29. Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ava's wolf snarled in warning. In an instant, her eyes bled to her wolf's, the animal clawing to get free to defend her mate.

To her credit, Luna didn't flinch. "It isn't an accusation; it's a statement of fact. Remmus' mind is warped under coercion. Who did this to him?"

"His parents."

"I see." The red-haired woman sighed softly. "It is always the parents who scar us the worst, isn't it? Always our children who bear the burden of our sins."

No one responded. In silence, Luna sat painfully still as she rooted around in Remmus' mind. Ava's wolf shifted restlessly beneath her skin, but she held her at bay, knowing that Luna might be his only shot at surfacing.

"May I ask why his temporal bone was recently broken?"

All the air seemed to be sucked out of the room at Luna's question, and Ava realized that none of Remmus' clansmen knew of Aidan's misplaced rage on the heels of their stolen kiss. Fortunately, the man in question came clean.

"I sucker-punched him."

"Aidan!" Kaien and Nina's voice echoed in tandem, both Raeths turning on him with varying levels of anger. Had she been the one fielding their glares, she would've whimpered.

"Remmus was kissing me," Ava explained, cringing. "Aidan thought he was protecting me."

Kaien's face was twisted in horror at his brother's actions. "You didn't."

"Have any of you tried to pull him out? To help him surface?" Luna broke the tension.

Zeke cleared his throat. "I've attempted to connect with him, but I—"

"Not you, Ezekiel." Spoken as if swatting a fly from the air, Luna's voice was laden with resentment. "Remmus doesn't trust you, and the last time you spoke with him, you unintentionally incited his coercion. Not you. Never you."

Luna turned her attention to where Nina stood. "He trusts you most, but I understand your situation. With your fluctuating power levels, it would be unwise to attempt to pull his consciousness back to the surface."

The red-haired Raeth healer slanted her gaze to regard Kaien. "Remmus trusts you just as implicitly, but the last time he came to you for help, he felt like an outsider in his own clan. He refrained from asking for assistance because you were already spread thin, and he felt like a burden. Now is no different."

Ava's head dipped as emotion built in her chest. "Can you help him?"

Stilted silence met her question, but Luna returned her concentration to Remmus. After what felt like an eternity, Luna's fingertips left his temple.

"I cannot reach him through passive means."

"What does that mean?" Ava demanded. "How can you not reach him? He's right there—help him!"

Each word was a plea, her voice hitching as she rapidly lost her composure. Aidan's hands came around her in the next second, offering her the benefit of touch while her world collapsed around her.

"You have to try harder. Bring him back!"

For the first time, Luna looked at her sovereign. When Nero gave her a slight nod, she spoke once more. "I can attempt to help him surface by force. But Ava, minds aren't always elastic, sometimes they don't bounce back from damage. You have to prepare yourself for the alternative."

Ava didn't hear her, blocking out that reality completely. A hit of power skittered up her spine when Luna connected with Remmus' temple once more. The healer's eyes frosted white.

Ava held her breath.

She tried not to jump for joy when Remmus' features pinched slightly, the only indication of life he'd given since he'd gone under. A second later, he jerked beneath Luna's touch, eliciting a groan of pain from his lips.

Just as suddenly, blood began dripping from his nose. Luna immediately pulled away from him, a look of horror on her features. Remmus writhed in response before Kaien jumped into the fray and laid healing hands on him.

Immediately, Ava's wolf whined within her, desperate to ease the pain of her mate. She didn't have to ask the outcome of Luna's attempt; the somberness in the room spoke volumes.

Luna wasn't one to leave it in the air. "We cannot pull anymore, Ava, or we risk damaging him irreparably. The poison spread too quickly, dug too deeply, and with his compromised mind, I fear he is lost."

Eyes burning, Ava refused to cry. She'd done enough weeping and it'd done nothing to help her mate. He lay comatose before her, while she could do nothing.

In the background, she heard snippets of conversation. Luna, stating that Remmus' only hope may be for someone with another cord to pull. Kaien, asking if giving him time would help or hinder. Nina, thanking Nero and Luna profusely for attempting to reach him.

Ava stopped listening.

Only Remmus remained in her sight, his handsome features once more blank. If she hadn't known better, she'd say he was at peace, content even.

But there'd been no peace when he'd succumbed to the poison that'd eaten away at his mind. Not only had she turned tail and run from him when he'd needed her most, she'd cast hate-filled insults at him on her way out. Ava had shattered him before she even knew he was already damaged. Spinning in a malicious web of her own design, the harder she struggled to get free, the tighter her restraints became.

A gentle touch roused her from the depressing direction of her thoughts. When she glanced up, her gaze clashed with Luna's.

"My father told me once to always leave on a good note." Luna offered her a sad smile. "So, I will say this, wolf: the psychic fire—or the poisoning, I can't tell which—may have eaten away at the base layer of coercion in his mind. If Remmus wakes up, I can assist in unbinding his mind from his compulsions. There is hope, Ava; cling to it."

They left her then.

Somehow, the Raeths and her pack knew that she needed time alone with her mate.

Gingerly, she crawled into bed with him, tucking herself into his side and snuggling into the heat of his body. Fresh mint, the scent that forever clung to his skin, made her lips curl in a half-hearted smile. What she wouldn't give to hear his voice and see that dimple in his cheek.

Day turned to night, but Ava didn't leave his side. When the air turned chilly, despite her residual fear, she pulled the blanket up to her waist and covered her mate.

As she lay there, curled into her mate's body, Ava realized that there was something she could do. There was something that remained unfinished.

Slowly, allowing herself the pleasure of taking her time, Ava extracted herself from the bed. Leaning over him, she pressed her lips to the coolness of his forehead and brushed a stray tendril of hair back from his perfect features.

"I'll kill that Raeth for what he's done to you, Remmus."

For what she had done to him. Gently, she pressed her lips to his, kissing him before pulling away and whispering, "Stay alive for me, mate."

On the bedside table, she scrawled a note that contained only two words. Ava said what he'd tried so hard to express but couldn't say: I'm Sorry.

***

Two hours later, Ava was sprinting on four legs over icy land. Bits of frozen snow compacted between her paws, the chill radiating through her limbs, but she didn't stop. She drew closer and closer to the plant where Remmus had been hit with the psychic poisoning.

Her path had become clear.

Riaz had dropped off several things for her while she'd stayed with her mate, including her laptop. Fortunately, Remmus had left an easy trail to follow. As he had showed her, she'd clicked into the ‘Espionage and Secret Documents' folder and found that his protocol had finished.

The entire package, enough to bury Hannah Preston, was boxed up with a perfect bow. A quick call to her pack's IT wizard made the process seamless. Once engaged, Remmus' code had automatically sent Hannah a notice of investigation from Uncle Sam.

The ‘text' that Hannah then sent from her phone told all employees, cleaners and production members alike, to go home. When the plant blew up tonight, it would frame Hannah as someone attempting to cover her own tracks. If video surveillance was recorded and survived the attack, it'd look like Hannah was the one planting the bomb.

Ava and Hannah were, after all, nearly twins.

It hadn't been hard to convince Celeste to load her up with enough C4 to blow the plant. The other woman was just as bloodthirsty as she was for revenge.

When Celeste had offered the teleport, Ava had refused. She didn't want anyone to compromise her position, and she wouldn't allow anyone to be hurt in her stead. It'd taken her only an hour to get to the plant via car, and it'd been easy enough to shift from there.

The straps of the werewolf-designed pack she'd slung across her back would fit her both in her wolf and human shape. It was big enough to carry the explosives and detonator, but not large enough to be a nuisance.

If she stayed wolf, perhaps the Raeth wouldn't notice her. And yet, maybe it would be better to draw him out, Ava amended, have him come looking for her.

Slowing to a trot, she crawled toward the outskirts of the building, her keen eyesight immediately detecting the two guards that patrolled the inner ring of fences.

Though Ava could shift, remove the C4 from her pack and lob it over the fence, that'd have the same effect of a mole trying to move a mountain. No, if she wanted to take out their entire operation, she'd have to make it inside.

She didn't have the convenience of a short-range teleport but fortunately, she'd thought ahead and brought wire cutters. Ava shifted to cut through the chain-link fence and slipped inside. Then, it was a mad dash toward the inner sanctum.

Baring her teeth soundlessly at the cold, she slunk toward the wall of the building, camouflaged by night. She'd played the stealthy operator to Riaz's blunt hammer too many times to count, and she was no stranger to this type of mission.

Low to the ground, she made no noise as she crept toward the door they'd used their first time penetrating the facility. Clearly seldom used, it made the most sense to infiltrate.

Shifting in a single stride, her booted feet crunched in the snow outside the door. Ava took a breath to steady herself, then listened for the sound of footsteps or signs of life on the other side of the door. Hearing none, her fingers glided over the cool metal of the door handle before turning it noiselessly. Ava peeked inside before she slipped into the warmth of the building.

Locating a remote space to plant the C4 was easy enough. Given ‘Hannah's' text to go home, no one remained in the building, and she'd only scented one person who'd come by this way in the last few hours. Silently, she crept into the abandoned women's bathroom that was centrally located on the lowest floor. At this point, she didn't care if this entire facility burned to the ground.

All she cared about was getting even, and though this was only one small step, at least it was movement forward. It meant destruction to the ones who'd harmed her mate.

Setting the detonator for a remote start, her lips pulled into a savage smile. Revenge would be hers—and she wouldn't leave a body count behind. Now, she just needed to clear the area. Locking the stall door, she wiggled free from beneath the salmon-colored metal and into the bathroom that stunk of disuse and cleaning products. Shuddering, all she could think of was the poor souls who worked in this facility, the majority of whom had no idea they were in the business of killing innocent people.

She crept along the eerie, abandoned hallways as silently as she had before. Each sense she possessed was charged with the sweet energy of justice, the wolf pacing in her chest salivating for retaliation.

Ava was nearly home free when the predator beneath her skin prickled.

Immediately, she brushed up against a wall. Two more hallways would lead her to the exit, then it was a dead sprint to the fences that separated her from freedom.

Gaze slicing around the quiet corridor, she tried to get a read on what had set off her instincts. Nothing appeared within her immediate vicinity, but the primal urge to run wouldn't abate. Wolf whining in her chest, Ava ceded to the impulse.

Though her feet were soundless upon the flooring, the sound of her panting echoed in her ears. Left. Sprint. Bank right. Sprint. The door was within sight, and her heart leapt. Freedom was so close she could taste it.

"Oh, little wolf, come back to taunt me?"

Ava stopped dead.

The voice, deep with a darkness that curled around her and left her wanting to retch, came from behind. It was close enough that she'd have jumped out of her skin if she hadn't already been sprinting. Turning on her heel, she caught sight of the man who'd startled her.

No, not a man.

A Raeth.

Fear spiraled through her mind, the unfamiliar immortal before her a vision clad in black. He sported a venomous smirk, both predatory and terrifying.

If he hadn't played his cards as the villain in this picture, the handsomeness of his face would've been devastating. His eyes set upon Ava like a hungry lion, and inky black hair complimented his classically sculpted features.

"What's a Raeth doing aligning himself with the Citizens?"

The words had leapt from her lips before she could stop them, and the anger simmering underneath them was starkly apparent. This was the Raeth who'd poisoned Remmus' mind.

Ava went for his throat.