Free Web NovelChapter 125: Chapter 125 Rowena has broken through his heart
_Kasper’s POV_
The first thingI registered was the ceiling.
A white ceiling that informed me that I was currently in a hospital.
I knew it because this particular texture of a ceiling is one that you only notice when you are lying flat on your back with nothing else to look at.
The second thing was the pain in my head.
It started at the base of my skull and spread forward in slow deliberate waves, the kind of pain that had a specific origin point and wanted you to know exactly where it was. And my wolf couldn’t even hold that pain back for me.
What the hell happened?
I tried to sit up and the room moved in a way that it definitely wasn’t supposed to move and I put that idea away for a moment.
The third thing that registered in my head was Alaric.
The Alpha King was standing at the foot of the bed and he was in his full presence in a way that I had only seen a handful of times. Not the composed, calm version of himself that he brought to meetings and public appearances.
The version underneath that was out in the open. The Alpha King without the management layer on top of it, which was a considerably more intense thing to be in the same room with.
He looked stressed out of his mind and angry if I might add.
His eyes were on me and they looked extremely scary. It felt as if he’d been waiting for me to wake up.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
He voiced out, as if reading my mind.
“Where is she?” he added when I was still trying to process his words.
That question sent a shiver straight down to my spine and I swallowed. It sounded like the quietness of something that was holding itself extremely still.
I pushed myself up against the headboard despite what my skull thought about that decision.
“Men,” I said slowly. My voice came out rougher than expected. “A van. Side street, two blocks from Orren’s building.” I pressed my hand against the back of my head. “We were walking back to the car. Suddenly, four men came out of the van fast. I got hit from behind before I could......” I stopped talking first, as I tried to recall the last moments I could. “I couldn’t get to her because I was already down.”
Alaric said nothing for a while
“How long have I been out for?” I asked after while of silence.
“We found you three hours ago,” he said. “By the side of the road. Someone had moved you.”
That landed.
They had even taken the time to move me to the side of the road?
What a joke.
Which meant they hadn’t wanted my body found immediately at the scene, which meant the abduction had been planned with enough care to include cleanup afterward.
This wasn’t opportunistic.
“Three hours?” I asked softly.
“Yes.” freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
Three hours. She had been wherever she was for at least three hours, probably longer, possibly from the moment we left Orren’s building because if they had moved me they had done it after taking her and that took time.
I pushed the blanket off.
“I need to get up,” I said suddenly, scared for my cousin. They would definitely harm her. She had a lot of enemies at this point.
“You have a concussion,” said a voice from the doorway. I saw the doctor walk in with his clipboard and the expression of someone who had already had this conversation once and was preparing to have it again.
“I have a concussion and I need to get up,” I pointed out.
Alaric looked at the doctor. The doctor looked at Alaric. Something in the exchange resolved without words and the doctor stepped back from the doorway.
I got my feet on the floor and waited for the room to settle.
“The van,” Alaric began. “What did you see before they hit you?”
I went back through it. The street. The timing of the doors opening. The coordinated movement of four men who knew exactly where they were going and what they were going to do.
“Plain van,” I said. “There were no markings. It was dark, maybe navy. The men were trained. Not pack fighters, something more specific. The way they moved.” I paused. “They weren’t there for me. I was in the way. They were there for her specifically.”
“Could it be Drake’s doing?” Alaric asked.
The name sat in the room.
I looked at him.
“He’s been in this city, actually,” Alaric said. “And we’ve been trying to confirm the location. If he knew she was here and he knew the investigation was closing in—”
“He’d want to remove her before she found what she came to find,” I finished.
Alaric nodded and the room was very quiet.
I stood up fully and my head made its opinion known but I ignored it.
“I need my phone,” I said.
Someone handed it to me. It had been on the bedside table, cracked across the corner but functional. I opened it and called Gabriel and while it rang I looked at Alaric and saw the thing in his face that he was managing with everything he had.
He looked terrified.
Not the word he would use. Not something he would show in any room with more than one other person in it. But I had worked alongside Gabriel who had worked alongside Alaric. Gabriel behaved like a leader, I knew the traits came from Alaric, so now I could read the stillness that arrived when something had broken through everything he normally kept between himself and the outside world.
Rowena had broken through this man’s heart a long time ago.
And I knew without a doubt that he loved her dearly.
