Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Gideon

I had to be brave. Artemis and Fletcher were the bravest people I knew, and I owed it to them not to be a burden. That meant I had to face the things that frightened me the most and deal with them.

“We don’t give up. There is a way out of this, we just have to find it,” Fletcher said, gripping Artemis’s arms and looking straight into his eyes.

I smiled, despite the situation being so dire. I loved watching the two of them together. They each had a different sort of strength. Fletcher was all sharp and defensive. He’d been stretching himself for years to be my hero, my protector. Artemis was completely different, but still amazing. He was a rock. He was the wall that stood between me and anything that would try to hurt me, stalwartly protecting me.

I was so lucky that I couldn’t begin to put it into words, even though evil sat in the next room. I had complete confidence in my husband and my alpha to figure out a way to get us through this situation so that we could all live happily ever after, just like the captive princes and their dragon princes.

I felt so confident in my men’s ability to keep me safe that as Fletcher and Artemis discussed what we should do next, I picked up the charcuterie board and carried it into the living room.

“That looks delicious,” Goode said, standing from the chair he was sitting in and stepping closer to me. “But then, you always were a good cook.”

“I am a good cook,” I said, steeling all my courage to face my tormentor. “I didn’t have a choice. Being a good cook was the only thing I was allowed to do, and if I made a mistake with any of the recipes Papa tried to teach me, I had my hands smacked with a wooden spatula.”

Goode just shrugged at that revelation and walked carefully over to the table. He took a cracker and a piece of cheese from the charcuterie board, put them together, and ate them, all while smiling at me.

Smiling at me the way a crocodile smiled at its next meal.

“Discipline is necessary to keep omegas on the path to Heaven,” he said once he’d swallowed. “You know that.”

He tried to reach for me to brush his fingertips across my face, but I jerked back to avoid him, so he dropped his hand.

My heart pounded wildly. He’d backed down when I indicated touching me was not okay. Maybe I could be even braver and get him to go away.

“I don’t want you,” I told him, my breaths coming in shallow pants. “I never wanted you. My father chose you and I didn’t have a say in it.”

“Fathers know better than their children,” he countered. “God made alpha fathers the heads of their family. They are God’s representatives on earth.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. I think alphas just made that up so they could control everyone, and controlling people is wrong.”

Goode let out a breath and shook his head. “Oh, my poor, prodigal omega,” he said. “There is so much you must relearn.”

“I’m not going back to The People,” I told him, quivering with fear on the inside, even though I knew I was being brave. “I never wanted that life. I wanted out as soon as I knew what it would mean for me. And I got out. I got out all by myself.” With a little help from Elijah on the outside, but I didn’t want him or anyone else to get in trouble.

“Your family wants you back, you know,” he said, slipping almost imperceptibly closer to me. “Your Papa, for one. Your sisters, Mary and Ruth as well.”

My stomach twisted at the thought of my siblings. Leaving them behind when I’d known they were vulnerable was one of the hardest decisions I’d had to make when I left.

“I can get in touch with them,” I said, mostly certain it was true. “I can help them get out.”

“They don’t want to get out,” Goode said, reaching for an olive from the charcuterie board. “They want you to come back and visit them. Just a visit. They know you would rather be a fallen creature than safe at home.”

I was reasonably certain he was making things up to lure me into letting my guard down, but I desperately missed my siblings, all of them .

“Malachi wants you to come home,” Goode said, resting his hip against the table. “So much that he came with me.”

My eyes popped wide. “You’re lying,” I said. “You came alone.”

“I didn’t,” Goode said. “Malachi fell asleep on the way here. Your guardians didn’t give me a chance to go back to the car to wake him up. Actually, I’m surprised he hasn’t awakened on his own and come into the house to find you.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door, then back at me. “Then again, he’s probably terrified. Waking up in the backseat of a car in the middle of a storm when you don’t know where you are would be enough to keep me in the car. He's probably terrified right now.”

He was lying. I knew he was lying. Justice Goode was a big, fat, horrible liar.

But if there was even a slight chance that Malachi was really here, if Goode had kidnapped him and brought him here by force, I needed to know. Maybe Goode had tied him up and gagged him and Malachi was trying to get free. My brother needed my help.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a stupid thing to do, but I had to take the risk. I stared at Goode for a moment, then I made a break for the front door. If I ran, maybe he would be too slow to catch me.

I was dead wrong about that. I made it through the living room, out the door, and down the porch steps into the wind and rain before Goode caught up to me.

“You always were a gullible simpleton,” Goode sneered, making a grab for me.

I shouted and wheeled back, running from him. A tiny part of me still believed, maybe even hoped, that Malachi really was in the car, but sense told me if I got anywhere near that car, Goode would find a way to shove me inside and drive off with me. If he did that, I was certain I’d never see Fletcher or Artemis again.

I didn’t know what else to do, though. There was nowhere else to go, no neighbors or safety nearby. Even if I ran down the drive, the main road was half a mile away, and the chances of someone being out on a night like this were slim.

So I did the only thing I could think to do, I broke to the side and started running around the house. Fletcher and Artemis were in the kitchen. I could reach them through the back door.

“Oh no you don’t!” Goode called after me, swiping the air in an attempt to grab me.

I was half a second faster than him, but I knew I couldn’t outrun him for long. I slipped and slid on the overly long grass as I headed around the side of the house, my lungs instantly burning as I put all my energy into escaping.

Goode was stronger and faster than me, though. He must have known what I intended, because he raced up to me, positioning himself between me and the house.

I stopped suddenly with the intention of sprinting back the way I’d come, but I slipped in the wet grass instead. The only thing that kept me from sprawling was pure luck. Goode slipped in his effort to reach back and catch me, which was the only way I was able to avoid capture.

I raced on again, calling out, “Fletcher! Artemis!” I had no idea if they could hear me above the din of the pounding rain, though. I needed to get to the back of the house and the kitchen porch at all costs.

I got closer, but Goode was up and on my heels within seconds. Again, he blocked me from the house, forcing me to veer in the other direction. I had no choice but to run farther from the house and the men I loved.

I wailed into the rain, fear getting the better of my attempts at bravery. Everything within me shouted that I should hunker into a ball to protect the new life growing within me. Maybe if I let Goode take me and he discovered I was pregnant with Artemis’s child, he would cast me aside and this whole thing would be over.

That thought was blasted right out of my head as Goode got close enough to grab my shirt.

“No! No, get off me!” I shouted, writhing and twisting wildly as I stumbled toward the edge of the cliff. I could just barely hear the crashing of the waves against the rocks below over the rain. “Let me go!”

“Never!” Goode shouted in return. “You’re my omega, mine! I’ll teach you not to run away from me ever again. By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be begging for the release of death, and since you’ve let another man touch you, I might just oblige.”

I shouted wordlessly and squirmed for all I was worth to get away.

The exact opposite happened. Goode clamped an arm around my waist and lifted me off my feet so that I was pedaling and thrashing in the air.

I cried out in terror, but then something completely unexpected happened. The world seemed to disappear from under me and I went tumbling into the darkness. Goode’s grip around my waist loosened, then he lost me entirely as we hit something hard and cold.

“Gideon!” I heard Fletcher’s desperate cry somewhere above me.

I was convinced I’d died and was sinking into Hell. Everything seemed to be shifting and sliding around me as rain and mud pushed down on me.

Then, with a blink, my brain seemed to right itself, and I realized the situation I was in. Goode and I had been standing right by the edge of the cliff when he’d caught me and picked me up. The earth really had given way, and we’d slipped down. The more I concentrated, the more I could feel the rocks under my body as I continued to slip.

I still had a chance. With mud and rain in my eyes and no real idea of what was going on, I flailed until my hands caught hold of something. It was hard and jagged, and pain tore through my fingers and palms, but I was reasonably certain I’d managed to catch hold of the cliff face.

“Fletcher, help me!” I called up. “Artemis!” I had to let them know I was alive, that I was still there, still fighting to be with them.

I heard a growl and a cry from below me that was just enough to reveal Goode had managed to catch himself as well. I didn’t dare to look down to see how close he was or how he was holding on. I didn’t want to see how much of a drop there was below me, although I’d looked over the edge of the cliff the day before. It was a long way down, with sharp rocks at the bottom.

“Gideon!” Fletcher’s voice sounded from so close above me. “Gideon, I’ve got you!”

I blinked up and cried out again when I spotted Fletcher’s dark form only about a yard above my head. He flattened himself on the ground above me and reached down.

I let go of the rock holding me up with one hand and reached, but even though our fingertips brushed for a split second, the effort made my grip on the rock loosen, and I jerked down a few inches, well out of Fletcher’s grasp .

“Gideon, no!” Fletcher cried out. I could feel the depth of his despair, and it broke my heart.

But that was just it. I could feel his despair. I could feel his love and his fear that I might be taken from him as well. I could feel it like thick tendrils of vines curling around my arms and my torso and reaching inside me. I could practically see the ropes binding us together.

“Fletcher?” I called up at him, more with wonder than with fear.

The tendrils I felt from Fletcher weren’t the only ones. In fact, What I felt from Fletcher was wound around something thicker and stronger that I felt from Artemis, even though I couldn’t see him. I knew he was there, just out of my line of sight. The connection I felt with him seemed to be joined with my womb, but it didn’t stop there. That was just the anchor point, but the bond encompassed all of me, drawing me toward him, him and Fletcher both.

“I’ve got you,” Artemis’s voice sounded from above the edge of the cliff. “I’m coming, love.”

A moment later, Fletcher pulled back and disappeared and Artemis took his place. He reached down, but it wasn’t just his hands that extended to me. He had a rope of some sort that he’d doubled into a large loop. He lowered it to me and said, “Can you get this around your body? I can pull you to safety if you can somehow get inside the loop.”

I sent feelings of confidence and my ability to try through the bond that I could now sense fully between us. Artemis gasped above me, like he’d just realized it was there, too. His surprise and joy came pouring back through the bond to me.

If I needed anything to help me find the strength to get the rope around my body, that was it. I was so determined and so buoyed by the love and strength I felt from Artemis that I didn’t even question whether I’d be able to secure myself in the rope. I slipped one arm through, then switched my grip on the ragged cliffside so I could slip the other one through as well. As soon as I had the rope looped around my torso under each arm, I knew I’d be okay.

A second later, Goode clamped a hand around my ankle, holding on tight. I cried out just as Artemis tried hefting me up. I felt his confusion when he pulled up only to have me sink lower.

“Let go of me!” I called out, glancing over my shoulder to Goode at last.

I wish I hadn’t looked. The drop down to the rocks was deadly. The ocean beat hard against the rocks, sending white spray splashing everywhere. Goode had a tentative foothold on a thin outcropping of rock, but he now had both hands tight around my ankle.

“Grab hold of the rope!” Fletcher called above me.

I was deeply confused for a moment, since Artemis already had me secured. That was when I saw a second rope descending down the cliff face to Goode.

“Grab hold!” Fletcher called again. “I’ll pull you up.”

“Never!” Goode shouted up in return. “He’s mine! I want what’s mine!”

“Let go of Gideon and take the rope and I’ll pull you up so we can discuss it,” Fletcher shouted in return.

“No!” Goode growled. “I refuse to allow an omega to have any power over me. I will not be saved by an omega!”

“Alpha or omega, it doesn’t matter,” Artemis called down to him. “Let go of Gideon and take the rope and we’ll all be safe.”

“No!” Goode shouted again. “I’ll make you pay for this! I’ll take what’s mine and?—”

That was as far as he got before his words turned into a gasp and his grip faltered. I was soaking wet, and my shoes and socks were sodden. The weight of Goode hanging off my ankle had caused my shoe to slip. Fletcher’s rope was right there, but Goode’s hesitation and refusal to take up the offer of help that was right there was his downfall.

When my shoe slipped all the way off, his grip on my ankle went with it. It didn’t matter how much he grabbed, everything was wet and soggy. He lost my ankle, his footing gave out, and with a loud cry, Goode flailed and tumbled into the crashing darkness below.

I closed my eyes so I didn’t see it, but I heard a crunch above the waves and the rain, and Goode’s cries were suddenly silenced.

“Come on, sweetheart. We’ve got you,” Artemis called down to me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hung onto the rope around me for all I was worth. I should have done more to help myself, but I was too stunned to do more than hang there as Artemis and Fletcher worked to pull me up over the side of the crumbling cliff.

As soon as Artemis had me in his arms, Fletcher grabbed hold of both of us and pulled us farther away from the cliff’s edge. He kept backpedaling as more mud and grass slipped over the edge. He didn’t stop until we were well away from the side of the cliff.

“You’re safe, baby,” he said, sinking into a pile with me and Artemis as we huddled there in the rain. “You’re safe.”

I felt his relief through the bond like it was my own emotion. He didn’t just mean safe for the moment. I was safe for good now. Goode was dead.

“I feel you,” Artemis said, pushing the horrified feelings trying to poke me with awe and joy. “I can really feel you.”

Fletcher tensed and lifted his head from where he’d dropped it to rest on Artemis’s shoulder as he hugged the two of us tightly. “Oh my God,” he said, wonder and happiness flowing into me from him, too. “He’s right. I can actually feel you.” Fletcher burst into tears like I’d never known from him before. “I can feel you, baby. After all this time, I can really feel you.”

I gasped for breath as the importance of the bond hit me as well. I’d known and loved Fletcher for years, but it was suddenly like I could fully see my beloved for the first time.

“We’ve bonded,” I cried out, overjoyed despite the near death I’d just experienced. “All three of us. We’ve bonded.”

I didn’t care about the rain or the dead body at the bottom of the cliff. I didn’t care that I was cold and starting to shiver. I just wanted to stay there with my mates, the three of us together as a single unit, for as long as?—

My thoughts were cut off and my feelings froze where they were as a light cut through the driving rain. I felt the surprise and wariness of my mates through our bond as we both looked up and around the side of the house. The unmistakable beams of headlights were coming up the driveway.