Page 99 of The Lands Defying
He’s right, there are no guards, not even any creatures.
“They must have thought it pointless to send anyone here when there is no one to guard,” I murmur as we continue to walk.
We pass more cabins and then the gathering. What was once a place where meals were shared and stories told, is now a pile of wood everywhere, like they were making a large campfire.
The memory of the man who appeared there, him handing Darius the memory stone and destroying everything, flashes in my mind. I swallow over the lump in my throat and tighten my hand on Josh’s as we move forward again.
If I stay in one spot I won’t be able to stand. The grief will send me to my knees.
And it nearly does as we pass Josie and Danny’s cabin next, and I can’t help the pained noise that escapes.
“I know, Milal. I know,” Josh whispers roughly and pulls me to him. His arm curls around my shoulders as we walk.
“They didn’t deserve it Josh. None of them did.” They didn’t deserve their throats being slit.
“You didn’t deserve what they did to you either, Rhea.” We move past the healer’s cabin next, and Josh grits his teeth at seeing the window to Sarah’s old room open, seeing the destruction within. “All we ever tried to do was survive. We knew it was a risk coming here and staying. There was nothing we could have done to stop the Elites from coming here and what happened after.”
“If I accepted my Heir powers—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, Rhea.” His tone is full of conviction as he looks at me. “Whether you accepted your Heir power sooner or not, there were too many. Too skilled and we were massively outnumbered. Unprepared. We didn’t stand a chance.”
We didn’t, but that doesn’t make me feel like I couldn’t have done something. Bought them time, handed myself over toCharles sooner. But then I suppose Darius was always going to be ordered to come to The Deadlands to search for Sarah.
It still doesn’t change the fact that this is another failure that will make my soul ache until the end of time.
So many could-haves. So many what-ifs. I suppose none of it matters now, and looking around at a deserted Eridian, I know it doesn’t.
We start to slowly walk up the dirt path towards my home. The Cabin looms over us in the late afternoon sky, looking more like a destination of doom than my one place filled with love and some semblance of peace.
We reach the bottom of my porch steps full of broken planks and I look at the slightly open door. I halt in place, gripping the railing to try and gather myself.
“Is this where you needed to go?” he asks, waiting patiently at my side. “Is this why you needed to come back here?”
I nod, breathing deep before we move up the steps and to the door. Every step sends pain through my thigh, and I resist the urge to pause, knowing there is blood dripping on the floor from it.
Reaching the door, the creak of the wood unsettles the silence around us as I push it open.
I walk through on shaky legs, my heart pounding in my ears. Looking around my now trashed home, where Kade and I once lived, where we sat and ate dinner, where he gave me his drawings, where I held him when he woke from nightmares, where he laughed and smiled and told me all of his secrets…
Devastation rocks through me like an avalanche.
My knees buckle and I hit the floor.
Hard.
Chest heaving, my sobs wrack through me, noises of pain that I didn’t even think possible, leaving me. My hands tremble as they land on the floor at the feeling of loss, love and life.
At the loss that Kade isn’t here, in his home where he should be.
Safe. Safe. Safe.
It was a fucking lie, it wasn’t fucking real.
We were never safe.
Who in the Gods was I kidding in thinking I could protect him? Making sure no harm came to him when he’s been suffering since the day he was born. Being birthed into our family, being starved, and used as a pawn, being tormented with memories before I had them hidden. Finding a mate for her to die, for getting his wolf to have no control over and now…
Now to be in the hands of our family to be forced to fuck to try and create an Heir?
