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He looked ready to leap at Rook. “While the rest of you were treating her like dirt!”
“Enough!”The command of pack lead was in my voice, and it drew him up, if only for a moment. I hated using it. I didn’t feel that I deserved it. But… “Wecan’tfall apart, not now—”
“You’re blaming me?” Drake demanded. “After—”
“No. You… you were the only one there for her, but we can’t. If this pack dissolves, the scent match goes with it, and then there is nothing in the world that can break that dark bond.”
Drake’s chest was heaving. He was on the brink of madness, his aura shivering in the air.
“We’re it,” I said, hating the truth of it. “We’re all she has.”
There was a wild look on his face, and he stormed from the room. I was after him in a moment, feeling the instability through the bond.
“Drake…” I caught up to him on the stairs.
I wouldn’t give him excuses. He deserved better than that. The problem was, I didn’t know what to say. Therewasnothing to say. “We failed her, but we’re going to get her back.”
He spun on me, eyes alight with fury. “Do you know what could be happening to herright now?” he demanded.
My stomach turned with vile sickness at those words. It was shit I was trying not to say—not to think—even when it was a boulder lodged right in the centre of my mind, unmoving, unavoidable.
“She’s with a pack, Love. A pack that dark bonded her”—He shoved me a pace. I could see the madness that I felt through the bond from him, more unhinged than I’d ever seen. “You think if we get her back, you can just say sorry and it will all just go away?”
No.
I didn’t, not for one second, believe that would be enough.
I’d failed Vex. So wrapped up in my own issues, I had missed every sign, every hint—and they’d been there. I’dknownsomething was wrong. “I don’t know how to fix this, but I will—”
“If—whenwe get her back, we offer her the princess bond,” Drake said.
“Of course.” That wasn’t even a question in my mind. We owed her that.
It was the only bond that could save her from the dark bond, and it wasn’t guaranteed, the pack she was with would have to give it up to us.
“I’m going to do everything in my power to break that dark bond,” I told him.
He looked manic, though, running fingers through his hair. “It’s… wrong. That we get a bond with her—”
“We’re her best option.”
“She’s there because of us!” Drake shouted. “She’s trapped with them because of us,and we don’t deserve her!”
“I know.”
Fuck me, I knew that.
“What about what they’re going to ask of us?” Drake demanded.
“I’ll pay it. I don’t care what it is, Iwillpay it, and she will be fucking safe.”
He stared at me, breath slowing just slightly, but I could still feel his instability through our connection.
“Drake, listen to me. We’re going to save her—and not just the princess bond, I’m going to give her the world with or without us involved. I won’t let a single member of this pack near her unless she asks, not me, not Rook, not Ebony. And she’s going to get everything she needs to heal—”
“It’s not enough, she shouldn’t have to heal. Not for us—”
“I know!” I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but it wasn’t anger constricting my throat right now, making it hard to breathe. “I…” My throat was thick all of a sudden. “I fell for her, too. I was a coward… I was scared if Ebony knew…” I couldn’t finish. “I wanted her to fix him, I didn’t protect her from him—” I cut off, a wild laugh slipping from my mouth at the irony.
