Chapter Twenty-Four

                                    

                                          



In a haste, Reagan snagged a portal jumper from a dead vampire's body.
Her connection to Azrael was wavering with the tumultuous direction of her thoughts. She couldn't have harnessed his teleportation skills right now even if she tried.
She slammed her hand down on a portal jumper, narrowly avoiding a slash from the werewolf King.
She teleported back to her quarters in a flurry of skewed emotions. The second her feet hit the hardwood floor, she felt wobbly, like she needed to sit down.
Her power fell to the back of her mind, her own body taking shape once more. She kicked the shoes that were miles too big for her feet off into the dark corners of the room. She shrugged out of the now over-sized coat, lobbing it out of sight.
Her heart was beating a frantic song in her chest, dying to be released.
Stark realisations hit her shrivelled, lonely heart.
He left me.
He teleported the second she'd told him to ditch the mission. She'd said we, as in both of them. Fuck! He knew she'd used the same portal jumper he'd been holding to get there in the first place.
He left me behind again.
Just like he'd done in the execution field. As if she meant nothing. As if leaving her was easy.
Maybe it was.
He left me for dead again.
And it still hurt like a bitch.
Reagan was a fool. She had to be if she'd entertain the possibility of his abandonment hurting her.
She'd fortified her walls eons ago. She'd made them Killian proof by design. After that first and last heartbreak, she'd refused to feel that kind of pain again.
Yet here she was once more, feeling as if her heart had been torn from her chest.
She was the stupid one in this equation. Only an idiot would make the same mistake twice.
Her pale skin was sticky with blood, though she hadn't taken a single life. She felt disgusting. Her skin crawled. I need to shower. This dirt clouded her vision. The werewolf King had been glorious. Ruthless. Admirable.
I can't breathe.
She felt trapped. Tiny beneath these heavy clothes. Weighted down and captured. The blood made for another layer.
Pull yourself together.
Lorcan and Evette were mates. Lorcan, the King of the werewolves. Evette, a renowned witch. Enemies, born and bred. Unlikely. Yet they somehow worked. 
By nature, she and Killian weren't enemies. They'd been cut from the same cloth in so many ways. Ways she still struggled to admit to herself. Yet they didn't work at all.
A wasted bond.
Killian was her mate.
Fuck. Admitting it to herself properly took something out of her she didn't think she had.
It didn't steal her breath. It didn't steal her heartbeat. But it stole something. Her resolve?
I have a mate.
Cue self-destruction in five, four, three—
When Lorcan sensed his mate in danger, their differences hadn't mattered. He'd came charging back to that hunting lodge, ready to lay his life down to make sure she stayed safe. There'd been no hesitation. No self-preservation. His mate was the only thing that mattered to him.