Page 57 of The Silent Mate

Soon,I promised myself.You’ll get to tell him soon.

Despite my longing for Malik, a small giggle escaped my lipsas I placed a hand on my flat belly. Soon, it would be swollen with life.

I was staring at my reflection in the mirror, hand cradling my stomach and the womb within, when I heard it. Shouting far beyond the clinic’s walls. At first, I believed it was part of the final battle of the War Trials, until…

Someone pounded relentlessly on the bathroom doors. The force of their fist shook the walls. “Aria!”

I threw open the bathroom door, still clutching the pregnancy test in one hand. Estelle stood on the other side of the threshold, her eyes wide and filled with despair. She braced her arms on either side of the door frame, chest rising and falling in labored breaths.

“What is it?” I questioned, horror settling low in my stomach. “Estelle, what’s wrong?”

“Alpha Roman just returned,” she whispered, her bottom lip trembling. “There was an attack.”

27

ARIA

Alpha Roman just returned. There was an attack. Alpha Roman returned. Attack.

The words played over and over again in my mind as I pushed past Estelle, something akin to blind panic coursing through my veins. My heart pounded like a war-drum, beating desperately against my ribcage to keep my body moving despite the cement-like weight that settled over my chest and made it impossible to breathe.

Estelle called after me, but I didn’t hear her words. If Roman had returned, then surely Malik was back, too. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation why I still couldn’t sense him through our bond…Wasn’t there?

When I broke through the door into the clinic’s main treatment room, chaos surrounded me. Half a dozen healers stood around a single bed, where a familiar male bled over the white sheets.

Roman.

Gruesome injuries plagued his naked body. Someone hadraked their claws over his chest, reducing the skin and muscle to barely-attached ribbons. Blood caked the alpha’s hairline, and vicious holes peppered his body where canine teeth sunk into flesh and tried to rip him apart.

My eyes widened at the sheer gruesomeness of his injuries before flashing to every other bed in the clinic. Malik was nowhere to be seen.

In fact, none of the other warriors who went on the days-long patrol had returned, either. Only Roman.

I struggled to pull air into my lungs, slowly turning back to the hospital bed where Roman writhed in pain. Absently, I shot an arrow of awareness down the sacred bond connecting my soul to Malik’s and…Nothing.

It still existed, but only darkness waited on the other side. No trace of the male I loved. The sire of the child in my womb. Mymate.

My control slipped, and I stormed across the clinic floor, spearing directly for Roman. A loud shout ripped from his throat as one of the physicians poured a disinfecting elixir over his tattered chest.

He never saw me coming.

“Aria!”Estelle protested, but I ignored her and shoved through the circle of medical staff.

“Where is he?” I seethed, teeth clamped to the point of pain.

“A-Aria…” Roman’s eyes cracked open, his lips still twisted in agony. He gasped, struggling to catch his breath.

I had half a mind to push my index finger into the nearest gouge-mark on his shoulder, if only to make him hurry up and answer the question.“Where. Is. He?”

As if speaking out loud had become too hard—too painful—for him, Roman’s voice filled my mind.We were ambushed. The rebels in Mendosia attacked while we slept...

Nausea roiled up my throat, saliva coating my tongue in abitter taste. That didn’t answer my question.Hewasn’t answering my question.Whywasn’t he answering my question?

“I was the only survivor,”Roman rasped at last. “I’m sorry.”

I blinked.

Only survivor.

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