Page 16 of Reflections of Peonies
I was so tired.
I needed to breathe, but it was so hard.
Voices drifted around me, but nothing made sense. My ears buzzed as my thoughts drifted.
This wasn’t so bad.
It felt like my heart might burst, and as another wave washed over me, I gave in to the darkness.
4
Titus POV
The sun was breakingover the horizon as the chaos of my thoughts finally began to clear. But there was still no peace to be found in the aftermath. I’d long since returned from my rampage, but the need to escape, to kill, still raged heavily through my veins. Since it’d do Bianca little good for me to wreak havoc, I turned my attention to the one thing that did matter now.
I’d ripped apart my home, brick by brick, and when Damen had finally stopped me, there had been nothing left among the smoldering ash. He, of course, said that it was a needlessly dramatic gesture. But he was wrong. I would no longer need it—for right now and a long time coming, I would stay with her.
Even being away from her this long made me ready to lose my mind.
Julian alone was allowed to visit her, however, and all communication was banned. So I had nothing left to distract me besides ruin and revenge. As I sat in my office with the files and videos ofevidence surrounding me, it was all I could do to contain the creature struggling to break free. Only Damen’s presence somewhere nearby kept me focused.
How could this have happened?
Everything was sharper now as my instincts and emotions rose to the surface. It was the shifter’s job—my job—to defend the fae from outside forces. And it was my job in this life, specifically, to protect Bianca. Mu had always been far more fragile than me, and his trusting nature had always given him a sense of vulnerability.
I was born first solely for this duty. This time, I’d failed.
I glared at the folders on my left. Maria had done an excellent job acquiring copies of the entire case—I wasn’t sure what strings she’d had to pull, but I didn’t care. Since she’d dropped them off, I’d spent the remaining time pouring through the painful words.
There are only two pieces of evidence left to check: two drives containing video files that I hadn’t been able to force myself to touch yet.
The evidence thus far had done little to reassure me—it was as bad as I’d imagined, and maybe even worse. While there were many unknowns, the broad overview of Bianca’s situation painted a grim picture that I couldn’t get out of my mind. In every case I’d been involved in—the mangled bodies in filthy rooms, and every person we did manage to save—I could now see only her.
How—how could he still be out there?
Damen entered my office without knocking.
“You said you found a video interview?” he asked. He loosened his tie and slumped into a seat across my desk. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and he hadn’t bothered to wash the blood off his hands. I hadn’t been in the right mind to take note of it before, but when did he get into a fight? It must have been after I left.
“Yes,” I replied.
“We should wait for Julian and Miles,” Damen said, frowning at the files.
“We should,” I agreed. “But I don’t want to.”
“What about this?” Damen asked. He reached for one of the folders.
“They’re useless,” I warned him. I didn’t want him to get his hopes up.
“Useless?” he repeated, alarmed. He moved more quickly now and picked up one of the folders. He frowned after he opened it and began to thumb through the pages. “What?”
“Maria found them in the archives,” I told him. “After Abigail was forced to retire, the team fell apart, and the investigation was dropped. There are a lot of redacted names, but the gist is that Bianca was adopted quickly without much legal involvement. I am not even sure how that was allowed to happen. Trinity was involved shortly after that and declared her medically unfit.”
“But—” Damen lowered the papers. “Didn’t Hanah say that Bianca had been questioned?”
“There’s no evidence here of that,” I answered. “It was done entirely off the books. Once Trinity got involved, she and Abigail conducted all the interviews on Bianca’s behalf. But—”
I swallowed, forcing back the pressure in my chest that threatened to break free. Damen was watching me, and I sensed he was waiting to intervene.
