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I tried to reach for him. We had a bond, didn’t we? Couldn’t I find him, warn him somehow?
I didn’t know how the bond worked. I didn’t know what was possible and what wasn’t. All I knew was that Cal was banking on the fact that Braxton would come for me, and after what we’d shared, come for me, he would.
17
BRAXTON
The mansion in Portland was ready for me to walk into when we left the mountainside. My staff had maintained it for me, although I rarely stayed there.
“How many did we lose?” I asked grimly when we stood in the living room after getting clean and putting on clothes.
“Six members of your staff,” Dagger said grimly. “The others that made it out alive are at the clinic now. The wounds they sustained are riddled with dark magic, so they are taking longer to heal.”
I nodded. Our wounds were taking longer to heal as well, but it would just take some time.
“I’m sorry,” Uma said softly from where she’d curled up on the couch.
She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms locked around them. Her eyes were large and shimmered with unshed tears.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said.
“It’s all my fault. It was my spell that was hijacked so that Kinley couldn’t get out, and now—” Her voice cracked, and tears rolled over her cheeks. “I should have known better.” She added the last words in a whisper.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said again, more fiercely. “This wasn’t your fault. This was Niam. He’s been leaving us alone for too long. I should have known that he was planning something.”
“What if she’s dead?” Uma asked, her voice wobbly.
“She’s not,” I said firmly. “I’m bound to her, and I can still feel her. She’s alive.”
“You’re bound to her?” Uma asked, blinking at me.
“It’s all over him,” Dagger said. “Her scent, her magic… the bond was created. They’ve been mated.”
“Oh, Braxton,” Uma breathed. “I knew it. I knew she was meant to be with you.”
“And we have to get her back,” I said and balled my fists.
Dagger shook his head. “You can’t just go after her and get her back with no repercussions.”
“I’m not leaving her,” I said hotly.
“No one suggested you should, but this is a trap.”
I glared at Dagger, but he kept talking. The bear shifter was level-headed when I couldn’t be—it was one of the many reasons he was my beta.
“If she’s still alive, it’s because Niam wants it that way, and if you’re bound, then he’s using her to draw you out, to get you to come to him. You know what that means, don’t you?”
I gritted my teeth and pulled back my lips from my teeth in a snarl, but I couldn’t deny that he was right. They were using Kinley to get to me.
Fuck!
I turned around and paced to the window, then to the far wall and back again.
“This is why I shouldn’t have let her get close. This is why I always keep people at arm’s length. I can’t afford for them to get hurt. I can’t afford for people to go down because of me, and now it’s happened to the one woman I care about. I was such an idiot.”
Neither of them said anything.
“If this is anyone’s fault, it’s mine.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to contain myself.
