Chapter 56
Chapter Fifty-Six
CAMERON
The flight back is somber.
With the time difference, it’s barely dinner time when wend.
Mia is a shell of herself.
She’s healed and I think Ashley awakening must have had some part of that. Whatever ties bound us
are severed. To ensure it, I put my Alpha strength into breaking the bond with her while I was on the jet.
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It caused pain, a sharp and swift slice through my body like a portion of my being was fracturing… and
then it dissipated.
I connect with my father to make sure Merilee and the rest of the pack is okay. I’d hoped–gods, how I
hoped–that Merilee would be healed.
But that is not the case.
I hate that Dr. Lee is right, that the affliction was caused in utero, when Ashley used witch-magic to trick
me.
Whatever was done to make my wolf believe she was my mate, that had an irreversible impact on the
daughter we conceived.
My dad assured me my daughter, though not improved, Merilee has not declined further, either. She’s
safe. Jacelyn and Aaron too.
That’s good. That’s the most important thing, but how did my pack not notice their former Luna
awakening and leaving pds?
How the fuck did Ashley do what she did!?
I was told Ashley awoke some time in the night and slipped off site.
As for the attack on us here in the Crescent City, it echoes what had been done to Eric’s pack prior to
Mia arriving with Jace.
Ashley and her brother Philipe are in league with vampires, and I marvel at what deal might grant
dozens of wraiths at their disposal.
Maybe it’s just money–hundreds of millions of dors might make for such a partnership. Or maybe it’s
something more…
Amon enemy. Common goal.
But to even suggest such things is an anathema.
It is treason to our species.
To make it to New Orleans so quickly, she must have been able to track us or maybe there was some
tie to Adriana. Or me. Or Mia.
I don’t know.
I don’t give a shit.
She’s gone… and good riddance.
Ashley and her brother Philipe would need to be captured. Dealt with.
I really didn’t want to think about what the end game would be with her. Because she is the mother of
my child, but I wouldn’t let that stop me from justice. I couldn’t. Not after New Orleans.
Her transgressions are too severe.
Mia stirs. She shivers again.
I try to cover her with a nket but she shakes it off.
Physically, Mia is healed.
Emotionally, I’m not sure.
My mate looks …broken.
I have an urge to fill the silence but that isn’t what she wants. The few times I tried to get her to talk,
she closed her eyes and turned away.
From her breathing, I know she isn’t sleeping now.
Her eyes are closed and she’s angled her body away from me.
That hurts.
But I can’t force it.
I didn’t expect her to take Corinne’s loss or the other women’s deaths so hard. But while she did
actually sleep, she cried out for those women. She wept and whimpered and when I tried to touch her,
to hold her and console her, she rioted.
She needs time and space.
Such violence and loss is not processed so easily. If ever.
I think back on the damage I did to her all those years ago when I cast her out and how she lost
everyone and everything.
I’ve hurt this woman so much.
I rub my chest.
Her pain is mine.
She is my mate.
If she lets me, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.
Conn makes a grumbling sound. Like my idea is stupid.
My wolf isn’t wrong.
What tears me up is knowing that there is no ‘making up’ for anything. The hurts we inflict are always
there. Perhaps the actual wounds heal.
But scars remain.
We prepare tond on the private airstrip that our pack owns. We don’t normallynd this particr jet
here because of its size and the length of the runway, but I’m not worrying about that right now. For all I
give a shit, the ne can rot here.
We have bodies to transfer and who-the-fuck-knows in a giant crate to deal with.
I hesitate to even bring that box onto pds, seeing as how everything that Seer woman touches
turns to ash.
Which reminds me… Sean never shared any of this history with me.
Maybe he told my old man, but such information–especially as how it has threatened pack–should’ve
been ryed. To me.
He may have ultimately shown me the map of New Orleans, but she should’ve confided in me about
his past long before.
The ne lurches as itnds and I automatically thrust out my hand to help keep Mia from jostling into
the wall or the table in front of her.
She tenses.
As the ne draws to a stop, she unbuckles her belt and stands. She nces around as if realizing for
the first time that we’d just been on a flight.
She blinks a few times. “I can’t see the kids like this.” Her voice is scratchy.
I nod and move to the hatch to open the stairwell out of the ne.
“It’s okay, honey. I’ll take care of them.”
I want to take care of her.
I want Mia and the twins and little Merilee to be in my house. Beneath my protection.
Conn growls.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I can’t force it.
“Why don’t you go to your dad’s ce and sleep for a few hours–”
“No. I’ll need more time alone, Cam.” She doesn’t say how much more.
“Right. Okay. What can I do?”
“I just told you. Give me time and space.”
It isn’t said in any malicious way. She’s almost in a fog. Shock, for sure.
My heart breaks for her. My mate has known so much pain and suffering.
And all of it starts with me.
“Why don’t I have Dr. Lee meet us…” I connect my mind with our resident physician’s and he assures
me he’ll meet us on the tarmac. “Once he looks you over, you can go out to the northeast fields.
Remember the cabin for when we’re driving the cattle in the fall? You can stay there. Rest. When
you’re ready, I’ll bring the kids over to visit.”
She nods slowly.
“Sit down for a few minutes, honey.”
Trucks are pulling up to the ne as the pilot Jeffrey kills the engines.
“Help them,” I tell him. Unload the bodies first. Then the trunk.
Sean?
My beta–Mia’s father–responds immediately. Is she alright?
It depends on his definition of ‘alright’.
Get someone out to the Quadrant Six cabin. Clean it out. Stock it with food. Set up a patrol. I want no
fewer than a dozen wolves on the grounds at any given time. They can rotate security details as
needed.
She can stay with me.
I cut off the connection.
When I sense that the more macabre work of transporting the bodies is done, and that that cursed
wooden chest is offloaded, I turn to Mia.
“Can you walk, Mia, or should I carry you?”
She looks at me oddly. Like I just said the most ridiculous thing.
She precedes me off the ne. Dr. Lee stands there waiting for her.
He holds the back door open to an idling SUV.
She gets in without any fuss and I climb into the front seat.
“The boxes with me,” she says.
There is power in her voice. She isn’t asking. She is telling me.
I have my men remove it from the other truck and load it into the trunk of this vehicle.
The doors m and we head out.
The doctor performs a basic physical examination, checking her eyes and ears and pulse. He dons a
stethoscope and really listens to her heart and respiration.
I’m less concerned about her physical condition than I am her mental well-being.
Maybe I should’ve called for someone else to meet us.
I think about some of the Elders on our Council. They would’ve been my first choice, but given their
condemnation of Mia, I won’t let them anywhere near her. That would be like bullying a victim.
I rake a hand through my hair.
We have wronged my mate–all of us–in so many ways.
Is it any wonder she wants to be left alone?
Is it surprising she wants no part of my pack, or by extension, me?
She rubs her neck, feeling my mark on her.
One that she never wanted in the first ce.
It makes my heart pitch.
Mia has been a fixture in my life for as long as I can remember. I finally have her back home where she
belongs. I meet her eyes in the rearview mirror and she turns away.
But for as close as we are, she’s still millions of miles away from me.