Page 18

Chapter

Eighteen

K YSON

A growl escapes my lips as the driver spins the car around, heading back to the castle. Trey has been in my head the entire time, only for me to learn that Azalea commanded Gannon, Dustin, Clarice, and Abbie not to follow her. He keeps telling me that she isn’t aware she commanded them. That much I believe. She isn’t aware of her Alpha voice yet. But leaving the castle while carrying our child is just plain foolish. Liam and Damian stay quiet in the car, knowing anything would set me off.

The tires screech as the car pulls into the cobblestone driveway. I can’t risk taking Azzy with me with hunters rearing their heads again, yet what we need to do is check out the packs. A letter or my word isn’t good enough, and I can’t send my men without the risk of endangering them or the pack refusing them entry. Which would either lead to my men killing them or them waiting for me to get there, which in turn would give them a chance to destroy any evidence. Neither is a suitable option and if the pack has something to hide, they would do anything necessary to hold my men off while they get rid of any damning evidence that could be used against them.

Jumping out of the car, the guards at the front door quickly open the doors before I even reach them, then step out of my way. She is one small girl, and she slipped away from them. Yet how is beyond me.

Clarice waits inside the door and scrambles to my side, apologizing as I stalk toward the stairs. Pain rattles through my ankle and foot, so much so that I know she is awake because I feel every time she passes out because the pain ends and her fear of me dissipates. She knows she is in trouble, and it irks me that she’s more scared of me than she is of what she did to herself and our baby.

Clarice explains what happened, and I am pissed off that the gardener didn’t deter her. Everyone here knows she wasn’t supposed to step outside these castle doors. Coming to the steps leading to my quarters, Gannon and Dustin stand, they're staring toward the door but unable to move any further.

I shove past them, and they hang their heads as I growl. Despite trying to avoid it, I have no choice but to teach her how to use her command to remove them from her order. I can hear Azalea’s screams for someone to stop doing whatever they are doing to her.

I shove the doors open, and they bounce off the walls with a crack, making the room fall silent. I see Trey leaning over her, and I see red. He only has a pair of shorts on and is covered in blood from head to toe. A furious growl tears out of me, and he moves, stepping aside with his hands up in the air.

My body trembles with the urge to shift moments before I do. Azalea throws her arm out. “He isn’t hurting me!” she screams, making me halt. I turn my head to look at her only to see the huge nail protruding from her foot, and a piece of tree attached to it. Blood stains the sheets.

“Well, he kind of was, but not intentionally,” she says. Her hands shake as she tries to grip the huge nail that speared through her foot. “What the fuck happened? You told me she hurt her fucking foot! Not that she had a...” I kneel next to her and examine it.

“A 14-inch iron spike in her foot? Yes, I didn’t tell you because she wanted me to rip it out before you got here,” Trey answers. I look at her and she drops her head, her cheeks flushing. “I knew you would be mad,” she blurts, her hands trembling where she tries to get a grip on it.

“How?” I ask, trying to figure this out.

“A fallen tree. She tried to climb over it, but it was hollowed out. She fell through it, and of all the trees, she had to fall into one of the old target trees,” Trey answers, and I grip her ankle, examining it. Azalea hisses and grips my wrist feebly when I try to touch the flat end, holding the piece of bark to the bottom of her foot.

“Don’t!” she cries.

“We had to break the tree to get her out. After I ripped her out, I noticed she took part of the tree with her,” Trey says with a sigh.

I look him over. His mousy brown hair is a mess, and stuck to the skin on his blood-coated face. My eyes move over him, noticing the healing scratches and claw marks covering his body. He did say he got into a fight with a bear, and I purse my lips turning back to her foot.

“What do you want to do?” Trey asks her, and she looks at him, but turning my head, I see Trey is looking at me, waiting for an answer.

“I guess we’re going to have to yank it out,” I tell him. It’s the only obvious answer. Azalea scrambles back as I pounce on her, and she shrieks.

“No! Get the doctor!” she says, but the doctor is delivering a baby. Trey told me earlier he had sent someone to find him.

“No! Kyson, I can wait! No! Trey, please don’t let him!” she screams when I pin her to the bed. Suddenly, I’m thrown off with a roar and being flung into the dresser.

Shocked, I shake myself, trying to figure out what happened as I glance around. Dazed, I get to my feet to find Trey has shifted. “Fuck!” he curses, shocked, shifting back quickly.

He shakes his head and I can see he’s shocked at his own actions as he looks at his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...” He looks at Azalea while I observe him wondering what the fuck is going on.

“She screamed, I reacted. It’s her blood… it’s in my system… I’m covered in it… I.” He stutters out while he shakes his head, looking at her. I growl at him, kneeling on the bed and ripping her back to me, then covering her eyes with my hand.

“Put some fucking pants on.”

Azalea struggles against me, trying to escape, and I squeeze her even harder, holding her in place.

“Enough! Stop fighting me!” I command her, and she goes slack in my arms. Yet her tears, I can feel pooling in my hands. Trey retrieves some of my shorts and slips them on from the closet, and I remove my hand that was covering her eyes.

‘Damian, get in here now!’ I order through the mindlink before hearing feet on the floor outside. Damian sighs and clicks his tongue as he hurriedly enters, quickly assessing the situation.

Azalea whimpers as I position her on the bed, tucking her between my legs. I shrug my suit jacket off, tossing it aside before rolling my shirt sleeves all while she sits there stuck under my command. Damian looks at her rigidness and his eyes darken before he glares at me.

“Is she under command?” he asks. I nod once. The tone of his voice doesn’t sit well with me, and the outrage behind it is getting on my nerves. “It’s one thing commanding her normally, but she is fucking pregnant!” Damian snarls at me.

“She isn’t in pain. I’m using the weight of it, and that is it,” I tell him and he shakes his head.

“She was moving!” My actions are justified. What else could he have expected? Trey looks away and swallows, clearly also agreeing with Damian. It pisses me off how they always jump to her defense against me.

I pull her against me, waiting for them to move, but they don’t. “Are you being serious right now?” I ask Damian when he doesn’t move. He growls but kneels next to the bed.

“May I?” he asks. “Yes,” she stutters out.

“See, she’s fine,” I tell them.

“She can’t move, only speak!” he snaps back at me.

“She kept fighting me! What the fuck did you want me to do, have her thrash around while we yank it out?” I tell him.

“She is barely fucking eighteen, or did you forget that? She has a nail stuck in her foot, and a raging mate! I would be scared too,” he snarls back at me. “Then, on top of that, you get mad at her for fearing you! What do you expect out of her when your reaction is always anger?” he snaps at me.

“She was fucking reckless,” I shake my head. Why am I even bothering to explain myself?

“Reckless? She went for a walk in the forest. She took someone with her, she never went alone! Do you think she can predict a fucking bear attack? Or a rusty fucking nail going through her foot? You are pissed because she didn’t stay in the castle. Locking her away like a caged bird isn’t how you get obedience, Kyson! How many times do I need to argue this with you? She isn’t going anywhere with your mark on her neck! So settle down! And drop your fucking aura off her! Now! Use the damn calling to calm her, not your fucking aura!”

I can feel her confusion at his words, and I sigh, dropping my aura and her body visibly relaxes and I let my calling slip out and she melts against me. “Azalea?” Trey whispers before leaning down to grab her ankle to hold it for Damian.

“Use the calling, close your eyes,” he tells her softly and she turns her face, pressing her ear to the center of my chest, and he looks at me and swallows before looking at Damian. I cradle her head to my chest, stroking her hair and numbing her with the calling.

Yet as I watch Trey and Damian figure out the angle to rip it out at, I wonder what’s up with him. He shoves me off her and we suspect him to be the one poisoning her, yet he saves her. He then defends her and I try to rack my brain for an answer. Something is off, and if he didn’t poison her, then who did?

Damian taps my knee and nods to her foot and I clutch her tighter, my other arm going across her shoulders and I can hear her breathing. I see their lips counting down, and at three I flood her with the calling, almost knocking her out with it as they yank it from her foot.

Azalea jerks in my arms but doesn’t scream out, and Damian holds it up to examine it. While Trey checks her foot to make sure it’s all out.

‘You and I will be having a chat,’ I mindlink Trey. He nods in acknowledgment at my words but doesn’t look up, instead retrieves a cloth from the bathroom.

So much doesn’t add up, and once Azalea is sorted, I’m getting to the bottom of what’s going on with Trey. And how he was able to attack me so easily, and also figure out what the heck is going on with all these rumors about him.