Page 44 of Vayn

A breakthrough? Her father? A tribrid? I had no idea what she was talking about. And I’d probably never know. With my ears still bleeding, her words followed me into the darkness.

Then, there was nothing but silence.

***

VAYN

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I sat up in bed as my mate dream walked away from me.

“Why didn’t you claim her?” Charm roared, his anger causing his dark clouds to swirl faster.

“I was going to,” I defended myself. “She wouldn’t let me talk.”

“That’s because she thought you were about to reject her,” Rage yelled.

“I see that now. But I wasn’t going to reject her. I wanted to explain what this all meant. It means forever with us. I wanted her to understand that she’d never be able to leave us if she accepted me as her mate.”

“She didn’t know that,” Dread told me. “I felt her fear. I still feel it.”

“You do?” I asked.

He nodded. “The moment her fangs emerged, something jolted in me. I became connected to her on another level. I’m sure that connection will deepen once we find her and claim her. But that’s if you’re finally over your aversion to humans.”

I swallowed. I wasn’t over my aversion to humans. I hated them. Would always hate them. But I didn’t hate my mate. I’d accepted the fact that she was part human. Over the past few months, we’d grown closer. Countless times, I’d wanted to tell her how I felt. But I wanted to wait until she got her fangs so she could feel it too.

“We need to go to her,” Bliss said. “She’s hurting. I can feel it.”

I could feel it too. But this didn’t feel like heartache. This felt like physical pain. Shit! She hadn’t teleported someplace she shouldn’t have, had she? Before I could voice my concerns, Dread did.

“I think she’s being tortured,” Dread said, rage filling his voice.

I jumped out of bed. I closed my eyes and tried to sense where she was. Nothing. It was as if her essence had been wiped from the earth. But that would be impossible. Even in death, I would be able to find her.

She had to be locked up behind some strong wards. But I knew a hellhound pup who could reach its co-master no matter where she was. No wards could keep a hellhound away from its master.

“Come with me,” I ordered my shadows. “We have a mate to find and some enemies to kill.”

Growling, my shadows immediately returned to the abyss inside of me. We disappeared and reappeared in the bathroom of Destiny’s apartment. I wasn’t shocked to find Beastie growling and trying to break free of his magical chains. When he saw me, he started to whimper.

“I know, boy. Don’t worry. We’re going to save her,” I told him as I undid his chain. “Take me to her. We’ll make sure the fuckers who thought it was a good idea to harm our mate wish they were dead.”

He placed his paw on my knee. In a swirl of red and black clouds, we disappeared. We reappeared in the bright hall of some type of facility. My gaze was pulled right. Through a window, I saw my mate chained to a bed with IVs and other tubes hooked to her. A red-hot rage unlike anything I’d ever felt before, filled me.

Beastie growled just as a female emerged from a different room. She was draped in a long white lab coat. She looked up and saw me. Tia, Destiny’s friend. Beastie began to growl. This couldn’t be Tia.

Beastie was being trained to hunt Changelings, Skinwalkers who could take on the form of any creature it wanted. My mate had come to her friend, not knowing her friend was probably long dead. Fuck.

“How did you get in here, Guardian?” she asked. The female took a step back as she reached for the key card draped around her neck. I caught a glimpse of the name on the card. Aita Bugrov.

“It doesn’t matter how you got in because you won’t be getting out,” Aita boasted. “Our wards prevent anyone from teleporting off our grounds.”

She scanned the key card against the silver panel on the door. With a click, the door opened. I smiled. She thought she could escape me. She was wrong.

“Kill,” I told Beastie.

The female raced into the room, pushing the door shut behind her. That wouldn’t keep Beastie out. She said no one could teleport off these grounds, but she didn’t say they couldn’t teleport in this building. Little Beastie teleported into the room. Screams filled the air.