“What’s wrong?”
He sighs and looks away.
I follow his gaze and see Kendric lying dead in the middle of the road, but I can’t see Cadel anywhere.
He’s just gone.
Chapter 70
Moon touched
I rush towards Kendric, crouching but almost falling on my ass as I get a look at his gruesome wound. The blood is in a pool around him, splattered like a painting, stark red in this grey and blue world. The alpha’s throat has been torn out, and beside him, lying in a decaying pile, is the Ravage Wolf. I glare at it before reaching out and taking Kendric’s hand. He’s still warm. It feels weird to be holding it, so I carefully lay it on his chest.
I glance around, searching for Cadel. Where is he? He won, so where is he?
“Hurry home, my friend,” I murmur to Kendric, hating myself for the relief I feel that he’s the corpse I’m bidding farewell to.
As soon as I turn away from him, the anxiety overwhelms me as if it was waiting for me to finally acknowledge it. Where is Cadel? I dart glances around, taking in everything, but when I can’t see him, I move towards a street that is almost entirely in shadow. I’m halfway there when I turn my head and spot a couple of drops of blood.
My heart stutters in my chest, and I get dizzy, which is chased by a rapid crash as adrenaline floods my poor body. I bolt towards the drops, scanning around for more, my legs barely holding me up. The smell of blood is heavy in the chill of the air on my skin. I take it all in, but I don’t care.
“Kendric’s blood,” I say, but I don’t believe it.
I’m terrified I won’t find any more blood but scared I will.
There are a few drops on some tall grass, and when I go over, it's dark red but wet. It is Cadel’s blood; it has to be. A tiny part of me had been hoping that it would be Kendric’s, but the other alpha slips from my mind, vanishing like he never existed.
I see another splatter, but beyond that is a small puddle. I move from one to the other, stumbling and searching as quickly as I can as I jog in the direction that they go in. A warmth builds on my chest, and I put my hand over the spot where my Winter Wolf placed the ice gem. It shouldn’t be here; I should have lost it when I fell.
He said if I called he would come.
“Cadel!” I call out. Frantic. Desperate. “CADEL!” I scream.
He doesn’t answer me. But that ice inside me leads me on, growing colder and colder. I stop, pressing my hand to my heaving chest, feeling the ice throbbing in my chest.
“Breathe; he’s going to be fine. He’s going to be okay. Just breathe, Keres. You will find him.”
I’m a child watching my friends disappear, a teen coming home to find my family gone, an adult tracking my mother and arriving too late. Everyone disappearing and never seen again. Unanswered questions, just me alone, waiting forever, wondering why everyone leaves me.
I bite my bottom lip hard, trying to force those memories away.
The bond is silent, feeling heavy and empty, like something is wrong.
“Please,” I whisper. “If there is anyone out there, please don’t do this to me. Please.”
There’s a howling in my ears, a panic I can’t erase, I can’t silence.
I spot a hand print in red on the wall and jog towards it. The smear is wet. I glance around, checking carefully before I get to the corner of the building. He’s sitting upright against a wall, his chin on his chest, andhis face impossibly white. He’s just out of sight of the road like he was trying to hide.
For one horrible second, I can’t move. My world, this entire crappy existence, comes to a halt. A scream forces its way up my throat, but I swallow it ruthlessly and lunge towards him.
“No! No! No, no, no, no!”
My heart’s in my throat, I see Jarek and Mordecai fall again. Their life fading, and I know I’m going to see it again, but my stupid heart is hoping I’m wrong. I can’t lose him.
I skid on my knees beside him, feeling him all over, trying to find an answer that will let me save him. My hands come away dripping with hot blood.
The red is so dark, and there’s so much of it.
