Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sienna
Lucas drops to his knees in the moss beside Lydia.
The glow from a torch catches on the blood at her temple, the slash across her shoulder, the pale wreck of her face. Her chest lifts slowly. Falls. Lifts again. Lucas’s fingers move to her wrist, then to her throat.
“She’s alive.” His voice is low, clipped. He looks up at the soldier holding the radio. “Find Lillian. I want every wolf we have searching these woods. Now.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
The soldier barks the order into the radio before he has taken three steps. A second soldier shifts and takes off across the lawn toward the east gate at a dead sprint. Behind us, the bell on the eastern wall is still ringing. Down by the gates, I can hear boots hitting the gravel.
Violet pushes past me toward the trees, her bare feet sinking in the wet grass. Her eyes are fixed on the dark beyond the torches.
“I’m going with the search party.”
“No.” Darius’s voice is quiet, but the word lands like a stone. He has shifted back and is behind her in two strides, his palm closing around her elbow.
She wrenches around. “Don’t try to stop me, Darius.”
“You don’t know this terrain, Violet. You’ll slow them down.”
“That’s my mother out there!”
“I know.” His hand stays on her arm, but he looks over his shoulder at Lucas. “What do you say?”
Lucas is gathering Lydia against his naked chest. He stands carefully, her body limp in his arms.
“Darius is right. My soldiers know every inch of these woods in the dark. Anyone who isn’t trained on this ground is a hazard to the trackers. They’ll have to circle back to protect you. That’s time we don’t have.” His eyes find Violet. “I will get her back. You have my word.”
She stares at him. A single tear falls down her cheek.
I cross to her and slide my arm around her shoulders. “Violet…”
“My mother is out there, Sienna. How can I do nothing?”
“Lucas will do everything to bring her back. Trust him. Please.” I press my forehead to her temple. “Standing here on the lawn isn’t going to bring her back any faster. Let the pack do their job. You and I should be with Lydia. She’s the only one who saw what happened.”
She lets me turn her around so her back is to the trees.
We have to move across the lawn quickly, as Lucas is already ahead of us with Lydia in his arms. Darius is half a step behind him, barking into his phone in a tone I have not heard from him before. I keep my arm tight around Violet’s shoulders. The bond hums loudly in my chest as we follow Lucas. His fury is a cold, steady current underneath everything else. Controlled, determined, focused.
The entrance hall is full of staff converging on Lucas—the housekeeper named Florence at the front with a bundle of clean linens in her arms, Marian a step behind her with a basin and towels.
“Her room,” Lucas says without breaking stride. “Healer on the way?”
“Two minutes out, Alpha. Running.”
“Hot water. Clean kit. Whoever is on switchboard, get me Hennessy and Reese on radio.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
I take the stairs two at a time with Violet, Darius in front of us now, Lucas a flight ahead with Lydia. The corridor lights have come up.
In Lydia’s room, Lucas lays her on the coverlet so gently, it hurts my wolf to watch. The healer arrives in the doorway behind us, a stocky man with gray at his temples, his sleeves shoved to the elbow, a satchel banging against his hip. His hands begin to glow a low, warm green before he has even reached the bed.
“How bad?”
