“You’re back.”
Axel halted outside his door, shoulders hunched as he turned his head. “Alice… I’m just grabbing something. Where’s everyone?”
“Out hunting, but I’m sure you already guessed that,” she answered, sitting in the groove of the window, Poe her cat sleeping silently by her feet. Moonlight sliced through the window, casting her features in shadows. “Where have you been?”
“Out.”
“Was it your idea to let the shifter go?”
Fuck.
“He wasn’t going to help us, he was just expendable to them.”
“Expendable to who?”
Axel swallowed, finally turning his entire body, only to press his back against the door as if it would swallow him whole. “I’m going to get Sam back. I promise.”
Alice tilted her head, the moonlight moving to highlight the tears that glistened down her cheeks. “My job is to find people,” she said, voice breaking. “And yet you let our only clue walk free. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Guilt wrapped itself around his lungs, constricting every breath. “You need to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Alice snapped, electricity shooting up her arm from her palms. It was a shock against the encroaching darkness, disappearing as quickly as it came. “He’s my best friend and –”
“And he’s my mate!” Axel barked, the realisation punching him like a jackhammer, so hard he swore something cracked. “He’s my mate.” It was the truth, a fact he had suppressed for so long because of his own issues. Sam was his mate, and even if he could never commit to just him, for Axel he was it.
Mine,his beast growled, and Axel could only agree.
Alice blinked past her tears. “Mate?”
“Fuck,” Axel whispered, yanking at his hair hard enough his scalp stung. “Please, you need to trust me.”
“Did you say mate?” The tears fell harder, and Axel stopped himself from crushing Alice to his chest, to comfort her when she stood so alone. But he needed to keep the distance, to get her away as time ticked down.
One hour.
“Please, you need to trust me,” he said, desperation edging his tone. “I’ll get him back.”
“Trust you?” Alice was quiet for a moment before she gave him a wary frown. “Sam’s impulsive,” she said, her words coming fast. “He’s the most impulsive person I know. He has this addictive personality, and takes everything to the extreme. It’s like he finds something he likes and then goes crazy for it. Alcohol. Smoking. Sex.” She barely stopped to take a breath. “Do you know he has over thirty novelty t-shirts? All because he saw one once that made him laugh, so now it’s this whole thing between us –”
“Alice… what are –”
“He hates the hospital,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “More than hate, he’s terrified. You can’t take him there unless it’s an emergency. Oh, and he adores movies, but has terrible taste. He’ll drop everything to help someone else, but he never expects anyone else to do that for him.”
“Alice, I don’t… why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to know him like I do,” she said, swallowing hard as grief lined her face. “I need you to love him like I do, no, even more so. Because he believes he doesn’t deserve it.”
“That’s ridiculous, how can he believe he doesn’t deserve love?”
“Because he’s an idiot who’s haunted by his childhood.” Alice reached to the crystal around her throat, twisting it around her fingers. “Axel, you’re asking me to trust you, yet you let our only clue go.”
“I –”
Alice held up her hand, sparks dancing between her fingertips as her power brushed his chi. “You called him your mate, but do you love him?”
Images of Sam flashed across his mind, every smile, every laugh loosening the pressure in his chest. “He believes he doesn’t deserve love, but it’s me who doesn’t deserve his.” Emotions clogged his throat, but Axel pushed through as Alice waited. “But I don’t care, because he’s mine and nothing will stop me from getting him back.”
Chapter30
