Chapter 232: Rhys
Darkness had overtaken the camp as I stared out over the empty field that laid out in front of me as I contemplated for the millionth time on whether I crossed that line and went looking for my mate. It had been hours since Caleb and the others had come back, and I stayed dutifully at my post. She had to make it. She had to. But with every passing minute, my wolf was getting more and more desperate. Gods, this fucking sucked.
“Any sign of them?” Heather asked a little too eagerly.
“Do you really think I would be sitting here if there was?” I asked, and I could hear the coldness in my voice.
She sighed, but didn’t take offense like others would have. It’s part of how we had been friends for so long.
“You should go inside for a while,” She said gently. “You might be a werewolf, but eventually you will still freeze to death.”
I looked at her for the first time since she had come out this time. The house had been a bustle of chaos since people had started arriving. I had blocked out the noise and focused on the woods, but Heather had chosen to make herself useful, tending to the others. I couldn’t tell you a single thing that had happened in that house since they had arrived, but I knew they had been in good hands with her. But looking at her, I saw her cheeks flushed and her eyes filled with exhaustion and worry.
“I’m okay,” I told her, but I knew it didn’t do anything to ease her worry. “I can’t, not until I know for sure she isn’t coming.”
Heather’s expression was serious as she searched my eyes for something. “Are you still in pain?”
“No.” I answered, but my hand ran over my stomach where I had felt the pain this morning. The pain that I had known was intentional and connected to the mate bond. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, she bore my mark, but I didn’t bear hers. It was a good thing that I was no longer feeling those pains because it meant whatever she had been experiencing was over. And that meant that she was at least not in the hands of someone trying to weaken both of us... At least not yet.
Heather took the spot next to me, but didn’t say anything else. Both of our hearts were too fragile to say too much as we faced the very real possibility that our people might have saved everyone else but couldn’t save themselves.
I was starting to give up, when shouting met my ears from somewhere in the distance. I glanced at Heather for a moment, wondering if I was losing it from being out here all day, but she was intensely scanning the tree line, and my heart began to pound. We were either in for a fight or something just across the border was happening. It was too far away to make out exactly what was happening, but I felt hope take hold of my heart again. I reached for the bond I had grabbed for so many times since she had been ripped away from me, and this time, there was a shimmer. She was close. I could feel her now. My mate. My life. My everything. She was near.
I jumped to my mate, trying to track which direction the commotion was coming from. Heather was hot on my heels, and we raced down the border to get as close to it as possible.
“Has anyone seen anything emerge from the woods?” I mindlinked Kate.
I knew she had to be tired, I knew I was, but she was used to these long days. She would have stayed in position until there was no hope left.
“No sir, but it’s getting closer.” She answered.
Heather and I took off in that direction, and I forced myself to remain calm. I couldn’t let hope hold me, not yet. We didn’t know if this was them or if this was them retaliating, and we really couldn’t afford a retaliation right now. Not with our resources spread so thin.
I caught a glimpse of movement at the edge of the tree line.
“Good movement or bad?” I muttered under my breath to Heather as we both stared at the spot where we had just seen it.
“I don’t know.” She whispered back, and we both waited with bated breath trying to find where the movement had gone.
Two wolves shot out of the tree line, and Heather gasped as they tumbled forward at full speed. My heart lurched. There was no mistaking that wolf, even in the dark and distance. I had fought by his side for so much of my life.
I went to step across the border, when Heather yanked me back toward her with a frantic “NO!” Before continuing, “If you cross the border, they will kill you. They have to make it across on their own merit.”
The words were familiar in my mind. Ones she had said before. And I hated that I knew she was right. Two figures moved toward us from the opposite direction, and even though I couldn’t see her clearly, I knew from my head to my toes one of them was Grace. One figure was leaning heavily on the other, but they were keeping low.
“Be on the ready!” I mindlinked the soldiers that were stationed here at the border. “We would love to assume that they will honor the laws of the border, but if they do not, kill them. No hesitation. No second guesses. I will not lose my mate. Set a distraction a mile south please. Draw attention that way.”
Leon was still battling, but he seemed to be serving as a distraction for the other two, who were quietly sneaking toward our camp. They were only a few hundred feet away, but I forced myself to keep my eyes trained on Leon. I knew if I kept watch on them, someone on the wrong side could follow my gaze to them. I tried to use a mirror to watch though. She was so close. I could see her disheveled look from here. She looked tired and thinner, but relatively okay. I was so sure she was going to cross the line, but she turned around for a moment before diving over the other girl she was with.
“NO!” I screamed as they disappeared into the long grass, out of my sight. “GRACE!”
Leon’s wolf perked his head up at my scream. He stopped messing around and killed his sparring mate before taking off toward where Grace had disappeared in the grass. I tried to move to get to her, but someone tried to keep me in place.
“Rhys, you can’t!” Someone rationalized, but I barely heard them.
“Do something!” Someone else shouted.
“I’m so sorry,” Someone said just as I was about to cross the border, and the next thing I knew everything was fading to black.