Chapter 85

Justin POV

I paced the living room, her scent still stuck on everything around it. It ached my body to think of her at my father’s estate. What will Juden do to her now?

The last time he got ahold of her, he sent my Lycan in a rage while she laid dying in the street. I was able to heal her, but I don’t know how much more she can take.

Eventually, she will fall to her many, terrible wounds.

That means I have to work fast to get her back.

Randy charged through the front door and held a small camera in his hand, panting as he caught his breath from the run. I haven’t seen Helen in almost three days and I’ve tried to get Randy close enough to report on if she’s okay or not.

Something tells me he finally has caught a glimpse of my poor mate.

He displayed the video on the wall, the two of us in silence since I scolded him for allowing this to happen. My mate should have stayed back, but now I have a hundred wizards roaming around my pack grounds and a happy Fae, but no mate.

She’s the only one that really matters to me.

“It’s not good,” Randy grumbled. “Try to keep calm.”

Russo joined us while Randy set up the camera to the projection screen on the wall. He lingered behind me, nervously feeling at fault after Helen was taken.

He should feel responsible too— they both should!

If she stayed behind like I commanded then she wouldn’t be wherever she is now. I’m just scared of what I’ll see on the tape, holding my breath as Randy played the video he took.

It’s a little blurry at first, trying to focus on the pack grounds of Lone Wolf pack. I stepped forward, squinting while the camera came into focus at very last.

Helen is naked, covered in blood, and stuck to a post in the middle of the village.

My breath hitched, my palm smacked over my mouth to keep from going belligerent, while I sank back into the couch. The camera zoomed in closer and showed her leaning forward lifelessly, her hands crossed behind the thick, wood pole.

He was trying to lure me out again.

It worked.

I stormed off toward the door but Randy stopped me.

“No, Alpha, wait,” he pleaded.

“I have to go rescue my mate!”

“No,” he breathed. “Watch the rest of the video, please.”

I fought my instincts and turned around, Russo shivering in place while he continued to watch the camera slowly zoom into the sight of Helen so horribly beaten, the camera able to pick up every cut, every broken bone, and every bloody bruise that marked her all over.

She almost looked unrecognizable.

“Moon goddess,” I panted, my pulse firing off a million miles per hour. “What am I waiting to see, Randy? I have to go save her! She’s near dead!”

“Just wait,” he hummed.

I sat on my heels, waiting to see whatever it is that had to postpone my running out there to get her back. Suddenly, she shifted, standing against the pole instead of kneeling, but she still looked so unbalanced and knocked out.

How was she standing up?!

“What is—”

I stopped, seeing Randy position the camera behind the post, still staying a distance, her wrists draped carefully over one another.

“She’s not tied up?” I groaned, confused.

“She’s not bound to the pole,” Randy grunted. “She could walk away, but she’s not.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Russo chimed in.

I stepped forward, watching the camera brush down her surface. She looked depleted and passed out, but she still stood, her hands crossed behind her back and behind the post. She had no physical ties to any of it, though.

She didn’t even look awake!

“What is happening?” I said. “This isn’t right. Something’s not right here.”

Just then, Juden came out to the village square, pacing slowly around my mate as his eyes drank in her depleted, bloody stature against the post. He faced her, pushing her chest back so the back of her head would hit the post.

Standing over her, I watched my pathetic excuse for a father, brush his knuckles down her cheek, standing so close to her it was like he was going to kiss her!

He chose something worse, though.

He flung his fist across her cheek and she stayed standing, taking the entire brunt force of the Alpha King while still on her tired, shivering feet.

I fell to the floor instead of her, unable to watch this continue.

“What is—I don’t under—”

“It’s weird,” Randy groaned. “I had to leave shortly after but there’s one more thing you need to see.”

I wasn’t sure if I could want any more of it, but I did, seeing my father leave and my mate finally crumbled to her knees, hands still pinned behind the post.

Two figured moved to flank the Alpha King while his pack watched on, sneering and yelling at my mate in utter humiliation and degradation, absolutely tormenting whatever is left of her spirit.

“I can’t hear anything he is saying,” I mumbled.

“Don’t worry about what he is saying,” Randy huffed, stepping up to the screen. “Look right here,” he added, pointing to my father’s sides. “Who does that look like?”

I squinted, not wanting to look away from my poor, wounded mate but finally shifting my focus to her father and mother, the two of them proudly supporting my father as he absolutely destroys my mate in front of his pack.

“Of course they’re in on it,” I breathed. “They’re absolutely horrible.”

“Who is that?” Russo pondered.

“It’s her parents,” Randy replied simply.

It didn’t seem fitting to explain the bit about her mother not actually being her mother. Whatever mattered before as a big deal, didn’t seem that big anymore. It was all worthless compared to how terribly I wanted to hold my mate in my arms right now.

“She can’t withstand this much longer,” I growled. “We have to go get her.”

Russo and Randy both hesitated. I gave them a furious, confused look.

“Did you not just watch that?! She is dying out there! We have to go get my mate!”

Randy stepped forward first, his lips pressed into a firm frown. “I’m not happy about seeing my Luna like that either, Justin, but we have to be rational about this. We need to think this through.”

“Think what through?!” I shoved him back, needing to shift and get to Helen right now. “We have to go get her, Randy! She is suffering! Her parents will kill her soon enough after what we did to their pack, and to their precious future Alpha!”

“I know, I know,” Randy growled, trying hard not to fight me too much.

I am still his Alpha. I am still in charge of him.

“I say we wait until the full moon passes,” Randy breathed. “It’s in two nights so we can descend on Juden’s pack in three.”

I stood still for a long moment.

Full moon or not, I’m going after my mate.