I didn’t want to cry, but here I was with fat tears rolling down my cheeks as I kept smoothing my fingers through his hair and feeling his warm breath moving along my belly, the feel of him saying we were his over and over again soft vibrations through my abdomen.
“I love you, princess, as much as a male like me can with a cold, black heart.” He stood and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into the protectiveness of his body, enveloping me fully. “Whatever I am, and all that makes me jealous and possessive, territorially violent when it comes to you, is yours.” He kissed my face over and over again, not missing a spot, his fangs, long and sharp from the emotion he felt, moving along my skin. “You gave me everything I never deserved. I’m yours. Gods, princess. I’m yours.”
And as I listened to him devote himself to me and our baby growing in my belly, as I felt the truth in those words and how he held me so tenderly, mindful of how much stronger he was than me, I knew everything would be okay.
Everything would be perfect.
33
Odhran
It was the assault of scents that roused me, but still I couldn’t wade through my thoughts, couldn’t grasp my full consciousness. This was the same shit they pulled when transferring me out of the shitty cell they’d placed me in. They pumped me full of drugs, ones that made me groggy and feel half-dead.
After the first time they tried to take me out of the cell and I’d killed three guards, they made sure I was damn near comatose before coming near me.
My body ached, my limbs feeling as if they weighed too much, were far too heavy for me to move them. My head throbbed, and with each passing second as the reality of what had happened filtered back into my mind, I remembered where I was.
I remembered why I was here.
Tae find her.
After I’d told Adryan to take his mate out of the Assembly's underground facility in Vermont, the rest was a foggy, smoke-filled blur. I was pretty sure I passed out at some point; whatever fire had been burning in those tunnels filled the place with so much smoke I hadn’t been able to see my hand in front of me, let alone sift through smells to find my female.
But I’d felt her down there with me, and I refused to give up until I’d been lying on the floor, knowing that would be my coffin.
But then I'd woken up in a cold, dank cell and was suffering from a massive dose of Groundhog Day, as it seemed to be the same shit day in and day out. They ran tests on me, took samples, and kept injecting shit into my body that made sure I couldn’t fight them.
I didn’t know how long I’d been here, in the Assembly’s hold. The minutes turned to hours, the hours to days, and the fucking days turned into weeks. Time had no meaning here, no windows to let light in, no clocks to tell time. But I didn’t know if I was even in Vermont anymore—or hell, in the damn States.
But it didn’t matter. I only wanted her.
For the most part they’d let me be, let me be weak and helpless on the cold, hard floor in my cell. But now they were taking me somewhere, to do something, no doubt heinous, horrendous acts of degradation. This was what they were good at.
My wolf was trying to shake off the discombobulation, but my strength was returning little by little. Yet I wouldn’t fight the ones who held me. I wanted this. To come here, be captured… to see if my female was here.
Gods, the very thought of her trapped by these fuckers for all these years had me howling in pain, that agony taking root in the center of my chest, an ache I was all too familiar with.
I felt my body lurch forward. My arms were jerked upward, cold and hard metal wrapping around them. My legs were kicked apart, the same bounds going around my ankles. I felt cool air brush along my battered body, and as much as I tried to open my eyes, they felt sealed shut from whatever drugs they’d been pumping into me.
I could hear the growls coming from me, my wolf trying in vain to gain control. But I was far too weakened in my state to do much more than make hoarse noises. I heard the humans laughing, their voices muffled, garbled. Then I felt pain when someone slammed their fist into my side, next to the center of my chest, finally ending when they punched me in my jaw. My head kicked back, colliding with the stone.
“He’ll be fully awake soon. Let’s get everything situated. They’re all waiting.”