He was so strong, so powerful, that a direct blow from him to my head would certainly crush my skull. When he swung his fist at , I knew then, I was a dead woman.
So I waited, with my eyes closed, for the impact, assuming my world would fade away soon. Rowan’s sweet face was all I saw before my eyes.
But rather than feeling the direct impact of Ethan’s fist to my head, instead, I felt a rain of debris—bark, leaves, small twigs—as Ethan instead made contact with a large elm tree I was standing next to.
His rageful battle cry rang out around as the splintered wood hit in the face and shoulder. I raised my arms to shield my face and waited for the storm to pass.
When I opened my eyes again, the tree was demolished. A large chunk of it was missing on the far side, and the trunk was bent backward like it would topple over any second.
My eyes then went to Ethan. Blood was pouring from his hand, the skin mangled and shredded from where the bark had bitten into his flesh. However, he didn’t stop. He continued to punch the tree over and over again until his fists were coated in so much blood and cuts that I could barely tell their original shapes.
When he was finally done, he left his fists half buried in the tree trunk and he was still panting heavily from the exertion of trying to keep from hitting . The blood trickled down from his fingers along the tree trunk, forming a small puddle on the ground.
Eyes wide, mouth agape, I stared at him, not knowing what to say. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Had he really just punched a tree instead of ? Nearly destroying a sixty-foot elm rather than my face?
He didn’t spare a look at , and his eyes were red and moist. For a second, I thought, if he were to cry, he would cry blood instead of tears.
At seeing the wounds on his hands, my gut instinct was to offer to help, to try to fix it. Standing there in obvious pain, even though he wasn’t so much as gritting his teeth, I knew that Ethan was more vulnerable in that very mont than he had ever been before, even when we were making love, even when he confessed to about his broken heart, even when he’d told that he loved for the first ti.
But then I rembered—there’s no fixing Ethan. After all of this ti of trying to correct his erratic, unacceptable behavior, perhaps that lesson had finally sunk into my skull, even if his fist didn’t.
He might be vulnerable at the mont, but in a matter of seconds, his countenance would change. He’d bottle that emotion right back up, and he would go from the emotionally available, open person I saw standing before now back to the heartless monster I’d co to know of late.
Even as I watched him, I could see his countenance change. His eyes were narrowing again, and his face crumpled into a scowl, not because of the pain but because of the anger.
Punching the tree hadn’t made him feel any better. It had only ssed up his hands—and the tree.
Knowing that Seraphine and Soren had to have gotten away by now, I resigned myself to the fact that I was Ethan’s prisoner again. Running would do no good. Even with injured hands, he’d catch .
Besides, all of the fight was out of . Not only did Ethan’s outrage let know he’d completely lost his mind now, but it also resigned to the fact that I was a lost cause.
I was never going to break free of him.... Now, I may never even see my son again.
Once he had caught his breath, he said, “Let’s go, Rosalie.”
A mont later a few of his guards arrived, and I knew I’d better start walking. But before I turned to go, I said, “Just rember what I told you, Ethan. I may be here in the flesh and blood, but you will never capture my soul. I don’t belong to you.”
He didn’t say anything in return, only stared at , his red eyes seemingly dead to the world.
The guards surrounded , all of them bloodied and battered from the battle, which I was assuming was over since I no longer heard wolves fighting in the distance. Otherwise, they likely wouldn’t have co to investigate the situation.
I doubted Ethan had actually called for their assistance using the mind-link. He was still under the impression he could handle himself. While that proved to still be true physically, he couldn’t handle emotionally, obviously.
Ethan ca with us. He insisted on haunting , stalking alongside like a phantom, hellbent on staying a nace that simply would not go away.
I thought I’d feel better after saying all I wanted to Ethan, however, I didn’t feel relieved or happy letting my emotion out. In fact, seeing him hurt made more upset than I could understand.
I shook my head and seriously thought there was sothing wrong with .
When we got back to the camp, I saw that much of it was in shambles. People were trying to right the tents and put things back where they belonged.
Luckily for , my prison tent was unhard.
Vicky was in her human form, working alongside a man I had to assu was Paul to help a few injured wolves. When she saw , her eyes lit up, and she ca running over to . “Rosalie!” she said.
Vicky only got about ten feet from when Ethan stopped her. “No!” he shouted. “You are no longer allowed to see Rosalie! No one is!”
Vicky’s face fell, and I watched her puzzle over what might’ve happened. It was clear she wanted to reason with Ethan, but she knew better than to do that. Instead, she asked him, “What happened to your hands?”
“Leave the f*ck alone,” was his impolite response, and once again, I saw the emotion in her face shift. She lowered her head, but glanced at . I could tell she was sincerely concerned for her Alpha.
I wanted to tell her I was sorry and thank her for her friendship, but at the mont, all I could do was keep walking.
“Where’s the baby?” Vicky called after us, and Ethan swirled around and ca after her. Thankfully, by then, Paul was there. He took Vicky by the arm and tugged her away, making small bowing gestures as he went, as if to silently apologize to Ethan so that he didn’t destroy both of them.
“Stop being a jerk!” I muttered, not caring if he heard or not. I knew he wasn’t going to hit now, so I wasn’t afraid of him.
But the defeated spirit I felt was weighing down my soul sat like a heavy boulder in my chest.
Especially when I arrived back at my tent.
Inside, everything was nearly the sa.
Except for the fact that my baby was gone. His bassinet, the one Ethan had made for him, sat there empty. All of his things were gone for the most part. There was just the cot with the dirty blankets on it and a few other items I’d been brought over the ti I’d been held here.
I would go back to my previous disposition soon enough—not eating, not drinking any water, not talking to anyone.
If he wanted to hold here, he’d have to be satisfied with a shell of because that’s all he was going to get.
“You will stay here,” Ethan said to . I didn’t turn around to look at him. “No more visitors. Only you in here... as my prisoner.”
Without turning around, I reminded him of what I’d already told him. “You may have my body, but you’ll never have , Ethan. If you ever regain your soul, you’ll realize what a horrible person you’ve beco! I don’t want to see your face. Ever again.”
He growled at , but he didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I was the prisoner, he was the master.... If he expected to like that, he had another thing coming.
Ethan stepped out of my tent, closing it up behind him, and I heard him telling the guards to stay there and not to go anywhere for any reason.
A sigh of exhaustion left my lips as I lted onto the cot, sitting with my back against the tent wall again, my knees folded up into my chest.
I had done this before; I could do it again.
But this ti... there was a hopelessness around that I hadn’t felt before. My son was gone. I had no chance of getting to see my friends. Just .
I wished that I could beco a spirit and just float through the tent walls, that I could fly away, over the forest, to find my baby, and then re-solidify next to him, snatching him up in my arms.
For however long Ethan kept here this ti, I would spend every mont thinking of Rowan and praying that he was safe.
When Ethan first t , I was a different woman in many ways, but one thing he failed to take into consideration was how dramatically a woman can change when she becos a mother.
Before, I was trying to find a way to survive Ethan for myself and the welfare of soone I’d never t. Now, I was trying to survive Ethan for Rowan, my child, the most important person in the world.
That made far stronger than Ethan could ever realize.
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