*Lena*
“What do you an?” I sneered as Adrian slamd the door shut behind him. His blue eyes narrowed on mine for a split second before peering around the room. “He’s not here! I thought he went back to Egoren–”
“He didn’t. I haven’t heard from him in two weeks.”
My heart dropped into my stomach as I searched Adrian’s eyes for understanding. His gaze lingered on mine, furious and intense, but then he glanced at the dying embers in the hearth and bared his teeth.
“It’s fucking freezing,” he sneered through chattering teeth as he shrugged off his sodden coat and let it drop to his ankles. He began striping down while I stood there, shellshocked. “Do you have a blanket, or a towel?”
He was standing in only a wet undershirt and his boxers now, the fabric clining wetly to his skin.
“Lena?”
“Yeah, I–I’m sorry.”
I walked around one of the couches and tossed him a thick wool blanket before kneeling by the hearth and stoking the embers until they began to glow. I heard him slump into the armchair closest to the fire, his teeth chattering violently as I added a handful of kindling and bark to the embers. My fingers felt numb as I worked to stoke the fire into a hot blaze. The heat of the fresh flas so close to my hands did nothing for the chill that ran through , and it wasn’t from the cold.
“He hasn’t contacted you?”
“Not at all,” I replied, glancing over my shoulder at him before tossing a log on the fire and closing the grates.
His cheeks were pink with cold, and his wet hair was dripping onto the blanket, little puddles of moisture casting shadows over his shoulders.
“How did you find ?”
“Do you realize the chaos you caused in Avondale? Your family is in an absolute fucking fit, Lena. Abigail told where to find you,” he bit out, his eyes reflecting from the flas like a mirror as he looked at . “And don’t worry. No one else knows where you are. That’s what you wanted, right? Leaving behind only a note telling your parents you were sorry.... Your father is threatening war against Egoren. He thinks Xander ran off with you.”
“He’s what?” I rose onto my knees, my stomach clenching painfully as I wrung my hands together.
Adrian shook his head, his mouth tightening into a smirk. “Yeah. You heard correctly. I almost got arrested by your uncle’s warriors just for showing up at the palace. The only reason they let go is because I explained that I was there for Xander regarding Crimson Creek, and your grandfather stepped in–”
“Crimson Creek?” I interrupted, rising to my feet. “What about it?”
“What do you an, what about it?”
I blinked down at him. I prayed he could see the confusion and panic behind my eyes.
“Xander hasn’t told you shit, has he?”
I shook my head, and Adrian groaned dramatically as he leaned his head back against the armchair and closed his eyes.
“You two are a ss, you know that? I’ve never t two people so dead set on self-sabotage–”
“Excuse ?” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. “What the hell do you want, Adrian? I don’t know where Xander is. He left, for all I know. We fought, and then he was just... gone. I had my back turned to him for a second and when I turned back around he was gone. I haven’t seen him or heard from since that day, and I left Avondale a few days later. I have a job now. I have a ho, and a new pack. I have no plans to go to Avondale, or Valoria, or anywhere for that matter. Whatever ss Xander created that he’s running from is not my problem–”
“Sothing is wrong, Lena. That’s why I ca here, to find you. Xander wouldn’t just disappear–”
“He’s disappeared on multiple tis!” I cried, my pain and heartbreak spilling over the edge of my calculated grip on my composure. Tears rolled off my eyelashes and stread down my cheeks, trailing along my jaw as I gripped my arms, hugging myself. “I loved him, Adrian. He broke my heart over and over and lied to . He hasn’t told anything about Crimson Creek, you’re right. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t even give the peace of mind of knowing the warriors for Breles were still there looking for signs of Elaine and Henry. I don’t know how Bethany is doing, or what Gideon and his family are up to. Xander is a liar, a manipulator, and I hope I never, ever see him again.”
Adrian pressed his tongue against the inside of his lower lip, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “You’re wrong about him–”
“Am I? If I was wrong, he’d be here right now. He would’ve chased here and tried to make things right, but he’s not that kind of man–”
“You don’t realize what he’s done for you, to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need saving!”
“For fuck’s sake, Lena. You do. You do need saving because you refuse to save yourself. You refuse to use your powers. You refuse to learn. You’re stuck in this fantasy world you created based on your own fear of who you really are, and Xander has stuck his neck out for you ti and ti again!” Adrian rose, the wool blanket cocooned around him the only thing to soften the look of pure hatred lining his features. His stance and expression sent a shock through my system. He looked terrifying, and for the first ti, I noticed the faint scars that rippled over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, the patches of white skin highlighted by the fire that was now roaring in the hearth.
“He loves you, and he’s a fool for it in my opinion. He ca to this realm to find a wife with White Queen blood that wouldn’t die bearing his heir, and he chose you. He loved you, against his better judgnt.”
“You’re a fucking bastard!”
“YOU,” he said hotly, narrowing his eyes on , “haven’t given him any credit for what he’s done to protect you. And unless you help find him, you won’t have the chance.”
“Xander and I are nothing!” I cried. “He didn’t even have the decency to reject our bond so I could move on. Adrian, for the love of the Goddess, you don’t understand–”
“Xander and I have killed together. Did you know that? Has he ever ntioned his ti fighting the wars in our holand, the bloodshed he tried to end? He saved my life more than once, and those acts bound to him for life. I am his Beta, but I’m also his friend, and I know him. I know him, okay? And I know that sothing is wrong–”
“What do you want to do, Adrian?”
“Help find him. Despite what you think of him, he wouldn’t abandon you. I’ve never seen him like he was around you. He told , that day he ran into you and Slate on campus.... He said he’d found her. He found ‘the one.’ He was fucking giddy, if you can believe it. I thought that ant we were packing up to go ho, but he refused to just... just take you back to Egoren. He said you were his mate. I believed him. And I believe him now.”
I didn’t have the words to convey my feelings. I felt like I was being ripped to shreds, and rightfully so. Adrian hadn’t been wrong at all about his description of . No matter how badly it hurt to admit, he was right. I was a coward. I ran when things get tough. I hid when I get scared. I’d been hiding, and running, my entire life.
Xander had been one of the only people in my life who embraced for my faults. He was also the only person who had ever pushed to be better, to learn... and most importantly, he’d done so without putting into a box and forcing to go sowhere, and be sothing that I didn’t want to be.
But his omission of an incredibly painful truth had hit like a freight train as I looked up at Adrian, tears clouding my vision.
“He was going to propose to . He’d asked for my parents’ blessing. He had a ring and everything. We were arguing about how this all could possibly work. And then he told ... he told I couldn’t have children, because of what happened–”
“When you killed that hybrid monster?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t put much stock into anything those people in Crimson Creek told him,” Adrian said with a drawn-out sigh as he sank back into the armchair. His shoulders relaxed, and he cocked his head toward the couch.
I sat down, and whatever strength I had left within vanished as I slumped into the cushions. “Why?”
“Xander will explain when we find him. It’s not for to say. He made promise. He ordered , as his Beta and subject, to let him be the one to explain what happened. But we’re running out of ti now, and I’m worried, Lena, that everything is going to go to shit and we’re never going to see him again.”
“You have to tell –”
“There’s going to be a war, that’s all I know. Your grandfather knows, and is acting on it.”
“What–”
“Xander told him about everything that happened in Crimson Creek, from the mont you two arrived in the village to the day you left.”
The blood drained from my face as Adrian went on, telling about how Xander had traveled straight to Winter Forest and pleaded his case for assistance to my grandfather in a realm that was not his own. He’d left the sa day we’d parted ways at the train station in Morhan.
My heart began to shatter as Adrian went on, and on, about how Xander was sounding a rallying cry for forces to defend the west against an enemy no one knew about.
“The Alpha of Crimson Creek can’t have an army that large,” I protested, gripping the couch’s armrest.
Adrian looked into my eyes and flexed his jaw, then gravely shook his head.
Through the flas reflecting in his deep, sea blue eyes ca a vision from my fevered nightmares.
The man dressed in black, his face swallowed by a grueso shadow as night surrounded us, choking us with its embrace, his teeth long and yellowed in the light of a full moon. And when his eyes t mine....
I’d seen nothing but death.
“We need to find Xander. You bare his mark, Lena. I need your help,” Adrian whispered in surrender.
I nodded, then rose to my feet.
Reviews
All reviews (0)