Page 16 of Bound to Enemy (Wolf Billionaire #3)

CHAPTER 16

DAXTON

I emerged from my room fresh from my shower. We had a meeting with the head warriors on how we were going to use the moonstone to our advantage.

My mind had been plagued with thoughts of my wife and what I had been told by her aide. I was seeing her in a whole new light, and I didn't know how to truly feel about it.

I walked down the hallway toward my war room when I felt a sudden sharp pain hit my chest. The impact was so large that I had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling to the floor.

The sharp pang morphed into a burning sensation that started in the middle of my chest and then spread throughout my body.

"Ah!" I roared in agony. "What is this?"

"Alpha," I heard the distant call from one of my guards. "Are you okay?"

I couldn't even make out what he was saying. His voice sounded like it was underwater; the ringing in my ear drowned him out completely.

What the hell was going on? Where was this all coming from?

Alessandra.

My neck snapped up, and I broke free from the hold of my guards.

"Luna," I looked at them frantically, "where is my Luna?"

The guards looked at each other confused. My chest rose and fell heavily as I tried to breathe through the pain.

"Fucking hell! Someone find my wife! Something has happened to her, and I need to find her."

The burning sensation increased and scorched the inside of my chest. My wolf howled in agony, trying to cope with the pain.

'Find her, boy,' I called to my wolf to reach out to her wolf.

"The alpha needs help!" The guards called for reinforcements.

I broke free from their hold and made my way back, following the pull of the bond. The guards followed behind me, calling for me to stop and allow them to help.

I followed the pull to the infirmary where I saw Elliot holding a wounded Alessandra in his arms. His face was bloodied and bruised, but hers seemed even more so.

My heart dropped to the floor and cracked in multiple areas.

"Ale..." I couldn't even make out my voice. It was distorted under the roar of the pain and the shock of seeing her...was she dead?

I closed the distance in three long strides and came to a halt in front of them. Her face was riddled with blood, and her body was draped in a cloth to conceal her nude state. I could see the scratches that marred her porcelain skin, marks of the enemy riddling her body. Her eyes were shut, and her chest barely rose and fell.

"What happened?" I demanded as I traced the side of her face tenderly. She didn't react to my touch; she would have repelled away from me, but this time she remained still as stone. "What the hell happened to my wife?!"

"Rogues, alpha. They attacked the Luna while she was by the lake." Elliot swallowed hard. "Jason and I were able to subdue the rogues; we have one in the dungeons ready for interrogation on your command."

I stared at her face, waiting for her to open her eyes, but she never did. She looked like she was sleeping, but her face seemed so pale.

A rage like I had never felt before filtered into my chest and spread throughout my entire body. Blood, I wanted the blood of those responsible, and I was going to start with that rogue.

"Take her to the healers. I will deal with the rogue." I turned, not wanting to hesitate for fear of not being able to walk away from her.

I was useless to her in this state. She would be healing better with the help of healers. My anger was too raw, and the rage needed an outlet in case it went wild. I had the perfect punching bag waiting for me in the dungeons.

"I will join you soon, alpha," Elliot called after me.

I punched the waste of space over and over again until his body slumped against the concrete wall of the dungeon. I don't know how long I had been in the dungeon, but it was enough to have beaten this rogue to near death.

Death would come for him soon, but I needed my answers first.

"How did you get past my patrol?"

Silence.

"What does the rogue king want?"

Silence.

"Why are you coming after us? After my mate?"

He lifted his dazed eyes and stared me dead in the eye. Sweat dripped down his marred skin, and blood crusted around his forehead. "All you alphas think you are so high and mighty because you believe the goddess chose you. What a piece of shit."

I grabbed the side of his skull and bashed it against the concrete. It bounced back, but instead of him screaming in agony, he simply laughed.

"You are all going to die. You and your cheap bitch. You can try to hide the moonstone from us, but we will find it. We got past your walls easily today, and we will do it again soon enough."

He cackled like an old witch from folklore.

I held onto the rogue's neck, his face bloodied from my assaults. "You and your king will die. You will not live to see the next full moon."

The rogue cackled.

The rage poured into my entire system, riddling me with unkempt power. "Enough!"

I raised my elongated claws and plunged my hand into his chest. I penetrated past his skin and reached past his brittle bones to finally reach his heart. The rogue's eyes widened, and his breath caught when I grabbed onto the soft flesh. The fear in his eyes only increased the bloodlust my wolf felt.

"May the goddess damn you to a fiery pit of agony for all of eternity." And then I pulled my arm out, taking his heart with me.

I stared down at the dead rogue; blood coated my hand, and his heart was gripped tightly in my palm. I squeezed the soft flesh hard and punctured it with my claws.

This was not enough; my wolf needed more.

My chest constricted with unvented emotion. Images of her bloodied body in my arms haunted and plagued my mind.

"Dax," Elliot's still small voice sliced through the chaos of my mind. "Dax."

He had come with me only so that he could make sure I didn't lose myself. He was meant to be my anchor, but I was losing it. My mate's bloodied face played in my mind continuously, reminding me of the terror that this mutt had inflicted on her.

He placed his hand on my shoulder and pulled me from my thoughts. I blinked at the carcass at my feet and dropped the heart.

The rage that had blinded me faded into the back of my mind. I blinked again and stepped away from the rogue's body. The air in my lungs thinned and my heart collapsed in on itself as I tried to take on the heaviness of the situation I had found myself in.

"Where is her father?" I didn't even recognize my own voice.

"He's left. He needed to attend to his pack now that ours has been hit. It took a lot of convincing to allow him to let her stay; he didn't think that she was safe in the pack lands."

My heart clenched. "Of course, he didn't."

He was right in his accusations. Not only had I failed to protect her from a simple attack like this, but she was now fighting for her life and my healers could do nothing to aid her. I had promised to protect his most precious daughter and I had let him down not once, but twice now.

"Where are her aids?"

"Jason sits beside her and her two others are helping the elders to try and find a cure for the poison. The healers say it's an ancient poison far more potent than wolfsbane; it's a miracle that she's alive."

These wolves had become emboldened, and I couldn't sit back like this anymore. The shields needed to come up and we needed to figure out a way to stop these rogues.

"Will she...will she..." I couldn't even find the words to speak. "I have been so cruel to her."

Elliot squeezed my shoulder in reassurance. "She will live; she's strong and she is a fighter. She has been for a long time."

"You speak like you know her."

"I spoke to her earlier today."

I snapped my neck to look at him. "What do you mean you spoke to her?"

"I found her at the lake in the morning and we just had a brief conversation. She seemed...quiet, so I just decided to offer her some counsel."

"You are being incredibly cryptic, Elliot."

He shrugged. "It's not a conversation I can share freely. You should clean up; I will take care of this mess for you."

I nodded. "We need to get the shields up and running. I won't be able to take point there, so you will need to oversee the shields with Ale's aids. They know how to bring them up. I need to stay at her side, just in case she wakes up."

Elliot gave me a knowing smile. "Of course, I got this one, brother."

I shook my head and shrugged his hand off my shoulder. "I need to clean up and go see her. Burn the bodies and then bury the ash in the dumpster area."

I walked out of the dungeon and made my way to my room to clean up. As soon as I got to the top of the stairs, the guards stood at attention and stared at me with matching looks of horror and respect.

"Make sure every single inch of the borderlines is monitored. I don't give a flying fuck how many warriors we need to deploy; we will work overtime if we need to. My wife was nearly killed by a rogue due to everyone else's incompetence."

They both bowed their heads. "Yes, alpha."

"If there is to be another breach, heads will roll and the rogues will be the least of your worries." I walked off, leaving my men at their posts.

I trained my men better, and we were too well of an oiled machine to have such a slip-up. I would make sure that from this moment on, there would be no more shortfalls.

By the time I was showered and dressed, it was almost sundown. I walked out of my room with my heart in my stomach as I made my way to the eastern wing.

The last few hours I had busied myself with matters of torture and new security measures, but now I would have to face her again.

I was used to staring into her crystal blue eyes that held so much savagery and fire. And to now see her so...broken, it was a shock to the system. In the last two weeks, I had watched this strong, fiery woman break in front of my eyes.

I came to a halt in front of the room she was being treated in. Four guards stood post and I nodded to them in greeting.

I was taking no chances with her anymore.

I opened the door and found Jason at her bedside with his hand in hers, and tears brimming his eyes. He was whispering something under his breath that I couldn't quite catch, but when he heard the door open, he lifted his gaze to me.

"Jason," I walked over to the bed, my eyes still refusing to look at her. "How is she?"

"How is she?" His voice was coated in thick emotion. "Look at her, Daxton. She was attacked behind your borders, the 'safest' borders that there ever was. She is hanging on by the skin of her teeth right now. I was meant to be her protector and I left her unattended and she?—"

His voice cracked at the very end of his sentence. I felt the weight of his pain come down on my shoulders. I was carrying this burden with him too. I knew the boulder that guilt was, and it was no easy weight to bear.

"It's not your fault."

"We need to kill him," he didn't need to specify who he meant. "We cannot let this slide. We need to retaliate on the highest order."

I dared to look down at my mate. She was connected to so many tubes and hooked up to a lot of machines that beeped in the background. Her face had healed some from the ugly bruises, but with the healing ability of a wolf, she should have healed fully by now. I had no idea how she would take to the medication, but I could only hope that she would pull through.

Her eyes were closed and her chest rose and fell slowly like she were asleep. I wondered if her mind was awake as she fought off the poison.

Staring at her now, I felt something within me completely shift. The indoctrinated hatred that had riddled our packs fell away and for the first time, I was looking at her as a she-wolf warrior: capable, competent, and honorable. She never deserved the pain that had been thrust on her. She never deserved our hatred. And she most certainly didn't deserve the guilt that she carried.

I lifted my gaze, meeting Jason's iron stare. "To war then."