Chapter 29

Aurora

“I want him found,” Jaxson says, speaking to the group of warriors that hoard in front of the fireplace of his bedroom.

His room is more rustic, like his father’s office, wood floors and wood beams accenting the towering ceilings. He only has a few articles of furniture, including leather chairs that sit by his fireplace, raging with tall flames that I can feel across the room laying in his bed. I love being surrounded by his scent.

“Send every available warrior,” he gusts, attempting to keep his voice down. “Everyone needs to be on high alert. Xander is deemed dangerous and deadly. He must be killed on sight. Understood?”

“Yes, Sire,” the group replies.

I hear them all leave and pull the shirt I wear together in the front, my fingers curled into the fabric. Jaxson approaches slow, trying to handle me with easy hands and slow movements, but it doesn’t help as I tremble when he stands over me. I look aside, facing down, begging he takes the sight of my neck as an act of submission, something Xander only laughed at.

“Stop it,” he breathes, his hand brushing the mark he made on my shoulder. I pull away from his hand, feeling knots twist tighter in my stomach until he drops his hand and takes a small step away from the bedside. “I understand, Aurora,” he sighs. “I’m here when you’re ready to talk.”

He paces away and I weep into his pillow, holding it tight like it’s the only thing keeping me afloat in a storm of my fear and sadness. His steps finally lead him away, out of the room, and sob louder, letting every pain in my chest release at once. It hurts, everything hurts, and all I can do is see Xander stand over me with his erection pulsing to be let out of his denim.

I had to prepare my mind in case he tried to do something like that to me and the utter thought of it now forces me to cry in heavy waves. I was telling myself Jaxson would reject me, he would hate me for being used by another man like that. If he saw me kiss Luke and be that upset, I can’t picture what would happen knowing Xander would use my body for his own pleasure.

I just want to scream, to forget it all ever happened, but my legs are still numb, and my head is still light. We got back to the palace days ago, but it still feels like hours, every inch of my body running hot like I’ve been thrown into the fireplace and left to die. Part of me is surprised to be alive. For a moment in time, I begged to die, unable to heal and feeling toxic wolf’s-bane course through my veins.

For now, I sit in the dark, warm room, tainted with Jaxson’s scent and breathing so deeply that I somehow think if I inhale his scent enough, it will get rid of Xander’s.

It doesn’t work. It’s too late. I am already tainted.

Jaxson

I wait in my father’s office for now. Aurora is too frightened by my company, crying hard but crying harder when I try to ease her stress. To make her feel better, I left her alone, and it hurts me to do so but my pain can’t overshadow the nightmare she is having right now.

I have yet to ask what all he did to her, but judging her state when I arrived, I know it’s not acceptable. He beat her past recognition and she was starved, dehydrated, and reeked of wolf’s-bane toxins in her every breath. The first few days was having her system adjust back to normality. Now it is simply accepting my touch, meeting my gaze, and trying to drink more fluids than she drains in her tears.

The door swings open, my father entering, the once slivers of purple rings under his eyes now heavy bags of exhaustion. This as tormented his mind as well. He loves Aurora, he knows she will make a great Luna, something I’ve had to remind her more these last few days than ever before, and knowing he let Xander go the first time has weighed heavy on his heart. It didn’t help that I outright blamed him for this mess.

But he got away again, barely, wounded so bad he could just be dead from bleeding out by now but if not, I want him to be, working with a bare number of warriors needed to focus on pack quarrels and guarding the palace. The rest have direct orders to kill Xander no matter what and drag what’s left of him to my doorstep.

“How is she faring?” my father asks, plopping down on the couch, reaching for his clear glass vase of liquor.

I don’t care what it is, as long as it’s strong, and take a glass with him, sipping on the bold, heavy taste. “She won’t talk to me,” I say, my heart breaking with those words. “I tried to reach her through the link, seeing if I could find out for myself how far the abuse went, but the wolf’s-bane still lingers in her blood. It’s muted me from her. Either that or she is blocking me out by choice,” I add. Both thoughts are feasible.

That hurts the most.

“I should have never let any of this happen.”

“It was out of your control,” my father says, sipping down his first glass of caramel colored liquor. “The blame cannot be put on anyone but Xander.”

I cringe at the mention of his name. “He is ruthless.”

I catch my father looking aside, obviously upset. It’s his second son, the prince he had with his current Luna Vivian, and I know they have had issues since it came out that Xander took Aurora. My father was rightfully on my side, against his second son, but I know it took a toll on his mating union with Vivian, both of them still the parent that created a creature capable of such hatred.

“He is still my son,” he mumbles under his labored breath. “I know he is mad, and he wants to be Alpha, but he has taken this obsession too far. I don’t condone his actions, son, I just want you to know that if they catch him alive, I will do everything in my power to keep him that way.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because he is lost, he is upset about the fate of not being an Alpha. He has taken it far too extreme; I can admit that, but he has a right to feel upset.”

“Upset is throwing a tantrum. He kidnapped my mate and held her hostage at the request of being Alpha. He beat her body and did unspeakable acts to my Luna, father, some of which I can’t even tell you about because she is too frozen in fear to speak to me about any of it!”

“Don’t yell,” he groans. “I’m just saying nothing is set in stone. I may be able to help him see his ways are wrong. I can’t give up on my son, Jaxson, just as I wouldn’t ever give up on you.”

“I ordered him dead,” I spit back, forcing myself to a stand. “It will be done that way, too. If he is brought back alive, I’ll finish the job. He has wounded my mate too damn much to have the right to breathe. He will suffer.”

I storm out of the room, needing a space to relax, instead walking back into my room to see the bed empty. My heart skips at the sight, calming down second later to see the bathroom filling with steam, the sounds of the bathtub running water leaking into the bedroom.

I slowly approach the doorway, Aurora attempting to lower her body into the bubbly bath water, her face taut in pain as the hot, soapy water kisses her wounds. She finally plops down into the water, covering her up to her shoulders, the blood in her hair releasing into the water and staining it pink in a matter of seconds.

The water fills up higher and higher and I finally give in, entering the bathroom to shut off the facet. She looks down at the bubbles, the sight paining me. I turn to leave, setting out a towel and new shirt of mine she can wear when she is ready to get out. That’s when I hear her voice, so broken and low in volume.

“Please, stay.”

I turn quick, not needing to hear it a second time. I undress and climb into the water behind her body, feeling her sink into my chest, her skin torn and radiating red in irritation.

She turns to face me now, her cheeks damp and bruised, but it doesn’t matter. She pushes her lips to mine, kissing me like she used to, like nothing ever happened before. It intensifies and I wonder for a moment if I’m allowed to touch her body, pull it onto my own, but she decides for the both of us.