Anders stepped out, then turned back to me. “Shit! I meant to ask you something.”
Letting out an impatient sigh, I tried my best to smile. “What’s that?”
Anders glanced around conspiratorially before leaning in close. “Any of these ladies give you a littletasteof what it could be like as their mate? Huh?” He nudged me with his elbow. “I went to school with Tanya; I know for a fact she’s got a really talented mouth, if you know what I mean.”
Rage unlike anything I’d felt since being back in town flooded through my chest. It was all I could do not to punch him in his smug face. He had no business being an alpha. Not when he was talking about his own people like that. My heart shattered again, imagining June being stuck with this piece of shit forever.
“Let me know that date, Anders,” I said, not deigning to respond to his crude question. “See you later.”
Anders locked eyes with me, and I could see he wanted to assert dominance over me. That would have been averybad choice. Luckily, he chose the better option, grinning again, and backing toward the porch steps.
“Sounds good,” he said. “You have a good day,Leviathan,” he said, overemphasizing my name as if it was a slight before shifting and trotting away.
As I watched him go, I made a conscious effort to calm myself. There was more going on here than just my dislike of the Idlewild Alpha. I needed his help to protect my pack, and I needed his permission to meet with the women here to find Naphele. I’d need to control my temper around him until both of those things were accomplished. Closing the door, I thought of June and cursed myself for being unable to let go.
56
JUNIPER
My world was agony. Excruciating pain washed over me. Try as I might, I couldn’t lift my arms; they lay broken and misshapen at my sides. Air gurgled in and out of my throat, and there was a grating sensation in my chest, like needles dragging across my lungs. Every breath was misery, and I could taste blood in my mouth.
“Naphele, I’m home. Sorry I’m late.”
An overwhelming surge of relief pushed the pain away for a moment. Levi was home. He would help me. He would save me. I opened my mouth to cry out for him, but only a hiss emerged, followed by a stream of blood across my lips.
Looking toward the door was like running a marathon. The simple act of moving my eyes in their sockets was like moving the world itself.
The smile on Levi’s face vanished as he took in what must have been a horrifyingly bloody scene. Even in my misery, I experienced a painful ache in my heart at the look of horror and shock on my love’s face.
“Naphele,” Levi screamed, falling to his knees beside me. “No, no, no, no, no, no.”
The edges of the room were beginning to blur and go dark. I forced myself to stay. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave him, but I was slipping. My healing wasn’t strong enough for what had been done to me. It was almost as if I was being tugged backward, dragged away from the man I loved more than life itself.
Levi reached down, gently scooping up my body to hold me close. Even the agony of that was worth it to have his body pressed against mine. I was no longer so cold, so alone. His heat radiated into me, and along with it, the love he had for me.
Tilting his face up, Levi screamed at the top of his lungs for someone to come, for anyone to try and save me, but it was too late. I knew that.
When he looked at me, I could see the heartbreak in his eyes—his devastation at realizing I was slipping away, and his impotent rage at being unable to do anything about it.
“Don’t leave me,” he sobbed, tears dripping from his nose onto my cheeks. “Please. I can’t live without you.”
Summoning the very last of my strength, urging my inner wolf to give me any energy she might be able to, I coughed, clearing the blood from my throat, and spoke.
“I…will find…you…again, my…love.”
The room grew ever darker, the blackness seeping in until all I could see was Levi’s sobbing face. In the distance, I heard boots thumping up the stairs, men crying out and cursing, and one man’s voice ringing out in horrified shock.
“Jesus, Levi! You’ve killed her. Why?”
With that, my eyes slipped closed for the last time.
I rolled from bed,sleep and wakefulness colliding like a bus and a freight train. I slammed into the hard wooden floor, tangled in the sheets, tears in my eyes. A sharp stinging painshot through my hip and elbow. I was screaming and didn’t even realize it.
With my free hand, I reached up and clutched at the necklace, my fingers gliding across the cool metal of the infinity symbol, my breath coming in heaving gasps.
“June?”
The lights clicked on, flooding the room with light. Gran rushed over, kneeling next to me. That motion, so similar to what I’d witnessed Levi do in my dream, unleashed a flood of pent-up emotion. I cried out, reaching forward and clutching her, sobbing into her nightgown.
