Chapter 23
796 Words
Vivian's POV
Kade left me in a small room, off the hallway. It wasn't a jail cell or an Archive. It was somewhere in-between.
"Freya by will be here soon," Kade stated. "She is the healer. She'll take care of your back."
"Thank you," I managed to say.
He nodded once and closed the door softly.
And I was alone.
I sat on the edge of the small bed, afraid to lie down. Afraid to stand. Each breath I took, felt as if I was drawing a knife through my ribs. The binds screamed, not because of my own pain, but because of Dominic's.
His pain wasn't physical, it was much worse than that. The kind of pain that comes when you watch someone you care about suffer; and there isn't anything you can do to stop it, no matter how hard you try.
The door opened without knocking. Silas stepped inside, his eyes a sharp and evaluating silver. Right behind him was Freya. She had a large leather satchel slung over one shoulder.
"Let me see," Freya said ,her voice surprisingly soft and soothing for a healer.
I turned around and he began working, washing away the wounds without asking any unneeded questions. The burning was intense. I didn't scream. I'd learned better.
Silas leaned against the window frame, gazing into the courtyard below where the soldiers were now scrubbing away at the blood. "The water barrels," Silas mentioned without introducing himself. "We're going through those right now."
"There is nothing to find," I said. "That is all I did. I carried the water barrels.”
“I believe you.” He said it so simply that I looked up. “Which means someone else had access to them. Someone who wanted soldiers to get sick. Someone who wanted you blamed for this.”
Freya was binding my back with a clean cloth now. The pressure helped, somehow.
“Who would… ” I started.
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Silas said.
He was quiet for a moment, then he continued “The Alpha felt every lash through the bond. Not metaphorically. Literally he felt all the pains. That's not something a normal mating bond does.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean,” Freya said, still working, “that whatever you are to him, it goes deeper than what most wolves experience. The intensity of your connection is unusual.”
I didn’t have an answer to that. I didn’t even know why I was bonded with him. The moon Goddess had successfully played a trick on my already worthless life.
Twenty minutes later, Silas left. Freya finished bandaging me and gave me a potion for pain, something bitter that made my head heavy.
“Rest,” she said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Alone again.
I lay on my side, careful of my back, and tried not to think about the way Dominic had dropped to his knees. Tried not to think about the look in his eyes when he’d reached his limit.
The bond was a constant throb now. Confusion, frustration, something else I couldn’t name.
Hours later or maybe minutes, the potion had made time strange. There were voices outside the door.
“…checked the barrels, Alpha. I found nothing at first.”
Dominic’s voice, low: “And then?”
“Dead rat in the bottom of the third one. Been there a while. Poison, most likely. Not from the girl.”
“Show me.”
I heard footsteps moving away.
Through the bond, I felt understanding click into place in his mind. Then something else. Fury. But not at me.
He was out there, right now, probably confronting whoever this was about.
The door opened.
Dominic stood in the doorway, his eyes catching the lamplight. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
“You didn’t poison them,” he said.
“I know,” I replied.
He stepped inside, and I could see him fighting with something. His hands clenched and unclenched. His jaw worked.
“I felt every…” He stopped, rephrased. “When the whip hit you, I..”
“I know,” I said again, because he shouldn’t have to explain it.
He looked at me for a long moment, then turned and left without another word.
But he left the door cracked open.
And later, when I heard voices in the courtyard. Vespera demanded that the punishment continue, that I be executed for negligence. Then I heard Dominic’s response. Not loud. Not angry in a way that would carry.
Just “No.”
And then his eyes, when he looked at Vespera. Eyes that said he would burn the world before he let her touch me again.
- Writer
