up, little witch,” I said softly. “Open those pretty eyes for me. We have so much to do, right? I haven’t told you yet, but I wanted to take you on a boat to the mainland, maybe spend a day away from here. I wanted to take one of those quad bikes up the mountain. I wanted to do a whole ton of things with you, Adalyn, but—but we can’t do any of that until you open your eyes for me, okay?”
I swallowed, my throat tight. “I need you to be okay. I need you to be okay and to wake up, and then we can make sure our baby is okay. Help is almost here, Adalyn. Just hold on.”
A commotion at the door made me look up. Medical staff flooded the Emporium, at least ten, trying to assess everybody, but I shoved forward.
“Please—please, you have to help her,” I said. “She’s—the poison—”
“Okay, okay.” One of the men in blue medical shirts tried to take her off me, but I snarled him away. “We’ll have to take her in the ambulance to get her to the nearest hospital.”
“I’m not leaving her.”
“Zeph, let them take care of her.”
“I’m not —”
“Where is my granddaughter? Get out of my way— move .”
Greta burst through the throng of medical staff and stared in horror at her limp granddaughter in my arms. Her eyes landed on me accusingly.
“ You ,” she shouted. “You did this. You caused this. I had hoped you all came back to save us, but you’re only causing more problems!”
“Greta,” Alex said. “Zephyr has saved your granddaughter.”
“She wouldn’t have been injured if it wasn’t for the demons coming back. They want all of you together. Witch and wolf. It’s their playground.” Her eyes were watery as she pressed a hand to Adalyn’s cheek.
“Sweet girl, let’s get you to the hospital. It’ll all be okay, you’ll see.”
Greta’s eyes turned on me. “Stay away from her.”
“I can’t,” I said, my voice cracking. “I can’t—she’s—she’s my mate. I can’t leave her. I won’t leave her.”
Adalyn was taken from my arms, and I yelled, only held back by Alex and Frazer.
“Adalyn!” I shouted, straining. “Let me go , Alex.”
“She needs more help than any of us can provide right now,” he told me, grunting against the effort it took to hold me down.
Greta pointed an accusing finger at me. “If you truly love her and believe she is your mate then you will allow her to be taken to the hospital to be taken care of. Do this for her, Zephyr. She will need her belongings.”
“It’s been just her and me all week,” I whispered, trying not to give up under the weight of the old woman’s stare. “You can’t ask me to leave her side.”
“I can, and I am. I will see you at the hospital. Be grateful I’m letting you have that, at least.”
With that, she blocked my view as she ordered Adalyn to be carted off into the back of an ambulance. I broke from the restraints of Alex and Frazer, shouting for Adalyn, but the doors closed on the ambulance, and she was taken, and driven away from me.
A hand landed on my shoulder. “Zeph—”
“Get off me,” I snarled, back away from Frazer. Without another look back, I tore off down the road toward Adalyn’s apartment. If I couldn’t be with my mate, then I would refuse to be with any of them. I needed to clear my head.
***
I had never seen the inside of Adalyn’s place. It was a small studio, a large double bed pressed against the wall, and candles everywhere . I could imagine her sitting in bed, smiling, as she flickered the flames on each candle off and on like automatic lights. I looked at the pictures in frames along her wall.
She and Greta, her and her parents—a mother she was a carbon copy of, and a father with a kind smile—and then so many of her and Harper.
I noticed one of the six of us from over the summer, Harper and Adalyn, with their arms around one another in front of us. Joseph was on Alex’s shoulders, while I had hold of the fiery-spirited Hallie, and Marie was beaming at the camera, stood by Hector.
Tears took me by surprise. I hadn’t properly cried in years, but I did in her studio, wanting Adalyn to be okay. Wanting a gallery of pictures where our child grew up alongside the triplets, where she called the guys uncle and Harper was her aunt, and we spent summers together going on trips, and winters where we tucked into sweaters and had hot cocoa.
It wasn’t a life I had ever thought I would have. It was domesticated in a way I hadn’t truly believed would or could happen, not when grief had hardened my heart for so many years.
Adalyn had called me her mate seconds before she had gone unconscious.
I smiled even as I paced restlessly. I tore out clothing from her closet, packed some belongings for her, and made sure she had snacks in there that I found in her cupboards.
I pulled out my phone, going to my gallery. There was a picture Adalyn had taken of us during her first training session. She was glad in a black t-shirt of mine even though it had been way too big for her. She grinned at the camera and was almost tucked into the crook of my arm as I had positioned her in a defensive stance. Her hair was as tied up as she could get it with the short length, forming a tiny bun on top of her head. Her face was devoid of the usual makeup, and despite the tiredness from the session, her skin was glowing with the power she had found in the sanctuary.
I looked at us, side by side, captured in a moment right before she had swung her leg sat the back of my knees, flooring me and catching me by surprise.
Her dark eyes and my green ones. Our shared color of black hair. Where her eyes were hooded, mine were wider but more guarded with emotion. I pictured our child, a combination of our features, growing up to be teased by their cousins, loved by both parents and raised in a safer Azure Cove than the stories told.
I looked at the difference between Adalyn’s eyes and mine. Mine were usually so defensive, but the minute they landed on her, they changed. I wasn’t an open person—I talked a lot without ever saying much. But Adalyn had started to change that. Even with a military therapist, I hadn’t talked about my brother’s death.
But Adalyn had helped me to talk about it.
She had gotten me to open up in a way nobody ever had before.
I knew now that I couldn’t keep clinging onto my past. A witch had murdered my brother, but that witch hadn’t been Adalyn, and I couldn’t have kept clinging onto trying to punish her for that witch’s choices as much as she couldn’t punish me for the shifter who had murdered her parents. Adalyn was not responsible for one witch in her coven. Perhaps if I ever found out who her Matron was and beseeched her, she might bring the witch into question.
But I wasn’t faultless. I had killed in the name of finding that witch. I had killed when revenge hadn’t been a clear, easy path to the killer that I wanted my hands on. Adalyn had only ever met my anger with her own, provoked.
I ran my thumb over the picture, smiling.
I would spend every day of my future making up for my past treatment of her. I would spend every day devoted to her, worshipping her, never making her feel inferior, and part of me wondered if I could ever be truly forgiven for making her feel those things weeks ago.
Once, I hadn’t been able to bear being in the room with her. Now, even this brief distance, filled with the uncertainty of her condition and health, had me spiraling. I paced her studio, packing and repacking her bag, until my phone rang with a call from Harper.
“Are you still at Addie’s place?” Her voice was panicked.
“I’m bringing her a bag,” I answered.
“Okay, I’m coming to pick you up. She’s in the hospital now. Greta said I can head over there.”
I smiled even though Harper couldn’t see.
“You’re sneaking me in, Harper?” I laughed, grateful for the brief joke to break up the heaviness.
“If anybody had kept Alex from me, they’d have been killed, I imagine,” she said. “Who am I to incite a shifter’s wrath? You deserve to see her. I’ll be there in five.”
“Thank you, Harper,” I whispered. The line went dead, and I pocketed my phone, slung the bag over my shoulder, and headed outside. There was a storm in me that wouldn’t be settled until I saw my mate, her eyes open, and her heartbeat steady.
We had not come this far just to say goodbye now.
I’m ready , Adalyn , I thought. All that anger I had in my military career… You’re teaching me that I can be more than that. Better than clinging onto that rage. I want to give up this desolate life I have for one with you.
And as I got into the car with Harper and drove through Azure Cove, I knew this was where I saw myself settling. With her. With our child. Even as worry swirled in me, not knowing either of their states, I had to trust that it would be okay.
There were more demons out there, but I wouldn’t stop until I had helped to take down every single one.
This was the life I wanted. This is the choice I wanted to make: to stay.