Chapter 54 Forsaken
☽ Bastian ☽
The old man led me into the house. He gestured to a chair by the table.
“Have a seat, even though I shouldn’t be offering you one.”
I scowled. A middle-aged woman stood beside him, her smile open and motherly. I knew who she was even before the door had opened.
Gwen Till. My mate’s mother.
Her scent was all over the house, tightly entwined with Sorin’s to a troubling degree.
I gave her a courteous nod. To him, I said, “I’m here on important business. Let’s speak in private.”
“Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.” His jaw clenched stubbornly.
Interesting.
Deciding to handle what I came for before addressing the woman, I sat.
The wooden chair creaked under my weight.
Ten years ago, when I was fourteen, Alpha Mordane banished Sorin for speaking heavily against the amulet. I hadn’t understood it then. I’d felt Sorin should let my uncle keep his adornment.
“The pack needs you.” I pinned him with my gaze.
“The alpha seems to disagree,” he returned.
“Since when do you care what he thinks?” I was getting angry.
“Since I realized I could pursue a life of my own.”
“And relinquish the responsibility of watcher to me?”
I’d begun holding Mordane back from ferality in my teens. When I’d barely mastered my Lycan and grown into my strength.
His face softened a notch.
Then he heaved a breath. “How often?”
“Several days a week now. It’s getting worse.”
Twenty years of harnessing a crimson vampire’s power through an amulet was crashing into Mordane with a vengeance. If he didn’t take it off soon—he’d be lost forever.
“We might have to take the offensive at this point,” Sorin grated.
“I agree. But before that, I need you to return to IronWolf.”
Sorin stiffened. “He guards that amulet with his life. He will make good on his promise and kill me if I step foot in that territory.”
I noticed Gwen tremble at that.
Alpha Mordane rarely spoke what he didn’t mean. He’d meant it when he chose the amulet over his former beta’s life.
“You’re wise to heed that, but you’d be surprised when I tell you he’ll appreciate your presence now, even if he refuses to admit it.”
He raised a brow.
“He’s isolated,” I continued. “He does nothing but relive the war twenty years ago, up until the day she died. He needs you.”
He crossed his arms, leaning fully against the table. “I sense more.”
He’d always had that uncanny ability.
“I’m sure you’ve noticed the heightened feral threat. The alpha has ordered me to handle it personally.”
“And?” he insisted.
“He wants the blood. Retrieved, not destroyed.”
“He can’t!” Gwen blurted. Her eyes fired up. Surprisingly, there was no resemblance to my mate’s amber inferno.
“He can’t,” Sorin echoed, his voice drawn.
I shared their worries. Mordane shouldn’t be allowed to possess more of Lyssa’s blood in any form.
“I don’t intend on following that order. But Graves must be stopped.” I didn’t add I was chasing the vampire who’d marked, and hounds, my mate.
Sorin, a man of few words, nodded. “When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow, if you don’t mind. I got word my men arrested a witness to one of Graves’s labs. With her information, I could find the mortal in a brace of days.”
Sorin sighed. “It’s settled then. I’ll return to the pack my best friend kicked me out of, while hoping he won’t take my head for it. Because he’s lonely…”
“That’s right.”
We locked gazes, and it was enough. He’d raised me after my parents’ death; we’d reunited after ten years. Life goes on.
Gwen shifted on her feet. She looked like she had something on the tip of her tongue. I decided to help her along.
I nodded at her, my tone casual. “I know your daughter, Gwen.”
She froze. Sorin’s head whipped between us.
She exhaled shakily.
“H-how?”
“She’s my mate.”
The house quieted.
A myriad of expressions crossed her face. Shock, relief, calculation… then disturbance.
Unable to hold back, I tilted my head at her.
“Does he know you abandoned your daughter in a strange pack? Left her to fend for herself while you slummed comfortably in District 1?”
She sputtered. “I-I…”
“Abandoned?” Sorin cut in. “Maeve left for IronWolf with her mate. What are you talking about, Bastian?”
I exhaled hard, my fist tightening.
“I am her mate. We met on the night of the ceremony.” I shifted my attention back to the woman. “Did you even know how she fared?”
Worry flashed over her features.
Then surprisingly, her chin jutted with confidence. “Of course I did. I heard from a confidant in IronWolf. I asked if a silver-haired young lady had found her mate that night, and they confirmed. I couldn’t get more information, but knowing she’d found her mate, I knew she’d be safe.”
“Why leave her at all?!” I exploded.
Sorin moved to stand between us, his eyes warning me to watch it.
“You wouldn’t understand!” she spat back. “Seems she found her way to the very thing I was protecting her from.” She muttered the last part to herself.
“She’s worried herself sick since the day she discovered you missing. Prepare to meet her tomorrow.”
She blanched at that. At least she felt guilty for her actions.
I’d finally found my mate’s lost relative. Now I could focus on terminating Graves and the crimson leech.
As I made for the door, Sorin walked me out, brows drawn.
“Are you treating her well? A pleasant surprise, really. Gwen is one of my oldest friends. My only. I’m sure she has reasons for what she did…”
“After lying to you about how she separated from her daughter and abandoning the girl to such conditions?”
“I trust her,” Sorin insisted.
I bit my tongue.
There was no time to argue with the man. I yearned for my mate’s scent, her soft skin. Her fiery, expressive eyes.
“I’ll send escorts before sunset. Safe travels.”
“And to you.”
I stepped off the porch, my shadow lengthening the farther I got.
“Be careful,” Sorin called after me. I had no response.
Running back to IronWolf, I wondered at the tightness in my chest. My birth father had died before we could form a bond. My uncle was distant and vicious, banishing the father figure who’d raised me.
I pushed the feeling to the back of my mind. My mate would ease it, as she always did, once her arms wrapped around my neck, once she peered up at me with mischief dancing on her lips.
At the great doors of the fortress, I instantly knew something was wrong.
Leif paced the entrance with a limp. His left pant leg was shredded and bloody, revealing a leg still melding from a deep gouge.
Fangs bared, he barked orders to the wolves around him. Had Mordane succumbed again?
“What happened?”
“Ah, he returns.” Leif sneered. “The prince that’s never where he needs to be.”
My heart stuttered on a stray thought.
I advanced with menace bleeding through every pore.
“Have something to say? Say it,” I growled.
For the first time, Leif met my gaze, fangs flashing as he chuckled.
“The leeches have always had a thing for you. Stealing your mate away like they stole you a while ago for their pleasure.”
My fist connected with his skull.
Bones crunched, blood sprayed. When he hit the ground, he didn’t twitch.
“What the fuck did he just say?” I barked at the soldier beside the fallen commander.
“The princess consort was taken. But according to some reports, she might’ve gone willingly. She chose the leech over our charging soldiers.”
My vision bled red. A punch to the stone wall rattled my arm.
She chose him? My goddess given mate? No. Impossible.
Either possibility was a bitter pill to swallow. Either my mate had lied, like she had concerning her mother—or the leech had abducted her.
She’d vehemently maintained that the vampire had taken her mother. I’d discovered that wasn’t true tonight.
What else would I discover when I hunted them both down?