Chapter 407: Released
Seth was staring, dumbfounded at Nedra and the small boy she had just introduced as their son when August fell.
"Luna?" Sage whirled around, rushing to where she was bracing herself on the floor as if she were injured. Nedra and Seth followed, Nedra squatting down next to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. August winced when she did, tears spilling from her eyes but she made no sound.
"Is it the baby?" Nedra asked gently, removing her hand.
"It is Alpha," Sage said, lifting his eyes to his mother’s. "Something is wrong with Alpha."
"I have to get to him," August managed through clenched teeth, her eyes squeezed shut against the pain she felt as if it were her own. He was badly injured. "I have to get to Graeme. I can heal him."
"You cannot leave," Nedra objected, glancing up at Seth who shook his head. Zagan had not given the okay for August to be freed with the rest.
"You, her, and the Winter are supposed to stay," he said.
"Then Maggie and I will go," Sage said, rising from August’s side and catching Maggie’s panicked gaze.
"It will take too long," August whimpered. Her mate was losing blood. She could feel it rushing out of him from vital places within.
"No, Luna, it won’t," Sage said and with a glance of apology toward his mother, he walked to the glass wall that separated him and Maggie and touched it with the flat of his palm.
Before their eyes, the containment walls around them with their embedded enchantment all disintegrated into a glittering dust that fell at their feet. Nedra and Seth stood frozen in stunned silence as the young boy stepped over the glass dust and grabbed Maggie’s hand.
"Wait!" Nedra called, but Sage had already opened a portal with Maggie by his side.
He gave his mother and father a crooked smile that revealed his joy at having finally had a chance to meet them. And then with a small departing wave of his hand, he and Maggie were gone.
"Th-that’s..." Seth stuttered, dumbfounded once again, "m-my son?"
"Well, clearly he takes after me," Nedra chuckled softly. "He is extraordinary. Zagan cannot know," she added, glaring at the stunned male beside her.
"I don’t understand..." Seth’s mouth was agape, looking at the absence of the walls and the alyko who were now standing, looking around in shock as well.
"You are all released," Nedra announced to them. "There is a team waiting outside to show you the way out of this world."
But no one moved. It was as if they were anticipating a trap or a trick of some kind.
"Did you do this?" the older female named Dolores asked, approaching them with a hand full of glass dust that she had scooped up from the ground.
"Yes," Nedra lied.
If they didn’t see Sage do it, then she would accept that assumption. Nedra didn’t think she was possible of it, but no one else needed to know that. Her son had far surpassed her in ability at such a young age and without any practice. It was a blessing that Zagan had not discovered it before he spontaneously changed his mind about keeping his prized alyko.
"You are one hell of an alyko, Nedra," Dolores remarked and then walked off in a daze.
August groaned below them, curled over herself and bracing against the floor like she was having birth pains. Could Sage help Graeme the way that she could? Could he heal him? Would little Sage be able to face whatever threat had done this to her mate? She was in too much pain to even appreciate the fact that Maggie had just gone home after ten years of being away.
"Can you help me bring her to my cottage?" Nedra asked, glancing back to Seth.
"What about the castle?" he suggested, anticipating Zagan’s wrath at discovering that the Luna was out roaming the island to begin with, which could not have been the plan regardless of what Nedra said.
"The castle is too far. Look at her," she said, gesturing toward August who was obviously in a tremendous amount of pain despite having no visible injuries.
"Okay," Seth relented with a heavy sigh and scooped August into his arms. "Head out the front, everyone," he told the rest of the alyko who were now starting to realize that this was not a trick. Something remarkable was truly happening—they were truly going to be freed, and the vampire was nowhere to be found.
"Is he dead?" One of them asked in a hushed voice.
"No," Seth replied, his voice rising to dispel any rumors that may get started. "He has simply decided to let you go, and I suggest you act on it before he changes his mind. My team is out front waiting to lead you out of the portal so you can find your way home... or wherever it is you wish to go."
Seth and Nedra waited as the alyko made their way to the elevator with August trembling uncontrollably.
"Can’t you do something for her?" he asked gruffly, uncomfortable to have someone in so much pain in his care. He wasn’t used to be delicate or gentle—at least not with anyone other than Nedra, and even that had been some time.
Nedra looked over August’s form, seeing with the Veiled that there was indeed a great deal of pain that she seemed to be suffering, but it wasn’t her own. She was drawing it from her mate—even at this distance she was able to share in his injuries and take some of it for herself to relieve the amount that he was feeling. She probably wasn’t even aware that that is what she was doing. It was likely unnecessary—her mate was lycan, after all.
"Mates," Nedra muttered under her breath and reached her thumb to rest on the center of August’s forehead, allowing the girl to fall unconscious so that she would not suffer the pain of her mate any longer. August went limp in Seth’s arms.
"Now that she is fine, we can take her the whole way to the castle," he observed.
"No," Nedra replied quickly in a hushed voice. "I do not want Zagan to know that she is pregnant. And she is not supposed to be out of her room anyway. Just bring her to my cottage."
A muscle feathered in his jaw. Nedra had never insisted that he do something against Zagan before, and he wasn’t comfortable with it.
"She has helped watch over my son, Seth. It is only right that I watch over hers."
