I was on the other side of the damn world? I was sitting here and he needed me.
I felt the wave of anxiety start to rise again. The air was sucked back out in a rush and I grew dizzy.
“Skye, breathe,” Nikolai ordered. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
My eyes snapped back to his.
“That’s my girl,” he encouraged, squeezing my hands. I focused on the feel of his rough hands surrounding mine. They were huge and calloused. This close I could see the different shades of gray swirling in his irises making them look like melted silver.
“Breathe in,” he commanded.
I managed to pull in a strangled breath.
“And out.”
I exhaled, the air wobbling as it escaped me.
“Good girl.” He smiled warmly and the effect was incredible. The light of his smile chased away the dark shadows lingering in his eyes and eased the tightness around his mouth.
I licked my lips. “I’m okay,” I whispered.
“I know you are,” he told me firmly. “You’re my daughter. I would expect nothing less.”
But I wasn’t just his daughter.
“I need …” I cleared my throat. “Can I call my mom?”
“Of course.”
Dimitri handed me the phone over Nikolai’s shoulder, giving me a worried smile.
“I’ll see if my guy can find out anything about who was on the plane that landed in Blackwater,” he assured me, already pulling his own phone from his pocket and turning away as he called Viktor.
My eyes dropped to the phone screen. The lock screen was just a black background with the time. 6:37 in the morning.
I frowned. “What time is it in Washington?”
Nikolai glanced down, his brow furrowing as he did some kind of mental math. “It should be early evening. Maybe seven or eight?”
I had lost track of time and time zones, but I was suddenly, exhaustingly aware that I was running on fumes. The only sleep I had gotten was when I was knocked out from the blast.
“I’ve been out of it for three days?” I stared at the date under the time, trying to reconcile the missing hours.
“Technically no,” Nikolai replied, pulling the phone from my hands and unlocking it before handing it to me. It was another black screen with a few apps in Russian.
“The states are a day behind us. You crossed several time zones on your journey,” he explained.
That only made me acutely aware of the headache I still had. “So, I’m in the future?”
He smiled again and chuckled. “Sort of.”
I stared at the phone. “I’m scared,” I confessed, not sure why I felt the need to confide in him.
“Of what?” He seemed genuinely curious.
“What if Mom doesn’t answer?” I whispered. A sickening thought ripped through me. “What if they took her back? The Council wasn’t going to make her go back, but maybe Linden already had it set up. He was working with Damien … He could have arranged to have her kidnapped like the others.”
“You mean your other pack? Long Mesa?” His lip curled in disgust. “You believe they would want her back?”
I stared at him for a beat. “You really have no idea what happened to her, do you?”
His eyes narrowed dangerously. “I thought I did, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.” He closed my hand around the phone. “Call her.”
Nodding, I dialed her phone number and hit the ‘send’ button. I lifted it to my ear as it started to ring.
“Hello?”
I choked on a sob as Mom’s voice came across the line. “Mom?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Skye? Baby, is that you?”
“Yeah,” I replied as I started to cry. I squeezed my eyes shut, reveling in the liquid comfort of her voice as I let the tears fall unchecked.
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, her voice catching. “Honey, hang on, I’m with Mallory. I’m going to put you on speaker phone.”
A second later, I heard Mallory. “Skye! Sweetie, where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I replied quickly, swallowing down my emotions.
Nikolai gave me a soft smile and stood up, backing away to give me privacy.
“Where are you?” Mom demanded again.
“I’ll explain in a minute. Mom, where’s Remy? I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. Is he …” I couldn’t say it.
“Baby, no,” she assured me quickly.
“Goddammit,” Mallory swore. “I bet he was in the middle of the challenge. They can’t have their phones there.”
“Hell.” Mom sounded as frustrated as I felt.
“What challenge?” I snapped, needing answers. “Is he okay?”
“Honey, he’s fine,” Mallory assured me. “One of the betas issued a challenge. He’s handling it.”