CHAPTER 3
Rider
Red tinted my vision and an overwhelming rage I’d never felt before roared through me. My wolf howled at me to save her, to kill anyone who got in my way.
Goddess above, I should have never left her to fend for herself in the Garden. I knew she was unsteady, knew she was shy, and I’d abandoned her. And now?—!
The fury consuming me tore a howl from my throat that roared through the sacred pool’s chamber and drew terrified glances from the men closest to me. And they should be afraid. They’d hurt what was mine and they would pay.
The power pulsing from the mating bands around Wells’s biceps exploded, and Sage flew through the air. She slammed against the back wall of the sacred chamber and dropped into the pool’s deep water. I lurched toward her, but Addax shot another fist-sized chunk of rock at my head, forcing me to jerk out of the way.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
I wouldn’t be able to save her until I’d dealt with Addax, and the asshole didn’t seem to care that three of the men who were in the chamber with him to do Goddess-knew-what to Sage were already dead.
Just die already.
With a snarl, I lunged toward him, twisting out of the way of another rock as well as his fists, and managed, somehow, to slide my longsword into the man’s gut instead of lopping off his head. He screamed, his eyes wide with surprise as if the idiot thought I wouldn’t hurt him — or maybe because he’d expected me to kill him.
But as much as I wanted to tear him to pieces — needed to tear him to pieces — I needed him alive more. Someone needed to live so the Knights of the Order of the Sacred Grove, the men who protected the High Priestess and the Garden, could interrogate him.
At first glance, it had looked like they were going to torture Sage and the Goddess had started to bond her with Wells to protect her, but then Sage had broken free, fought Wells, and stabbed him to death — something she wouldn’t have been able to do if they were destined to be mates.
Addax turned to smoke and vanished, his soul returning to his body. But it didn’t matter where he was. He hadn’t kept his identity a secret and the Order would track him down.
That, and the man would wake with a bleeding hole in his torso, since wounds taken in the Garden while in spirit form manifested on your physical body when you returned.
With Addax gone and Wells lying lifeless in a puddle of blood, I raced to the sacred pool to save Sage. It had taken me seconds to stab Addax, but it only took seconds to drown, and it looked like Sage had hit her head on the rock wall.
But before I could reach the edge of the water, Ash was already diving in. I wrenched my gaze back to the chamber, despite my wolf’s insistence that we jump in with him.
Sage was small for a fae woman. Ash wouldn’t have any trouble rescuing her. Better to ensure the rest of the chamber was safe.
Goddess, she had to be safe.
Talon and Quill were breathing heavily, but the rest of the chamber was empty. Four men were dead: Wells, Brooks, and two more who I didn’t recognize. Which meant Addax wasn’t the only one who’d gotten away. Wells never did anything without Crane, and Ash had said Crane had used his magic to make Sage pass out when they took her.
Thank the Goddess we’d arrived in time.
Although we shouldn’t have needed to arrive at all. She should have been by my side?—
No. Fuck no.
She shouldn’t have been with me. She wasn’t mine. She wasn’t my mate. I wasn’t ever going to replace Isemay.
As we had planned for our evening, Quill, Talon, and I had headed to the concert hall to meet my sister and her mates for our annual celebration of the new novices in the Black Guard… who weren’t really worth celebrating this year.
The novices at the Black Tower were a mess, Sawyer, our youngest and smallest guardsman, was a mess — mostly because of me — and I was on the verge of losing it. I’d been furious, my wolf barely under control, and I’d been praying Lark, with her magic to communicate with animals, would be able to calm my beast. Because I sure as shit wasn’t able to.
But before we’d even met with Lark and her mates, Ash, who we’d thought had returned to the Black Tower, found us and said Wells and Crane had abducted the new redheaded arrival.
Quill had gone ahead to the concert hall and told Lark we needed to leave, and we sent our spirits to the sacred grove where I shifted into my wolf and tracked Wells to the sacred pool’s chamber.
My anger surged stronger. I should have been there to protect her. I knew Wells and Crane were interested in her. They’d made that clear when they’d asked me if I was courting her.
Except I’d been pissed at her for lying, just like Amber had lied about us courting, thinking Sage was trying to trap me into mating her.
I refused to be tricked or manipulated like that. I didn’t want a mate. I’d already met my soul’s mate and lost her. I refused to take another — and my wolf could shut the fuck up about Sage being ours.
But I also knew how unsteady Sage had been, how shy she seemed. If she really was as shy as Isemay had been, she wouldn’t have confronted Wells and Crane. She would have deflected.
She would have used me as a shield.
Shadows! I’d fucked that up by telling Wells and Crane I wasn’t pursuing her. This attack was my fault.
Ash emerged from the water with a gasp, set Sage on the smooth, wide, shallow steps rising out of the sacred pool, and rolled her to her side. All of her mating marks pulsed an angry red, no sign of gray marks indicating she’d completed the bond with Wells and had lost her mate.
Quill fell to his knees beside her. “She’s not breathing.”
My wolf heaved, straining to take over. She had to be breathing. She just had to.
“Pound on her back. Get the water out,” Talon said as he knelt beside Quill, his shadow writhing over his skin.
“I know,” Ash snapped, giving her three sharp palm strikes.
“Harder,” my wolf snarled, and I dropped beside them and cut through the rope tied around her wrists with my claws.
Her face was turning blue and I refused to accept her death. Fury pounded through me. How dare they! How dare Wells and his cronies do whatever they did to her?
Her wrists were bleeding from where the rope had cut her, her left cheek was dark red and swelling, and a small pool of blood had formed on the rocky floor beneath her head.
This shouldn’t have happened. Women were precious.
This woman was precious.
I’d known Wells was trouble, but I never thought he or anyone would take a woman by force and hurt her.
Ash struck again and she coughed, spitting up water. Quill leaned forward, cupping her cheeks, holding her head steady so she didn’t knock it against the stone floor, and her eyelashes fluttered but her eyes didn’t open.
“She needs medical attention,” Quill said, moving to take her from Ash.
But Ash drew her to his chest, making Quill’s eyes widen in surprise.
Shit.
This was going to get complicated, and not just because I couldn’t stop thinking about Sage or that my wolf wanted to yank her from Ash’s arms and protect her.
I’d thought Ash seeing Wells and Crane abduct Sage had been happenstance, that he’d decided to do other business in the Garden before returning his spirit to his body in the Black Tower.
But if he wasn’t just handing her over to Quill like he usually would, it looked like there was more going on with him. I had no idea what, although I doubted he’d actually talked with her. When it came to women, he was as bad as me. Except the difference between us was that I didn’t want a mate and he did.
“We need to get her someplace safe,” he replied, his voice thick with an anger that matched my own.
“And we need to tell the Order what happened,” Talon added, his body tense as black smoky tendrils curled down his forearms, reaching and withdrawing toward Sage. They didn’t touch her, but it seemed like they wanted to, and he was barely managing to hold them back.
And it said something to the fury racing through me— hell, to the state we were all in that none of us reacted to the allure that had to be pouring off Talon while he struggled to control his shadow.
With a groan, Talon heaved the shadow back under his skin and jerked his chin toward the sacred chambers entrance.
“There’s a conception suite nearby with a hidden entrance and soundproofing,” Talon said. “We can get a healer to her there.”
Ash narrowed his eyes. “How do you know about the suite?”
“Let’s just say some of my lovers don’t want others to know I top them,” Talon replied.
That, and Talon didn’t want others to know that I topped him . Only Quill and Ash had known we were lovers when the shadow had first infected him, but neither of them had witnessed us fucking. Talon liked being dominant, but no one dominated me, and back then, he’d needed to fuck. I was an alpha among the fae who possessed an animal form, and I wouldn’t accept submitting to anyone.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We’d been in the sacred pool’s chamber long enough. Someone was going to show up and if it was the Order of the Sacred Grove, I didn’t want Sage involved in the interrogation until I knew she was all right… if I was going to let them near her at all.