19. Chapter Nineteen

I awoke alone in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar dark room, the dream fresh in my mind. I shot up in a panic. The sheets fell and pooled around my waist. I looked down at the flimsy, thin white tank top and could see my nipples through the material. Who had dressed me in such a ridiculous shirt? I slid the sheets down my thighs and saw nothing but my bare skin.

The door opened, the scent of cinnamon proceeding Winter into the room. She had a tray in her hands, which she bobbled when she saw me sitting up.

“Oh, thank Gaia, you’re awake!”

She set the tray on a dresser and hurried over to my beside, throwing her arms around my neck. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered in my ear.

My fault? What wasn’t… Charlie.

I shoved her hard, desperate to put space between us and afraid of what I might do to her. Winter stumbled backward and fell on her ass. She sat on the floor blinking for several seconds. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine,” she said, even though I hadn’t asked, suggesting someone else was in the room.

“Missy or Archer?” I asked.

Winter’s eyes cut to the dresser. “Missy.”

I could practically see the sarcastic ghost sitting on top of the wooden chest of drawers. “How is Charlie? Is he, you know?”

Winter climbed to her feet and waved her hand, turning on all four lamps in the room. She made me wait while she slowly eased her way into a rocking chair by the drawn curtains before saying. “Alive? Laughing? Telling Walter all about the one time he thinks he met a mafia boss?”

I dared to hope. “He’s… okay? I didn’t hurt him?”

“Technically, yes, you did hurt him. Walter healed the bites, but they were already on the mend by the time he reached your house. And Charlie didn’t seem to mind your bite. I mean, I would say that he liked it, but only if you promise not to repeat that to Ewan.”

I winced. “He’s that mad?”

Winter rocked back and forth a few times before she answered. “Let’s go with upset. He, um, asked me to erase the memory from Charlie’s mind.”

I angled my body more toward where she sat, more than a little upset myself. “What did you say?”

“No, obviously. That’s overstepping, even for an alpha. Plus, I, mean, I can’t actually do those kinds of spells. My magic hasn’t come that far along.” She ran her hands down her jeans. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him the last part.”

“Should I be scared?” I asked her.

Winter laughed, not knowing that I wasn’t joking. His rage had seared through our bond. I still felt the ghost of it on my skin. “He’s not upset with you.”

I sucked in air that I didn’t need. “He’s not? How do you know?”

Her eyes narrowed as she tilted her head to the side. “Do you not remember what happened?”

“I sank my fangs into the neck of mate’s best friend,” I said pointedly.

“Yes, but do you remember it? Do you remember drinking the blood? Did it not smell funny?”

When I tried, my mind refused to conjure the memory. “Charlie and I were talking in the kitchen. I was drinking the mix Essie made of her magic and Ewan’s blood. We did talk about Angelica. Did I get mad and attack him?”

Winter shook her head. “What about the second the bottle? Ring any bells?”

“No,” I admitted, annoyed that I could remember things that happened centuries before, but not minutes—hours?—prior.

“Don’t force it. I’ll give you the highlights if you like.”

“I do like. Leave out the embarrassing parts, though.” After my dream, I wasn’t sure I could handle anymore humiliation today. I needed to tell Winter about the king’s story, since it did involve her and Archer.

One lost memory at a time, I told myself.

“Someone added a little something extra to several of the blood bottles in the refrigerator. You drank one. That’s why you bit Charlie.”

A cold chill penetrated my bones. My eyes were wide and probably manic looking. “Where’s Ewan?”

“Dealing with that someone.”

I slammed my fist on the mattress, needing to release some of the mounting tension building inside of me. “Who?

“I don’t know. He had Birch bring him some wolf named Kiernan, I think. He was young, like fifteen. Ewan, Charlie, and Walter interrogated him outside. Mom wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t hear any screaming, so I think they just talked to him. They brought him inside afterwards, and he was crying but he didn’t have any, like, marks or anything.”

There were so many people inside my house after the meeting. I remembered seeing a bunch of teenagers but couldn’t recall any single one of them. I shook my head. “I’m still confused. Where is Ewan?”

She twisted her hands in her lap, her discomfort bleeding through our bond into me. “So, when Birch, Charlie, and Walter brought Kiernan inside, Ewan wasn’t with them. Which I found strange since there was an entire debate about whether to bring Kiernan here in the first place or do the interrogation in the clearing in front of the pack. Ewan refused to leave you. That’s how Kiernan ended up here.”

My mind was still a little sluggish, so it took me a minute to process Winter’s words. For me, it was almost stranger that Ewan had gone to deal with the problem at all. Birch should have been the one to go. It was his job.

Had Ewan been so enraged that someone would dare harm his mate that he insisted on going himself? Possibly. Surely, though, his two best friends could’ve made him see reason, and Walter was very convincing.

“How long ago did he leave?” I asked.

Winter shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe, two hours ago? It’s been a while.”

I concentrated on the invisible yet indelible tie connecting me to Ewan. He was upset and doubting himself, feelings he didn’t want me to know about. I pushed harder against his barriers until pain flooded the bond. My heart broke for him, and I wanted to soothe his emotional injuries.

I threw the covers back and slipped off the bed. “I need to find him.”

Winter was on her feet. “No. Zara, please. Don’t make this worse than it needs to be.”

“He’s hurting. Whatever’s done is done. Now, he needs me. You can’t stop me.”

She didn’t try, making me uneasy to touch the doorknob, but Walter’s oily magic didn’t zap me, and the metal turned without resistance.

“Do you want to put some clothes on?” Winter hurried to keep up with me.

“No point. I’m going to shift as soon as I get out of here.” I stopped abruptly and turned to her. “Where is here, exactly?”

“The house where I’ve been staying. We’re on a lower level, like, beneath the ground. We ran out of bedrooms upstairs.” She shrugged sheepishly.

“Point me to the nearest exit,” I said, trying not to let my impatience show, though it did feel like Winter was purposely delaying my departure.

“Stairs. They lead to the main level.” She pointed to a door at the end of the hallway.

I took off, and she ran to catch up. I wasn’t quite moving at vampire speed, but Winter’s fae legs were no match. There was a collective in the upstairs living room. They had all been talking when I burst through the door. My appearance rendered the group silent.

I stopped and found Charlie sitting beside Birch on the couch and was relieved when he didn’t tense upon seeing me. I started and stopped an apology several times, not sure how to say sorry for such an awful act. Biting him was unforgiveable.

“It’s okay, Zara. I’m totally fine. Still a little high from the venom in your fangs, but I don’t mind that at all. You didn’t know what you were doing, and I should have known better than to lean over a drugged vampire.”

“I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I know you are.” Charlie grinned impishly. “But I wouldn’t say no to a new shirt. You aren’t the neatest drinker.”

I appreciated his attempt at a joke, though I hated that he was trying to make me feel better when I was the one who had attacked him. I didn’t deserve his empathy. There would be time for me to sort out those tangled emotions later. Ewan needed me. The ache in my chest was getting worse, like he was unconsciously tugging on our bond to see if I would come.

“Careful with him, kid,” Walter called as I strode to the front door. “He’s risen. He’s every bit as much Stavros as he is Ewan.”

I paused in the doorway and glanced over my shoulder, noting the teenager trying not to ogle me. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

Finding Ewan in the vast mountain range that encompassed Taurus territory wasn’t terribly difficult. I tracked him using the bond instead of his scent, navigating the villages on four paws and instinct. Snowflakes floated down from a dark sky to create layer after layer of fresh powder and cover my footprints as I made them.

It felt good to stretch my wolf. She had been couped up too long. I’d been afraid to let her out since transitioning, not sure how my vampire bloodlust and her natural predatory instincts would mix. Especially after the Kilbi incident. So far, I had zero desire to maul anyone, though the only other souls I saw were the patrol wolves and they stayed clear of me.

The closer I got to reaching Ewan, the stronger his pull. He was like a giant magnet drawing me in, and I was nothing more than a paperclip helplessly caught in his force field. I was amazed everyone in the canyon and beyond didn’t become ensnared.

Not surprisingly, his hiding spot was high up in mountains, in a cave that no one could have reached on two feet. I scrambled up the steep incline and into the entrance. Flames from a fire cast flickering shadows on the stone walls, providing more than enough light for my wolf to see.

“Go away, Zara.”

Power rippled along my spine from the command and made my fur stand on end. I kept going, traveling deeper into the cave toward the sound of his voice. I rounded a corner and saw him sitting on a stone slab in front of a small fire wearing only a pair of navy sweatpants. Since he could have laid naked in the snow and made angels without getting frostbite on his goodies, I assumed he’d made the fire out of habit.

“I’m serious, Zara. Leave. That’s an order from your alpha.” He stoked the flames with a stick and refused to look at me.

I shifted and stomped over to stand beside him, hands on my bare hips as I stared down at the man I had loved for so long and debated whether to smack him or soothe him. “You realize an alpha command truly only works if you mean the words,” I said, tone light and conversational, even though I really wanted to point out that I was the victim in all of this.

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Okay. We won’t talk,” I said, making a show of glancing around the cave for some way to occupy our time.

Interestingly, there actually were things. A stack of books, a few board games, piles of folded sweatpants, a bunch of pillows, some blankets.

“We can play checkers.” I waved a hand toward the games.

“No.” That was it. No elaboration or explanation.

I swallowed my irritation and reminded myself that he was hurting. “Would you like me to read to you?”

“No.”

“I could sing a song, I guess.”

“No.”

“How about a dance?” I tried, aware that it was only a matter of time before I pushed him to his breaking point.

“Zara—”

“Okay, a blowjob?”

He finally looked at me, gold and crimson battling for dominance in his irises. The heat of his stare warmed my blood more than the fire. His nostrils flared as he breathed me in.

“Do I still smell like you?” I took a step closer to my very volatile mate, tempting a potentially bad fate.

“Don’t do—”

“I bet I do. I bet I taste like you, too.” Yes, I knew what I was doing. Sort of. I was operating solely on instinct, asking myself what would Zosia do? My words called to his wolf side more so than the vampire side.

He grabbed the backs of my thighs and squeezed, a lusty plea in his gaze. “I’m not in control.”

“I know.” Tentatively, I ran my hands through his dark hair. “That’s why I’m here. Tell me what you need, Ewan. Tell me how I can help you.” Despite my best efforts, my voice cracked with emotion.

His eyes glistened, and then he pulled me closer and pressed his cheek against my stomach. “You already have.” He dragged me down onto his lap and wrapped me in his arms, burying his face in my windblown hair. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Always.”

We stayed like that, him holding me as the flames of his little fire flickered. I didn’t press him to talk, assuming correctly that he would open up when he was ready. It took longer than I anticipated for Ewan broke the silence.

“It was my aunt’s mate. Kiernan’s father. He seemed to believe without me in the way, he would become alpha. You met him briefly. He bought some vampire poison from an underground potions dealer and got the kid to tamper with the bottles. He didn’t care which one of us drank them.”

I leaned my back against his chest and rested my head on his shoulder, swallowing the urge to rip his aunt’s mate to shreds. It was bad enough for any pack member to attack their alpha and his mate, but a relative? And in such a cowardly way. Well, that was unfathomable to me. No one dared speak against my father, let alone try to hurt him or my mom.

“I’m sorry your aunt married an asshole.”

His laughter shook my entire body. “Me too.” He tightened his arms around my waist. “I’m sorry I let that asshole hurt you. I welcomed their family into our fucking house and he hurt you.”

I sat up and wiggled until he loosed his arms, angling my body so I looked directly at him and cupped his cheeks. “Stop. You didn’t let anything happen, okay? I’m fine. And Charlie seems to have recovered.”

Ewan rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yeah, he’s more than fine. I have a feeling that I will be hearing about just how fine for the rest of his life.”

I dropped my hands to his chest and tweaked his nipple, hard. “Is that why you asked Winter to erase his memory?”

He had the good grace to hang his head, and I felt a rush of shame through the bond. “She wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“Did you really expect that she wouldn’t?” I raised my eyebrows. “She and I are bonded.”

He brushed his mouth across my shoulder. “Yes, and she’s lucky she’s a girl. I hate the idea of you bonded to anyone else, in any way, shape, or form.”

“A woman,” I corrected him as his lips trailed biting kisses toward that sensitive spot where my neck and shoulder connected. “And it’s different. You know that.”

My dream from King Orrin’s chambers invaded my mind. This was not the moment for this conversation. Obviously I needed to tell Ewan the truth, the real reason Zosia had ended the relationship with Stavros. And I would. Soon. After the dust settled from this latest storm.

“Zara?”

I blinked until his face filled my vision and grinned inappropriately for the situation. “Glitch. It’s fine.”

His fangs pressed down over where my pulse would have been, and I swore I felt it throb. The points broke my skin, yet Ewan did sink his fangs in far enough to drink. I wanted him to bite me so bad that my toes curled.

“Are punishing me for biting your beta?” I panted unnecessarily as his tongue flicked out and licked away the drops of blood on my neck.

“Do you want me to punish you?” Amusement and definite interest danced his gold swirls of his irises.

I had started the joke, but when I searched his gorgeous face, I remembered his rage when he found me drinking Charlie’s blood.

Ewan sobered. “You know I would never hurt you, right? I was upset, never with you.” His hands slid up my back and into my tangled hair. “You could have ripped his throat out and I would still love you. You are my everything. The reason I wake up every day. The reason I fight to kill. The reason I exist at all. Without you, there is no me.”

I crushed my mouth to his, needing that kiss more than any we’d shared previously in this life. In hindsight, my fear felt silly. Ewan would never hurt me, not even in the worst throes of bloodlust or alpha fury. I knew that to be true in my soul. Because I would never hurt him. In so many ways, he outranked me, yet in our true mate bond we were equals. I would set fire to the rain if it hurt him. My love had no boundaries or limitations. Same as his for me.

And that was the reason the soulmate bond was so dangerous.

Ewan broke the kiss and gripped my jaw with both hands. “What did you see, Zara?”