Page 75 of Her Reborn Mate

Fred was freefalling, his arms flailing, his body writhing.

I latched onto his hand at the last second, holding him by his fingers. I pulled him up, hoping that he’d assist me with some of his body weight, but instead of helping me, Fred slashed at my hand with his other hand, cutting deeply into my skin. I winced with pain and retracted my arm, letting go of Fred.

He fell for five straight seconds, colliding with the cliff’s jagged edges as he fell. When he reached the end, his body smashed against the rocks. Maroon blood leaked from his body as waves crashed against his corpse, taking him away into the sea.

My brother had just died. I had reached out to save him, and he had deliberately cut my hand to end his life. I stood there, looking at where his body had collided with the rocks, feeling hollow from the inside.

It was a sadness of a different sort, a bitter sadness that dwelled deep in my heart. I was angry at him, and needed to bring him to justice, but at the same time, he was my brother who had, in his last moments, chosen to lash out at me and choose death over life.

Here I stood, mourning a man who had betrayed me all my life. The man because of whom I had spent seventy years in a lightless prison, tortured and tormented. The man who had stood against me every step of the way. The worst part about this betrayal was that I had never suspected until the last moment that it had been Fred all along. If I hadn’t known, I would have loved my brother all the same, talked with him on the weekends, and drank tea with him while reminiscing about the old life we used to live in Germany.

That would never happen again. My only living link to my family had passed away.

Before I could wallow much more in my sorrow, I saw my ship sailing out into the sea. The only person who knew where I hid the key beside me was Alexis. What was she doing out in the sea at this time of night? What had she done with the bombs?

Alexis?I called out, but I got no response in return. I took out my phone from my pocket and dialed her number, but the signals were down. The pieces of the puzzles clicked all at once, and I realized what was happening.

I love you, Will. Now and forever,she called out.

“No! No! Tell me you’re not doing that!” I yelled as I raced down the cliff and headed into the forest. Before I could even finish my descent down the cliff slopes, I saw a huge explosion burst from the sea, forming a mushroom cloud of smoke in the air. My ship was burning, flames enveloping it from every side.

Before I could think about what had happened, I had to go down there and hear it from the pack members myself. Maybe it wasn’t Alexis. Maybe someone else had chosen to sacrifice themselves. Maybe they had figured out how to operate the ship without a captain. I just could not imagine the possibility that it was Alexis who had taken all the bombs out to the sea and had sacrificed herself to save the lives of the townsfolk.

I shifted into my wolf form and stampeded down the slopes and into the forest, my heart racing like a jackhammer all the while. Whenever I called out to Alexis, she did not respond, which deepened my worry and made me think that something terrible had happened to her. When I reached the Grimm Abode, I shifted back into my human form and went to my garage, where the Jeep was parked. I reversed it out of the garage and raced it down the road, heading for Fiddler’s Green. I raced past the parked cars and headed down the main road, honking my horn so the bystanders and pedestrians would get out of my way.

When I reached the crowded town square, I got out of the Jeep and raced down to the docks, colliding with several of the crowd members and almost falling over as I struggled to keep up with my feet.

Standing at the docks were all the pack members with their faces looking morose. At the end of the dock, Vincent stood with his face in his hands. I looked around the crowd that had gathered there to see any signs of Alexis. She wasn’t here.

I went to Vince and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Tell me this isn’t true!” I yelled.

“I tried to stop her. She didn’t listen,” Vince cried. “She took all the bombs onto the ship and steered it to the sea.”

It had all been for nothing. All the promises that I had made her. Pangs of regret throbbed in my chest as I remembered all the times she had asked me to take her away from this town. I had always promised that I would, and now it was too late. Perhaps some part of her knew that if she didn’t leave this town, she would meet her end here. And now, all thanks to my false promises, that had happened. Now I would never be able to take her on a world tour honeymoon. We’d never get married.

The worst part was that there wasn’t even a body to bury, given how huge that explosion had been.

“At least the town is safe. Not a single bomb went off in the town square. We got them all,” Vince said, sobbing.

I turned around to face him and then hugged him. He needed to be consoled as much as I did. Bitter pain accumulated behind my eyes, causing tears to flow down my cheeks.

Everything that we did, it meant nothing. My coming back alive from the dead, our reunion, our trip to Vermont, and our attempts to save this town—now, with Alexis gone, none of it meant a thing to me.

Who was an Alpha without his mate?

What would I do now?

There was no place for me to go, no one to go to, and nothing to do now that she was not here anymore.

“Maybe she flung herself off the ship. We need to swim out and see for ourselves,” I said, attempting to jump down the docks. Vincent held me back, and the rest of the pack joined in, each of them holding me back no matter how hard I tried to break free.

“The water is ice-cold, Will! You’ll die in that water!” Vince yelled.

“Then let me die in the same water where my mate met her fate!” I yelled back. “Let me go. I need to see it. I have to make sure that she’s not there in the water!”

Eventually, they all let go, but at the same time that they let go, my strength also left me. I fell on my knees, unable to move, and just looked desolately at the surface of the water and the flames burning away on the horizon. Black smoke rose from my ship’s burning carcass.

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