Page 40 of Bound By My Alpha Mate

“You really think I’m going to be able to sleep now, knowing what just happened?” Aislin fired back.

“Please try,” said Everett.

Billie gravitated to Aislin’s side. “I don’t know if I can sleep, either, but let’s just lie down on the couch to wait, okay? Mythguard will probably be in contact with us again soon.”

Aislin turned to me, clawing at me for solidarity. “What about you? What do you think? The dragons have your fated mate!”

“Obviously, I want to race to the mine and save her,” I growled. “But Everett’s right. Acting too rashly will get us killed.”

She narrowed her eyes, and I knew she wanted to accuse me of holding the group back, allowing the dragons and my father to do whatever they intended to do to Kiara. I hated that Aislin still didn’t trust me and would sooner assume that I’d be willing to let my fated mate be slain. I wanted so badly to protect Kiara. But I wasn’t about to risk everyone’s life like Aislin apparently thought we should.

“Fine,” she muttered, returning to the couch with Billie.

Everett and Gavin sat down at the table, but I couldn’t bring myself to join them. I paced for long minutes while the two Alphas discussed possible approaches to our newest issue. Restless, I grabbed one of the feather darts off the table and examined it, feeling its weight in my hands. I couldn’t wait until the opportunity arose for me to drive these darts into the dragons’ hides. They had terrorized my home for far too long and had gone so far as to steal Kiara tonight—it was too much.

Finally, Everett’s phone rang again. “Hello? Yes…Only four of you? No, I agree, that’s not enough. Are you certain we can wait until morning?...Yes, I suppose that would give them enough time to get settled, so we’d know for sure she’s back in the mine…You’re right. Okay. We’ll be awake and waiting.”

Gavin and I looked at him expectantly.

“Mythguard’s reinforcements should be here around 4 or 5 a.m. Some of the operatives that were with the caravan are coming back and will do reconnaissance around the mine to confirm that’s where the Inkscales took Kiara. They’re asking that we wait and not make any moves until backup arrives and the reconnaissance report comes in.”

I clenched my jaw and plopped down into a chair at the table. Even if Mythguard got here at 4 a.m., that was still five hours we would have to wait, holding our breaths while Kiara could potentially be suffering, tortured into transforming by my father and Lothair.

“We have no choice but to wait,” muttered Gavin.

“I know,” I grumbled. “I just hate feeling so helpless.”

Gavin rose and loomed over me. I was accustomed to his intimidating figure bearing down on me, threatening to hurt me, but this time his body language had tamed into understanding. He met my eyes and reached out with an empathy I hadn’t expected of him. “We’ll save her. You understand? We’ll avenge Muriel, we’ll take out Lothair, and you can get everything off your chest to David before we take him out, too. I promise.”

There was still a part of me that felt conflicted about Gavin’s eagerness to kill my father. I’d always love my father, in a way, but I had to remind myself that David was no longer the man who’d raised me and cared for me. He wasn’t the man I’d once thought he was. He was evil, and he had to be destroyed. For everyone’s sake.

If I wanted to live my life free from the influence of his cruelty, I had to let him go.

Everything he’d done—hurting Billie, killing innocent people, taking my fated mate—was making it much easier to hate him. I’d never hated my father before, but as the minutes ticked on, I was rapidly forgetting what it felt like to love him anymore. That small part of me got smaller and smaller until I knew with certainty that he had to die.

Chapter 25

Kiara

My consciousness flickered in and out after I was dragged away from the crash. Bumping along in the back of the truck, I slumped forward and let exhaustion and pain whisk me into a fluttering half-sleep—but it didn’t feel much like sleep as it was merely shock that blinded and numbed me to all else. I assumed we were plunging back into the mountains, toward the silver mine. But when the truck rolled to a stop and I looked up, I was surprised to find trees closing in around me and, in front of me, the monstrous facade of Hexen Manor.

“Why are we here?” I groaned.

The dragon guard grabbed my arm and hoisted me out of the truck bed. My legs nearly gave out as I hit the ground. “Does it matter?” he grunted.

Somebody handed a nylon rope to the dragon. “Wrap her up real good, Kipling.”

Nodding, Kipling took the rope and wound it tightly around my wrists behind my back, all the way up my arms to my elbows. He circled the rope so firmly around my throat that it was hard for me to swallow, then looped it around the bindings on my arms, tipping my head back uncomfortably. Once he was finished, the dragon shoved me forward. “Into the house.”

I staggered up the stairs, onto the porch, and inside. The smell of the Manor choked me because not only was it the stench of David and the dragons that filled the house, but the smell of Colt, too, afflicting me with mixed anger and pain and the desperate desire to be with him again. How similar Colt’s and his father’s scents were didn’t sit well with me. I allowed Kipling to guide me through the parlor and down a hallway until we arrived at an office with the door open. Sitting at the desk was David, looking cleaner than the last time I had seen him. In front of him was a glistening, opalescent horn, its base bloodied—vile evidence of my mother’s slaughter. Grief burst inside me as I fought back tears, staring rigidly at the horn.

David smirked. “Sit her down.”

The dragon pulled out the chair across the desk from David and forced me to sit. Then, he closed the office door and stood in front of it, arms folded, silently guarding me as he had before.

The truth of what the horn represented stalled my tongue.

“I haven’t decided yet if we’ll kill you or not,” said David. He steepled his fingers on the desk, meeting my eyes while the horn sat tauntingly between us. “You’re equally valuable to us alive as you are dead. Perhaps more so alive since we already got what we needed from your mother.”

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