Chapter Forty-Seven

When Wyatt bursts into my room, going as far as to kick down the door to my chambers, I don’t bother to acknowledge his presence. Seated in front of the fireplace where I’ve spent several intimate moments with Sierra—where I can almost still feel her beside me—I continue staring into the guttering embers of the fireplace. Rage clouds my mind, fogging and twisting and warping my thoughts. The half-bottle of liquor I’ve consumed since she stumbled out of my room isn’t helping calm the noise in my head.

I’m groggy and disoriented enough from the potent mix of anger and liquor that I don’t even see it coming when Wyatt stops in front of me, pulls me to my feet by my shirt, and punches me in the face so hard I feel my nose splinter before I fall right back down on the couch.

“What the fuck—” I snap.

Another blow cuts me off, this time to my cheekbone, the hit hard enough that it causes my head to spin. Wyatt might be the younger one, but he’s no less of a warrior than I am—his hits are phenomenally strong, and the effects cause blood to well up in my mouth.

I catch his hand before he can punch me a third time, using it to wrench him on the couch beside me. “What’s your godsdamned problem?” I growl.

Wyatt stands and, again, pulls me to my feet by my shirt, apparently not interested in talking. I dodge his next punch but then comes a kick to my chest that sends me hurtling to the ground, gasping in pain as two of my ribs snap under the force.

He circles me, his eyes glaring holes into my skull. Before I can get to my feet or formulate any sort of defense, his boot comes down on my throat with such force I can no longer draw in a proper breath. I roll to my side, coughing and wheezing, thinking of a thousand ways to rip him apart in response to this.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Wyatt says conversationally, though his tone is infused with the sort of vitriol I’ve never heard from him “You’re a fucking shifter, Camden, and a few good hits have you gasping on the floor like a little bitch. Ask yourself, what would a half-crushed windpipe do to a witch, who doesn’t have our strength or healing?”

That gets my attention more than any of his hits. My accelerated healing means it only takes a moment for my ribs, nose, and throat to right themselves, and when they do, I push myself to my feet, demanding, “What are you talking about?”

“The fact that I just had to carry a half-dead Sierra to get healed by her sister,” Wyatt bellows as he grabs me by the hair, directing my line of vision to his chest. I feel myself pale when I see it’s covered with splatters of blood and what looks like little bits of cartilage. One sniff tells me that the blood isn’t his or mine. It’s Sierra’s.

Oh, fuck. That’s when it hits me: I lost it earlier. I let my anger get the best of me until all I could see was a red haze. I already knew I scared Sierra, wrapped my hand around her throat and squeezed, but I didn’t even use a quarter of my strength while doing it. I wanted to scare her, not do something that resulted in this.

When I looked at her, all I could see was the loss of our child, and all I could think was that she might’ve intentionally put a stop to the pregnancy. If not by doing it herself, then by making reckless moves that caused it to happen.

Now, though, fear takes me by the throat, chasing away any lingering bits of anger at what Sierra did. In this moment, I couldn’t care less about my anger; in fact, I can’t even remember what I was angry about. Right now, all I can remember is the sheer terror on Sierra’s face when I had my hand around her throat. I was too furious to pay it any notice before, but now I understand her pallid pale features weren’t just sheet-white from fear, they were sheet-white because I was actually truly hurting her.

“You goddamn idiot,” Wyatt seethes, shoving me so hard I fall onto the couch again. “I told you this would happen. When you brought me in here, smug as shit after having sex with her during a blood moon, I told you what your actions would result in, but you didn’t believe me. And then, when things took course exactly as I predicted, you responded by trying to kill your own mate.”

I stand back up with a growl. “You’re the one who put the thought of her aborting the child in my head!”

“And I was obviously wrong!” Wyatt bellows. “Claude told me the state she was found in by castle guards, wounded and bleeding heavily. He also spoke of a rogue the guards detained, who was all too happy to spew information on what exactly occurred. Namely, one of his friends cut her open. How does that sound anything like her deciding to end the pregnancy?”

Now that the rage has cleared from my head, I can see how wrong I was to think Sierra could’ve subjected herself or a potential child to such treatment. Before, however, I wasn’t exactly in a rational mindset, and now I understand I must’ve truly hurt her.

Wyatt lets out a low, angry laugh. “You know, Cam, I never thought I would have the reason to say this, but you are even worse than our father. At least he’d have never lain a cruel hand on Mom. You, on the other hand…you don’t even have that sliver of honor.”

His taunts hurt more than the physical blows, but they’re not my focal point right now. At this moment, all I need to know is, “Is she okay?”

Wyatt lets out more of that awful laugh, sounding like he wants to strangle me himself. “Yes, Camden, she’s fine now, no thanks to you or me. In fact, I can say with confidence that the only reason she’s not breathing out of a tube or dead is her sister’s phenomenal healing capabilities.”

That only diffuses the worst of my fear because in this moment I understand the full weight of my actions. I may not have intended to hurt Sierra—I never would—but my pain and rage literally blinded me to the point that I almost hurt her fatally. If I had held on a moment longer…I don’t want to think of what the result could’ve been.

The fact that she’s healed now in no way takes away my alarm because even if she’s physically okay, the mental strain of being injured by one’s mate isn’t something that goes away.

One of the few things that can cause a bond between mates to reverse itself and become dormant is just that; serious, potentially deadly harm done from one mate to another. Even that isn’t my main point of concern because regardless of whether the bond survived, any progress I’ve made with Sierra will have been undone by that one act.

I realize with no small amount of fear that I haven’t felt a single wisp of emotion emanating from Sierra through our bond since I sent her away. I’ve become so accustomed to getting whispers of her emotions transmitted through our bond that they’re background noise most times; now that they’re gone, however, I feel like I’ve been stripped of something integral.

She held me on this very couch when I was sick with grief just a week ago, murmured reassurances to me, and stroked her hands through my hair, and I repaid that by almost killing her—crushing her windpipe if Wyatt’s to be believed. While I don’t want to believe him, her blood staining his shirt is evidence I can’t ignore or disregard.

The images of her face beneath me not too long ago, eyes bulging, lips straining, strength waning assault me until it feels like my mind’s going to split open under the force of them.

My wolf, who’s been dormant under the onslaught of my emotional turmoil these last hours, lays down with one prolonged whine, radiating shame.

“It’s hitting you now, isn’t it?” Wyatt asks, his tone still so harsh an outsider would be forgiven for thinking we’re mortal enemies, not brothers. “The fact that you’ve fucked both of us over in the most spectacular way possible is finally worming itself into that thick skull of yours. Good. You deserve to rot, Camden. Anyone who could do that to the person our moon goddess entrusted to them deserves a spot in the worst bowels of the underworld.”

Through turmoil that takes up every inch of my being, I manage to gasp, “I need to see her.”

Wyatt might have told me she’s fine, but I need to see for myself that she’s healed. I stand, only to be shoved back down by Wyatt.

“Absolutely not,” he growls. “She sees you right now, she could very well assume you’re there to finish what you started. Considering she plays host to a fire that could turn this whole castle to rubble, and the fact that I have no inclination to stop her from taking revenge, you stay the fuck down. You had a chance to handle things your way; it ended up in a clusterfuck of cosmic proportion that probably just cost us our future.”

That ignites my anger, although this time, it’s not aimed at Sierra; it’s aimed at the person who’s trying to keep me from her. “You want to try to get between me and my mate?” I snarl.

Wyatt gives me a cruel smile. “I don’t have to do that, Cam. You went into a rage and put a chasm the size of a universe between you and her all on your own.”

Those words hit their intended mark, causing me to wince. He’s right. There’s no denying I’ve done a whole lot of serious harm. My anger doesn’t give me an excuse to lose control of myself to the point where I would not only blame but hurt my own mate. Now, I understand the distance between us is even worse than when we first met, and all Sierra had for me was disdain.

My head whips to the doorway when I hear three sets of footsteps running down my hall, preceding three castle guards, all of whom look red-faced and breathless, stopping in front of my kicked-in door.

In no mood for bullshit, I bark, “What is it?”

The two in front exchange nervous glances, as if afraid to speak. I growl in my most authoritative voice, “Tell me now!” My tone has the desired effect as the guards bow their heads in submission.

One of them mumbles, “The Queen and Princess, Your Majesty. We found their rooms empty.”

I feel the hair at the back of my neck stand on end as my entire body stiffens. “So where are they?”

Another guard says, “We don’t know, sir. We followed the scent of blood to a mirror in the Queen’s bathroom where…” He trails off, shifting from foot to foot nervously.

Worst case scenarios flash through my mind and I demand, “Where what?”

“Where there was a symbol drawn on the glass in blood. It would appear the Queen used witchcraft, a spell of some sort, to escape,” the third finishes.

My blood freezes to ice in my veins as one thought bounces around my skull on repeat: Sierra’s gone.

End of Book 1