Page 89 of Wrath

It didn’t takeme too long.

When I concluded Devlin wasn’t in the camp, I hurried into the forest. Devlin wouldn’t be too far—he knew how dangerous it was out there—but he would want to be away from the hustle and bustle of the camp.

Darkness had just begun to blanket the world when I spotted a familiar shock of brown, curly hair.

Devlin stood with his back to me at the very edge of the stream. He looked out of place in the forest, like some primordial being had plucked him out of a business meeting and into a landscape he couldn’t hope to survive in. He wasn’t wearing his suit—I wasn’t sure he had any with him—but his clothes were much nicer than any I’d seen here so far. His white dress shirt clung to skin and looked striking against his olive complexion.

“How did I know you would find me?” Devlin didn’t turn around to look at me.

“Because you know I’m a nosy bitch.” I hurried forward and jumped on a rock beside him, keeping my attention riveted on the guzzling water.

We were now the exact same height. The tendons strained in his neck, the tension radiating in his shoulders, the power hammering off of him in an almost malevolent wave. There was something…unsettling about Devlin. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

Maybe it was the fact that I’d never seen him so tense before, like he was a rubber band pulled taut, just waiting to be released on the world.

Even still, standing beside him brought about a familiar sense of warmth and tranquility, though trepidation quickly eclipsed it. Something had happened. Something bad.

“Devlin—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He ground his teeth together.

“You completed your trial, didn’t you?” I phrased it as a question, but I knew it wasn’t.

“Lilith is one fucked-up bitch,” Devlin whispered hoarsely. His gaze flicked to me before he refocused on the stream once more. “You weren’t… You weren’t there, were you?”

“No.” I shook my head solemnly. “Bash seems to believe that we were wrong about the trials. That Lilith is testing you guys more than me. That I’m just a pawn.”

“That would make sense,” Devlin agreed, and then silence settled between us once more.

It wasn’t the uncomfortable kind, despite the tension. I didn’t think I could ever feel that way around Devlin.

For the longest time, I didn’t think he was going to speak. And I would be okay with that. He was allowed to have his secrets. I trusted him.

“She showed me what life would’ve been like if I’d never left you,” he whispered. His voice was so low, I had to strain to hear him. “We had a life together, Z. A house. A family.” He squeezed his eyelids shut. “We had a kid.”

His words stabbed at my brain like a flaming blade.

I sucked in a sharp gasp but didn’t dare interrupt. I had a thousand questions, but I knew I couldn’t voice them yet. This wasn’t about me, after all.

“I had to leave my own goddamn kid behind,” he rasped out. He whirled on me, his eyes blackened and flashing with fury. “My own goddamn kid.”

“Devlin.” His pain pried a piece of my soul apart.

So when he collapsed into me, I held him, creating soothing circles on his back with my hand. He sobbed in my embrace, and my own tears wetted my cheeks.

Grief sank its teeth into me, though I didn’t know why. Logically, I knew that nothing Devlin had seen was true. Yet…

That didn’t stop the pain.

I held Devlin long into the night, as the stars trickled out one at a time, blinking into existence, and the moon hovered at the edge of my periphery. I held him even when Ryland came to check on us, his features grave. I held him when we walked back to camp and settled in our tent, where my other mates waited for us.

All I could do was hold him…and pray that it would be enough.

TWENTY-NINE

Z

“Iwant to free the humans.”

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