Free Web NovelChapter 51: Chapter FIFTY ONE — FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN
Ragnor
I tore down the corridor at full speed like a possessed madman. Terror surged forward and for once I didn’t fight him.
Air burned through my lungs and the floor vanished beneath my feet as I sprinted down the stairs and burst through the packhouse doors into the morning air. Chaos greeted me. Maids and guards crowded the eastern side of the garden.
Some stood frozen in place with their faces drained of color while others covered their mouths, tears streaming freely down their cheeks. A sick weight settled in my chest.
No. No, it couldn’t be true. There was no way Daisy had done this. Not the woman who had survived three years of hell. Not the woman who had stood at the altar and invoked an ancient law and certainly not my woman who had looked at me in that wine-red dress yesterday, her chin lifted in quiet defiance.
My legs nearly gave out when I saw her.
Candace hung from the old oak tree at the edge of the garden.
Her white nightgown fluttered softly in the morning breeze, the fabric glowing beneath the first pale rays of sunlight. The rope wound cruelly around her neck and her arms hung limp at her sides. Her copper hair spilled forward and hid most of her face.
Everything inside me stopped. My heartbeat, my breathing, the screams around me, the crying and the panic all faded into nothing. There was only her. Only the horrifying reality of what had happened to my mate.
YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE TO HER LAST NIGHT INSTEAD OF FUCKING THAT SLUT. Terror’s roar ripped through my skull. freewebnovel.cσ๓
"No," I whispered.
Then I moved. I crossed the garden in seconds and launched myself up the tree. My claws tore into the bark as I climbed and when I reached the branch I seized the rope and ripped through it with my bare hands.
The fibers snapped and Candace fell and a panicked growl tore from my chest as I dove after her and caught her before she could hit the ground. The impact jolted hard through my legs as I landed with her pulled tightly against me.
"No, no, no." The words came out broken and small.
Her lips had turned blue. White foam stained the corner of her mouth and her face was an awful mottled shade of purple, swollen and terrible.
Tiny blood vessels had burst beneath her skin and left dark speckles around her eyes. An angry red groove wrapped around her throat where the rope had bitten into her flesh.
"Daisy." My voice cracked as I pressed my ear against her nostrils and the reality of it crashed into me all at once. I was holding my mate’s lifeless body in my arms.
"N-No... Candace..."
My fingers trembled as I pressed them against her neck and searched and prayed desperately for anything. Anything at all that didn’t mean I had lost her.
Then I felt it. A pulse, faint but it was there.
"GET THE PACK DOCTOR!"
My roar shook the entire garden. Several people flinched and others stumbled backward and I turned to Victor with one word.
"NOW."
He didn’t waste a second. His bones cracked as he shifted and shot across the courtyard and I gathered Candace closer and ran.
Her head lolled against my shoulder as I raced back toward the packhouse and fear clawed so deeply into my chest that I could barely breathe around it.
I will not lose her. I can’t.
You should have known, Terror snarled. You knew something was wrong. You felt it all night. Why didn’t you go to her?
I gritted my teeth. "She won’t die."
You don’t know that.
"She won’t."
What if we’re too late?
"She won’t!" I barked, kicking her bedroom door open so hard it slammed into the wall.
"She is not going to die."
I laid her carefully on the bed and only then did I notice how badly my hands were shaking. My eyes roamed the bruising around her throat, a thought crossed my mind but it look like it.
Suicide?
No. Candace would never.
Where is the pack doctor? I demanded through the mind-link while I fought to hold myself together.
We’re here, just downstairs, Victor replied. Breathe, Ragnor.
"My lady!"
Bree’s cry shattered the room. She rushed through the doorway and dropped to her knees beside the bed with both hands flying to her mouth and tears pouring freely down her face.
Behind her the little dog charged in and leapt onto the mattress and barked frantically while circling Candace, whining and pawing desperately at the blankets.
"Oh no," Bree sobbed. "Oh no, Luna."
"Take the dog and stay back."
"Y-Yes, Alpha." She scooped the trembling animal into her arms and retreated to the wall.
The pack doctor arrived seconds later with a nurse close behind her and her medical bag was already open before she even reached the bed. One look at Candace’s condition had her moving fast.
"What happened, Alpha?"
"I don’t know." The admission tasted like ash in my mouth and my eyes never left Candace’s face. "She was hanging from the tree."
The doctor’s expression darkened with concern. "Alpha, I need room to work."
I didn’t move. My head pounded and my entire body felt like it had been submerged in ice. The mate bond was barely there, a weak and faint and terrifyingly fragile thread.
"Alpha Ragnor." The doctor looked up at me. "I need to examine her."
Only then did I realize my hands were still gripping Candace’s shoulders and I was practically bent over her, unable to let go and unable to walk away and unable to accept what I had almost lost.
Slowly I released her and my legs felt unsteady as I stepped back. The doctor checked her pulse and attached a monitor and lifted one eyelid and every single second felt like an eternity.
I pressed my fist against my mouth and stood there shaking and watching and waiting.
She wouldn’t do this. Candace wouldn’t.
You did this, Terror said, his voice was low and deadly now. If we lose her, it’s your fault.
I shut my eyes briefly because a part of me was terrified he was right. The doctor was adjusting the pillow beneath Candace’s head when I noticed the corner of a photograph sticking out from underneath it.
A strange unease curled through my gut as I reached over and pulled it free and turned it over.
Ice flooded my veins. My fingers tightened around the photograph until my knuckles ached.
It was Candace. In bed. With another man.
