20
Ryder
The barrier couldn’t holdup forever. Vi cackled as she threw her fire at the magical wall. I slammed it over and over, my shoulder screaming in pain. Ignoring my body, I kept going. This barrier would fall one way or another.
The others watched. I didn’t pay much attention to them. They’d won a bit of my confidence back, but it would be a long time before I trusted them to help against Alvin. Right now, I had to worry about Ness.
She’d gone inside on her own. My dragon threatened to take the reins from me. It wanted to blow the door down and storm inside. Dragon claws couldn’t hold her, though. My dragon form would be useless inside. It would bring walls down and make the building unsafe when I needed to keep her safe.
The anger roiling inside me knew no bounds, though. If Alvin laid even a single finger on Ness again, I would remove them all from his hands one by one.
Between one breath and the next, the barrier flickered and disappeared. The door swung open. I burst through it and called out Ness’s name.
Though she didn’t respond, I could smell her scent. I followed it upstairs to a room with almost nothing in it. Two small forms sat on the floor. I gathered Ness into my arms and held her close. My dragon breathed deep and tried to discern whose blood I was smelling.
Ness pushed away from me. At first, I thought I’d hurt her. I searched her for wounds, but there were none. If she came across Alvin, they hadn’t fought. She seemed to be in one piece.
I reached for her again, but she slapped my hand.
“Ness,” I said.
I wanted to pull her back from the darkness that must have been overwhelming her. Guilt wasn’t an easy thing to fight on one’s own. I could help her, if she would only let me. None of this was her fault, even if that was what she told herself.
“Will you listen to me?” I asked.
Ness’s attention stayed on Cerri, who had her back to the both of us. When Ness didn’t answer me, I stood and went to gather Cerri into my arms. I brought her to the exit and paused to glance back at Ness.
Though I still wanted to embrace my mate, I knew she would fight me tooth and nail right now. She would fight to stay in the state of mind consuming her. Both women had been broken today. Ness, who was used to bearing the consequences of her actions on her own, had no idea how to handle Cerri’s pain.
Cerri, on the other hand, had endured a taste of what Ness dealt with in this pack. Eventually, Cerri would come around. She would come back with a fighting spirit.
“Ness,” I said again.
She buried her face in her hands. The scream she let out nearly tore me in half. I could do nothing more than stand there and watch her vent her frustration. Her shoulders trembled.
“You can’t do anything on your knees. Get up. Let’s go.” I tried to push an Alpha’s command into my voice, but it refused to reach out to Ness.
I couldn’t tell my mate what to do. We were on equal ground. The beast would never make demands from her. It would only ever ask something of her that she was willing to do. Were we in a different situation, I would have laughed. Ness could use her arcana on me, but I couldn’t use my Alpha command.
My beast needed to reconsider what equal ground meant.
Ness’s scream turned into a howl. Her shoulders pulled in on themselves. She shifted and rose on wobbly legs. I told her to stay and that I would come back for her, but she darted past me.
I cursed under my breath and followed. Outside, I pushed Cerri into Connor’s arms. Connor seemed stunned until Ness’s father stepped up to take her from him.
A storm roiled across the sky. It didn’t answer to my beast’s arcana when I tried to quell it. Though it’d been a while since I’d tried to control a storm, I suspected that this had to do with Ness’s pain.
This storm raged, ripping and tearing at everything. Branches snapped, but the sounds were nearly drowned out by the horrid howl of the winds. The clouds opened and hail began to assault those still standing outside. When I stepped forward, the elements pushed back at me like the storm didn’t want me to follow Ness.
I snarled and pushed through the onslaught. There was no way that I would leave Ness to deal with this on her own. She’d broken, her hope finally shattering. We could put it back together. I just had to get to her.
“Be safe out there,” Ness’s father said before rushing off to protect Cerri from this storm.
Looking back, I gave him a grim nod. He swallowed, his eyes filled with concern and regret. He’d let this situation get this far. Though I wished I could tell him not to blame himself, this was on his shoulders. He could have done something. He could have been a better father for his daughter.
We couldn’t change the past, though. We could only move forward and make sure that the future was better.
With Cerri in good hands, I chased after my mate. Ness’s dark form vanished into the woods. She shouldn’t have been this fast. I jumped over fallen logs and rocks half-embedded in the ground. Her dark tail disappeared between two trees. I called out for her to stop, but my words couldn’t stop her.