The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 103

hapter 103

Chapter 103

MAXIM POV

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I won’t accept any other outcome. She must be alive. A Goddess could never be so cruel.

Because if she has sacrificed her life for this pack? To save Remy and the others, I’ll never forgive her. Not in any number of lifetimes.

It may be disloyal to say such a thing. But I mean it. With every fibre of my being. Had the blast gone the other way and removed Ravenbows stability, but left Tess standing safe and smiling on the outside of it all, I would take that version without a shred of guilt.

I will not pretend my need for Tess is anything less.

Running into the Packhouse royal entrance, I spot her arrow stabbed into the back of the door. Tess. Goddess there is even a tiny, miniscule hint of orange that my wolf spirals over. Alongside a thick layer of settling dust.

“Check everywhere!” I shout, mainly to Allette whose face is an unhelpfully pale shade right now. She runs up the stairs out of sight.

I don’t have the ability to look after anyone else through this disaster right now. By sending her to check I’m also clearing Allette out of my way so I can focus. Getting to my mate. Finding Tess. Swearing that this is the end of her risking herself for this bunch of ungrateful swines.

Remy suggested she was a hero. Well half the people here hate her.

So what was her life for? Because it was meant to be spent with me. It was never to be sacrificed.

There is a sharp, stinging pain in my temples, my wolf is reprimanding me for allowing my thoughts to veer into the negative.

/Where are you?/ I snap at Remy.

/We’re heading back the way we came. It’s too unstable. The whole cliff space could cave in completely. I’ve got hold of some of the Wardens. They’re calming things down outside. Not shifting any more boulders/

/What about Tess and Hazel?/

There is a pause. One of guilt and regret before our Alpha answers solemnly. /I hope you find them on your side. I truly do. But they were not near our side of the blast so to have the pack risking more life shifting rocks up here-/

/You know if anything has happened to her I won’t hesitate to-/ but Remy cuts me off before I commit an act of treason and openly declare my intention to murder him a thousand times over across our mind link.

Still, I keep our group somewhat informed. “Alpha Remy is hours away. Maybe even days away if the mountains prove too difficult. They’re not digging out the other side. It’s only us trying to save them now.”

With bitterness I briefly wonder if he will enjoy his walk through the loneliest, bleakest landscape where nothing but lonely, lost men have roamed before

him.

“Fuck,” Silas offers, rolling his sleeves and tying his hair up in a thick blonde bun at the back of his head. “Let’s go for it then.” He slaps me on the shoulder, as I lead the way down into what smelt like the bowels of hell itself.

Most of the lanterns were shattered by the blast but a few remain. The cobbled stone path is disrupted, split down the centre with ominous cracks, dust settling down, revealing a changed world.

I cry, “We need lanterns! Can’t see a fucking thing down here!” only for Kai to appear a second later with three burning brightly in his outstretched hand. “I thought it might be shitty down here. We don’t want naked flames, not until we know exactly what happened.”

I start walking through the carnage, squeezing past bed frames and other junk that’s been propelled forward by the force of the blast. “TESS! TESS CAN YOU HEAR ME!”

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Chapter 103

“Ceilings fucked.” Kai adds warily. I don’t have to be looking behind at him to know my nervous friend is grimacing and poking his hand into any weird looking cracks in the wall..

“Then don’t go any further. I won’t force anyone to risk their lives,” taking hold of a lantern and pacing forward as best as I can manage. The lantern swings around my hand to see through the mess.

Fuck it. If Tess is down here, then it’s where I’m meant to be too. It’s not only humans who mean “until death do us part.”

“Kai. Kai come on? They need our help?” Silas checks in a voice far softer than I would have used. Instead I keep climbing over debris, waiting for the moment my world darkens or brightens. I just need a noise from her. A hit of orange freshness.

A brisk voice enters the tunnel. With a rough bark he commands Kai, “Here. You go above ground. Allette has found some bodies. Help her!”

Within seconds I’m joined up front by a shovel wielding, already covered in filth, Warden Marshall. I don’t look back, just hear the sound of Kai’s boots scuttling away back up to daylight.

I don’t ask why Marshall is not with Remy today. I just know that I want him by my side for this.

Shoving further and further up the ruined stone tunnel. the wreckage under our feet becomes more twisted, glowing embers still floating in the hot, dusty air.

Then we find it. A terrifying wall of brown and gray rock. Flashes of black where scorch marks have caught. A gap above where the ceiling once existed. The stone displaced and now collapsed upon this section.

Tess and Hazel must be in here.

Hope flurries up in my chest. I cannot help but shout. “TESS! TESS! We’re here! TESS!”

There’s no answer. When I look down at the weird patterns on the floor I realise it is my shaking hands juddering the lantern about.

Marshall barks out. “Start moving rocks. Silas can pile it out of the way.”

So we start. It feels like every one of Marshall’s punishments over the years has led me to this moment. All those brutally cruel log lifts and rounds of agony were merely preparation. For the day I rescue my mate. Over and over I heave the impossible. Thick, awkward boulders yield to my strength, hauled away whilst Marshall splutters and chokes.

Silas cannot keep up as Kai sheepishly reappears to help, offering an update.

The others mutters about bodies. How the other few Wardens were sealing off the packhouse for now. Bells are finging for curfew above ground where the air is breathable, but I doubt anyone is listening.

We only stop to try and catch a sound. Every time a few more layers of stone are cleared we pause. “Tessa! Hazel!” Marshall announces solemnly to the deathly quiet space. The hollow gap where the ceiling once stood could rain down upon us again at any time.

But I want the Goddess to deliver me my mate back into my arms. I haven’t even begun to shower Tess in the love she deserves. When I almost drop a huge lump of stone on my foot it’s not because of shaking hands anymore. Its because my eyes are blurring with tears.

“Break?,” Marshall grunts, sweat dripping from his face, blue eyes narrowed in furious concentration.

Shaking my head, I accept a sip of water. “I’m staying right here. HAZEL! TESS!”

When I go to grab the next rock, Marshall grabs my shirt. “Wait.”

There’s a faint tapping sound. Something is knocking against a metal bar. A pattern. “Hazel? Tessa!” Marshall tries as I look around at the sweating Sitas with delirious hope.

“Hazel…it’s Hazel…” coughs a weak voice.

Marshall is a model of calm. Like this is a run of the mill Saturday for him. “Keep tapping we’ll keep digging! Hold on! Silas, send up for a stretcher first

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Chapter 103

aid, water. Get prepped for them coming out!”

He doesn’t ask about Tess. Even so, in these panicked moments of mine, I’m grateful to him. I continue to robotically haul debris out of the way, forging a path to the weak, clattering sound.

Nobody talks now. Breathing hurts, from the heat and chemicals. It is pure, brute strength carrying us to the finish line.