Chapter 24
I didn’t say anything when she bowed to me this morning. Didn’t react when she barely looked at me. I offered her food and made it about Tony because it was easier than making it about how I hadn’t eaten either.
Then she asked to go to the healer’s. To sever the bond permanently To make sure no one could ever be paired with her again. And I said okay Like a coward. Now how the hell could I tell her Im her mate when she has no intention of being paired again?
I stood outside the cottage now, pretending not to hear her voice inside, pretending not to care what choice she made. But every second that passed, my chest got tighter. If she did it, if she broke the connection permanently. I’d lose the only thing in my life that ever made me feel alive..
Then I felt something.
A shift in the air. A scent I hadn’t smelled in a while, and one I never wanted to smell again.)
I growled under my breath. “Come out, Zane I know that’s you.”
Zane stepped out of the trees, laughing. He was barefoot and shirtless, wearing only sweatpants like some kind of lunatic on a mission His chest had some new carving on it–looked like a piece of jewelry etched into skin.
I raised an eyebrow. “What’s that? Some cult symbol? You get bored and join a shitty brotherhood of creeps?”
Zane grinned “it’s Quinn’s. The same design as her pendant. I’m going to reintroduce myself with it. She’ll know I’m serious. She’ll take me back”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed in his face. “You’re so far gone, man. She’s inside, right now, in the middle of a ritual to make sure she’s never bonded to anyone again. Not even you. Especially not you.”
His smile died. His eyes went wide.
“No she can’t… she wouldn’t…”
He turned and tried to bolt for the cabin.”
“No, she can’t do that
I moved fast, slamming into him before he reached the stairs. We hit the ground hard, rolling in the dirt, fists flying. He was sloppy, all rage. I was trained, focused.
But he didn’t fight fair.E
When I shifted into my wolf form, towering over him, he just smiled.
“You can’t beat me this time,” he said, pulling something from behind his back. “I’ll kill you, and no one else will come between me and Cuinn.”
I lunged, but I was a second too late. He drove the knife into my side. Wolfsbane, Shit.X
I howled, pain tearing through me as he stabbed me again. And again.X
I shifted back into human form, collapsing into the din, gasping, blood soaking into the ground beneath me.ll
I woke up in chains. Metal bit into my wrists and ankles. My body felt like it had been tom apart and stitched back together with fire. Zane was there, crouched in front of me, smirking like he’d already won.
“Look at you,” he said “Depending on me to live. Now I get to decide. Live or die. We both know how this ends, though. Same way it ends for every bastard who crosses me”
I met his gaze. “Even if you kill me, you’ll never have Quinn“)
it was the clarity that came with knowing I was done for. If Quinn Part of me felt calm, weirdly. Maybe it was the blood loss, or maybe it w severed her bond today, she’d be safe Free If I died, it wouldn’t matter anymore. She’d survive.
Zane frowned. “What the hell are you smiling at? Are you hiding something?“”
fire just a shame,” I said, “that you’re the last face I have to look at. How insulting.“W
snapped “İnsulting? My sight?” He grabbed a whip and lashed it across my chest.
en exploded through me, but I didn’t cry out C
kapt whipping My vision blurred. My skin burned. But in my head, I saw Quinn: Her face. Her eyes. The way she looked when trying not to fall apart
whispered barely audible, “Quinn take care of yourself. I love you”
