“Costin, Sally,” Vasile said, his voice unusually gentle. “I have some disturbing and painful news. If there was any way I could handle this without having to burden you two with it, I would. But, that would not be fair to either of you.” He paused and looked up at Costin. “I received a phone call from Skender the other day. As you can imagine, I was shocked to hear from him after so long, but what he told me was even more shocking.”
Alina turned slightly and looked up at Costin. “Perhaps you could sit by your mate?” she asked. Alina knew Costin would need Sally’s touch in order to stay in control, or else her mate’s office would soon be in ruin.
Costin walked around the couch, his jaw clenched tight. He sat next to Sally, and she took his hand.
Alina nodded at her mate to continue and then tried to brace herself for what was to come.
Sally looked at Vasile,waiting for him to tell them whatever it was that was apparently going to flip their world upside down. She tried not to puke all over Alina. Her stomach was churning like a well primed hurricane, and though she imagined she probably needed to know what he was going to say, she didn’twantto know. Not if it was going to hurt. Sally was tired of pain. She’d done some much needed healing while in Texas, but just as newly healed skin is fragile, she could tell she was as well. The seams of her soul that had been torn apart had been repaired and brought back together, but she still needed time to help them grow stronger, to helphergrow stronger.
“How you holding up?”she asked Costin through their bond. Sally could feel his emotions building and wondered if there was a way she could stop the tidal wave that was sure to come.
“My only concern is for you,”Costin said, his voice sounding gruff even in her mind.
She squeezed his hand and leaned into his side, hoping the touch would calm them both.
“Skender has been with the Order,” Vasile said. “He claims to have met his true mate and that she is a member and has been her whole life.”
Sally focused on Costin and trying to push her peace, what little she felt, into him. Helping him seemed to help her keep from losing it.
“He also claims to have heard about Sally’s abduction but that he couldn’t do anything to help because he didn’t want his mate harmed.”
Costin shot to his feet, pulling Sally with him. She didn’t think he was even aware he still clutched her hand. He was shaking with rage, his breaths coming in rapid pants. Sally could feel the mix of emotions rolling through him like an ocean being stirred up by the winds of a coming storm. She tried to push reassurance through their bond but wasn’t sure how much he was feeling considering his thoughts and the thoughts of his wolf were focused on the prey Vasile had just handed them.
“He betrayed his pack?” Costin growled. “He betrayed a healer?”
“He did,” Vasile confirmed.
The images that filled his mind nearly drove Sally to her knees. Everything he’d seen in her mind—the things done to her … the things she’d done—ran through his mind like a bad movie on repeat.
Costin knewhe needed to pull himself together, but he felt as though he’d been gutted. A pack member had betrayed them, and that betrayal had cost his mate so, so much.We will kill him,his wolf snarled softly in his mind.Any that played a part in her being taken from us, being used and violated, being stripped of who she was, will bleed and then they will die.
Costin agreed with his wolf. He would personally kill them all one by one for the pain they’d caused his Sally, his brown-eyes. The nickname felt like a piercing knife in his heart as he remembered why Sally didn’t want him calling her that anymore, and it only made his already volatile state grow more explosive. Costin forced himself to drop her hand, and he stepped back away from her. He wouldn’t risk hurting her, not even unintentionally. Turning away from the eyes on him, he reached up and grasped the mantle above the fireplace. He felt his claws sink into the wood, not even realizing he’d begun to phase.
“Costin,” Sally’s soft voice reached out to him. But instead of soothing him, it stirred the beast. He and his wolf hadn’t been able to protect her. It was their fault she’d been taken in the first place. And since punishing himself would hurt her, he wouldn’t. But Vasile had just given him an outlet for the barely contained fury.
When Costin finally spoke, it was his wolf’s voice that emerged. “Then Skender’s a dead man walking.” Costin took two deep breaths before dropping his arms and turning to face his mate, who had moved to stand beside him. He looked down at Sally, his eyes, no doubt glowing with his beast, peering out at her. He reached up and ran his thumb across her cheek, catching a tear, and inwardly vowed to replace every tear she’d shed with laughter, pleasure, and joy. Costin leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead before saying, “I cannot allow Skender to live.” Costin’s voice was a rough whisper. He was fighting for control, control he rarely lost. He wanted to destroy the room around him. He wanted to throw something through a window, the way Fane had done when his mate had been in the hospital. Costin wanted to roar like a lion, the way he’d heard Decebel do many times over his own mate. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to Sally. She’d been terrified when they’d found her. His mate had come a long way in defeating that fear, and he would not add to her fear with his own wrath.
The need to hold his Sally, to have her touch, suddenly overwhelmed him. Costin wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against his chest. He tangled one of his hands in the back of her dark hair and pressed his face into the long locks. His wolf breathed deeply, over and over, saturating himself with her scent.“I love you, Sally mine,”he said through their bond. His throat was tight with emotion, and he didn’t think he would be able to say anything out loud that wouldn’t sound like a snarl or growl.“Are you alright?”he asked while at the same time reaching through their bond to look into her mind. His wolf wanted to make sure their mate didn’t try to sugarcoat her emotions, because it knew she would. His sweet, gentle mate would not want to cause him worry.
Sally bither bottom lip to keep from pouring her heart out in front of an audience of more than just her mate. He was peering into her mind and could no doubt feel her worry and fear through their bond. She tried very hard to lock it down so it wouldn’t add fuel to the fire.
“I’m afraid for you,”she answered honestly.
“Me? Why?”
“Skender has been a friend for a long time. Taking his life, no matter the reason, will affect you.”Sally felt dark humor wrap around him even as a low chuckle filled her mind.
“You’re right, Sally mine, it will affect me. It will settle my beast for a little while knowing that another of our betrayers has been removed as a threat. Every prey that I hunt, find, and kill will add to my peace.”
Sally shivered at the cold, calculated tone of his voice. She understood why he was so angry. Learning that Skender was part of her abduction was a slap to the face. But she hated that the joking, flirty Costin from an hour ago was gone. In his place was a dominant male wolf reacting to a threat to his mate. Sally had never seen anything as compelling as the protective instinct the male Canis lupus had for their true mates. And though her mate wasn’t usually as intense as the others, he was every bit as protective.“Don’t leave me,”she said, as her heart clenched painfully in her chest.“Darkness still lives in you, my love. You keep it at bay because you have me to help keep you from feeding it. Killing is a feast to the darkness. Don’t feed the darkness.”
Costin pulled back so he could look down at her. His lips were pulled tight in a straight line, his cheekbones seemed stark and more defined. The dimples she loved were nowhere to be seen. “I’m not going anywhere, not physically, emotionally, or mentally. I’m yours—all of me—darkness, light. They’re yours. But don’t ask me to allow your captors and their accomplices live. We aren’t human, Sally. Our justice is not the same as the human way.” He took her hand and placed it over his heart, “You’re my light. As long as you are here the darkness will not take over. Trust me.”
She understood what he was saying. She knew supernaturals had to be policed differently from humans, but it didn’t make her okay with her mate having blood on his hands. Sally also understood that trying to change his mind was futile. She could feel his resolve. “I trust you,” she said a minute later.
Vasile cleared his throat and suddenly they were back in the Alpha’s office with Alina and Lilly. Sally had been so focused on her mate that everything else had literally faded away.
“I requested that Skender return here and tell me his story face to face so I could discern truth from lies,” said Vasile. “He arrived earlier with the woman he claims is his true mate, and I have already interrogated them.”
