Avenger(56)

I didn’t know you could run so fast. Nolan’s voice filled my head.

There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Like the murderous thoughts I was currently thinking of. I wanted to see Travis’ blood on my hands. I wanted to watch the light leave his eyes. I wanted to—

I came to a stop.

Holy shit.

What? Nolan and Bentley asked simultaneously. Several more voices echoed in my head but I couldn’t focus on them.

I know where we’re going.

Where? Bentley questioned, his voice laced with confusion.

The elders’ headquarters. The elders occupied a small two-story house in the woods to conduct their business. It had been vacant for years, and no one else knew its location. They didn’t live there full-time, but they spent most of their time there, which meant they were in on it just like I had suspected. I had been right all along about them and I should have trusted my gut. I’d never make that mistake again.

My anger spurned me on the last few miles. I came to a stop outside the house and transformed back into my human skin. I couldn’t get inside the house quick enough. The place was deserted, but I knew Sophie was here.

I jogged up the steps and came to a stop outside a closed door with a deadbolt on it. It was unlocked, my stomach clenched. She’d been locked in here like some kind of animal. Someone had to be really sick to do that to another human being. I took a deep breath and opened the door, bracing myself for what I might encounter.

The room was empty, except for the lone form spread out on the bed. Blood was everywhere. Covering her legs, the sheets of the bed, and even the floor. Her skin was pale and her chest shuddered with shaky breaths. A noise I couldn’t even begin to describe bubbled out of my throat. I ran to her side, taking her face between my hands. She was so tiny and fragile looking. She hadn’t looked this breakable when I found her before. This was bad.

“Sophie, baby, can you hear me?” I lightly smacked her cheeks, trying to generate a response.

Bleary brown eyes peeked at me. They were fading, taking on the chalky tone of death.

“Sophie, stay with me,” I pleaded, on the verge of tears. “I need you, baby. You have to stay with me. You can’t leave me. I love you.” Words tumbled out of my mouth without any control on my part. I needed her to hear my words and to grasp onto them so they could give her the strength she needed to live. She was my life and I couldn’t live without her.

“B-b-b—”

She tried to speak, but couldn’t form words. Her lips had taken on an unnatural blue tone, like someone who was too cold. I looked at the IV in her arm, it’s liquid a strange pearly gray color. I ripped it out of her arm, tearing the plastic in the process, and some of the liquid sprayed on my hand. I screamed out in pain and glanced down at my hand to find it burned and blistered looking in the spots where the liquid had splashed it. My eyes widened. The liquid was laced with silver.

I knew Bentley was in the room behind me, I didn’t know where the others were and frankly I didn’t care.

“Bentley, I need you to stay with Sophie. I’ll be right back. Just talk to her. Keep her eyes open. Please, don’t let her leave me.”

He nodded, taking in the seriousness of the situation. “Hurry.”

I jogged back down the steps and into the room the elders used for meetings. There was a loose floorboard beneath the table and I had to crawl on my hands and knees to reach it. I yanked it up, tossing it to the side of me.

Vials of fairy dust met my eyes. It was gold in color and to a human they would have thought the tiny bottles were filled with sparkling glitter. But I knew better.

I grabbed all the vials, knowing I didn’t need all of them, but there was no way I was leaving them here.

“Hurry, dude,” Bentley warned when I topped the stairs.

My heart was racing so hard in my chest that I was scared it might give out and my blood roared in my eardrums. I dropped the vials on the bed and grabbed one, pulling out the cork. I sprinkled some of the gold dust over the small dot of a wound where the IV had been, before proceeding to pour the rest down her throat.

Within a minute color was returning to her cheeks and her breathing was evening out. I wasn’t going to lose her. I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I wasn’t.

Her eyes opened completely and the warmth of the brown made my heart skip a beat. They weren’t dull like they had been.

“Caeden?” She croaked, her voice dry and shaky.

I couldn’t say anything in response. I reached out, enveloping her in my arms. A sob escaped me and I didn’t care if it wasn’t very Alpha like to cry. I thought I’d lost my girl forever, but she was here in my arms, and she’d be fine.