Page 22 of Alpha's Chosen Mate (Wolf Billionaire #2)

CHAPTER 22

ASHER

T hree days earlier

“Alright, this has gone on for long enough.” Sasha’s voice drifts in from the other room—Leilani’s room—and a second later, the connecting door swings open. “Seriously? You’re wasted at five in the morning? Get the hell up, asshole.”

She snatches the empty glass from my hand, ignoring my sharp growl as she disappears into the bathroom. “Never pegged you to be the kind of man who cried over a heartbreak.” She returns with a wet towel and throws it at my face. “Wipe the drool off and meet me outside. There’s something you need to see.”

“No,” I tell her, returning my gaze to the papers in my hands, squinting, but I can’t make out the words. The drinking doesn’t help. Trashing her room and mine certainly didn’t, either. I’ve taken to sleeping in the cottage. It’s the only place that doesn’t smell like her.

Sasha’s nostrils flare. “You’re really done looking for her? And then what? You’ll live out the rest of your life like this? You haven’t left this cottage in days. The pack isn’t gonna run itself. Sure, Talon and Cayden are doing a great job, but they need you. Juliana needs you. I need you. And if finding that red-haired bitch is going to cure you of your insanity and this pathetic depression, then we’re going to do that.” Her nose scrunches up and her voice is downright demeaning as she adds, “Father would turn over in his grave if he knew you let a tiny woman get under your skin like this. It’s disgraceful.”

“She left me, Sasha.” Silence falls, bringing with it thoughts I’ve buried with countless bottles of liquor. “I should’ve known she was unhappy. I should’ve been able to tell that she hated me, but I needed her so terribly, I ignored even the tiniest bit of uncertainty in her eyes.” I clench my fist, snapping the ball pen in my hand, as I stare down at the rough sketch on my desk.

The soft curves, the lines, the curly strands of hair. I hadn’t realized I’d sketched her again. I ball up the sheet of paper and toss it in the fire. “If she needs to be away from me to be happy, then I’ll give her the space she needs.”

Sasha rolls her eyes. “You really think she left?” She points in the general area of the reception. “When she clearly was ready to rip my face off after I kissed you once ? She cares about you, trust me. The only way she left is if someone carried her out, tied up and gagged...and even then, she’d probably gnaw through the ropes just to come back and rip my hair out.”

When I pin her with a cold stare, she sighs. “I can’t believe I’m helping you with this, but my feelings for you far outweigh my dislike of her. It hurts to see you like this, especially over someone who isn’t me. But I’ll live, I suppose.” Tears glisten in her eyes, and she looks away sharply to hide the sole tear that escapes down her cheek. “I’ll be by the oak tree.”

I frown. The oak tree? Only a few know it exists. It’s right on the border of Anderson’s territory, and after he snuck in last time, I’ve had guards manning the area. “Why there?”

She looks back, a smirk forming on her lips. “We’re going hunting, and Georgia Anderson is our prey.”

The brunette walks briskly, her gaze shifty as her head snaps back and forth in furtive movements. My eyes narrow as she sneaks up on Tyler with disturbing ease, her movements swift as she retrieves a small dagger from her sleeve and plunges it into his neck. I stiffen as a gurgling sound fills the air.

Sasha catches my elbow before I can react, shoving me against the tree trunk. Her teal gaze burns into mine. “He’ll heal. We can’t let her know she’s been caught, until we know who she’s been meeting with.”

I frown down at her. “What’s come over you, Sasha? Since when are you on my side?”

She rolls her eyes, leaning away from me. “Beats me.”

We fall silent, slipping out from behind the tree and trailing Georgia at a snail’s pace. Watching her incapacitate the guards with ruthless efficiency, I wonder if all that training with Cayden was just a ruse to learn their weaknesses. I’ll have him drill the guards until they can’t stand. Clearly, I’ve been too lenient.

After a while, Georgia struts across Anderson’s border, pulling down the hood of her cloak completely, and her brisk walk becomes a swagger. She’s joined by two men, one of whom she tosses her cloak to, and the other she yells at. “You were supposed to get my message to him, you fool!” She kicks at the dirt. “When does he return from the penthouse?”

A faint “I can’t say,” is the only response, and Georgia snarls, ripping something from the male’s grasp—a cellphone. The screen lights up, casting a glow over her enraged features, and I strain to catch the impatient growl on the other end. “What?”

“You’re screwing that bitch already, aren’t you? I’m working my ass off for you, planting holes in the enemy’s defenses, while you’ve been fucking her the entire time!"

A hand lands atop mine, and only then do I realize I’ve cracked the bark from holding on too tightly. Sasha shakes her head. Not yet , her eyes say.

I lock my limbs, breathing in deeply to stall my anger, but it only triples. I don’t catch his response, unable to hear past the rapid pounding of my heart, but Georgia screeches, “You were supposed to meet me here. Do you have any idea how hard it is to sneak out—no. No! Don’t you dare say that to me! We’re still fucking married. I won’t let you throw me under the bus—oh, fuck you! I only told you about her routine because you said her disappearance would distract him enough to buy you the time you needed to attack! I assumed you were going to kill her!”

I take another breath, but it doesn’t fucking help. My fingers curl, nails digging into my palms.

“You promised…” Her voice lowers, laced with panic. “You promised everything would change if I did this for you.” A pause for him to reply, and then: “You’re a bastard. What happens to me if you marry her? I’ve worked too hard to let this happen. You put me through too much to toss me aside like I mean nothing. You proceed with this and I promise you, I will fucking kill Leilani.”

Something cracks beneath me, and Sasha swears beside me as Georgia’s head snaps in our direction. “I swear, you’re louder than a wailing child.”

I hear Georgia’s gasp, right before she breaks into a run. I pull the pistol out of my back pocket, moving away from the tree. “Stay here.”

Sasha snorts, dropping into a comfortable low squat. “Battles are for men.” She waves her fingers in front of her face, flashing her long pink nails. “This manicure was expensive. I don’t plan on ruining it.” Her lips purse and her teal eyes turn a darker shade of green in the dark. “Try not to kill anyone.”

I have my gun cocked, ready to aim with deadly accuracy. I’m hardly a man who kills without reason, but each shot is vengeance. Maybe I’m more angry at myself than I am at Georgia Anderson, and I’m taking it out on her wolves. She just took the path she thought would benefit her. But she isn’t the one who trashed her partner’s bedroom because she let the doubts fester. I did that. I wallowed in self-pity, picking the easy way out, abandoning the search for Leilani while she’s a prisoner somewhere, going through Goddess knows what. I’ve wasted too much time drowning out the words Drustan repeated to me every hour, every minute, every second— find her, find her, find her —with alcohol.

Guilt and anger drive me into a killing frenzy. They should have known better than to attack me. When the bullets run out, my claws slash into their skin. Will she ever forgive me?

Georgia doesn’t make it very far, her shouts panicked as she calls for help. But for some reason, the pack is scantily guarded, and catching her isn’t as hard as it should have been .

She trips, falling face-first on the ground. She looks back at me, and her terrified gaze flicks from my bloodied fist to the gurgling male behind me. “If you kill me, you’ll never find her.”

I crouch beside her slowly, murmuring softly, “If you think death is what I have in store for you, you are sorely mistaken, Mrs. Anderson.” I raise the gun to her face, caressing her pale skin with the barrel. Her breath hitches. We both know the gun is empty, but with my hands still wet with the blood of her men, she knows that I’m the more dangerous weapon. “You must have learned, with all of your snooping, that the rogues are getting bolder, stealing children and defenseless, unmated women.” The barrel runs down her neck and she swallows, her breathing growing shallow.

Her jaw is set with defiance, but the smell of her fear betrays her. I would never hand a woman to the savages, not after what happened to my family. But Georgia doesn’t need to know that. “Women just like you.” My murmur is intimate. I speak to her like I would a lover I don’t give two fucks about. Her cheeks flush, and her eyes dilate with fear and lust. It’s amusing, watching the war in her eyes.

She knows her death is closing in on her, yet her gaze drops to my mouth. Even in death, she desires something that could never be hers. I suppose it’s always been that way for Georgia. She always has to have whatever belongs to Leilani. I wonder if she’s always been plagued by that obsession, almost like I have been. “Once my men are done torturing you, we’re going to take a nice drive into rogue territory. They’d pay a hefty price for you, I’m sure.”

Her expression remains defiant. “Christian works with the rogues all the time, so yes, hand me over. How do you think he framed you for killing Leilani’s father? ”

My hands still and my head tilts. Right. I should’ve realized that. My brows arch with amusement. “I assumed you would be too smart to deceive me. I can smell your lies. We both know Christian has cut you loose. His last name is all you have, and even that, he plans to give someone else. It’s quite the tragic world you live in, Georgia.”

She jerks forward, her body vibrating under the gun. “I won’t tell you a fucking thing, not unless you give me your word that you’ll let me go.” Her lips pull up into an asinine smile. “You must know that it doesn’t matter if I tell you where he’s holding her. You won’t get there in time to stop the mating rite. He’ll already have his teeth in her, and that won’t be all that he sinks into that sly bitch. She’ll be ruined, and you’ll be disgraced. Without your luna. Without a mate.”

She manages a shrug, her smile growing as she notes the tightness in my features. How could I have waited so long? “But...you could still save her, after. The scars I came here with, the stories I told, those weren’t lies. Christian is a sadistic lunatic, and if Leilani refuses to give in to his desires, he just might lose his mind and kill her. I’m sure you don’t want that. So, why don’t we strike a deal? In exchange for Leilani’s safety, you’ll marry me. Only then will I tell you the location of the penthouse.”

I stare at Georgia Anderson, at the healing cut on her forehead, her button nose, and her thin lips. My eyes drift to her dark brown hair, straight and tame, so unlike Leilani’s uncontrollable locks that we untangled every night before bed and every morning after she rode me in the bathtub, her eyes soft and her grin full of mischief.

A scoff escapes my lips as I pull Georgia up by the collar of her jacket. She yelps at the sudden movement, her feet kicking above the ground. You’d think someone filled with so much anger and hate would weigh more. “You must not know me very well.” I pull her close, our noses only inches apart. “There has never been a time in my life when I don’t get something I want. You’re going to tell me where Leilani is, or I’ll make you scream each word as I skin you alive.”

She must think she has me cornered, because her eyes glare with contempt in an expression I’ve seen too many times on dying men—the expression that comes before realization and terror. “You’ll have to force the words out of my corpse, then. I won’t tell you.”

But she does. It takes four unrelenting hours of flaying the flesh off her back with silver knives, letting the skin heal slowly before tearing it open again. I stare at her lowered head and her shivering frame. She raises her head, strands of hair glued to her sweaty, swollen face. Her split lips stretch into a shit-eating grin, and the chains rattle, securing her to the chair. “Miss me already?”

My hands slip into my pockets. “Clearbridge Cliff is situated within human territory, and not only is it owned by the government that keeps our worlds apart, it’s off-limits for wolves.” I turn to the burning coals and the red-hot iron. “You see,” I say as I retrieve the iron and take a step toward her. She flinches back in the chair, her eyes widening with fear. “It makes no sense that he’d take her there. If you’re trying to trick me…” I chuckle. “Best believe that isn’t in your best interest.”

She pants heavily, her gaze snapping from mine to the iron in my hands. “He’s been building it for years. He purchased it at a hefty price soon after he discovered they were mates. I saw the plans, the expenses, the location. I saw everything! I swear on my life, that’s where he has her!”

My gaze rises to Talon, who’s casually leaning on the wall behind her, and I nod imperceptibly. He pulls his cellphone to his ear, rattling off orders and making the necessary arrangements. It will take five days to get there…maybe three or four if we make no stops. I discard the iron.

Georgia sags in her chair, her eyes flickering between Cayden and me. “You said I would be released once I told you the truth.”

I lean over, the putrid smell of burnt skin and blood greeting my nostrils. “I did, but you must understand, I’m not a very forgiving man.”

Panic flares her eyes and she pulls at her shackles vigorously in an attempt to get away from me. But it’s impossible. I lash out, plunging my fingers through her chest. Her eyes widen, a wet cough wracking her body and blood sputtering from her lips as she says, “You…you said…you wouldn’t kill me…”

Cocking my head, I blink, my fingers squeezing around the pumping organ. “I lied.”

And then I rip her heart out.

Three days.

The first was a silent journey filled with tension. Impatience and fear were a terrible combination, swallowing me whole, and even Talon steered clear of me and kept his damned motivational speeches to himself.

By the second night, we had no choice but to stop. The men needed rest, despite my instincts screaming to push forward. Their tired gazes told me what they wouldn’t dare say out loud: they were spent. Talon wouldn’t let up either, insisting that sleep and food were necessary if we were to keep moving. I couldn’t argue, even though I fucking wanted to. They weren’t machines, no matter how badly I wished they were right now.

The anxiety and fear kept my stomach tight, and not even water seemed remotely enticing. I couldn’t bring myself to rest. The moment my eyes closed, nightmares took over. I saw Leilani covered in blood, her helpless voice ringing in my ears. Pain. Screams. Blood. One nightmare hit too close to reality, so vivid that when I jolted awake, the metallic tang of her blood clung to my tongue. For a split second, the bond between us flared, and I felt her fear, so stark and raw it crushed me.

I roared, waking up the entire camp. There was no going back to sleep after that. I spent the rest of the night standing watch with Talon and Cayden, who felt leaving me alone was rather dangerous.

By the time we reach Clearbridge, my body is wound as tight as a bowstring, ready to snap. We have a plan—hit the penthouse from every angle to overwhelm the guards, while I search for Leilani. However, upon reaching the cliff, it becomes annoyingly clear why Anderson’s pack was left defenseless.

“Fuck,” Cayden cusses, his grip tightening on the rock that hides our presence. My jaw grinds as he murmurs the obvious under his breath. “There are too many of them. The psycho must have pulled all the guards, knowing we’d eventually come here.” Cayden turns to me, his tan skin unusually pale. “It’s a trap.”

Talon twists, leaning his back against the rock. His brown gaze sears mine. “Calling for reinforcements won’t do us any good. The moment Anderson discovers we’re on his property—which won’t be long now—it’s over. We have to go back. ”

“I’m not leaving without her,” I growl.

“And you would risk every life here for one woman’s?” He points at the three SUVs several feet away. “They followed you out here because they trusted you. They’re loyal and owe you their lives—we all do—but the least you can do is not risk all of our lives on a whim?—”

My warning snarl cuts him off. “Leilani’s life is not a whim . If I have to take them all myself, I will. I won’t abandon her again.”

“We both know Anderson won’t kill her?—”

“I felt her fear!” I yell, unable to contain the rage and despair. “She’s completely alone, at the hands of a murderer! I’ll get her out of there, even if it means I die trying!”

“No one’s gonna die,” Cayden snaps, standing between Talon and me. “As entertaining as it is to watch you bicker like a married couple, time really isn’t on our side…” He trails off, his eyes darting to the impressive structure miles away, teeming with four times as many men as we have.

“The explosives?—”

“No,” Talon says sharply, but my mind whirls. I lean over the stones, studying the house again. If I were in Anderson’s position, I’d plan for the two obvious attacks. The first being if I walked right into the trap, attacking with all my men and getting wiped out immediately. The second being me going in as a one-man army, thinking it was possible to sneak in and steal Leilani from under his nose. There’s no doubt I’ll find a horde of guards waiting for me if I do that.

Which brings us to the options Anderson knows I’ll never go for—the ones that could endanger Leilani’s life. Which brings me to the explosives. It’s a gamble, and a dangerous one, but it’s our only chance to walk out of here alive. I turn to Cayden, excitement traveling through my body. “Ready the explosives. Aim for the entrance and columns. During the chaos, pull the vans out of sight. Don’t engage unless you absolutely need to. I’ll be back soon.”

“Where are you going?” Talon asks as I draw my pistol and head in the opposite direction.

“To kill Anderson.”

My hands tighten on the railing as I heave myself over the balcony. Smoke billows high into the sky, and I clutch the wall as yet another explosion rocks the building. Alarmed shouts rise in the air and gunshots ring out. Too busy heading in the direction of noise, no one sees me slip through the back door.

“Looking for something? Or should I say, someone?”

I whirl, but not before the crack of a gunshot splits the air and it hits me like a punch to the gut, knocking my shoulder back violently. A searing pain spreads through my arm, momentarily rendering it useless. The pistol falls from my grasp.

My hand flies to the other holster to retrieve my second gun, but Anderson pushes himself off the wall, the barrel of his gun aimed at my head. “I wouldn’t do that.” He regards me with a detachment that doesn’t belong on the face of a living being. “You had me rattled for a bit, but the moment I realized the blonde leading the charge wasn’t you, your plan became awfully predictable.”

Blood pours from the gunshot wound. I need to get the bullet out to heal, but I doubt Anderson will be kind enough to let that happen. “Where is she? ”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Odd that you’d be worried about her when you’re a few seconds away from reuniting with your family in the afterlife.” A sick light gleams in his eyes. “The last time a kill excited me this much was when I killed my father. I’m going to savor every damn second of this.”

He pulls the trigger and my instincts kick in, driving me backward as the bullet hits the ground where my foot had been half a second ago. He chuckles and pushes forward, turning to circle me. He’s fucking with me, walking around me in slow circles, and I clutch my arm, mirroring his movements, tracking even the slightest shift. Sweat drips down my neck, the pain in my shoulder intensifying with each move. He definitely shot me with a silver bullet.

Fucker.

“For whatever it’s worth, this is nothing personal. If you’d stayed on your side of the border, I wouldn’t need to kill you. At least, not for another couple years. Lei is mine now, like she always has been. I could let everything go—the pack, the power, the wealth I’ve amassed over the years—but never her.”

“Even if it means imprisoning her? Even if you know she doesn’t want this?”

He laughs. “Women always think they know what they want. We exist to show them what they need.” He makes another circle around me. “Once I strip away everything, she’ll see things differently. Love, affection, happiness—these things are fickle. Time is all it takes—time and isolation. When you’re the only constant in someone’s life, when every other option has withered away, it changes them. The mind adapts. She’ll come to need me, crave the familiarity, the certainty of it. She’ll forget the pain, forget you. People always do.” He tilts his head slightly. “When it’s just the two of us, I’ll mold her into exactly what she was meant to be— mine .”

The last word hits me smack in the face, and a growl rumbles in my chest, low and menacing. My muscles tense. The thought of her seeing her with someone else—especially someone like him—makes something primal inside me snap. My vision narrows, locking in on his face until all I see is red.

I move.

Or try to, because the world around me suddenly erupts. One moment, my body jerks in the bastard’s direction, and in the next, everything is consumed by blinding light and a deafening roar. The world shakes, and I wonder what the fuck Talon thinks he’s doing blowing up the house when we’re still inside. I’m thrown into a crumbling wall. I land on my bad arm and I roar in pain, breathing hard.

The shaking doesn’t stop, and a sharp, panicked cry stirs me from my daze, cutting through the ringing in my ears. “No, no, no, no...”

I blink past the blur to see Christian Anderson crawling forward through the debris, angrily clawing himself out of the debris that must have fallen atop him in the explosion. Blood pours from a deep cut along his forehead and down his face, but if he notices, he doesn’t show it as he staggers to his feet and falls, his ankle bent the wrong way.

I follow his crazed gaze to the open hallway down the stairs, the walls cracking, crumbling, collapsing atop each other. Something in my chest pulls tight and raw, stilling me.

The bond yanks me forward, toward the one who owns me, the one who has my life in her hands. For the second time in days, I feel her, just barely a flicker, but she’s there. Weak and tired, the usual spark of life at the other end of the tether flutters weakly, like a fading pulse. She’s dying.

The fear clenching around my heart becomes a living thing, drowning out every thought, every sound. I run, because if she dies, I die too. Because…because I refuse to live in a world without her.

A hand wraps around my ankle, yanking me backward, and he bares elongated canines at me. “You can’t touch what’s mine!” He pulls my ankle hard and I lose my footing, hitting the ground with my bad shoulder. I barely feel the pain, but what I do feel is his fist smashing into my face, over and over and over.

I twist, shifting us, and I have him underneath me. I see Ken Anderson when I ram my fist into his face. I see each strike to my mother’s face as she fought against the men that ruined my life. Christian’s knee slams into my balls, but all I feel is rage. I see Mallory, her blue eyes—our mother’s—and the light in them fading. The gaping hole in her chest. The bite marks on her lips, her neck, her hands. Her broken nails. The skin torn off her fingertips, like she’d clawed at them with everything she had. How fragile and tiny she felt in my arms as I lowered her into the ground.

There’s not a space left on Christian Anderson’s face that I have not bruised or broken, but there’s plenty more skin left on the rest of his body. The world collapsing around me does nothing to sate the bloodlust I feel. The next face that flashes into my mind is Leilani’s. Every time she slept curled up in his arms, and instead of holding her close, he took pictures and videos of her and fucked her maid while he watched them. I think of the black eye and split lip he gave her at the cemetery. I think about how she lied to protect him, because she didn’t want his blood on my hands .

I have his neck in my hands. I can feel his pulsing heartbeat. It’d be over in a second. I hesitate. I don’t know why, but I do.

He chuckles, blood from his lips splattering across my face. “You can’t do it, can you?” His voice is a dying wheeze. “She doesn’t need a man who’d hesitate to protect her, a man too frightened to get his hands dirty for her.” He’s grasping at straws, trying to distract me, but his life isn’t mine to take, and I recognize that. Leilani decides what happens to him. Not me. I tell that to Drustan, who’s still howling for his blood.

I let go of Christian Anderson, seeing for the first time how much damage I’ve caused to his head. Had he been human, he’d be dead from the crack in his skull and the deep gouges my claws have made across his neck. He’ll heal, but it’ll take longer than normal.

I start to roll off him, but he speaks again, his voice wet and barely audible. “It’s too late for the child, if that’s what has you in a frenzy.”

My head whips back to him. “What did you say?”

He attempts to look at me, but his eyes are both swollen shut, as is every part of his face. Still, his bleeding lips curl into a shit-eating smile. “You didn’t know. She is— was —with child.”

My breathing slows. “Was?”

He looks all too happy to let his next words sink in. “I told you, Wilde. She’s mine. Letting her live with a reminder of you when I plan to kill you would be cruel. I got rid of it, for her sake.”

The world tilts, but it has nothing to do with the collapsing pillars this time. I watch him, the smug look on his battered face, the pride in his smile, and in that instant, he becomes a dead man. A pained howl rips from my throat and only then does his smile falter. Only then does he try to find his gun, lost in the debris, even if his broken limbs won’t let him move. Only then does he realize this will be his last mistake.

I smile, my canines barely fitting in my mouth. “Say hi to daddy for me, will you?” My teeth sink into his neck and he lets out a bloodcurdling scream, like a fucking hussy. I sink my teeth in harder than I need to. He begins thrashing, gurgling, choking. His legs kick out underneath me, and I laugh when my canines nick his vein. I pull back with a large chunk of his flesh in my mouth.

It tastes like I thought it would—vile. I spit it out.

Both his hands reach for his neck, like he can stop the bleeding, like he can hold the skin together. A hint of green flashes under his swollen eyelids and I see fear in his eyes. He tries to speak, but his words are a strangled gargle.

His wounds attempt to heal, then stop. His body recognizes that he’s dying before he does. He tries to speak again, but the blood leaks faster from him, his body spasming. He releases a painful gurgle and says, “…I love…her...” The next sound he makes sounds like a sob. “…more…than…you…”

I watch him heave his last few breaths before I stagger away from him. “You don’t know what love is.”

I swivel, my world spinning, and lunge forward, vomiting blood and skin all over the floor. Wiping the puke from my lips, I race around the mezzanine and take the stairs four at a time. I cross the ground floor, barely avoiding a beam that crashes into the ground, shattering the tiles in its wake. I twist, avoiding another. The building is coming down, and I need to locate Lei. I’ve never wanted to murder Talon as much as I do right now.

But if he hadn’t aimed for the building, I’d probably be dead .

I reach the hallways, lined with too many doors to count. The air is thick with smoke and plaster, choking me, covering her scent. Every inhale feels like poison. I vault over a pile of rubble, ducking under a sagging doorway as the ceiling buckles. I look back into the empty room.

They’re all empty until I reach the last door. This one is locked. I ram my good shoulder into it. It barely gives, but the bond flickers again. My shoulder rams into the door again. And again. And again. A crack starts to form in the middle. Finally, the wood splinters. I glance through the crack. There’s a man sitting on a chair, his head tilted at an odd angle… and bright red hair splayed on white sheets.

Another hit, and the door shatters.

In my peripheral, I note the man in the chair. A doctor. His surgical box sits on the table in front of him, but he’ll never get to touch it again. He’s dead.

I’m instantly by Leilani’s side, throwing the sheets off her. The bed is drenched in sweat and blood, foam forming a trail out of her pale lips. I cup her head and wince. Her skin burns like fire. Her eyes are halfway closed, her breathing shallow. Her dark brows furrow and her eyelids flutter, half-glazed. “Asher…”

“I’m here. We’re going home,” I whisper, lifting her off the bed. She’s leaner. Paler. Fragile. Bleeding down her thighs. Whatever he did to her, it hasn’t been too long.

Her eyes flutter again, but I can tell she doesn’t see me, because she smiles. “Mom would love you.” Her hands find my face. “I knew you would come. We still have that date later? The dinner after we see the club?”

Her pupils are nearly as large as her irises as she stares up at me hopefully. “Yes.” I cradle her against my chest and she moans softly, her small fingers fisting in my shirt. “Yes,” I whisper, walking out of the room. “We’ll go wherever you want, princess.”

Her head lolls to the left, and her face contorts in pain. “I’m tired,” she tells me, her eyes fluttering closed.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tucking her head under my chin. I should’ve been here sooner. For her. For…for our child. I don’t deserve her, and I doubt I ever will, but fuck if I won’t try to.