Chapter 257
AARON
I thought absorbing Alpha powers the first time had been painful.
It had nothing on the absolute tearing going on within me once the mating bond broke.
It feels like my body is being ripped apart at a cellular level.
But through all that, I’m holding onto Leah, because I know she’s going through the same thing.
I have no idea how long it goes on for, only that it doesn’t feel like its ever going to end.
Somehow, through the pain, I start wondering if I’m going to
survive this after all.
Worse, I wonder if Leah will survive this.
I know she’s strong, but she’s been through so much already.
Eventually, however, the pain starts to feel less intense and I think maybe I’m through the worst of it.
I rouse myself enough to look blearily down at Leah, who is
limp and pale in my arms.
I’m not even sure she’s breathing.
“Leah,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
However, before I can properly check that my mate–no, not my mate any longer–is still alive, some Enforcers step up and drag us apart.
“Take Alpha Rathborn back to his cell,” Samsen says somewhere nearby.
from
“No, wait!” I protest, trying to fight against the Enforcer’s hold,
but I’m as weak as a newborn lamb.
Fighting to survive the effects of breaking the mating bond has sapped all my strength.
“I need to know she’s okay!” I yell as the Enforcers drag me
away.
Samsen and Petyr step closer to Leah, laying where the other
Enforcer left her after pulling us apart.
Petyr kneels down and presses his fingers into Leah’s neck, and then looks up at Sämsen with a shake of his head.
My heart stops.
“Is she okay?” I shout, but the Enforcers are still dragging me away. “Tell me she’s alive!”
Neither Samsen nor Petyr bother to answer me, but Petyr
drags a cloth from the nearby table and drapes it over Leah’s still form.
No.
This can’t be happening.
She can’t be dead.
She was meant to survive to go home to Ethan.
Breaking the mating bond was meant to save her, not kill her.
If Leah is gone and I’m to be executed, what will happen to
Ethan?
I need to see her.
I need to check for myself that she’s really gone, but I’m too wiped from the hours of unrelenting pain to fight against the two Enforcers dragging me out of the hall and back down to my cell.
They unceremoniously dump me on the floor and then march out again, loudly clanging the cell door behind themselves.
“Say, you don’t look so good,” Axel drawls from across the
corridor. “They’ve worked me over good a time or two, but I ain’t never been dragged back to my cell.”
I roll over so I can stare at him, and he must see something in my face, because his expression hardens.
“What did they do to you?”
“I had to break the bond with my mate,” I say, my words scratchy because my throat is raw.
“You did what?” Axel demands. “Why the hell would you do a thing like that?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say, dragging myself up so I’m at least sitting. “They’ve sentenced me to death for treason. I’m
going to be executed under the next full moon. I couldn’t risk
my mate dying when I did, we have a son. He’s not even six
months old.”
“Son of a bitch,” Axel mutters darkly. “At least you did everything you could to protect her, that’s understandable.”
I have to look away, and for the first time in my adult life, I feel
my eyes growing wet with tears.
Goddamn it.
I haven’t cried since the day I found out Alpha Roberts brutally murdered my sister.
“My mate…” I start, then have to pause when my voice comes out so rough, it’s barely a growl. “She didn’t make it.”
