The Beast And The Blessed by Ashley Breanne
Chapter 81
Killian’s P.O.V.
Natalie was looking down the hallway. Her green eyes, which I adored, had turned light blue. Her skin washed of its usual pink hue, leaving her the color of snow. The blue and purple shade of her lips made me want to pull her into my arms and hold her until she was warm again.
She was fighting. I could see the struggle as her arms tightened around her torso, but our mate bond was empty.
I had woken up with it empty, and none of the guards had seen her leave. She had just disappeared, and the entire castle and city had searched for her for hours. It was early afternoon when I felt a flicker of her presence in our bond. As it disappeared again, the maid yelling for a healer caught my attention. Several guards immediately alerted me that my mate had appeared in the hallway outside the infirmary.
Only she wasn’t entirely there. Her image was solid but would periodically flicker like a poor-quality hologram.
Her ghostly complexion ripped at my heart. I wanted to save her, protect her. But I didn’t know how to save someone from something I couldn’t see. Was it possible?
“No!” She cried out, throwing her hands up as her figure solidified, sending everyone flying back against the wall. I growled, the drywall crumbling as I pulled myself out of the hole.
Something was attacking my mate, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I turned to her mother, my body morphing and shifting as I transformed into my Lycan. “She shares your magic! You save her! Bring her back!”
“If I could, I would have.” Her calm statement was met with my fury as I grabbed her arm and spun her around to face me.
“Bring her back, now!” I ordered firmly but felt desperate. I was ready to beg and plead for my mate to be returned to me so I could hold her in my arms and protect her from the world around us. I would take on every enemy and every threat I could to keep her safe. She would never have to deal with this again if I had my way.
“I can’t!” The witch yelled as she glared at me. My hands began to burn as my grip tightened on her arm until I had no choice but to release her. “If we touch her while she is in the other realm, we could be taken there with her and trapped forever.”
I glanced back to my mate, watching with horror as breath after breath resulted in a foggy puff of air leaving her lips in the warm corridor. “And if we touch her while she is in our realm?”
“The risk of getting the timing wrong is too great! She is going in and out too fast.” Aurora shouted as I walked around her and crouched before my mate. “You have no idea what kind of magic is at play here!”
I ignored her, staring at Natalie, watching her form jump back and forth between solid and transparent. Her breath went from thick to misty clouds, leaving her lungs. As the witch said, it was a lot to risk, but she was worth it.
As soon as her form solidified, I reached out, wrapping my arms around her frozen body, pulling her to me. “I’ve got you!”
Her arms flailed as she fought me off, trying to put as much distance between us as possible, but I wasn’t going to let go. Not now, and not ever.
“Natalie, it’s okay! Come back to me!” The louder I spoke, the more she fought. “I’ve got you, my love.”
Her body went still, and I held on tighter as she shivered aggressively and began to cry, releasing loud, racking sobs. The guards around us shifted nervously as they waited to see if she was okay.
“May I look at her, your majesty?” One of the healers stepped forward. Natalie gripped me tighter to her, whimpering and shoving her body as close to mine as possible. I let out a warning growl for the healer to stay back.
He dipped his head in submission before moving away but staying close enough that he could help if needed.
Natalie sobbed for a few minutes more as we waited, worried for her mental and physical well-being after what we had just seen of her. I couldn’t imagine what she had just gone through. As she calmed, I held her tight in my lap, my muzzle laying over the top of her head, trying to shield her from the outside world as much as possible.
I waited until her breathing had begun to normalize, and her body felt warmer to the touch before I spoke. “Natalie, what happened? Who took you?”
She pulled back, shaking her head with a horrified look as silent tears ran down her cheeks. “The voice.”
A growl left me as I remembered her mentioning she heard a voice talking to her while I was in the shower. I had sensed no one near us, and no new or dark magic had been in the air. It was only hers. But someone had been there, so close to her while she was sleeping, vulnerable. She had let her guard down as she slept in my arms, and I had let her down. I had failed to protect her.
I would find the son of a b*itc*h who took my mate, and I would torture them every day for the rest of my life.
“What voice?” Charlie asked.
“The voice from last night. He was talking last night, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.” Natalie looked over my shoulder. I turned to see which guard she turned to, but they moved aside, and her gaze held steady, locked on my mother’s bedroom door. “He brought me here through there.”
“Where is there?” Charlie pressed again. I was curious, but I was more bothered by how Natalie rapidly filled with anger as she stared at the door. “Through the dark place. He tried to keep me there with the shadow men. He said I needed to hear him.”
My arms tightened around Natalie, but she shook me off as she stood up and walked stiffly toward the door. The movement seemed unnatural, as if she were a robot, but no one stopped her.
I wanted to see what she would do, and Charlie let out a growl as Natalie turned the handle and shoved the door open. A sick feeling of unease pulsed through the mate bond as she stood in the doorway.
“She wasn’t there. It wasn’t right. I was brought here through there, but she wasn’t here.” Natalie was talking in circles, and I could see the confusion on both her mother’s and my sister’s faces. “Everyone else was there, but she wasn’t here.”
“Love, we need to get you some food and maybe have the healer look at you. Did you get hurt?” I stepped forward, shifting into my skin as I placed my hand on her hip, but she jerked away, stepping into the room.
“He told me.” She whispered.
Charlie stepped into the room in a protective stance at the foot of our mother’s bed as Natalie leaned over my mother’s body before stepping back and pacing the room, shouting, “He told me!”
“What? What did he tell you?” I asked, stepping forward to try and calm her as her heart beat erratically.
“He told me!” Natalie stopped walking. The color returned to her face, and her green eyes landed on me as she yelled. “Bound in the blood, the darkness runs free… Killian, she needs to die!”
My arm wrapped around Natalie’s waist as she lunged forward with a war cry, her hands turning to claws as she swiped at me, trying to escape my hold to get to my defenseless mother. I barely noticed Joselin rushing into the room as
Natalie continued shouting, “Bound in the blood, the darkness runs free!”
“Sedated her!” I shouted as she fought harder to get out of my hold. Charlie growled loudly as she stood between my mother and us, and Joselin moved quickly to cast her spell, causing Natalie to fall limp in my hold.