The Lycan Hunter (The Gardinian World Series) (24 page)

He grabbed his phone from the depths of his pillows and turned to face Kyran.

“I’m not talking about any Hunter. This is Alexis.”

“So?”

Ronan sighed and glanced down at his phone. “I have to take a
shower and call Marcela.” He gave Kyran a pointed look. “She may
be the reason that I feel the way I do, but the truth is my life wasn’t exactly a frat party before. I miss her. My every thought is consumed
with thoughts of her. Trust me, Ky, on some level that bothers me,
but I’m more comfortable dealing with my life revolving around her than the thought of my life without her.”

“You’ve known her for less than a week.”

“A day can change your life, Kyran. I just hope that the woman
you’ve known all of a week doesn’t make you regret the day you cut her loose.”

Ronan left his brother to figure out his situation with Alexis, he
’
d
done his part. A quick glance at his phone told him that the woman
he wanted felt the same way he did.

I miss you. OMW now. – Marcie

THREE DAYS.
Three long, unremarkable fucking days and every one
of them marked by the downward spiral of Kyran’s mood. He could
feel the fissure developing, likely beginning the minute he
’
d found
Alexis missing from his bed. The blanket of ignorance he tried to wrap
himself in refused to disguise the fact that his soul recognized the absence
of its mate. Yet the evidence was there in his shitty mood and the fact
that everything seemed to irk him. Meditation didn’t help him find a level mindset and taking runs as Tala didn’t ease the foul disposition of his soul.

One thing that seemed to set him on edge more than the sound of
his pack
’
s footsteps and their demand on his time was couples. Happy
, pissed off, or indifferent – couples did nothing but make him grind his teeth and lash out at the pack for the smallest of infractions. Even
Ronan and Marcela spent most of their time out of his sight, though his
brother did pay him a visit without Marcela at one point to try and
set
him straight. The conversation was a fog, lost somewhere behind the haze
of his irritation at his brother
’
s obvious happiness with finding his mate.

Ronan seemed to be under the erroneous assumption that without
Alexis the war would not end. What his brother didn’t know was he
already had Nigel as a backup to serve in Alexis
’
place. Now the only
thing he needed was for the war to end, so he could finally have his
fucking family. The gods – with their penchant for being meddlesome –
probably found allowing him to See a Hunter amusing. The gods
probably found it amusing that the one his soul coveted the most was
also the one that would never give him children.

He sat on his bed and let that last thought run through his head.
How was it that his soul was having such a hard time acknowledging
the fact that sending Alexis away was the best thing that he could do
for the both of them? Alexis couldn
’
t be the Lycan he needed her to be,
and he would never be the Hunter she needed him to be. But for some
reason, that excuse didn’t work for his baser instincts.

Kyran ignored the dull ache in his chest and went to find Ronan. Hopefully, his brother had some advice to give besides going to find Alexis and bringing her back. Returning Alexis to the fold wasn’t an option, no matter how much his chest seized at the thought of her never lying in his bed again.

As he walked down the hallway, children that had been playing
in the game room muted their joyful noise in favor of watching him
warily from their down-turned heads. He rolled his eyes, knowing he
couldn
’
t have had that much of an attitude problem. He had no problem
with the children per se, but their existence at this moment in time only
showed him what he was lacking in his own life. And he really didn
’
t
need a fucking reminder.

Kyran entered the kitchen to find Ronan and Marcela feeding each
other fresh fruit at the island in between kisses. They were completely
lost in each other, in the moment. Ronan popped another grape in
Marcela’s mouth before turning his focus to him.

All it took was a brief glance, and that unforgiving grip on his heart
propelled him to grasp at his chest. Marcela and Ronan both ran to him,
keeping him from collapsing to the ground. Whatever it was, the pain
was getting worse.

“Kyran, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Fucking chest…”

Ronan sent Marcela to get his med kit and turned back to him.

“Think it’s that wound acting up?”

“No…” His body undulated, wrenching itself from Ronan
’
s grasp.
“Shiiiiiit.”

“Ky, dammit. Marcie!” Ronan shouted.

“Need. Your help,” Kyran managed to gasp.

“I know. I’m going to take you to the infirmary.”

“No…I need help with…Fuck. I need help to forget her.”

Ronan dropped him. Just fucking dropped him. Kyran glared up
at his brother. He could have run through a list of curses in descriptive
detail that would illustrate how much of a bastard Ronan was.
Unfortunately, Kyran was stuck biting back the misery that amped up in his chest.

“That’s what’s wrong with you, dumbass? Go get her.”

“No…”

“Then I can’t do anything to help you.”

Kyran settled for Lamaze like breathing patterns which earned him
a laugh from Ronan. He slowly uncurled his middle finger from his
clenched fist.

Marcela ran back in carrying the bag but stopped short upon seeing
Kyran on the floor and Ronan laughing at him.

“He wants me to give him advice so that he can forget Alexis.”

Marcela snorted but managed to cover it with an equally patronizing
cough.

“I can only tell you what I know, and it
’
s what I already told you,”
Ronan said as he sat back down.

Kyran let out a slow breath. He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want
to know what her hair looked like, if she was tired, what she wore… Kyran smothered his own snort. He was completely losing his shit.

After breathing his way into the seated position and through
another round of chest pain, he turned to Ronan. “Tell me.”

“I gave her a checkup. She was still pretty sore but able to walk.
Then I helped her consolidate her stuff in one of my backpacks before
I took her out of here to Blairsville.”

Kyran had what he could only describe as a separation of self. The
rational side of him recognized that nothing had changed since the last time Ronan had told him what happened the day Alexis left. The
other part of him firmly rooted in hyperactive fear and longing locked
onto the
mention
of the backpack, s
omethin
g that Ronan hadn
’
t mentioned
before and snapped.

The next thing either of them knew, Ronan was on the floor with
Kyran holding him there. The only thing that managed to save Kyran
’
s
crumbling pride was that he hadn’t cocked back and hit his brother.

“What is your problem, Ky?”

“Why did you keep that from me? You never mentioned the bag before. Why not? Why hide it?”

“Because it was insignificant.” Ronan pushed against him to throw
him off.

“You don’t get to judge what is and isn’t significant to me.”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “Get the hell off of me, and go find your
mate, Ky.”

Those words snapped the last ounce of his control. Kyran cocked
back his arm and hit his brother. One second and his saving grace
disappeared in a violent crack to his brother
’
s eye. Ronan glared at him
but made no move to fight him back. He knew that was all it would
take to send Kyran over the edge.

“She isn’t my damn mate. She’s a Hunter.”

“Get over that little notion. Nobody will give a shit what she is if this is how you’ll act with her not being here.”

“She isn’t my mate, Ronan. Get that through your fucking head.”

Even as he said it, the words refused to register as truth. His body
revolted. His chest seized. His mind was a blanket of fog, all thoughts
lost behind the drive to end the howling loneliness.

“Who has who pinned to the floor, Ky?” Ronan whispered.

Ronan could have yelled it for the effect it had. Kyran rolled off of
him and started to apologize, but Ronan and Marcela waved it off.

Going from ‘
she isn
’
t my mate
’ to ‘
I have to fucking find her
’ wasn’t
that much of reach for his Soul. It had always been in the latter camp.
The change in his cognitive attitude was so swift that it took Kyran a few minutes to adjust to the sudden change in mental direction.

With the most powerful tools in the universe, he went to work the
only way he knew how. In the altar room, he stood in front of the large
carved replica of Liflasir.

“Dearest Ire, I beseech you. Give me your ear. Here me while I cry
to you. I come to you, weak and in need of your strength. Bless me,
please. Give me the blessing of health, so that I can continue to be the best of me.”

He prayed to the goddess of health in hopes that she would save
him from his aching mind, from the severing of his cognitive and soul
’
s
unity. To give him strength in the face of what was bound to be a
marathon of prayer as he begged at this altar for guidance in the face of his despair. Kyran paced and prayed, begging every god, from the
best to the worst of them, to give him solace, to bring him peace. None
came, but he continued.

He paced and prayed, prayed and paced, and when his legs would
no longer carry him, he fell to his knees and begged at the foot of the altar.

Kyran let every memory that he had of Alexis assault him as he
prayed for her safety. He wanted nothing more than to bring her home
to wrap himself around her and cocoon her from all things that would
cause her harm. He wallowed in the truth that he could argue with
his soul as much as he wanted, but he hated who he was without her in
his life. Matters of Soul Seeing were immutable and trying to argue with
logic never worked out. And yet he had tried. He had been arrogant
thinking that she was nothing more than a Hunter, that Seeing her
Soul wouldn’t cause such a drastic reaction.

Somewhere a chime sounded, but Kyran ignored it.

Sleep begged to claim him, but he refused to let himself fall into its
clutches. He cried past the pain in his chest when his mind dwelled too
long on the loss that led him to his knees in front of the altar. He needed
her, wanted her like he needed the sanity that had been ripped from
him in her absence. Alexis needed to come back, to be here in his home
with him. The world wasn’t safe for her, and if she ever left it before
he could tell her how much she meant to him, it wouldn
’
t be safe
without her in it.

The sound of footsteps echoed in the room; white-clothed Lycan
s filed in for morning prayers.

Gods, three days. It has taken me three days to lose it completely.

Some of the pack members were sniffling as they entered, but Kyran
ignored it and went back to praying. One of the gods would eventually
answer him. He didn
’
t care who he
’
d owe a favor, but he needed to find
his way to Alexis; she needed to come home.

Feminine feet interrupted his view of the tiled floor he stared at
while praying, forcing him to look up at her tear streaked face. He
stared at the orphaned female that Angel had found on a scouting
mission. Her story was sad, forged from a miserable existence in the
raping hands of mankind and freedom gained at the hands of an
avenging Angel. She’d barely said a word to him since she had been brought into the pack’s fold. What could she possibly want now?

“Mikko, why didn
’
t you tell us?” Her voice was soft, sad. “We would
have never asked this of you.”

He stopped his mumbled prayer and frowned at her. “Asked what?”

“For you to send your mate away. We don’t understand why she is the one you See, but she is yours, and we would have never asked this of you.”

She sounded only a fraction of as miserable as he felt, but as he
gazed out at the pack and their forlorn faces, he felt that their collective
weight of misery only gave him more of that drowning feeling that still clung to him.

The female stepped into the harem
’
s fold as Ronan came into view
and knelt beside him.