Chapter Fifty-Two
Maddox
W e all landed on top of each other, in the sand, falling over one another.
I immediately reached for Evaline, eyes on Wyott.
“Where’s Maeve?” Evaline asked, head whirling around the lot of us. She turned to Sage. “Where is she?” Evaline screamed and Sage stumbled forward.
“We tried, we couldn’t get to her. There were too many Vasi,” she responded, tears down her own face at the disappointment on Evaline’s.
I popped the barbed wire open as gently as I could, but still, she winced and cried harder, louder.
“I promised her,” she mumbled. “I promised I’d save her.”
“No. No. No. No.” I heard Wyott repeat over and over as he rocked in the sand, knees pulled up to his chest.
We ignored all the Vasi that surrounded the island, we couldn’t care about them now, there was too much happening.
Evaline looked to my brother, too, and it must’ve been when she remembered what he’d said in Mortithev, just before we portaled out.
Her tears slowed as she turned to me.
“Did he say ‘father’?” Evaline voiced to me, looking up at me and gasping when I pulled the barbed wire from her wrist.
I nodded and flicked my eyes back to him, to see him still rocking.
“I don’t understand,” she sniffled beside me.
I heard Cora’s voice as she slammed open the door to the loft. Heard her scream for Kovarrin and Rasa, whom she must’ve already told of our departure.
“Rick,” I said to Evaline as I tossed the barbed wire away from us and looked down at her wrists, then to Wyott. “It was Rick.”
“Who is Rick?” But then she cried out when I turned her wrist.
“I’m sorry, Eva,” I said, hating myself for hurting her because I couldn’t balance my attention between my mate and my brother.
I needed to go to him, but she was bleeding out.
I looked to Wyott as I brought my wrist to my mouth, and handed it to Evaline.
“I saw him die,” Wyott said softly. “I saw him die,” he said, as if he was convincing himself of the fact.
Evaline grabbed my wrist with one gentle hand and brought it to her mouth and—
A body slammed into me, sending me several feet away and falling into the sand. It sprayed all around me as I spun.
“What the fuck?” I yelled as I stood and looked to see who had pushed me.
Cora kneeled in front of Evaline, her wrist cut and to Evaline’s mouth.
Cora looked at me, dumbfounded.
“What the fuck were you doing?” she screamed. “You just drank her blood!”
I shook my head, bringing my hands up to my hair.
She would’ve hated me. She would have hated me for the rest of my life if I’d taken that choice away from her. Accident or not. And I would’ve never forgiven myself for changing her because I’d been distracted.
“I—I wasn’t thinking,” I said, waving a hand to Evaline. “She was bleeding out,” then a hand toward Wyott. “And Wyott, he needs me and—”
Cora’s head snapped over to her mate, saw him huddled up alone in the sand as Dean checked on Sage and my parents appeared.
“What happened?” Kovarrin demanded.
“What happened to him?” Cora screeched, eyes wild with worry as we all looked over to see Wyott rock and heard his whispers.
“I—” I started, but Wyott continued.
“No, no, no,” he mumbled. “I saw him die. It’s not him. It’s not him.”
Evaline pulled away from Cora.
“Go,” she instructed her, and Cora was at Wyott’s side in an instant, wrapping her small body around his thick frame.
“Baby, baby,” she cooed. “What is it? You’re all back here, safe,” she said softly. “Your family is back, what you always wanted.”
But he looked up at her then and shook his head wildly.
“No!” he shouted, then turned his head. “Maddox!” he called for me, and I ran to him, Evaline quick on my heels.
“I’m right here, buddy. I’m right here.”
He fisted a hand in my shirt. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I didn’t see him,” he pleaded.
The look on his face was the same look he’d given me all those decades ago, the moment he’d gotten off of that ship. When I’d known what had happened, just by the blood on his clothes and the look on his face.
I opened my mouth, but there weren’t any words.
Because I wanted to tell him that it was just some other man with the same honey-blond hair as Wyott and the same thick chest.
But I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t the truth.
But still, he looked up at me expectantly. Cora did too, her brows raised and demanding that I answer the question. Evaline’s hand wrapped around my arm as if to comfort me, but there was no use.
There was nothing any of us could do to comfort this truth out of existence.
For a moment I wondered if this was how Wyott felt when he had to hold Evaline on the ballroom floor after she saw me.
I gave a slight shake of my head, eyes welling with tears.
In an instant, Wyott’s face crumpled and he threw his head into Cora’s chest and sobbed.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry,” I repeated as he cried and Cora and my parents looked at me expectantly.
“What is it?” Cora screamed.
I looked between the three of them, tears still flooding my vision, and shook my head.
“It’s Rick,” I said, and my father was already shaking his head, as if he could will the truth away. I took another deep breath. “He’s with Vasier.”
My father’s eyes filled with tears, and rage contorted his features.
My mother’s mouth dropped open, and a sob fell out.
And Cora, her eyes were wide. For a moment, her face was expressionless, until it twisted in pain, as she clenched her eyes shut and lowered her face over Wyott’s head, pressing her lips into his honey blond hair.
The same as his father’s.