47. Elijah - Anger

47. Elijah - Anger
Having to go grocery shopping with Khai has me on edge more than ever. My hands tighten around the steering wheel as I rush to get home—to my precious mate. To my sweet and gentle Ariel. 
Being away from her for more than seven weeks has been torture like nothing I’ve ever known. Not hearing anything about her during that time nearly drove me insane. She is the force behind everything I do. I’ve never told anyone this—not even her—but I am who I am today because she exists. Because of her love and infinite pantience with me.
At a red light, I slam my foot on the gas too hard when it turns green and narrowly avoid an accident by some damn miracle.
“What the fuck?!” Khai snaps. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
I grind my molars. “What if Ariel wakes up and we are not with her and she thinks we don’t care about her?” 
“I’d rather get home late than never,” he huff. “Pretty sure she will think the same. Besides, she’s with Killian and Asher.” 
Some part of me knows he’s right, but he doesn’t understand how obsessed I am with Ariel. No one knows it, no one even suspects, because I’ve always kept my calm, even around her. But these weeks apart made me realize how many regrets I’d carry if I never saw her again.
Fuck being composed. Fuck holding back so I don’t suffocate her with my feelings, when every part of me screams to do the opposite.
And I will. The moment I get home to her.
“You don’t understand,” I say, eyes locked on the road, careful not to crash into anything. “No one understands how much I love her.”
“You’re not the only one who loves her,” Khai reminds me. “These weeks without her have been hard on all of us, not just you.”
The building where we live now finally comes into view, and only then do I feel like I can breathe again.
“But no one loves her the way I do,” I mutter once I park in the underground garage and jump out of the car.
Khai follows me to the trunk. We grab the groceries and head for the elevators, taking one up to the fifth floor. Once there, we open the door to our apartment and step in. 
“Can you take the bags to the kitchen?” I ask Khai as I shove the ones I’ve been carrying into his arms, then rush toward Ariel’s room while he loudly protests behind me.
Unsurprisingly, Killian is in Ariel’s room. He might be just as obsessed with her as I am, and he’s never had a problem showing it, never had a problem letting her know how much he loves her. I’ve always been jealous of how easily he connects with her, how easily she laughs with him. But she and I share something she’s never had with any of the others—deep, meaningful conversations.
After she went missing, Killian let his rage loose, nearly setting the Royal Palace ablaze while Khai and Asher tried to calm him. As always, I hid behind my walls, the ones only Ariel has ever managed to break through, searching for the peace and calm I only ever feel with her. But her absence nearly destroyed me. Only the hope that I will find her prevented me from sinking into a deep abyss of misery from which I would have never found my way back. 
These past weeks have been pure hell. I’ve never felt so desperate, so helpless, as when I didn’t know where she was.
I look at the woman who holds my soul in the palm of her hand.
I can still smell the fear that nearly drowned me when the scent of her blood hit my lungs. Even now, days later, I can still see her small form vanishing beneath the waters of Lake Michigan, dragged into its dark depths by the kraken guarding the ship that held her prisoner. I’ve never been more happier being a water dragon than when I was fighting for Ariel’s life. 
The new scars adorning my back are worth it, because they are proof that Ariel is safe. 
Khai joins us as soon as he drops the groceries bags in the kitchen and like me, he takes a few moments to gaze at the woman we would die for. 
Ariel is in Killian’s arm, tears shinning in her eyes, while he’s gently caressing her hair. 
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I approach her. 
Her shoulders tense for a moment before she finally says, “We need to find the ship. Mindy and Rheon are still on it and…” Her eyes suddenly widen, as if a memory slams back into place. “Rheon was shot and… he’s probably dead!”
She looks me dead in the eyes, fury blazing through her tears. “It’s all your fault! Because… because you refused to go back,” she hisses at me.
The anger in her tone makes me take a step back. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” I say while I try to think who Mindy and Rheon are but their names don’t ring a bell. 
“Rheon is Michael!” Ariel shouts, wrenching herself out of Killian’s arms. She tries to get out of bed despite still recovering from being shot, but the effort tears a scream of pain from her lips. She collapses back against Killian, who glares at me over her trembling form.
Michael is a guy I met a couple of days after my Lair brothers and I moved to Chicago. It was a week after Ariel disappeared, and the only lead we had brought us here. He was involved with a group of people searching for missing women among all the shifter races. It’s how I found out that a lot of weird shit is happening here, including the founding of some dead dragons, drained of all their magic which was the perfect excuse to why we have to be here, since I still have to find out who is killing them. Therion expects that I send him reports weekly but so far I haven’t found out anything since my entire focus has been on finding Ariel. 
When Michael first mentioned the ship, I thought nothing of it—until he showed me the photos he’d secretly taken on his first time aboard. In one of them, a woman stood with her back to the camera. Barely visible, almost a shadow. But I knew. It was her—my Ariel.
Getting Michael back on that ship had been difficult. We couldn’t risk him smuggling in another camera; the chance of him being caught was too great. Once he became a permanent guest, I began asking him questions about the women who were forced to work there. That’s when he told me about Lila.
It didn’t take long for me to know—Lila was Ariel.
A growl rises in my throat, and I force it back before it escapes. “Don’t worry. The wolf is alive. But not for long,” I say, struggling to leash my anger.
“What do you mean?” Ariel presses.
I lean forward, my face an inch from hers. Her pupils dilate.
“Once I find him, I’m going to break every bone in his body, for touching you. For running his hands along your body. For coveting what’s mine.” Another growl rises inside me, reverberating in my chest. “He should’ve kept his hands to himself. But instead, he dragged his friends into this mess.”

I know it's frustrating waiting for chapters, but also remember that outside of writing, I have a family. As to why I write more books at once (someone asked this) - because I have many stories to tell.
Starting next week, this book will be updated 3-4 times a week :). I will update again in 2 days.