Chapter 93

Justin POV

I pace the porch, watching the intake of wizards all whisper and gossip around the town square. My body is sore beyond measure, but my mind was working overtime trying to make sense of everything that has occurred.

Randy jobs up to the house, taking a set of jeans that I toss in his direction after checking on the warriors are the border of the pack boundaries.

“He’s almost here,” Randy huffs, shaking his head. “What do you want to do with him when he gets back?”

“I want to know why he left in the middle of the night at a critical time!” I barked. “My father is ill, my pack is growing in size, and he goes out for a midnight stroll and comes back hours later? He has some explaining to do.”

Randy glanced over his shoulder, gulping obviously. “Looks like we’ll get our answer soon.”

Russo limps forward toward my house. He’s wearing a pair of worn pants, his entire chest and abdomen smeared in red, crimson blood. I flinch at the downwind of his scent, the smell of that blood so familiar that it set my Lycan into a fury.

I let him collapse in a chair on my porch, burying his face into his blistered palms.

“Why do you smell like her?”

Russo glanced sideways and shrugged. “I went to go get her.”

I swallowed a thick lump in my throat. If he went after her, without my permission, that’s one thing. But why is he covered in her blood? She’s snuggled up to my father and her false, terrible parents. She should be praised by them for betraying her second mate.

“She’s prisoner,” Russo mumbled. “They beat her constantly, Lycan. She’s close to death.”

I stepped back, my Lycan antsy to run toward her right now, but all I can picture is her clinging to me, stabbing me in the spine, and then curling back into submission at Juden’s heels.

“What are you talking about?” Randy asked, speaking when I couldn’t find the words. “She did what the Alpha King and her own father wanted her to. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Russo sniffled slightly like he was genuinely on the verge of breaking down.

“I don’t know, something just didn’t feel right about it,” Russo groaned. “You should have seen her, Lycan. There’s this damn wolf trying—” he shook his head. “She’s in a lot of trouble.”

“In more ways than one,” I snapped. “She betrayed her mate and her pack!”

“It’s not that simple!” Russo screamed, his voice never so angered like it was just then. “She told me to leave her behind so you wouldn’t get in more trouble,” he snapped, standing quick and slinging a finger in my face. “You have to go after her, Lycan.”

I only assumed that she was getting the luxury treatment after stabbing me, because she betrayed our very mating bond! She would have been totted on the back of a parade if I didn’t know any better.

Hearing Russo try to stick up for her now makes me question everything.

“Who is she with now? My father?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s at Fiery Cross.”

I looked to my Beta for some kind of hint on assurance here. I don’t want to be responsible for this choice. Having her betray me was the worst pain. If I take her back and she attacks me again, I very well could die off for good.

It’s down to if I trust her anymore or not.

“She’s not safe to be around,” I breathed at last. “She tried to kill me.”

“Please, Justin. Just think this through,” Randy begged. He’s been on Helen’s side of this ordeal since it happened, but he was there. He saw it happened and he knows the fact. He turned his focus to Russo. “Come on, Fae. Tell us what is happening to her at Fiery Cross.”

Russo lifted his eyes from the ground, a somber expression tainting his once lighthearted frame.

“She’s in bad shape,” Russo whispered. “She’s got whip marks across her body. She isn’t healing well at all. Her breathing is labored and she’s spitting up blood.” He looked away, wanting to walk off but restraining himself. “They feed her on the floor, like a dog.”

I winced, no matter her betrayal.

I don’t want to see her treated like that.

“So I go get her, then what?” I growl. “I can’t reject her. She’s my only mate, ever! I’ll have to be with her to have pups one day. She’s my other half and she destroyed our bond!”

Randy shook his head in moderate dismissal. “Let’s start with getting her back, Alpha. We’re not going to let her wither away at her father’s fist. She saved the wizards, she saved your ass out there before when she was ambushed! We can’t let the Luna suffer anymore.”

I looked at him so puzzled.

He saw her stab me, right? Was I the only one who was infuriated by this betrayal?

“Fine,” I mumbled. “I’ll go after her. I need to get that rat of her father out of the picture, anyways. I guess for now I should just work out how to get passed his warriors and to find her.”

“Basement,” Russo huffed. “She stays in the basement of his packhouse, in a cell. That’s where they whip her. I could smell the blood from upstairs. She takes a beating day after day down there. She will be there.”

I fell back into the porch swing, my entire demeanor wrecked in thought.

“Did she talk about me?”

My Beta and the Fae both perked up with my question.

“She tried to explain how she was forced to stab you by some kind of wizard spell,” Russo said. “She told me she wasn’t able to control her body but I’ve never seen a wizard with that kind of power. I mean, when I had the wizards try to trick you both back into the Alpha King’s custody, I could only illicit illusions. No kind of magic possess the body.”

“I am sure she has her reasons,” Randy pressed forward. “She would never want to hurt True Mates, or you, Justin. You know that. If we get her back and let her heal, maybe she can explain in full what happened.”

“She stabbed me!” I screamed, wanting to shift right now. “She tried to murder her mate! And everyone here is expecting some form of sympathy from me?!”

Russo spoke through gritted teeth. “You have to accept the facts, Lycan! She loved you before and she could have just made a bad decision! You saw her on the Alpha King’s courtyard! She was beat and tied and tortured!”

“She was not tied,” I corrected. “She was there by choice.”

Randy fell to the ground, exasperated, leaning back against the side of the house. “This is too damn complicated. All of it. I vote we go after the Luna of True Mates.”

Russo holds his hand up. “I do, too.”

“I guess it’s settled then,” I mumbled.

Randy stopped me from leaving, his eyes in a hot fury. “No, you have to answer that question.”

“Yeah, what’s your choice, Lycan?”

Letting my body shiver, I needed to shift, to run and release steam. The best way to do that before was to make love with my mate. Things were already rocky when she was taken. My Lycan wants to have his way with her.

Maybe that is why she betrayed me.

Either way, my answer steadies itself.

“I want her to at least be physically okay,” I admitted. “But as far as letting her walk around my pack free-range, that’s not going to happen.”

I bowed my head in utter defeat.

“The Luna returns here as a prisoner of True Mates.”