Chapter 33

Third Person POV

Asher sat at a small table across from Mia at a cafe a quarter mile down from the main square.

Her foot kept brushing against his leg, and he knew it was absolutely on purpose. They ordered coffee, which he barely sipped at, his stomach roiling with nerves.

“So, Asher,” Mia started, grasping her cup of hot coffee in her hands. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“I feel great,” Asher said back, guarded. He was beginning to feel like Mia had a really dark ulterior motive.

He’d always been able to read her exceptionally well, but in that moment, she was a blank slate. He had no idea what she was really doing here, or if she did recognize him and was faking it.

“I wasn’t asking how you were doing,” Mia said with a roll of her eyes.

“I know what you were asking.” Asher met her playful eyes, his expression void of any lightheartedness.

“So why not answer?” Mia raised her brows, taking a slow sip of her coffee.

“You want to know the truth? It seems like you don’t like Sienna at all, but you don’t even know her to even judge her fairly.” Asher didn’t break Mia’s gaze, staring her down.

“I know enough to judge.” Mia sat up, setting her cup down on the table so she could lean in closer to him. “And I know she’s too young to be doing what she is.”

“She didn’t ask for this.” Asher was starting to feel extremely defensive of Sienna. Sure, he’d once thought the same things Mia had about Sienna.

Now, though, with all the time he’d spent with Sienna, he’d come to realize how smart she was, how her parents had instilled enough in her to take over the pack if the worst happened, which, unfortunately, it did.

“Whether she asked for it or not, she’s not cut out for it.” Mia shrugged, her green eyes laser focused on him.

“How is that fair? She was thrown into this position because her parents were killed.” Asher’s wolf was angry, too, and that didn’t help him stay calm.

“I’m not here to empathize with her situation or feel bad for her. What I’m here for is to examine how she leads this pack — a pack that was left completely in shambles by her parents, too.”

Asher could sense what Mia was about to say next.

“Her parents didn’t lead very well either, so I suppose it runs in the family.”

That was a step too far for Asher, and the dam in him broke.

“You have to be kidding,” he snarled, a growl rumbling in his throat. “Her parents were excellent at leading Nightwind.”

“Look at the state of this place,” Mia said with the lazy wave of her hand. “It’s one of the poorest packs.”

“So?” Asher scoffed. “Their leadership was stellar. It’s not their fault the pack was destined to be the lower tiered one — they worked with what they had.”

“And still failed.”

Okay, at this point, she was baiting him. She wanted him to snap at her, and maybe then he’d let something slip that he wasn’t meant to.

That was her tactic.

Who is she? Asher thought to himself, sadness consuming him. Mia was once his dream girl, so perfect in every way.

Now, she was dark, a malevolent entity come to ruin everything good he’d come across over the last few months.

Mia’s gaze caught on something behind him, her brow furrowing. “What’s that?”

He spun to look behind him, his stomach sinking as he saw smoke rising from back in the main square.

“Is that a fire?” He gaped, on his feet in a split second, his coffee and breakfast forgotten.

“Appears so,” Mia said casually. “You know, if Nightwind had better safety measures, maybe things like this wouldn’t happen.”

She was unbelievable. There wasn’t an ounce of her that cared for anyone here, or what was happening in the square.

“I have to find Sienna,” he said in a rush, sprinting away from the table, leaving Mia behind.

She didn’t bother to follow him, lounging back in the chair and sipping her coffee like she was watching a movie unfold in front of her.

Asher’s feet pounded on the ground, the screams and shouts of panic growing louder the closer he got. His heart raced in his chest, and he ran into the heart of the chaos, ignoring the sting of smoke in his eyes.

“Sienna?” he yelled, knowing she’d have rushed here the first second she heard.

He looked to his right, flames angrily eating away at the main shop, one that provided all the necessities to Nightwind. Now it was gone, nearly burned to the ground already.

Not only that place, but the surrounding shops — a lot of them potion shops — were ablaze too.

They were all lost causes now, too. Despite the owners and other townsfolk, along with a few guards, who sprayed and dumped water, the fire did not ease up.

Asher continued into the square, the smoke hindering his sight horribly. His foot banged into something on the ground — or rather, someone.

A body.

His heart leapt to his throat as he kneeled down to its lifeless form, the smell of blood seeping into his nostrils along with smoke.

The closer he looked, the more he realized there were stab wounds all along the persons gut. It was an older man, someone he wasn’t familiar with, and they were most definitely very dead.

Dead by multiple stab wounds.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked out, feeling responsible even though he knew it wasn’t really his fault.

He stood, squinting, his eyes watering, lungs angry at all the ash he was forced to breathe in.

“Sienna?” he called out again, his voice growing more and more hoarse.

No response.

He stepped away from the body, chilling to the core when his foot hit another lifeless form on the ground.

This time it was an older woman, her features undistinguishable thanks to the smoke. He thought he recognized her as one of the potion shop owners, but he couldn’t be sure.

The woman didn’t have any blood on her, so she may have died from smoke inhalation.

Asher would soon follow if he didn’t get to fresh air, the lick of the hot flames growing closer. Sienna didn’t seem to be here, and that scared him.

A moment later, he picked up on her scent, the wolf in him waking up. Not only was it her scent, but another three very unfamiliar ones.

No one from Nightwind.

Panic exploded in him. Had she been taken?

He tracked her scent and the other three unknown ones out of the square, his suspicions proving true the further he got.

This was leading directly towards Julian’s pack. There were signs of her being dragged in the dirt of the path, the other footsteps surrounding her as though she were being forcefully escorted.

And then he saw her, up ahead, clasped in two mens hands, another leading them down the path. Her skin was dirty from the debris of the ash, a cloth shoved in her mouth, tears streaked down her face.

She still struggled, obviously growing weaker and weaker.

“Sienna!” Asher bellowed, taking off in a sprint towards her, the distance between them closing as he leapt like a wild animal onto the backs of both the men holding her.