Torn

Chapter 40/41 Combined ✓

Xavier

I am free. After so many years, I am finally free. I'm struggling with the thought, and I find myself repeating those three words repeatedly to remind myself that this isn't another trick. It's hard to wrap my head around it and I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to wake up and find myself back in a cage in that goddess forsaken science lab that has doubled as my prison for so fucking long.

I don't really know how to process everything going on around me. I may have gotten out of my prison, but will I ever actually be a free wolf? My little mate is gone. My sweet, innocent Anna. I will never again hold her in my arms, or smell the sweet, jasmine aroma of her skin. I will never again place my lips on her forehead or comfort her in her times of need.

I feel completely devoid, empty. My wolf has hidden in the back of my mind for so long I'm fairly sure I've lost the ability to talk to him at this point. He allowed the shift to take over when we fled with my brother and Quinn, but he still hasn't spoken a word to me. He became shattered and broken the moment we lost Anna.

The Moon Goddess blesses you with one mate for your lifetime, and I wasn't strong enough to protect mine. I wasn't strong enough to save her. I travel back through my memory to before I was captured and made a prisoner.

My sweet Anna had been missing for a few weeks. My wolf paced impatiently in my mind nonstop. We had been trying to contact her through the mind-link to no avail. I could feel that the mating bond was strong and still intact, so I knew she was alive. As of yet, other than distress, I didn't feel that any physical harm had been done to her.

I hadn't slept, I had barely eaten, and I had barely bathed. I looked and felt a mess. My brother and his best friend, the neighboring alpha, were doing everything they could to try and figure out where my Anna, as well as the other missing people and wolves had dissipated. Something wasn't right, I could feel it in my bones.

After a few weeks, I couldn't sit around and wait anymore. I knew that we had started to exhaust all resources. We had scoured the area and there was no sign of her, or anyone else. I had been apart of every search, every meeting, but I couldn't wait any longer. My mate needed me. I shifted to my wolf, and we took off from the pack house, determined to find our girl.

I spent four days searching the surrounding woods before I smelt them. Their scent was bitter and wrong. It took me a few moments before I realized that the smell was that of death. I hunkered down under some brush as I watched four men with guns stalking through the trees towards me.

I could hear parts of their mumbled speech and from what I was able to pick up I knew they were looking for wolves. They were my ticket to finding Anna, I realized, and my wolf whimpered in my mind. I needed to stay hidden and follow them back to wherever they had come from.

I stalked them from a distance for hours. The sun was beginning to descend and I realized we had been going around in a large circle when I began to pick up my own scent in the foliage around me. The bitter scent of death became overwhelming the closer I followed them to this large cement building. The smell got so thick in my throat that I began to gag.

I was so focused on not allowing my wolf to throw up and trying to keep my sights on the men with guns that I didn't see that three men had come up from behind me until it was too late. A sharp pain shoots through my neck and my vision blurs. The world around me fades and I hear my wolf whisper one final word before it all goes black. Wolfsbane.

When I woke up, I was lying on the floor in a small cell with metal bars. There were two other cells beside mine. The cells were situated up against the rear wall in this concrete room. My head was pulsing with pain and my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton.