Page 77 of The Tribrid Princess and the Taste of Chaos (The Rossi Legacies #7)

Jayce

I can’t move.

I can’t breathe.

This pain is endless.

The emptiness lingers in the air like the ashes of something sacred turned to ruin. And whatever she did to me burns in my lungs. I can feel the paralysis spreading, sinking into every inch of me like ice laced with poison. But that’s not what’s hurting me.

What hurts is that she did this.

She did it.

Sienna.

My mate.

The woman I would have bled for. Fought gods for. Burned the entire immortal realm down for.

She fucking tricked me.

I can still feel her touch on my skin, the echo of her sobs against my chest. The ghost of her lips whispering apologies she didn’t mean. Not really, anyway, because if she had meant them, she wouldn’t have done it.

The moment the bond snapped, it felt like my soul was ripped in half. Like a piece of me had been cut out, like her hand had reached into my chest and crushed the part of me that only ever beat for her.

And she used my trust to get close to me and hurt me. I never thought she’d be capable of that.

She looked me in the eye, lied and destroyed it all.

“I gave you everything,” I whisper, my voice slurred and hoarse as I struggle against whatever this was. “Everything.”

She didn’t even look back.

I want to scream.

I want to be free of this fucking paralysis.

I want to wake up from this.

But all I can do is lie here with dirt in my face.

I didn’t care that I put aside everything and begged before her; all I wanted was for her to come to me.

I don’t care that I broke.

I would have crawled through fire.

I would have fought Helios for her.

I would have fucking died for her.

And she knew that.

She knew.

And still… she left.

Was any of it real?

The way she trembled when I touched her. The way her wolf cried for mine. The way she held me was like she was falling apart and accepting me to protect her.

I believed her.

I trusted her.

“You lied,” I whisper, broken. “You swore an oath on our love.”

She looked me in the eye and lied.

The bond is pretty much gone now. What’s left in its place is a blackened pit of agony. A howling void. My wolf is silent, numbed by the loss of his mate. He’s not heaving and roaring in rage anymore. He’s mourning, my proud alpha wolf, brought to the ground.

He’s silent, but his pain screams in the hollow cage of my chest, where my heart used to be. It howls in the space where her presence had just been.

I begged her.

I went down on the fucking ground, and I still begged.

Me – the man who never once bent a knee to anyone.

I begged her with everything I had left.

I dropped every ounce of pride. I threw myself at her mercy, thinking…

hoping… that maybe, just maybe, our love would mean more than whatever was troubling her, that she’d trust in it more than anything else.

But I was wrong.

I was so fucking wrong.

It hurts to breathe.

Her voice haunts me again and again. ‘Reject you…’

I feel it over and over again, echoing through my mind like a death toll. Each word slicing deeper, each syllable branding itself into my soul.

I feel hollow. Ruined.

She didn’t just walk away from me.

She chose to.

She planned to.

And that kills me more than anything else ever could.

I snarl, but it comes out as a hoarse whisper. She’s even taken this from me. What I’m left with is this kind of grief that shatters even the strongest. The kind that turns men into heartless monsters.

This is why they say loving a woman is dangerous, because you end up a slave to her whims… You give her the key to everything, risking destruction…

You promised. You promised me forever. And now you’re gone.

Beyond the veil. Beyond my reach.

And I am left on my knees; in the dust of a love I would have defied the gods to protect.

“All I wanted was for you to trust in me. Have I not shown you I would have protected you?” I whisper.

Only silence remains, and I’m drowning in it.

I press my forehead to the ground, my body twitching uselessly against the paralysis. My fingers won’t close. My jaw won’t clench. But the pain that rips through me is full-bodied, raw, and ruined.

This isn’t heartbreak.

This is annihilation.

I would have laid my life at her feet.

I did.

And she took it… and walked away.

That thought hits me hard, and I see a flash of lightning in the sky above.

I feel the final flicker of something break inside of me, like the last heartbeat of a dying star.

As I lay there, I wonder why. Why did she do this?

“What kind of oath was worth tearing me apart for?” I mumble.

My thoughts are a storm inside me, swirling endlessly in my mind.

I know now. She chose this. This wasn’t a moment of weakness. It was planned. The powder. The spell. Her distance. She led me into a trap and made me believe that maybe, just maybe, love was enough.

“You lied,” I whisper again. “You lied, and I fucking believed you.”

What a fool I was.

And now I’m empty.

There’s no pain like this. Not even death could hurt worse. At least death is an end.

This?

This is fucking forever.

I don’t know how long had passed as I tried to focus my powers on getting my body to snap out of it, but it didn’t work, and I couldn’t shift either. My wolf had receded into the deepest part of my mind and didn’t want to come forward either.

Until I had heard shouting, before I was found and brought back to the mansion, where Delsanra is trying to fix this, but even she’s struggling. My mouth is too numb to even form words properly, but they’re already panicking over Sienna, realising she had drugged them.

They asked me what happened, but I couldn’t even communicate. Then the team returned from Mystic Academy, bloodied, drained, but victorious. I hear them say Dante was left behind to finish off as I try to focus.

“Sienna’s missing,” Delsanra says, her heart hammering as she grips Ahren’s arms. He looks pale as he staggers back and looks at me.

He must have felt it… the pack-link snap. His eyes ask me to tell him it’s not true, but I can’t.

“Jayce, what happened?” Dad asks me as he takes hold of my face, making me look up at him.

She’s gone, I say through the mind-link as Azura’s power swirls around me, and I feel the paralysis lift. I sit up, my hands shaking as I drop my head in them for a moment before I lean back, exhausted.

Azura sits beside me, placing a hand on my back. “Jayce, what happened?” she asks softly, worry in her eyes.

Dad looks up at Uncle Alejandro and Leo before his eyes land on Delsanra. “He said, she’s gone.”

“Gone the fuck where?” Uncle Alejandro asks as he wipes blood from his face.

I shake my head, pain spasming through me. “Through the veil.” My voice comes out cracked, probably from all the shouting.

“What?” Leo asks quietly.

“We were too late,” I answer.

“Fuck,” Leo mutters as he turns, running his hand through his hair.

“The fuck is going on that I’m missing out on?” Uncle Alejandro growls.

But I ignore him, my eyes on the three women of this house. Their reactions are some I will never forget.

Delsanra is frozen in place, her eyes red, her heart pounding as tears begin to fill her eyes. Maria has gone pale, and Raihana looks devastated, blood splattered across her face and neck.

“What?” she’s the first to speak. “What do you mean, Sienna’s gone? Gone where?”

I look away, unable to face them. Ahren is silent too.

“And you were there?” Uncle Alejandro growls.

“Hey, watch it! Can’t you see the state he’s in?” Azura snaps.

“Yeah, but he’s fucking here. I’m asking where Sienna is!” Uncle Alejandro snarls, my silence only making his aura rise.

Azura stands up, her heart thudding loudly.

“Zu,” Leo says quietly.

He must have mind-linked her because Azura sits down, wrapping her arm around me.

She’s really gone…

I am fucking trying my best not to break down, and when Azura turns, pulling my head onto her shoulder, I’ll never be able to tell her how fucking grateful I am.

I’m unable to hold back my own pain, but I do everything I can to not let a single sound escape me.

“Sienna was acting off for a while,” Leo explains. “And Jayce did come to me. We were working on it, and-”

“So, you were fucking in on this!” Uncle Alejandro growls. “This family has lost-” he stops, cursing.

I get it, I fucking get it.

I hear a door shut and know it’s Ahren who has left the room.

“This is no one’s fucking fault, so get your shit together, Alejandro,” Leo says, his voice icy.

“No one’s fault? Sienna is gone,” Alejandro hisses.

I hear a sob; I would recognise a mother’s cry anywhere…

I failed.

“What exactly happened? Why would she even fucking go through the veil?!” Uncle Alejandro snarls.

I don’t know.

“He doesn’t know,” Dad says as he squeezes my knee before I hear him stand up.

“He doesn’t fucking know? He was with her; he should have fucking prevented this or called for someone who could!”

The words sting. I don’t let things get to me, but right now it’s like those words are a blade wedged deep inside me. I failed… I really did try. I’m fucking useless for the second time…

“He tried to call me and Leo! Stop fucking blaming him!” Azura snarls, her aura flaring. If she wasn’t holding me, I know she would have gotten up.

“He is her division leader-”

“And her boyfriend,” Azura cuts in. “He loves her. It’s not like he wanted shit to happen.”

She’s my mate, and she rejected me.

But I can’t bring myself to say those words as they continue arguing.

“I’m fucking sorry, Del, Maria,” Uncle Alejandro says softly as I hear him move over to them. “Fuck…”

“I’ll… I’ll take her,” Raihana whispers. “Come on, Del. And then I’ll perform a location spell and see if I can locate her. If she’s anywhere on earth, I’ll find her.”

“Good plan,” Leo says.

There’s motion before the door opens and shuts.

“Alejandro, calm down. Anything said in anger is never right,” Maria says quietly.

“Jayce, pull yourself together and fucking look at me; we need the full story,” Uncle Alejandro says. This time, his voice is calmer but full of urgency.