Milton's Grave Mistake

Milton's Grave Mistake
My body immediately stiffened as I leaned back to look at her. “No!”

She let me go as her legs buckled, sending her crashing to the ground. I knelt in front of her, my heart racing in my chest as she brought her hands up to cover her face while she sobbed loudly. I gently pulled her hands away from her face so I could tip her chin up to meet my eyes.

“I’m sorry, Sonia, but I’m not going to let you go. You mean too much to me for me to just give you up.” When I raised my hand to cup her face, she flinched, which immediately made me lower it. The last thing I wanted to do was frighten her. “Are you afraid of me?” I murmured.

“No!” Her eyes fluttered closed as more tears rolled slowly down her face. “It’s not you. It’s me.”

Her words didn’t offer me any comfort. In fact, it did the opposite. It made me worry about our future. I took her hand, linking our fingers together. “Then what is it, baby? Talk to me. Have you changed your mind about me?”
She shook her head. “No! I swear, I haven’t! I want to be with you! But I can’t be!”

“Why not?” I asked her.

“BECAUSE I’M DANGEROUS!” she screamed, bursting into tears again.

I glanced up at Giselda and Logan before tugging Sonia into my arms, cradling her protectively against my chest.

“Listen to me, baby, no matter what you think is going to happen, I promise you that as long as you want to be with me, I will do everything to make that happen.”

“Even if you lose me?” she sniffled, once again causing my hackles to rise.

“I promise you that I’m not going anywhere.”

“You don’t understand! Orion comma–”

Before she could finish her sentence, she started seizing. In less than half a second, Giselda was kneeling beside me with her aura very present. Moments later, Sonia went still in my arms, her breathing shallow and her eyes fluttering slightly. I looked up at Giselda, my fear almost tangible.

“What happened? Did Orion do something to her?” I asked worriedly.

The three of them exchanged looks before sighing. “We're not sure. The only thing we saw him do to her was whisper in her ear before turning her over to us. We're not sure what he told her, but the looks of it, whatever he told her, he aura’d her not to tell us what it was,” Giselda told me.

“I hate him,” I spat as my arms tightened around Sonia. I lowered my head to sink my teeth into Sonia's neck, marking her, claiming her as mine before kissing her forehead and getting up, easily lifting her with me as I went. “No matter what he ordered you to do, no matter how rough things get, I'm not going anywhere, Sonia. And neither are you. We will face whatever this is together. Like we were meant to do.”

Once I got her situated in the bed that I used when I was at the sleuth house, I tucked her in before climbing in next to her and wrapping my arms around her. I tucked her face against my neck, sighing both contentedly and worriedly. I didn’t know exactly what she was worried about, but that was tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, I just wanted to hold her. I kissed her forehead as I opened my link with Giselda.

‘When she wakes up tomorrow, I want you to break the command,’ I told her.

She was quiet for a long moment before sighing. ‘I already tried to break it, Milton. It’s woven into her subconscious in a way that we don’t know how to break it. We need to find out what it is so we can know how to fight it and keep her safe until we can break it. I’ll be going to the sleuth elders tomorrow to see if they know anything about the Bruins. Maybe they can offer me a way to help her. Maybe with you marking her, it’ll offer her some respite from his command, and she can tell us what the command was.’

‘We have to figure this out, Giselda. I can’t lose her,’ I whispered as I gazed down at my beautiful mate.

‘I know, Milton. I’m going to do my best to make sure you don’t. Get some rest. We’ll deal with everything else tomorrow.’

I didn’t bother to respond to her. There was no use. There was nothing more that we could do, right at the moment. I curled around Sonia, breathing her scent in deeply. She was my mate. She was here. And it was almost perfect.



I woke up to a terrified scream before loud sobbing echoed through my room. I immediately leaped out of bed, dashing across the room to the bathroom, where Sonia was standing in front of the mirror, staring at my mark, pale as can be. I took a step into the bathroom, clearing my throat.

“Sonia? Are you okay?”

She spun around, pinning me with a frightened, but angry look on her face. “You marked me. Without my permission. Why? Why would you do that?”

I brought my hand up to massage the back of my neck, feeling like the biggest asshole in the world. “I thought it would help you. You were seizing, and my venom is supposed to help you. That’s why the Goddess made me your mate.”

When her knees sagged, I rushed across the room to take her in my arms as she looked up at me sadly. “You just shortened our time together,” I whispered.

“What do you mean by that?” I inquired softly.

“Orion…” Her voice trailed off as she began to sweat profusely before she shook her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Milton, but I can’t.” She swallowed hard. “You have to promise me that you won’t mark me again.”

“I won’t. I promise.” I closed my eyes as I rested my forehead against hers. “Can you tell me if marking you is going to kill you?”

She shook her head before softly pressing her lips against me. “No. It’s going to do something worse.”

My eyes flew open so I could look into her eyes. “Is it going to result in my death?”

“Not if you’re careful.”
Okay, that wasn’t ominous at all. “Is someone else going to die?”

“Not if they’re careful.”

I searched her eyes for a long time before sighing. “Does marking you mean I’m going to lose you?”

She looked away from me, and even though she didn’t verbally respond, her reaction to my question was enough of one. My heart sank lower than my knees, leaving a hole in my chest that I didn’t know I would be able to fill if I did end up losing her. All I knew was that I was not going to let her go without one hell of a fight. I cupped her cheek, turning her face back to mine.

“Is there anything I, or anyone, can do to avoid that?” I inquired almost silently.

She squeezed her eyes shut, and the word that fell from her lips had my very soul shattering into an infinite number of pieces.

“No.”