Page 13 of Broken Bonds

My powerful alpha lay there, a shell of his former self.

“Oh,” I breathe out, my fingers coming up to cover my trembling lips.

Laurie clears her throat before saying anything. “The windshield shattered on impact and that’s where most of his cuts came from. The deployment of the airbag resulted in a broken nose. His head snapped back into his seat when they hit the tree, and it… He—” she stumbles, unable to keep her composure at the complete despair pouring out of me. Clearing her throat, she continues. “His neck broke from the force of the crash.”

I watch her swallow like she has a foul taste in her mouth when she finally gets that out, and I flinch when my brain finally catches up with her words.

I don’t want to hear any of this, but Ineedto. Something inside of me begs me to know the causes of each of their deaths, to know if they suffered or not. I don’t want them to have suffered at all. To have spent their last moments in pain.

Jillian’s sobs fill the room and then she’s gone, the doors swishing closed after her as she runs out, unable to listen to anymore.

I don’t blame her.

I can barely keep myself upright and I’ve only seen two of them. My stomach wants to revolt, but I swallow the bile down. I need to hold it together until I’m back home. There, I’m going to sit by the lake and scream at the wind. Curse the moon and the gods that are supposed to be so merciful for taking the one thing in my life that’s beengood.

“Did he go quickly like Rule?” I whisper, running my fingers over Van’s immovable face. I need to know he didn’t feel pain.

She takes so long to answer that I look up at her, not liking her prolonged silence.

Finally, she nods.

I kiss his forehead like I did Rule’s and prepare myself for the next.Tryto prepare myself. I don’t think there’s really any way to prepare yourself to see your soulmates’ dead bodies.

Almost done, and then I can go home and have a complete fucking meltdown.

We step over to the next table, and I just nod this time, telling her without words to get it over with.

Ollie lays there, no identifiable marks on him. He must have been in the back with Rule. So that makes Lake the last one.

Ollie’s dark hair is neat as always as he always kept it cut short. Like Rule and Van, he looks like he’s sleeping, and I so badly want to grab his shoulders and shake him. To beg him to wake up.

I don’t, not wanting to risk a psych hold, but I desperately want to.

It’s killing me not to see his pretty smile and his golden-brown eyes, always so full of warmth and kindness.

“A broken rib caused a puncture in his left lung. The impact of the crash must have been strong enough to break the rib and push it into the lung when he hit the car door.”

She hesitates before continuing. She doesn’t want to keep talking, but I think she can tell from my eyes that I’m determined to know.

“Too much time had passed before the paramedics reached the scene after they were called. He died of asphyxiation before they could reach them.”

I squeeze my eyelids together and clench my jaw, working hard to stop the sob from escaping.

My alpha suffered.

That’s what she’s not saying, but there’s no need for her to say it out loud.

He suffocated and had to sit there and wait, where his brothers either lay dying with him or were already dead, knowing he wouldn’t make it.

The panic that consumed my heart before I learned of the event still lingers in my bones. An icy dread had gripped me by the throat when that panic flooded through my veins, because I knew it wasn’t mine.

It was Ollie’s. I know it.

He was scared, and I wasn’t there to soothe him, to help him.

To save him.

Tears dripping down onto his still face, I kiss him like I did the others before we move on to that last table.

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