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“I’ve finally found you,” he murmured into her hair as he stroked her back and she collapsed into him. Rage shattered me as I roared, but they were too wrapped in each other to respond.
The hunters did, though. Their knives were ready as they closed in.
Emptiness drenched me as I kept reaching for her and finding nothing there.
I stared at their embrace, wide-eyed as Red pulled back and her face softened, the same way it had for me this morning. “You came for me.” She lifted her hand to his cheek and he turned his head, kissing her palm.
“I should have never left you.” His eyes closed at her touch.
It was easy to see what their relationship was when they held each other so tightly.
She rested her forehead on his. He clasped her hand and released a shuddering sigh.
I tried to reach her, tried to feel her, her soul, her mind, anything - but it was gone. The bond was fucking gone.
She was standing right in front of me, holding the fucker who stabbed me, and I couldn’t feel her.
My wolf was howling as the pain of watching her fixed me in my human state. It was worse than the silver eating into my flesh.
“There is no time for this.” She pulled back from him, looking at the men over his shoulder. They had been staring at me the entire time, their weapons fixed, ready to kill. “Where are your horses? We must go.”
This couldn’t be happening. This was some kind of nightmare, one I would wake from easily to find I was still curled around Red, our bond alive and strong.
“A short walk.” He looked at her bare feet and grimaced. “I’ll carry you there.”
“No, Jasper. I am not a child anymore.” Her harsh glare lifted to the hunters. “Tie up the wolf.”
“Princess.” The one who fired the bullet, whose gun was now a metre from my chest, stopped her. “We gotta take the head.”
“No.” Her voice had assumed that dominating tone she only used when she was goading me. “We are not dragging a bloody head with us when ghouls and ogres freely roam these woods.” Her eyes dropped to the rope hanging from one hunter’s belt. “Tie him up.”
“Princess, the reward for a wolf’s head could feed my family for three years.”
“This is not a negotiation, hunter,” she said, the fierceness in her eyes that only I had ever drawn out of her. “It is imperative you deliver me to the Grandmothers before the moon sets. You know the location of his den. You can return for him once we have left the forest.”
I wanted to see her face, to know if what she was saying was real.
“And the others?”
“What others?” Anger flew from her as she glared at him.
“T’other wolves, princess. We know a pack lives here and-“
“Enough.” She cut him off. “If you are so keen, then stay with this one and see what he makes of you. There are no others. I will not listen to any more arguments.”
Red turned to face me, her eyes boring into me. No recognition, no indication that I had been anything more than her captor.
I opened my mouth to speak. A whine slipped free before I could form the words, the pain drowning me, desperate for her love to heal me. But her glare snapped at me and I stayed silent.
I was reaching for her. Pushing down the bond, searching for the light that joined us, her beating red heart that had become the centre of our pack. I couldn’t even feel Valko and Fillian, plunged into darkness by her absence.
She was gone. She was there, right in front of me, and I couldn’t fucking feel her.
“Jasper.” Her attention returned to him. “Did you bring a favour?”
My eyes widened in shock. Women only sewed favours for their knights and lovers, to grant them blessings and courage in battle, and for a safe return home. For him to have one - from the Blood Princess herself - only went to show her deep love for him.
“Only the newest, princess,” he said cautiously.
