Chapter 174
Sebastian
I woke to an empty bed and immediate, irrational panic.
My hand shot out before conscious thought could intervene, searching for the warmth that should have been beside me, finding only cold sheets and the faint indent where her body had been. My eyes snapped open, heart rate spiking as I scanned the darkened bedroom, cataloging every shadow, every potential threat, every fucking thing that could have taken her while I slept.
"Lirael?" My voice came out rougher than intended, still thick with sleep but edged with something sharper. No response. Just the oppressive silence of the penthouse and the distant hum of the city below.
Fuck.
I was on my feet before I'd fully processed the movement, the sheets tangling around my legs as I stumbled toward the door. The wolf was already surging forward, primitive and possessive, demanding I find what was mine and verify it remained undamaged. I forced myself to breathe—in for four counts, hold for seven, out for eight—but it did nothing to calm the gnawing anxiety clawing at my chest.
A faint sound from down the hallway made me freeze. Water running. The soft creak of floorboards. Coming from the direction of the guest bathroom.
Relief hit like a physical blow, stealing what little breath I had left, and I sagged against the doorframe for a moment before my legs remembered how to function. She was fine. She was just in the bathroom. Nothing was wrong.
Except my instincts were still screaming that something was off, that gnawing wrongness in my gut intensifying with every step I took toward the bathroom. The wolf wasn't settling, wasn't satisfied with the simple explanation, and after thirty years of trusting those instincts to keep me alive, I'd learned not to ignore them.
I moved down the hallway with the kind of predatory silence that had made me effective in my younger years, when I'd still handled wetwork personally. The bathroom door was closed but not locked—I could see the sliver of light beneath it, could hear the continued sound of water running, and underneath it all, something else. Labored breathing. A soft gasp that was quickly stifled.
My hand was on the doorknob before I could think better of it, turning it slowly, and that's when I caught the scent that made my blood run cold.
Moonshade.
The realization hit like a gut punch, and suddenly I was moving, shoving the door open hard enough that it slammed against the wall, my eyes immediately tracking to—
Lirael, curled on the bathroom floor in a position I recognized from too many interrogations, her arms wrapped around her middle and her face pale with pain she was clearly trying to hide. A tablet sat propped on the counter, its screen dark now, and scattered around her were—
Christ. Seven stalks of moonshade, or what remained of them. Empty. She'd consumed all of them.
"What the fuck did you do?" The words came out as a snarl, the wolf surging forward so hard that I felt my eyes flash gold, felt my claws extend involuntarily as I dropped to my knees beside her. "Lirael, what the fuck—"
"I'm fine," she managed, her voice steady despite the obvious lie, despite the way her body was trembling. "Just feeling unwell. I'll be out in a minute."
Fine. She said she was fucking fine while her shadow suggested she could barely move, while the scent of moonshade was so strong it made my stomach turn, while every instinct screamed that she was hurt and I needed to find whatever caused it and rip it apart.
But I couldn't. Because she'd done this to herself. Deliberately. Knowingly.
"You're not fine." I reached for her, my hands hovering over her shoulders, afraid to touch her in case I made it worse. "Jesus Christ, Lirael, how much did you take? How long have you been—"
"Don't." She pushed at my hands weakly, trying to create distance even as her body betrayed her with another tremor. "I said I'm fine. I just need—I need a minute."
A minute. She needed a fucking minute while poison worked its way through her system, while her body tried to process a substance that could break even the strongest will. The urge to scoop her up and carry her to the bed, to call Marcus and demand he bring every medical resource we had, was nearly overwhelming.
But underneath the panic, underneath the rage, a quieter voice whispered: She did this for a reason. And if you force her hand now, she'll never trust you again.
I forced myself to pull back, to give her the space she was demanding even when every fiber of my being screamed against it. My hands curled into fists at my sides, claws digging into my palms hard enough to draw blood—the pain helped, gave me something to focus on besides the maddening need to fix this, to make it better, to take away her pain even though I couldn't.
"I'll be outside," I said, my voice coming out strangled. "Right outside this door. You call if you need anything. Understood?"
She managed a small nod, and I stood on shaking legs, backing toward the door while keeping my eyes locked on her, cataloging every small movement, every flicker of pain that crossed her face. My hand found the doorframe, gripped it hard enough that the wood groaned in protest.
"And Lirael?" I waited until her eyes met mine. "We're going to talk about this. About why you thought poisoning yourself was a good fucking idea. Soon."
I stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind me, then immediately slid down the wall to sit on the floor, my back pressed against the door and my hands already shredding themselves on my own claws. The scent of moonshade was still in my nostrils, triggering memories I'd rather forget, and I counted my breaths mechanically—in for four, hold for seven, out for eight—while I listened to the sounds from within.
Water running. Fabric rustling. That soft gasp she tried to muffle but couldn't quite hide.
Each sound made my jaw clench tighter, made my claws dig deeper, made the wolf rage harder against the cage of my control.
The wolf howled in my head, a primal scream of rage: Break down the door. Find whoever gave her that poison. Tear them limb from fucking limb. Protect what's yours.
But underneath that roar, a quieter voice whispered the thing I didn't want to hear: She'll hate you if you break it down. She'll see it as a violation, and you'll lose her.
That was sobering enough to keep me in place, even as every instinct demanded I burst through that door and verify she was alive, whole, undamaged. I pressed my forehead against the wood, breathing through my nose in slow, measured counts, and tried very hard not to imagine what was causing those sounds.
She's fine, I told myself, repeating it like a mantra even as my claws dug deeper into my palms. She said she's fine. She's strong. She wouldn't lie about something this important.
Except she absolutely would lie, because I'd seen how she hid pain, how she'd rather bite through her own tongue than show weakness. If I could hear agony in those muffled sounds, the reality was probably ten times worse.
Christ, what had she done to herself? And why?
The minutes crawled by with agonizing slowness, each second feeling like an eternity as I sat there listening to her suffer on the other side of that door. My blood dripped onto the hardwood in a slow, steady rhythm—one drop, two, three—and I counted them mechanically, using the pain as an anchor to keep myself from doing something stupid like breaking through the barrier between us.