32. Asher

ASHER

I woke with a start to a frantic banging on my door.

I had only just gotten to sleep, having spent most of the night agonizing over what I was going to say to Phaedra, how I was going to apologize. And because I was still in the earliest stages of sleep, it took no time for me to get to my feet and fling open the door.

The last person I expected to see on the other side was Selene, who looked the worst I'd ever seen her: dull, disheveled hair, corpse-white face, wide, bloodshot and blackened eyes, and a ring of red around her throat. Every visible inch of her skin was bruised: her chest, forearms, ankles. Before I could ask what the fuck had happened to her, she coughed out three words that made my blood turn to ice.

"Phaedra is gone," she said.

I reached for her wrist and pulled her into my shed. "What the hell do you mean she's gone?" I demanded.

"Earlier this afternoon." She was speaking quickly, her voice very hoarse. "Phaedra and I were talking when she suddenly attacked Penny and me."

"She what ?"

"It was like she was possessed or something. One minute we were talking about you, and the next she had me on the floor, choking the life out of me."

"Phaedra?" I repeated. "What are you talking about?"

Selene ran both hands through her messy hair. "I'm sorry. I know this isn't making any fucking sense. But you have to understand, Asher, I haven't been able to collect my thoughts. I've spent the last few hours in a holding cell in that fucking manor."

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself, just as Selene was doing. It wasn't becoming of a pair of alphas to panic, even if that was all we could do. I needed to listen to her because it concerned my mate.

When I was calmer, I said, "Speak plainly. Tell me the facts of what happened as you remember them."

She nodded and lowered her hands from her hair. "Right," she said, blowing out a breath. It seemed in that same amount of time she had gotten control of herself as well, as was expected of the leader of the Coldcrow pack.

Penny left to take papers to Randall. While she was gone, Selene and Phaedra were talking and everything seemed normal. Then, suddenly, Phaedra fainted. Her body slumped over the table. Penny returned, and they tried to wake Phaedra. When her eyes opened, they weren't the stormy gray we all knew and loved. The irises were brown.

"She got up so quickly, I didn't know what was happening," Selene said. "She shoved me back, and she was unbelievably strong. Stronger than any man I've ever fought. Penny tried to get her to stop. Phaedra slapped her so hard that she fell and hit her head on something. I didn't see what."

As Selene told the story, I saw the panic begin to rise in her again. Recounting what had happened couldn't be easy for her.

"And then Phaedra started coming for me. I put the table between us. I tried to ask her what the fuck she was doing, but she didn't answer. All she did was laugh. She grabbed a pen off the table and flipped the table on its side. That's a solid oak table, Asher. It took both hands for me to move it in between us, so how could she move it with just one?"

"What happened after that?" I asked to refocus her and myself. I didn't know how Phaedra could have managed that. She was a shifter, but she didn't have Selene's training.

"She tackled me to the floor. I tried to shove her off, but I couldn't do anything. She was like a rock on top of me—one that was going to either choke me to death or stab me in my eye." She ran another hand through her hair, and I noticed again the red at her throat. Phaedra had done that.

"And then, like a switch was flipped, she returned to herself again, and her eyes were their proper color. She got off me and looked like she couldn't believe what she had done."

"Did she say anything?"

"It was hard to understand her. She was shaking so hard and stuttering so much. All I could really make out was her saying that she was sorry and that she didn't do it."

Shit. This had to be Kestrel's doing. But where had that strength come from?

"She ran out of the room, and seconds later, all these guards came in. They took Penny from me, and they wouldn't let me go with her. I wasn't supposed to be at the manor today, so they assumed I must have hurt her. Connor ordered me to a holding cell and had his men ‘interrogate' me."

She didn't need to explain more than that. They'd beaten her, of course, and demanded answers from her they must not have liked.

"I'm sorry," I said. "How did you get out?"

"Theodora. She got the key from Randall and unlocked my cell. She told me that Penny was still in the infirmary, that she was unconscious but stable. And Phaedra has been missing all day. Connor had everyone searching the manor, Den City, and the den where she lived when she was banished, but they couldn't find a trace of her. Theodora gave me her pix powder and told me to get out."

My heart threatened to tear out of my chest. All that chaos, and I'd been out here, working, daydreaming, completely unaware of it.

"When did Theodora free you?" I asked, wanting to get a time frame for how long Phaedra had been missing.

"About twenty minutes ago."

"Wait, twenty minutes?" It wouldn't have taken her that long to walk from the manor to the shed, especially not if she was in a hurry.

"I had to check on Penny," she said.

"Of course." I'd completely forgotten that Selene had fallen in love, too. I'd seen the signs of her and Penny falling in love, and right now, her lover was in the infirmary.

"Now that I know she's okay, I've got to get to my pack," Selene said. "All hell is going to break loose when Connor finds out I'm not in the cell anymore. Theo told me she's leaving the manor and going home to be with her family. I think I'm going to follow her lead." She shuddered. "I've never been this anxious in my life. Something is about to go down, and I need to have access to my pack when that happens, but I had to tell you what was going on."

"Thank you for that, Selene."

"It's the least I can do. I don't understand what happened with Phaedra, but something really fucked up is going on. I owe it to her and to you to make sure I did my due diligence here."

I nodded. "I don't know if you still feel guilty about betraying me to Connor," I said, "but it doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned, you and I are even… if you do one more thing for me."

She gave me a half-smile. "Ha-ha. Okay, what do you need?"

"Tell Taig the abridged version of what you told me and that the pack should be ready for anything. I'm going to find Phaedra."

"Do you know where she is?"

"No, but I'll figure it out."

She let out a brief laugh. "Of course you will. She's your fated mate, after all."

Selene shifted into her wolf form and sprinted out into the night. My skin itched with the desire to do the same. I wanted to find Phaedra, but where had she gone?

She wasn't in the manor or on the grounds, and she wasn't in Den City or in her den. My girl was smart; she wouldn't go where guards were stationed, so she wouldn't be on Dagger pack lands or in Wilcox Forest with Eleanor. The only other place she could be was…

Heartbridge Cave.

I shifted immediately and sprinted like my life depended on it. Doubts started to creep into my mind. What if I was wrong? What if everything I thought I knew and understood about Phaedra was inaccurate? I was wasting time, and she needed me. My father and I had both betrayed the will of the gods. Maybe my punishment was to be caught in a strange, failed love with Phaedra.

But I shook my head and forced myself to go faster. The doubts were weighing me down, distracting me from my purpose. All that mattered was getting to the cave, and if Phaedra wasn't there, I would try somewhere else.

But as soon as I reached Heartbridge Cave, I knew I could put those anxieties to rest. Her scent was here, and I heard her breathing. That breathing halted when she heard my footsteps, but as the wind shifted, blowing into the cave, her breath and her heartbeat quickened. She must have caught my scent, too.

"Stay back, Asher," she called, her voice thick with tears. "Don't come any closer. You're free now, so you should use your freedom to help your pack, not me."

I ignored her, stepping farther into the cave.

"I mean it!" she said, trying to sound serious, but I couldn't miss the fragility and sorrow under the hard edge of her voice. "I-I could never forgive myself if I h-hurt you."

I found her crouched behind our rock, having made herself small enough that she wouldn't be seen until I stood a few feet away. I shifted into my human form, and she looked up at me, her wide, gorgeous eyes full of fear and despair. It broke my heart to see her so small. With a cry of relief, I fell to my knees at her side and pulled her into my arms.

"Asher—" She pushed at my chest, but she was weak. Nothing like the person Selene had described—a monster who could beat an alpha into submission. "Go away," she sobbed.

"No." I held her tightly. "I can't keep making that mistake. I love you, Phaedra. I should have told you this from the moment the fated marks showed up on our wrists. I love you, and I'm not letting you go ever again."

She froze, then melted against me, her arms wrapping around my waist as her sobs racked her, tears spilling onto my shoulder and dripping down my chest and back.