Chapter 261
Elowen's POV
I woke to the unsettling absence of warmth beside me, my fingers instinctively reaching across the cool sheets where Ronan should have been. The last memory before sleep had claimed me was oddly domestic—Ronan hunched over a tangle of soft yarn, his large hands fumbling with knitting needles as he attempted what he'd called a "baby blanket," though the result looked more like a misshapen fishing net. Kade had been sprawled in the armchair by the window, his long legs kicked out, smirking at Ronan's concentrated frown.
"You're going to strangle the poor kid with that thing," Kade had drawled, his voice thick with amusement.
Ronan hadn't even looked up, his jaw set in stubborn determination. "The children need to learn self-defense early. I'm helping them build character."
"By suffocating them in their cribs?" Kade's laugh had been low and rumbling, filling the room with unexpected lightness.
Now, in the pre-dawn darkness, that lightness felt like a lifetime ago. Ronan was gone, though Kade remained in the chair, his chest rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep, one arm thrown over his eyes. The sight should have been comforting—one protector still present—but instead it set my nerves on edge, because Ronan never left without telling me, not since the night everything had shattered into pieces I was still trying to reassemble.
I sat up carefully, my hand moving to the slight swell of my belly where the twins rested, their presence a constant reminder of choices made and prices paid. Through the thick wooden door came the muffled sound of Ronan's voice, low and urgent, carrying the particular edge that meant he was struggling to maintain composure. My wolf stirred uneasily beneath my skin, her instincts sharper than my own, and I knew without question that something was wrong.
Sliding from the bed, I moved on silent feet toward the door, my heart beginning to pick up speed as Ronan's words became clearer. He was on the phone, his tone alternating between frustrated command and barely restrained anger, and beneath it all ran an undercurrent of something I'd learned to recognize in the months since my world had turned upside down—helpless concern for someone he couldn't reach, couldn't fix, couldn't save from their own self-destruction.
"Casper, for fuck's sake, answer me," Ronan growled, his voice tight with the kind of tension that came from repeating yourself too many times. "I don't care if you're drunk, I don't care if you're in the middle of—just pick up the goddamn phone."
My breath caught in my throat at the name, at the way it still had the power to make my chest constrict and my eyes sting with tears I'd sworn I was done shedding. Casper. One half of the pair who'd marked me, claimed me, sworn they'd never let me go—right before they'd chosen someone else and shattered me so completely I wasn't sure all the pieces would ever fit back together.
I pressed closer to the door, my palm flat against the cool wood, and heard Ronan's sharp exhale of frustration followed by the distinct sound of his fist connecting with the wall. The impact was hard enough that I felt the vibration through the door, hard enough that Kade should have jolted awake, but the Alpha in the chair didn't so much as stir, his breathing remaining deep and undisturbed.
"Pity Ronan doesn't have the same gift for sleeping through emotional crises," Juno observed dryly in my mind, her presence a warm flicker of consciousness that had become my most constant companion in recent months. "Though I suppose watching your sister's heart get ripped out and stomped on tends to make a man a bit high-strung."
I almost smiled at her acerbic tone, but the expression died before it could fully form, because through the door I could hear Ronan trying another number, his voice dropping to something dangerously close to pleading. "Cassian, I swear to God, if you don't answer—" A pause, then a vicious curse. "Voicemail. Both of them, straight to fucking voicemail, like they've turned off their phones or they're—"
He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. I knew what he was thinking, knew because I'd thought it myself more times than I could count in the dark hours of the night when sleep wouldn't come and my mind insisted on replaying every moment of that horrible day when I'd walked in to find Casper in bed with Sarah, Cassian sitting nearby like it was the most natural thing in the world, like they hadn't just destroyed me.
The memory rose up sharp and vicious, and I had to close my eyes against it, had to breathe through the wave of pain that still felt fresh despite the months that had passed. I'd known something was wrong the moment I'd woken that morning, had felt it in the strange distance in our bond, in the way my wolf had been restless and anxious, pacing beneath my skin like she was trying to warn me of danger I couldn't yet see.
But nothing could have prepared me for walking into that room, for seeing Sarah's smug smile and Casper's stricken face and Cassian's carefully blank expression, for hearing the words that would echo in my nightmares for months to come. "She's our mate now. Our true mate. You were just... a mistake we had to correct."
"Elowen." Juno's voice was sharp, cutting through the spiral of memory before I could sink too deep. "Don't do this to yourself. Not again. Not when you've worked so hard to start healing."
She was right, I knew she was right, but knowing didn't make it easier to push the memories away, didn't make it easier to ignore the part of me that still ached for what I'd lost, for the two men who'd been my everything before they'd chosen to be my nothing. I took a shaky breath and stepped back from the door, intending to return to bed before Ronan realized I was awake and listening, but my retreat came too late.
The door swung open, and Ronan stood framed in the doorway, his phone still clutched in one white-knuckled hand, his shoulders rigid with tension that hadn't been there when I'd fallen asleep. His eyes found mine immediately, and I watched his expression shift from frustrated anger to careful concern, the transformation so quick and practiced that it made my heart hurt for different reasons.
"You should be in bed," he said, his voice gentling in a way it never did for anyone else, and I felt the familiar prickle of guilt that came with being the cause of someone's worry. "You need rest. The babies—"
"Need their mother to stop being treated like fragile glass," I interrupted, lifting my chin even as my hand moved protectively to my stomach. "I heard you on the phone. It's Casper, isn't it? Something's happened."