But coils of discomfort tightened inside her. She’d only been in Blackthorn a couple of days at most. She would have gone straight to the Dehains’ club. She could have only been with Caleb and Jake.
The implications were only just beginning to take hold. The very thought of her big sister even looking at one of the monsters that were Caleb and Jake in that way…
Another beep resounded in her ear.
‘How did you lose it, Lei? How did you lose your serrynity?’
‘It’s a long story. Sophie, you need to listen to me. Caleb knows about you. He knows what you are now and he will be looking for you.
She’d been right to suspect his hunt for her was about far more than being responsible for trying to kill his brother.
And now she had the most prolific serryn hunter on her heels for more than just personal reasons.
‘Soph, you said you’re safe. How safe?’
She looked back at Jask. ‘As safe as I can be in Blackthorn.’
‘Then stay there. There is something I have to do. I’ll be returning to Blackthorn in the next couple of days.’
Another beep.
Her heart skipped a beat. ‘Returning? Why?’
‘I’ll explain everything when I see you. But you must listen. You must not be on the streets. You cannot let Caleb find you. You cannot let anyone find you, do you understand me?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t explain over the phone. But I need you, for once in your life, to do as I ask. You can’t even imagine the consequences if you don’t. Tell me you understand.’
‘Lei, you’re freaking me out.’
‘Please, Sophie,
please
tell me you’ll do as I ask.’
‘Lei, I might only have seconds of battery left. I’m going to go and get Alisha.’
‘No! Sophie – listen to me! Alisha’s all right. I promise you. I would not have left her if I didn’t believe it.’
‘She can’t be all right! She’s alone with Caleb and Jake Dehain!’
‘And I am telling you there’s more to it. Sophie, promise me, please. Prom–’
The air went dead.
The tears welling behind her eyes.
Eventually she reluctantly dropped the phone from her ear.
‘They’re alive?’ Jask asked.
She nodded. Her tears finally gave way.
Jask instantly took her into his arms, Sophia willingly burying her face in his chest, accepting his comfort, anyone’s comfort, for the first time in too long to remember.
‘I’ll help you,’ he said softly as he clutched the back of her head. ‘You’re not on your own anymore, Sophie. We’re in this together. Not because I
have
to be anymore. Because I
want
to be. And we’ll sort this. I promise.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
J
ask knew there was something wrong, something horribly wrong, as soon as he approached the compound.
But seeing the open door, the corrugated metal buckled and splintered, was like waking up from a nightmare only to see the monster still crouched at the foot of the bed.
Even Phia’s hand felt distant as he marched down the corridor as if on automatic pilot.
He pushed through the next buckled door to find the usually permanently occupied room empty. The security-coded door ahead equally lay open. But it was the bloodstains on the floor at the table, against the wall to his left, let alone to his right, that made his gut clench.
Fresh bloodstains.
‘What the fuck?’ Sophia whispered.
She echoed what he couldn’t even bring himself to think.
Pulled between ploughing on and protecting Phia, he froze to the spot. ‘I need to find you somewhere to hide.’
‘No way,’ she said curtly, tightening her grip on his hand. ‘I’m not leaving you.’
He glanced across at her – at the determination in her brown eyes. ‘You’ll do as I say,’ he said, his tone laced with impatience.
But movement at the door ahead made them both flinch.
The look in his fellow lycan’s eyes sent an icy stab into his heart.
‘Jask,’ Caspian said.
Whoever it was, they were long gone. That much was obvious. What he had walked into was the aftermath.
He clenched Phia’s hand and ploughed forward, glancing at the dismantled security panel as he passed.
‘The alarm didn’t go off,’ Caspian explained. ‘We didn’t get any warning.’
Jask picked up pace. He let go of Phia so he could shove open the first gate, sending it ricocheting back at him before he slammed it back against the wall.
He passed through the tunnel in seconds. He came to an abrupt halt, his heart racing like he’d never known.
The bodies were laid out on the green – thirty easily. Bloodstains marked their makeshift shrouds. The atmosphere was dense with the pain and mourning of the distraught survivors.
He looked across the quadrant to see Corbin picking up pace to meet him halfway. From the way he clutched his side, a side Jask then saw was bloodstained, he knew Corbin was struggling to contain his own pain. His face was bloodied, grazed, as were his hands. He’d taken a beating. A beating he had thankfully survived.
Jask instantly wrapped his arms around his friend, the relief of seeing him alive the only consolation.
‘Corbin?’ he asked in need of an explanation as he eased his friend away again.
‘At least forty of them,’ Corbin explained. ‘They disarmed the alarm systems somehow. They ploughed in here and didn’t hold back on the fire.’ Tears were already glossing his eyes – tears of fury, tears of sadness. ‘No reason that we know of. No explanation.’
Jask looked back out across the quadrant as something dark, something dangerous, something long suppressed coiled inside of him.
‘We tried to take them down but they’d gathered a small number of us,’ Corbin continued. ‘They threatened to kill them if we got in their way. Whoever the fuck they were, they were professional. Uniformed. Silver neck cuffs. Helmets. The works. But not uniforms I’ve ever seen. We didn’t stand a chance. Not unless we sacrificed the ones they held.’
Jask looked back across to the quadrant, scanned his pack until his eyes fell to where Dione sat by the small bundle that lay at her feet. Her eyes were glazed as she rocked. He fought back the escalating fury that burned his throat.
He had to keep it together.
He fought to keep it together.
‘No one’s got an army like that in Blackthorn,’ Jask hissed. His attention snapped back to Corbin. ‘Did they give any indic–’
But catching the scent in the breeze, Jask’s attention snapped to the whispers of smoke in the distance. Smoke coming from the outbuildings beyond the arch.
Heart pounding, he marched across the quadrant towards it, not even registering if Corbin or Phia were following.
He picked up pace through the arch, took an abrupt left through the gate.
And froze.
What was left of the greenhouse was a burnt shell. The herbs and the plants – their lifeline – were nothing but ash.
He snatched his gaze back to Corbin as he drew level.
‘We did what we could but it was futile.’ A new pain flashed in Corbin’s eyes. ‘Jask, they took some of our young.’
Jask couldn’t move. Everything around him blurred into some unreal distance.
‘They didn’t say where. They didn’t say why,’ Corbin added. He looked to the dense sky, closed his eyes to compose himself, and took a steadying breath before looking back at Jask. But his attempt to contain his tears didn’t work.
Jask hadn’t seen Corbin cry since the night they lost Ellen. Pain seared through him, his own tears scorching the back of his eyes.
‘Tuly was amongst them,’ Corbin finally declared. ‘They took my baby girl. The bastards took my baby girl, Jask. And there was
fuck
all I could do about it.’
Jask stepped forward to grip Corbin’s neck, before pulling him against him, holding him tight, the only comfort, reassurance he could offer him.
He looked across at Phia, tears equally filling her distressed eyes as she stood motionless watching them. He reached for her, wiped a tear from her cheek.
‘Jask…’ Corbin began. But he couldn’t finish.
Jask pulled back enough to look at him – had sensed it in his tone. He’d heard that tone once before, and it tore through him now as it did then. His heart rate slowed to a painful thud. ‘Rone?’
The look of confirmation in Corbin’s eyes may as well have gutted him.
Jask’s gripped his best friend’s arm. ‘Where is he?’
‘He wouldn’t back down, Jask,’ Corbin explained.
‘
Where
?’ Jask demanded.
‘I’m sorry.’
Jask shoved his way through both Corbin and Phia, all but falling through the gate as he scanned the courtyard.
He didn’t need an answer once he was out there. Three of his pack emerged from the holding block. And when Samson’s gaze met his, he knew.
Jask didn’t feel the ground beneath his feet as he burst inside. The holding room was empty. He skimmed the steps, staring into each of empty rooms to his left as he did so.
But he could smell the blood. He could sense the pain. As Sera exited the third room with a bloodied bowl in her hands, as her eyes met his, he took the last few steps.
Solstice was stood beside the stone table, gazing down at the figure laid out on it, her hand gently sweeping Rone’s curls back from his forehead.
Jask braced his arms on the doorway, unable to bring himself to step across the threshold as he stared down at the bloodied, beaten body of his son.
His eyes snatched to Solstice’s, her tearful blue eyes gazing back at him.
Then he heard his son take a breath. A laboured breath, but a breath all the same.
His heart leapt and he lunged forward.
But Solstice was between them before he could get there, her hand on his chest. ‘He held on for you,’ she said softly. She eased onto tiptoe to whisper in his ear. ‘There’s nothing we can do. Not with the herbs gone. There’s ten out there now trying every witch in Blackthorn. We could only hope you’d get back in time. He doesn’t know,’ she added. ‘He doesn’t know it’s all gone.’
Jask was by his side in seconds, one trembling hand clutching the stone table, his other on Rone’s chest just so he could be sure the movement hadn’t been an apparition.
Rone opened his eyes – eyes that were sunken in his swollen face. He was barely recognisable. His breathing was shallow and, from the tension, the pain was too intense for anything more than that.
He stared down not only at his son’s beaten body, but his
tortured
body.
Fury burned deep, but not as deep as the guilt.
Rone held up his hand a little and Jask instantly grasped it.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rone said, even the small movement making the splits in his lips bleed. He gasped for air, at least one lung evidently punctured. ‘I let you down again.’
Jask shook his head, but waited patiently as Rone gained enough breaths to talk again.
‘I tried to be you,’ Rone said. ‘To save them. But I couldn’t.’
Jask could barely swallow against his constricted throat.
‘He tried to get the young down here and tuck them away in the recesses in the containment rooms,’ Solstice said. ‘But they caught up with us. He tried to protect Tuly. He tried to protect me. Your son is a hero, Jask.’
He looked across at Solstice and Corbin in the doorway, Solstice’s arms wrapped around herself, the distress clear in her eyes.
She’d been Rone’s mother in Ellen’s absence. She’d been the parent Jask had failed to be. Now she rested her head back against the doorframe, selflessly there again to be his comfort despite her own child having been snatched away.
Jask attempted to swallow, but there was nothing fluid in his throat. He looked back down at his son, gently cupped his face. ‘You did exactly what I would have,’ he said. ‘You put yourself at risk to save your pack – I couldn’t ask for more bravery.’
Rone caught his breath again. ‘I know you wish I’d died that day. That Ellen had lived. That maybe my brother… was more than I could have been.’
Jask’s tears dropped onto his son’s arm.
‘I wish I could have been more,’ Rone added, looking at him with eyes that were the image of his mother’s.
‘You never needed to be more,’ Jask said, reaching to hold his son’s face. ‘
I
needed to be. You didn’t fail. You’ve never failed.’ He pulled one of the packets out of his pocket and held it up for Rone to see. ‘We got it, son,’ he said. ‘Thanks to you we got the turmeric we needed. You
did
save us.’
Rone tried to smile, but it only made him wince.
‘You…’ Rone gasped for air. ‘Get our young back,’ he said, clearly using the last of his strength to grip his father’s hand – a hand that was icy cold now. ‘No one–’ He gasped for air again. ‘Fucks with… our pack… right?’
Jask nodded. ‘No one.’
Rone tried to smile again. He didn’t quite make it.
His hand fell lax.
His chest stopped moving.
Jask’s throat scorched. He couldn’t breathe. The image of his son blurred behind the water filling in his eyes.
Water he was drowning in.
He fell to his knees. Every defence mechanism told him it wasn’t real, that it hadn’t happened.
The yell that escaped was disturbing even to him, almost as if it was coming from someone else. A gut-wrenching yell that came from somewhere deep and feral and visceral inside. Something that screamed for blood.
Something that screamed for vengeance.
* * *
Sophia flinched and recoiled from the doorway.
She’d only seen glimpses of what was going on – both Corbin and Solstice blocking the way. But she’d strained enough to hear everything.
And the war cry that echoed from within the chamber stabbed her like a blunt blade direct into the heart.
She slammed her hands to her mouth and backed against the wall.
It had been enough seeing the aftermath out on the lawn, to see the desecration of their crops, to hear they had taken the young – taken Tuly. But knowing now what she knew about the relationship between father and son, her own war cry resounded from within – a silent cry of fury like she’d never felt.
And as Jask’s emotional agony, pain and grief ricocheted around the chamber, she could think of nothing but getting to him. Of holding him. Of doing whatever was possible to give him any fraction of comfort that she could.
She pushed herself from the wall, almost stumbling into Corbin as she tried to squeeze through the gap between him and Solstice. But Corbin was having none of it.
He braced his arm across the doorway as an impenetrable barrier. ‘No, you don’t.’
She took a step back, her hands clenched. ‘I need to see him.’
‘No,’ Corbin said. ‘You need to leave him be.’
Despite knowing it was futile, she stepped forward again, ready to shove Corbin aside if she had to. But Corbin’s hands locked on her upper arms as he pressed her back against the wall, Solstice promptly quietly closing the door to shield Jask inside.
Corbin’s eyes weren’t lycan eyes laced with the familiarity she had come to know and trust with Jask – his was the warning glare of a stranger. A stranger who was barely holding it together in his own anger and grief. ‘He needs time alone.’
‘I want to see him.’
‘It’s not about what
you
want. He’s not safe right now.’
‘He won’t hurt me.’
‘Don’t,’ he said, his tone laced with impatience, his eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t talk like you know him. You know
nothing
about him.’
‘I know what Rone meant to him.’
His eyes flashed but then he frowned again. ‘Then you’ll also know what Tuly means to me. So you’ll know that right now is
not
the time to be arguing with me. No one goes in there.’
The resentment that emanated from him so profusely forced her to be silent for a moment. Just long enough for Solstice to step over and place a hand tenderly on her partner’s arm.
‘Let her go, Corbin. We’ve had enough conflict for one night.’
Corbin stared Sophia down for a second longer before he turned away. He stepped back over to the door, leaning against the architrave, clearly listening to whatever was going on inside.
The bangs and thuds, the splintering of wood within, made her flinch again.
‘Get some fresh air,’ Solstice said to Sophia, everything about her surprisingly composed despite the lingering distress in her own eyes. ‘Jask will find you when he’s ready.’
An act of kindness or just one of civility on Solstice’s part, it still made Sophia’s chest clench. ‘I’m scared for him.’
‘Jask is strong,’ Solstice said. ‘We need to give him time to remember that.’
Sophia pressed her lips together. She glanced back at Corbin. She was an outsider – that’s what she had to remember. She wasn’t part of the pack – not like Jask had said, not like she’d started to feel herself to be.