37

The evenings with Wyatt became more and more unbearable. We didn't know where my father was or what had happened to him. At first it was concern for our pack that drove me here, not him. I was old enough to understand what he had done and feared it was just a part of all the evil he was a part of.

"Grayson, we're kind of stuck." Wyatt's words were always well chosen, and for the first time he said something the Council didn't hear. I looked at my brother as we stepped out of the packhouse, but his words didn't get through to me. My mind was far away and for the first time this week he seemed down himself.

He had questioned Tara's and my relationship every time we met, yet I got the feeling that he was talking more about himself than me.

"I have a feeling we're not going to do that in two months either. We haven't done that in the last two years," Fallon said, Wyatt's Beta stepping up next to us and scanning the area.

She was the epitome of the female warrior. She was always focused and never distracted. Even ten years ago, when he was still in the middle of puberty, she was already doing it. She always spoke for him when he couldn't do it himself.

"What am I missing here?" I asked bluntly.

It was a platonic childhood love between them. She would survey the area and then let him play when they were only a few years old. If it weren't so serious today, I would smile about it.

"Something's wrong," she murmured, her eyes scanning the empty street where exactly three cars were parked. One for each of us.

"Fallon?" I asked nervously. She was never wrong.

"The lycan you brought is clouding my mind. Send him away, Gray," she demanded.

"It's impossible, Fallon. He's a lycan. You don't discover them. Don't be nervous about someone who isn't a threat. Cyril is only here to protect Tara." We could not see Lycans. They were too fast and not for nothing in the hierarchy above us.

"Nevertheless, he's here." Fallon looked around the street nervously, but it was dead quiet.

"How do you send a lycan away?" I growled defiantly. I wanted to be with Tara, the meetings here weren't what I had planned. I longed for quiet weeks with Tara. I wanted the solitude and togetherness we could finally have getting to know each other, the constant interruptions from Wyatt were a burden.

I cared for her even though I knew that Lycan Cyril would always be near her. His king's Erasthai would protect with his life, and yet I felt better when I was around her.

"You brought him Gray, ask him!" Fallon's gaze swept across the street as if she was in danger. I followed her gaze but nothing was there but our guards.

"Go home Fallon, you haven't slept properly in days," Wyatt patted her shoulder.

"That's not it. I don't need sleep," she insisted. She shook Wyatt's hand from her shoulder and stepped out onto the empty street. Fallon was snappy and two hundred percent about her job, twenty-four hours a day. She patrolled the border as if it were the walls of her own home and was more worried every day.

I couldn't blame her for not knowing exactly what was going on at the borders. She was responsible for the safety of our pack and ever since I was caught in one of the traps myself, I had the unmistakable feeling that she wasn't sleeping at all.

"Your mate is safe?" Fallon asked, looking at Wyatt instead of me. Wyatt's mate?

"Your mate?" I blurted out immediately. I suddenly had so many questions, but his attention was only on Fallon.

"What's the matter, Fallon?" Wyatt was suddenly highly alarmed and looked around just as nervously as she did. He strode towards her and they both looked across the street together as if they had done it before.

"What's going on here?" I asked in high alarm. Fallon looked at me in surprise and then at Wyatt, who was still scanning the street.

"Briar—" she started, and before she could continue, she faltered. Her long, jet-black hair was suddenly blowing around her body. Something that was impossible. She looked at her hair, which was moving of its own accord, and looked up in horror me.

There was no wind, it was impossible for it to move. Her eyes widened when I reached out for her in a matter of seconds and didn't reach hers.

"Fallon," Wyatt heard yell, flying many yards across the street in a wink of mine. All I saw was her hand, which I couldn't reach.

Before I could leap to get to her, someone grabbed my throat and yanked me back. I saw Wyatt's black wolf roll across the street like a stone. He lay lifeless. He didn't move, neither did I.

The air I needed to breathe was pinched from me by an upright, hairy monster. It wasn't Caspian or Elisane.

He carried me across the street like a trophy. His grip tightened my throat so tight I could hardly believe my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman pick Wyatt up and then drop him. I wasn't sure if he was still alive.

The grip around my throat tightened and the female figure that had just thrown my brother to the ground came closer to me. I was trying to see what had happened to Fallon when an unnatural roar rattled and shattered some windows in the street.

"You've gone too far Elisane," I heard a dark voice and somehow it seemed familiar to me in my dazed state.

I turned my head one last time in the direction the voice was coming from before everything went dark. I only saw a shadow holding a small, lifeless body in its arms.

Someone was saved. The air in my lungs was getting thinner and my eyes were getting duller.

"You think you're so smart," I heard the voice speak again, but it grew quieter. It took so much strength not to pass out under the grip around my throat. I tried to control my heartbeat and breathing , while thinking of Tara.

"You are not wanted," said a female voice. It was Elisane and I squirmed once more under the grip of the lycan holding me.

"I'm here on an errand, Elisane." I almost laughed if I could. All that came out of my throat was a pitiful cough. The one holding me began to breathe anxiously, although the grip on my throat tightened became.

"Then fuck off. Take this as a commission from your queen."

"Kill him and I'll kill you two right now," I heard Cyril's voice and the grip on my throat loosened immediately. Unfortunately, not so much that I could free myself. I was hanging like a doll in the claws of a lycan who was standing next to Elisane stepped.

My vision cleared and I saw Cyril step in front of Elisane with Fallon in his arms. Fallon passed out and was clutching his body in his arms, I saw my brother Wyatt lying unconscious on the street but he was still breathing.

"What do you want?" Elisane hissed at him. Her voice trembled and I wondered for the first time who this Cyril really was.

"Protect my king. What are you up to, Elisane?" he asked completely indifferent.

"Here?" she hissed at him.

"You are here and you should be in Paris. Didn't he want to make you your queen? Then what are you doing here?” His words were suddenly so lulling that the grip on my throat loosened even more. Whoever was holding me responded to him.

"She's Caspian's Erasthai," she hissed.

"And?" Cyril answered her, shrugging. He turned and walked down the street with Fallon.

"Fallon, Wyatt!" I yelled as my throat would allow. I tried once more to pull myself out of the lycan's grip that was holding me.

"You stay with me." Elisane gave me a quick grin before looking worriedly after Cyril, who was walking calmly down the street with Fallon in his arms. He passed Wyatt without flinching.

It started to work in my head and I suddenly relaxed. I understood why Cyril was calmly walking down the street. He would always be able to protect Tara no matter what happened to me. Everything in me calmed down at once.

"Tara is safe," I laughed in Elisane's face and she slapped my smile so hard that I spat blood. "You can't help that," I laughed in her face again and got another one that made me cough .

"She always will be, face it, Elisane. You lost! Caspian loves her and will never give her up. I may be her mate, but he is her Erasthai. I love her, but his love for her will outlive mine."

I laughed louder and louder. Tara was and always would be safe. Nothing could have made me happier than knowing that even when I was gone, she would be safe from that beast.