Chapter 151
ACHILLES.
I take a step back, the pain in my chest growing more and more intense. I take a deep breath, trying to control the emotions bubbling in my throat.
“I’m so sorry,” Aristea sobs, but I can barely hear her. “I don’t know what happened. I tried to stop it. I really did. I held on to her and she just vanished. She just started to disappear into thin air and I think Tristan took her. He managed to take her.”
I can tell that all of them are waiting for me to say something but I can’t bring myself to speak. If I open my mouth, I will scream.
I look at the empty bed and a creeping, cold feeling overcomes my body. I stagger forward, holding onto the braces of the door to stop myself from careening forward. There are still dents on the bed, little dips that Claudia’s body has made when she lied down here. So many questions are running through my mind and I feel like my head will explode if I don’t ask a single thing.
Inhale and exhale. I repeat the cycle slowly, wanting to steady my breathing enough just for me to speak. Inhale and exhale. At last, I manage to look at Aristea and ask, “What happened here exactly?”
I’m surprised by how calm I sound. But the look on Aristea’s face tells me that she senses the pent up anger underneath it all.
“She went to see me and I tried to teach her the technique.” Her voice is getting shakier and shakier as more tears stream down her eyes. “But I found her in the hallway deep in a dream about Tristan already. She said she wanted to overcome it, and perhaps use it against him in return. So I did agree, but I told her to be careful. We walked into it slowly and she was doing so well, until she fell deeper into it. I tried to wake her up, but it feels like something on the other side has her on a chokehold and she can’t let go.”
If I’m to be completely honest with myself right now, I feel like blaming Aristea for all of this. A part of me wants to tell her that she shouldn’t have taught Claudia after the dream that made her pass out in the hallway. But a bigger part of me blames myself.
I should have been here. I should have come with her. I should have just told her to wait so she could join me in the small meeting that I arranged.
That way, she would have been here still. She wouldn’t have gone.
Tears start to drum behind my eyes and I can tell that I’m about to break down. I clench my jaw hard to prevent myself from falling apart. Crying and being broken up about it would not bring her back. Doing something about it would.
I refuse to think about what Tristan is doing to her, but I am fairly confident that he will not hurt her. He would not dare. Maybe his obsession with her will get in the way, and as much as I despise that, I have to have faith in it for now. It would stop him from doing something to her.
The fact that he needs something from her would prevent him from harming her. I have to believe this. I have to trust this. That’s my only option right now. Because if I face the growing brokenness inside my chest, I would not be able to do anything.
“We need to find her, and we have to do it fast,” I declare, much to the shock of everyone. “The plan still stands. If anything, it has to stand stronger now. We have to save Claudia.”
“Alpha?” Carlos asks tentatively as I try to head out the door. “Are you sure we should try to do something right away? How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” I say, but the break in my voice tells me just how not fine I feel, and the collective winces they show me proves that they see right through it. “We just need to figure out how to work this. We need an antidote for the people, first of all. If they’re going to keep injecting people to turn them into Rogues, then we need to stop that fast.” I turn to face Aristea, who is still sobbing dryly. “Calm down. We would be okay, and we would find Claudia. But I need your help. Will you be able to make an antidote?”
Aristea wipes her face and looks at me. “I would need a sample of whatever they are using.”
I nod. “Very well. Let’s go and get that sample.”
* * *
CLAUDIA.
Disgust is filling my body like a poison. I feel myself slipping away, but at the same time growing more and more solid as Tristan takes me deeper and deeper into his world. I can feel his lips on mine, moving as though he’s hungry, and I want to scream at how wrong it all feels.
For the first time, I feel the urge to kill.
And the only reason I’m trying to push it down into my own body is because I think that’s what he wants from me. He wants me to be enraged. He wants me to be like him.
I would rather die than be like him.
The world around me spins. This time, I’m certain that I have manifested in his dream world and now my whole body is there with him. I believe now that he managed to take my physical being into his realm because I can feel the hardness of his muscles against me. I can smell his scent, and it’s rubbing off on me. I can almost feel it invading my senses but the spinning goes on and on until the colors melt into black.
But after a while, the colors come back. I find myself landing on soft grass.
I sink into my knees, ready to retch, but he just catches me in his arms and pulls me upright again.
And that’s when I see that I’m in the mountain clearing. The same mountain clearing in my dream.
The air gets pushed out of my lungs. Tears brim my eyes, falling silently down my cheeks. Tristan holds me against him and smiles proudly while black beasts emerge from the trees, sniffing the air and looking at me with their red eyes. I know that those are people, ordinary wolves that he turned into his kind. The cruelty of it all gets to me, and the fact that I am here fills me with so much rage that I can’t help but wheel around on him and try to seize his throat.
I manage to grab him by the neck, lifting him up in the air and slamming him down on the ground. His Rogues growl at me, ready to attack, and this time I’m prepared.
But Tristan just laughs and gets up, rubbing his neck. “That’s not the way to behave with your new husband, isn’t it?”
“Go to hell,” I snarl at him, but he just lets out a laugh and grabs my arm.
“Maybe I can make you learn our ways first.” Tristan takes out a syringe from his jacket and poises the needle against my neck. “Maybe you need to be more like me.”