explosion of heartache and frustration at the thought of being stuck in here.
They shove Dušan toward the door, and I rush to the front of my prison, sticking my arm out. “Please, don’t do this! I’ll do anything you want, Mad. I beg you.”
It’s Dušan who still looks at me, holding my gaze while my tears run rampant down my face.
He smiles, and I’m crying, unable to stop. “Our souls will always be united. I promise this won’t be the last time you see me. I love you, Meira.”
He’s forced out of the prison, with the guards and Mad following him. Before the main door is barely closed, Dušan turns ferociously onto two of the guards. Brutally, he slams into them, bringing them down to the ground.
The door claps shut.
I freeze.
I can’t breathe.
I’m falling apart.
Growls and thuds erupt, the banging and shuffling escalating. Kill them, Dušan.
I wait breathlessly for him to return. To find out that he finished them off. To take me away from here.
It takes moments for the blast of noises to flatline. Silence.
Anticipation coils around me, suffocating me.
The longer I wait, the more I deflate, and my insides incinerate with anguish.
Never had I dreamed that I’d fall in love, let alone with three men. But to have one ripped from me is like tearing my heart physically out of my chest.
I collapse to my knees, crying loudly in my hands, hissing my anger through clenched teeth.
Seconds pass.
Minutes.
He doesn’t come.
Dušan never returns.
He’s gone.
My world breaks into pieces that will never be put together again.
In my mind, all I see are his wolf-blue eyes, the softness of his lips cushioning against mine, the soft whispers in my ear of what he promised me. Everything we shared had been taken from me and I can’t bear to fathom a future without him.
A sob breaks through me.
Those memories sit inside me like horrible, jagged shards of glass.
Tearing me.
Shattering me.
Killing me.
Selfishly, all I can think is that I wish I’d never fallen in love with anyone.
Bardhyl
“Hurry the hell up,” I bark as Lucien lags behind me.
“Hold your fucking horses.”
Frustration crashes through me that we haven’t found Meira anywhere in the woods.
When we started to go north, we finally caught her scent. But it brought us right to the back entrance to the settlement. And that meant one thing.
She’s been captured. There’s little other reason she’d be using that entry when the woods are crawling with Ash Wolves.
I wipe the trickling blood from my busted lip with the back of my hand. Lucien and I took out a small group of Ash Wolves we found searching the woods, and in all honesty, we couldn’t resist. The idiots were men we knew. Lowest of the scum in our pack, easily manipulated into being loyal to that traitor, so that small service to clean out our tribe was the least we could do.
Now we burst through the tunnels in human form. We wedged several boulders at the cave’s entrance leading to these tunnels, just in case anyone finds it.
I glance back. Lucien finally catches up, bouncing in the dark. He’s a shadow I easily discern with my wolf eyes… Partial transformation has its benefits.
“Had to make sure it was securely in place,” he murmurs.
Both of us frantically bound forward in the narrow tunnel, darkness chasing after us, and all I can think of is Meira.
“We rescue Dušan first, then the three of us bombard Mad. I’m tearing his head off.” I growl.
“Fine, I’m laying a claim on ripping out his spine. But on one condition.” Lucien doesn’t wait for me to respond. “He’s alive so he can feel pain. I want him to fucking hurt so much, it burns inside me with urgency.”
“That assmuncher is going down,” I bark. “Then I’m dancing on his grave. Well, actually, you can do it with your cowboy boots, seeing as how he hated them.”
His brow bunches up, eyes widening. “What the fuck? He hated my boots?”
“Bruh, he laughed about you to others. When I heard him doing it, I hit him so hard, I knocked one of his back teeth out. Never heard a word after that about your boots.”
“You’re a good friend, you know that? If there’s anyone I’d share my soulmate with, it’s you and Dušan.”
“Don’t get all soppy on me.”
Lucien laughs and pats my shoulder as he shoves himself past me, nudging me into the wall on purpose. “Hurry the hell up,” he mocks, but he keeps laughing softly.
I burst after him. We both know