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The truth is, that even though it’s an unforgivably invasive gesture, it is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Going to those sorts of lengths to make sure I don’t end up taken by the worst breeds of disgusting men lurking within my father’s shadows.
Or, at least, if the unthinkable happened—that I was ever ripped away from them—at least they could find me.
Although now that my men have discovered someone is tampering with that, too, I can only imagine the fury that knowledge might unleash.
Since reaching this particular spot in the forest, there’s a rock I’ve been holding onto. It’s jagged-edged and looks like slate. The entire time I’ve been standing here, trying to wrap my head around my life and what might come once this Pledging ceremony has been completed, and my use has run its natural course, I have had it clutched tight inside my palm.
The sharpest side, has indented into the fleshy part of my hand, which is now mottled and pale with the cold.
It’s just a rock. Just like I’m only a girl. Neither of us matter in this bigger scheme of things, and what use am I beyond being the payment owed in exchange for my parents’ crimes?
Raising my arm, I hurl it over the edge and watch it spin through the mist, until it disappears from view. As quickly as I throw it, the stone is gone. I don’t even hear it clatter on the way down.
I’m guessing my life won’t matter beyond all of this.
Did it ever matter?
I turn back toward the direction of the house and nearly shriek out loud.
All three of my monstrous protectors are watching me from the depths of the trees with ferocity in their eyes. They look pissed as all hell, and I don’t know how long they’ve been standing there.
“Are you alright?” Ky is the only one to stride over to me. The angular lines of his face are strained.
“Honestly?”
“I wouldn’t want anything else from you, baby girl.”
“I don’t know.”
The way he’s looking at me—god, it’s like he would destroy anyone and anything and scorch the very earth we stand on to prevent them from hurting me again. I fight the urge to look away, because it feels like it’s all too much. I don’t deserve someone, anyone, who would fight for me like that.
Ky pulls me into his warmth: sodden hair, damp clothes, and all. The glide of his big hands up and down my back feels like he can take all the stress knotted and embedded in my bones and melt it away with ease.
“Please don’t disappear like that again. My heart can’t fucking take it.” His soft lips and rasp of his beard meets my forehead, and I can’t help but want to curl into him on reflex. “Please.”
A lump forms in my throat, and my bottom lip wobbles. I’m so pathetic. Why am I defenseless against his charm and his charisma, and his damn brutality? At times like this, I could so easily drown in the fantasy of these men returning my feelings for them. But I know that I have to chisel that anemic piece of my heart off and toss her into the raging ocean, leaving her to drown if I’m going to survive any of this intact.
He murmurs against my forehead. “Good thing we didn’t have to go too far to find you. These two assholes were going to burn the entire peninsula to the ground if we didn’t find any signs of where you’d gone.”
Crap, I didn’t even think about how long I’d been out here. Somewhere in my attempt to clear my head, it didn’t cross my mind that they might wake up before I returned to the house.
“I’m sorry...I wasn’t thinking…I—”
My weak attempt at an apology is interrupted when a loud incoming message tone blares through the trees. Three phones explode at the same time with a notification. It’s so unexpected, I jolt with fright.
Ky rubs my back and continues to hold me to him, not bothering to reach for his phone that went off in his pocket. Instead, Thorne is the one to check the message. One that I can only assume is the same for all of them.
Beside him and a little further back, stands Raven. He seems only marginally less lethal than last night. Marginally. I’m guessing that waking up to find me missing hasn’t gone down too well with my wolf. His arms are folded across his broad chest, and his hooded eyes scan the length of my body as if he’s assessing me for damage.
I wonder if he can see all the broken pieces embedded in my veins. The shards hidden beneath my skin.
My stupid heart pitter-patters at the memory of being held by him in the bath last night without a single word. Just listening to the reassuring thud of his heartbeat while burrowed against his warm chest for what felt like hours.
Thorne quickly types something on his phone, and when he looks up, his eyes are a searing brand across my flesh.
“What is it?” Ky asks over the top of my head.
A flicker of something unreadable passes through his expression, followed by a grimace, and his next words come through gritted teeth.
