I lunged for the door.
He caught me before I made it three steps.His hands closed around my arms, fingers digging into my flesh hard enough to bruise.He was stronger than I expected.Stronger than the mild-mannered general manager I thought I knew.The professional mask was gone completely now, and the man underneath was a stranger with wild eyes and an iron grip.
I kicked at his shins, struggled, tried to break free.“Let me go?—”
He spun me around, and cloth pressed against my face.Damp cloth.Chemical smell, sharp and bitter, burning my nostrils and the back of my throat.Chloroform.Or something like it.I held my breath, fighting, kicking, but his grip was iron and the cloth was covering my nose and mouth and I couldn’t hold my breath forever and I couldn’t think and I couldn’t?—
Raphael’s terror slammed into me.Pure, consuming, matching my own as it flooded the connection between us.He screamed across our bond, frantic and furious and too far away to help.He knew.He felt my fear surge through the mate bond and he knew.
I tried to reach for him through the connection.Tried to send anything.An apology.A location.A goodbye.But the bond was slippery, fading, and I couldn’t hold onto it.The chemical haze was pulling me under, clouding my thoughts, making everything soft and distant.My lungs burned.My vision blurred.
“Everything that should have been mine… he gave to you.”Michael’s voice was muffled now, far away through the darkness creeping in at the edges of my vision.
Father.Same father.Brother.The words bounced around in my skull without finding purchase, without meaning anything coherent.My knees buckled.The stone floor rushed up to meet me, but Michael caught me, lowering me down almost gently.
Raphael’s howl tore along our connection.His wolf raged, frantic to reach me, to save me.His fury and his fear and his love burned through the connection like wildfire.But he was so far away.An entire world away.And I was slipping, falling, the darkness rushing up to swallow me whole.
“I just wanted you to see me.I helped you with everything, but you never let me in.”Michael’s voice was the last thing I heard, soft and wounded and terrifying in its gentleness.His hand brushed hair from my face, a gesture so tender it made the horror worse.I heard him move away, heard the soft sounds of him going through my bag, but I couldn’t open my eyes to see what he was doing.“I just wanted to be your brother.”
Brother.
The word echoed in the darkness, meaningless and enormous at once.
One last flare along our connection.Raphael, burning with fear and fury and love so fierce it hurt.He reached for me across the miles.His wolf howled into the void between us.His terror flooded through and mixed with mine until I couldn’t tell which fear belonged to whom, which heartbeat was pounding, which lungs were screaming for air.
I’m sorry.Find me.
I didn’t know if the thought reached him.The bond was fading, stretching thin, the chemical darkness pulling me away from everything I knew.Away from the hotel and the afternoon sun and the life I had built.Away from Raphael.
The last thing I felt was Raphael, raw and furious, screaming into a void I could no longer hear.His wolf’s howl fading into silence.
Then nothing.
Only darkness.
26
RAPHAEL
The Pakhan’s compound smelled like concrete and old blood, industrial and cold.The kind of place where wolves came to be reminded of their place in the hierarchy, and where those reminders were written in pain.
I stood in the center of the warehouse floor, stripped to the waist, while Max Ivankov circled me like the predator he was.His silver-streaked hair caught the harsh fluorescent lights, and his scent filled the space with dominant Alpha musk, that particular blend of aged whiskey and barely-leashed violence that made younger wolves bare their throats on instinct.Behind him, Viktor watched from the shadows, his face carefully blank but his scent sharp with worry.Three other enforcers flanked the exits, witnesses to whatever was about to happen.That was the point.
“You chose a human over your pack.”Max’s voice was soft.Dangerous.The kind of soft that preceded bloodshed.“Did you think there would be no price?”
I didn’t answer.There was nothing to say.I had defied him at the Midsummer Gala, refused his demand in front of my mate.He had waited weeks to collect.Patient, like all Alphas were patient.Letting me think he might let it pass.Letting me wonder when the hammer would fall.
He never let anything pass.
“The marriage was meant to solve the problem,” Max continued, still circling.His footsteps echoed in the cavernous space, each one measured and unhurried.“Bring the human under pack protection.Eliminate the distraction.But you…” He stopped in front of me, amber eyes glowing faintly in the dim light.“You chose her.Again.In front of witnesses.You made me look weak.”
“I protected what’s mine.”
The blow came fast.A backhand that snapped my head to the side and split my lip.Copper flooded my mouth, hot and metallic.My wolf snarled, wanting to fight back, wanting to tear out the throat of the man who dared strike us.But I shoved him down with the control I had spent decades perfecting.Fighting the Pakhan meant death or exile.Neither option kept Lena safe.
“Yours.”Max laughed, the sound devoid of humor.“She is pack property now.That’s what marriage means.You forgot your place, Vor.”
I straightened and wiped blood from my chin with the back of my hand, but I said nothing.
