Chapter 115

Dominic

I didn’t resist when they found me.

Lucas and Wyatt materialized in front of me. From where I sat on the ground they approached like trees come to life, lifting me with their strong branches.

“We’ve got you, sir,” Wyatt said softly to me. “We’ll get you home.”

“Mira…”

The word bubbled out of my mouth, the pain from my cut-up face starting to set in.

“She’s safe.”

And then I passed out.

I woke up in a first floor living room of the Alpha mansion, a nurse standing over me. She had to wake me to clean out my face and tend to the wound. I recognized Jacqueline, and even in my confusion I was grateful she had been called.

“Who did this to you?” She asked as she swabbed me with antiseptic. It stung, but I didn’t allow myself to react. “Was it a Rogue? We can swab for DNA if you’d like, which might lead us somewhere. Maybe it was connected to—“

“No,” I said abruptly. “No need, it was an accident. Will it scar?”

She looked at me like I was insane, and maybe a bit vain.

“Tough to say,” she said, going back to her work. “I’ll put a few small invisible stitches in, though nothing is so deep that it won’t be able to scab over on its own. Whoever did this may have meant it as a warning, not a maiming.”

I stared at her, my eyes itching. I feared if I blinked I would break the dam and the inner pain would overflow. Of course Mira didn’t want to disfigure me, she was protecting herself from the beast that was attacking her.

Jacqueline looked at me, worried. “And hey, we’ve got some of the best plastic surgeons in the county, so we can always get you a whole new face.”

She smiled awkwardly, trying to cheer me up. Medical people were always trying to make light of a situation, even if they did so with bad humor. the hard line of my mouth softened and I looked down, and she shrugged as if that was enough of a response.

By the time I was escorted back to my rooms, I had almost forgotten what to expect inside. My Betas had cleared a pathway and disposed of anything dangerous, but the signs of my rampage were still evident.

I was too exhausted to care as I threw myself onto the bed after taking another strong pill for my pain. Or maybe I took two more pills for my pain.

I did not dream.

Hours later, in the early afternoon, a lightning bolt struck my skull and woke me with a snort and a near panic attack. Remembering that I was in my bed, and that Mira was not, images of the night before played through my mind. The storyline was disjointed, but the impact was just the same.

It wasn’t that surprising that Mira didn’t come home last night, and I assumed she had gone to the hospital. At least there she had friends who would look out for her beyond just cleaning wounds.

Oh gods, had I wounded her?

I made it to the bathroom just in time to throw up the limited contents of my stomach. I needed to talk to Mira, to make sure she was okay. Thinking back, I could barely remember the moment she left.

No messages or phone calls from her, but I figured that was to be expected. I tried in vain to call her, but of course it went straight to her voicemail. Maybe she was just working all day, and couldn't answer. Maybe last night wasn’t as bad as my body seems to remember it being.

There were unread messages in my inbox, but my reactions to them were mixed.

One from my father sounded very worried, so I called him right away to let him know his son was still alive.

Another several from Celeste. In fact, she’d sent three separate messages this morning. I did not reply to any of them.

One thing that was clear in my mind from the events of last night was the unfortunate moment between me and my former fiancé. Why was I so drawn to her? Even now I felt repulsed by the idea of kissing anyone but Mira.

I pushed Celeste aside and set upon a plan for my afternoon. I couldn’t sit around feeling sorry for myself, so I put my limited brain capacity to puzzling out what happened to me the night before. The argument with Mira should not have been enough to trigger me, so it must have been something else.

I went back into the bathroom.

I looked at the medicine cabinet, at the bottles and tubes that I’d knocked over and around the countertop. There was no way for me to tell by looking at it, but when I held up one of my tincture bottles I was sure it was not something Mira had made.

Someone had tampered with the supply. Someone had set me up.

And when Mira tried to deliver an antidote, it didn’t work. So the plan had two parts: first to stimulate a manic episode in me, and then to prevent Mira from pulling me out of it.

“Wyatt,” I told my Beta on the phone, “I need some medical records. Supplies, shipments, anything that looks weird in the freight logbook from the past few weeks. This could’ve been a long plan in the making.”

“I’ll let you know what I find, sir.”

Most likely, someone had accessed Mira’s belongings. It wouldn’t have been easy, but it wasn’t impossible to slip the wrong syringe in or out without her being fully aware. And the Blood Drive the other day would’ve been a perfect time for a stranger to slip in and out unnoticed.

That was the same day the Rogues blew up the medical truck. It all had to be connected somehow.

Wyatt called me back later in the evening. I hadn’t let my apartment all day, not wanting to leave in case Mira came home.

“Sir, I have something,” Wyatt said on the other line. “Not much, but a start.”

“Go on.”

“Well, it looks like last week there was a large number of supplies cleared for donation to some bogus non-profit,” the Beta wolf explained. “I searched the name and found nothing.”

“That can be good,” I said, my face wincing in pain as I furrowed my eyebrows. “Did you ask anyone if they knew about it? Who signed off on it?”

“That’s the thing,” Wyatt said, a little excited. “Nobody knows a thing.”

“Damn,” I said in a low voice. “Good work, we’ll keep digging.”

“Right, Sir.”

“Oh, and Wyatt?”

“Yes, Sir?”

I paused, feeling suddenly guilty. “Have you heard from Mira today? Or seen her?”

Then he paused, and I felt like an asshole. “Yes, she’s okay,” he finally told me. “I thought she might be home by now.”

“Me too.”

Another hour went by before I heard footsteps in the hallway. I was so on edge that I immediately picked up Mira’s scent. I didn’t care about anything except seeing her, holding her. I was on my feet and at the door before she turned the knob.

I swung the door open to see Mira, but she was not alone.

She had come home with Lucian.