23. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ava. Ava. Ava—Ava—Ava.

Avelina.

Across from him sat the woman Remmus had once sworn to find, protect, and love enough to make up for what had happened to them both. He knew the color of her hair and the startling clarity of her eyes. He knew her laughter and her smile.

He had found his fated mate in the werewolf he'd come to know as Ava, but their past ran so much deeper than she knew.

Because Remmus was Ciru.

Eight hundred years ago, he had watched his parents ruthlessly murder a village while they laughed and encouraged him to do the same. He had been paralyzed by his mother's power, propped against a hitching post, mute and motionless, as the people who raised him claimed the lives of everyone Ava loved.

He'd watched.

When they teleported him away, he'd feared he would never see her again. With his parents dead, he'd been free to find her, but no matter how many times he attempted to teleport to her psychic signature, he could never locate her. The shock of her parents' deaths—and his betrayal—had forever altered it. Trauma had a way of changing someone.

After a century, he'd given up trying to find her through other means. She had been a human, and he'd assumed she'd passed away of old age. When Dominick had called his mate Avelina, he'd momentarily stopped breathing. To hear her story now simply confirmed it.

The psychic signature she'd had as a child was indeed vastly different to the one she now carried. It was the reason he hadn't recognized her earlier.

Across the table from him, Ava's inner turmoil continued to assault him. The hateful edge of it corded through their bond, blinding him, as her despair began to build.

His fingers were still locked around hers, offering her comfort for something he had done to her. He was the sinner to her saint. The pain in her past was there because of him. All at once, remorse filled him: sorrowful, suffocating, and blinding.

Remorse.

A debilitating need to cut the coercion from his body nearly blinded him, and it was only his drive to keep it from Ava that had him halting it in its path.

Remmus could never tell her the truth. He could never tell her that he was the one responsible for what had happened to her family.

But to purposefully keep her in the dark was an unforgivable betrayal. While he could claim it was for her own protection, the truth of it was that it'd be to protect himself. She would continue chasing her revenge against Ciru, not knowing he was the man she called her mate.

Remmus couldn't live a lie, regardless of what his parents had wanted for him.

Failure.

His mother's coercion iced through his veins, the inky shadow reaching into his mind and yanking on his sanity. What followed in its wake was a rising swell of darkness that nearly undid him.

Remmus loosened his hold on Ava's fingers before his control snapped. A bite of sharp pain lanced into his palm, the demand to satisfy the coercion growing more impatient with every passing moment.

"Ava, should we return to the den?"

As he suspected, Ava would attribute the coarseness in his voice to anger on her behalf, and when she gave a quick confirmation, Remmus counted his blessings.

Avelina was here. Alive. Thriving. In the wake of his betrayal, she hadn't perished after a tragic mortal life; she'd bloomed. She hadn't needed him to be successful; she'd become an amazing woman without him.

Failure.

Weakness.

Ineptitude.

Laden with the sins of his past, Remmus rode the rising tide of coercion as it began to drown him. His teeth grit together, his muscles locking in his right arm. It wasn't long before his other hand clamped shut, mirroring the other extremity as his body tried to ineffectually dispel the compulsion.

He quickly teleported them back to her quarters. With every ounce of adoration and apology he possessed, he picked her up and gently set her in bed, finally realizing why she never had blankets there.

Ava had felt trapped, suffocated beneath the layer of blankets. She'd watched her entire village be murdered while underneath them, likely associated their weight with what had likely been the worst day of her life.

The last day she'd seen Ciru. Remmus.

He both loved and hated the fact that she clung to him like a lifeline.

"I'm sorry, Ava," he whispered, his nails biting into his palm. "I can't—I need time. To process."

She nodded, tearful but understanding. "Come back to me when you're able."

Though he'd have longed to hold her through the worst of her nightmares, he couldn't be here. He wasn't this man she thought him to be—especially not when he was the one she yearned to snuff out.

He tenderly kissed her cheek, then teleported to his quarters. The teleport, however, was so weak he ended up splayed on the ground instead of on his feet by his blade. He'd taken one step toward it when he received the telepathic knock on his mind. Though he was burning with the need to cut the coercion from his body, he answered the call.

Zeke.

Aidan said you'd completed your mission with the packs.

Mentally jerking away from the impatience in the sovereign's telepathic voice, Remmus cringed. Yes, but we're still working on the St. Louis plant.

We can't afford to dawdle, Remmus. We need more intel on the human's Raeth before they escalate another attack. The Citizens won't respect the post-Heat peace. With so many new and vulnerable clan members, we are at too much risk.

Remmus' fingers dug further into his palm at the veiled reprimand. While he could skirt his own mind's accusations for a nominal period of time, an authority figure's rebuke often proved ruinous. The one time that Nina had done so before she knew his story had nearly resulted in his exsanguination.

Even connected to Zeke as he was, Remmus hadn't explained his situation to the other sovereign. He simply hadn't felt comfortable enough yet, and now that error was proving disastrous.

Forgive me. I'll find the Raeth.

The addition of Remmus' apology made him crumple to his knees, the heavy toll of his curse banging the drum inside his mind.

We can't let them slip through our fingers again, Zeke added.

Of course. Remmus cringed as his fists pounded against his thighs, the overwhelming need to cure his compulsion nearly incapacitating. I'll update you as soon as I have something.

Zeke was gone from his mind without so much as a goodbye, and Remmus crumpled to the ground.

Shuddering, he crawled across the wooden flooring, sighing in relief when he pried open his fingers and grasped the hilt of the dagger before drawing it deeply through the flesh of his left arm.

Deep.

Deeper.

Each slice tore through flesh and released his demons, but where he expected respite, it offered only momentary relief. The urges began compounding in his mind, building upon layers of agonizing pain.

The need drove him to tear off his shirt and strike at the head of the snake. No matter how many times he drew the blade over his skin, it didn't loosen the binding. Crimson coated him, seeping out of each cut until his palms were slick.

The ache in his mind never abated.

Growling, Remmus threw the knife away from him, collapsing on the bloodied floor. Each breath that he dragged into his lungs was a struggle; his body attempted to maintain consciousness when all it wanted to do was shut down.

But he'd promised Zeke he would find the Raeth.

Remmus allowed himself one more minute to lay there, pathetically grasping at the rapidly shortening straws of his power.

Something was fundamentally wrong with him. Why had his mother's coercion overpowered him after all this time? After centuries of trauma, it was possible that his mind had weakened, only now to succumb to the smallest push. Whether it was the silver, the coercion, or centuries of damage, he had no way of knowing.

Groaning, Remmus rolled to his knees, distantly aware his pants were saturated with blood. He teleported another sweater onto his frame, struggling when one arm got tangled and he had to work his hand free of the material. But it didn't matter—none of it did—except that his sovereign had asked something of him, and he needed to follow through.

One moment he was kneeling in his borrowed quarters in the den, and the next, he was facedown in the snow. Coughing and sputtering through the ice that'd lodged in his throat, Remmus struggled to rise to his feet. After scrambling upright, the world spun as dizziness shifted his vision. He threw his arms out for balance while he took stock of his surroundings.

The plant.

In St. Louis.

It was snowing.

Fisting a still bloodied palm to his throbbing temple, Remmus grimaced. Why couldn't he concentrate? Why were his abilities wildly erratic? Why had he come here?

The darkness swathed the area in a blanket of secrecy, though Remmus couldn't remember who he was hiding from. To his left was a chain link fence that rose high overhead, topping off with barbed wire that looked sharp.

It was apparent that he wasn't meant to go in. Was that why he was here?

Teeth grinding together, he struggled to recall what Zeke had said to him only minutes before. Or had it been hours? Something about the Citizens. Something about a Raeth … who was their enemy?

A groan at his predicament escaped through clenched teeth, and he instantly knew it'd give away his position.

Failure.

This time, poison flooded every crevice of his mind. It spread like a thick black tar, snuffing out every bit of light he'd been clinging to. It choked him, each breath dragging in and out of his lungs like mouthfuls of broken glass.

He couldn't be here. Remmus was too exposed, too confused. With every step he managed to take forward, he became more disoriented. Blood gushed down his arm and into snow, coating the white fluff with a bright red track.

He had to get back to Ava. Had to apologize.

Where was she?