Page 31 of Cryptic Dreams
Oh how wrong he is.
I’ve just convinced myself that this was all for the best and pushed my feelings and truth so far down they were hidden. And sensing her at her house was enough confirmation that she was safe despite the way I could tell something was off. But I chose to ignore it, ignored all the signs, and now I fear the very worst happened because of it.
“She is not gone,” I growl as we take off in the direction of her house. “Zephyr is at home, just as she has been the last five nights.”
“We looked!” Orion barks. “That’s where we were. As soon as the sun went down we waited to make sure that bastard she lives with wasn’t coming home yet and we went inside. Z wasn’t there.”
A new emotion, a new feeling I have never experienced blooms inside my chest and without warning, I dematerialize in order to get to my mate sooner.
Fear.[1]
Fear like I have never known before surges through every inch of my body and centralizes itself in the erratic beating of my cold and horrible heart.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have talked to the female that was made for me, the perfect creature designed to be my match in every way, as if she meant nothing? As if sheisnothing?
I can try to justify it away by claiming I shouldn’t have a mate, make the excuse that I was protecting her by denying our bond, but in all truth, it terrified me. The vulnerability I felt, the completely exposed and raw feelings created from knowing I have a mate. It was all too much and instead of embracing it, embracing Zephyr the way the Gods of Old intended, I treated her terribly and possibly pushed her into the arms of a fate far worse than being bound to the likes of me.
I was scared and I felt unworthy, I was selfish and too driven to see that denying her would be both of our undoing.
And now, now I may be too late.
I touch down on her front porch, the scent of honey and chamomile faint but present, the unnaturally slow yet steady rhythm of her heart a thing of which nightmares are made.
“We already looked here,” Orion grits out as he comes to stand next to me, he and his mate both taking form on the porch as well. “Z isn’t here, she’s—”
“She is here.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes, then try desperately to pinpoint her location. “Zephyr is here, of that I am sure.”
“But we—”
“Then look again!” I snap. “Scour the entire house, rip it apart if you must. Zephyr is here and we are not leaving until she leaves with us.”
They nod in unison and I watch as Orion pushes into the house—the two story shack that my mate will no longer call home after this night. And when he does, when I follow, I feel my heart sink and my anger spike.
The house is in complete disarray.
Boxes stacked to the ceiling line either side of the already narrow hallway, Orion and Aries hardly able to walk through without their shoulders touching the rotted cardboard. I have to turn my body slightly to get through and walk sideways down the short hall before we are spit out in front of a staircase, one littered with hundreds and hundreds of newspapers, stacked and bound with twine.
The smell, my god, the smell is putrid. Mold and decay with signs of water damage along the bits of the ceiling I can see. To the left is a sitting room, the only indication of such being the furniture that is barely visible underneath piles and piles of clothes and god knows what else, the wide doorway almost entirely blocked by the mess.
The kitchen is to the right and to my surprise, it is immaculate. Every surface clean and free of clutter, every outdated appliance almost sparkling in the dim light above the stove. It is the only space on the lower floor that isn’t packed to the brim with shite and I know without question it is because my mate made it so. Made it so by force and not choice because she has no real need for things such as a kitchen, not unless she were to indulge, something I don’t believe Zephyr has ever done a day in her life.
“I’ll check upstairs,” Orion says as he weaves his way through the stacks of newspapers.
Aries stops in front of me and gives me an almost sad smile. “Z wouldn’t want you to see this.” A glimmer of tears shines as the male searches my eyes. “She hates living here, can’t stand it at all for about a million reasons, but she refuses to believe she has another alternative and honestly...” He swallows hard. “Zephyr doesn’t think she deserves better.”
My heart cracks right down the middle, splits wide open and it is the exact moment I stop fighting our bond. I embrace it, breathe it, live it, because not even an animal, a wild beast deserves to live in a place like this let alone the female I fully intend to make mine. She does not deserve this life nor should she think she does, or that this is all there is for her. Zephyr should have everything her heart desires and more, and if she’ll let me, I’d like very much to be the one to give that to her.
“She doesn’t think she deserves a mate either,” Aries continues, blue eyes trained on my face. “And she probably won’t forgive us for letting you come here but I think you needed to come. I think you needed to see as much of the way Zephyr has been living as possible, because it’s the only way for you to make her see that she deserves better. She deserves the world if she wants it, and she deserves to have a mate that wants to give all of that to her. You needed to see this so you could work your ass off to be the mate she deserves to have and make her realize she’s still too good for you.”
Then he disappears down the hall toward the back of the house. And fuck all, if my heart isn’t bleeding all over the floor.
Unsure what to do with myself after that little truth bomb, I decide perhaps I should look outside. It seems unlikely that Zephyr would be there and if she is, it’s a rather terrifying thought. Considering how long she’s been MIA, if she were outside it could only mean... I banish the thought.
There was a garage and shed out back. It is possible that she is there. Doing what? I don’t know, but it is possible all the same.
I walk through the kitchen and look around for some indication that she may have been here and just stepped out, but as I move toward the back door her scent flares. The door is ajar, open just a crack and when I’m a little closer, I see an unmistakable sign of distress.
A small trail of blood dots the worn tile floor, the droplets small and clearly fallen from a vertical angle. I follow with my heart in my throat, the blood nearly dry but still carries the scent of my mate. And when I reach for the door knob, ice fills my veins.
