Feral Hearts

72

Lukas wasn’t in the bedroom.

But the clock atop the mantel read one in the morning.

Victoria stood before the embers of the fireplace and stared at the clock, wondering if she was somehow reading it wrong.

But it continued ticking, and when she checked her pocket watch, it also read one. Then two minutes past the hour. Then five minutes …

She threw more logs on the fire and took off her two swords and four daggers, but remained in the suit. Just in case.

She had no idea when she began pacing in front of the fire—and only realized it when the clock chimed two and she found herself still standing before the clock.

He would come home any minute.

Any minute. 

Victoria jolted awake at the faint chime of the clock. She’d somehow wound up on the couch—and somehow fallen asleep.

Four o’clock.

She would come out again in a minute. Maybe he had something important to do. It was probably the safest way to think. After the incident of Lukas being captured, she started to worry when he worked away from her.

Victoria closed her eyes.

The dawn was blinding, and her eyes felt gritty and sore as she hurried through the slums, then the city, scanning every cobblestone, every shadowed alcove, every rooftop for any sign of him of Edward. They need to talk.

Then she went to the river.

She didn’t dare breathe as she walked up and down the banks that bordered the slums, searching for anything. Any sign of Edward, or … or …

Or.

She didn’t let herself finish that thought, though crippling nausea gripped her as she scanned the banks and docks and sewer depositories.

She missed her mate. Damn!

He might be waiting for her in their bedroom. And then he’d chide her and laugh at her and kiss her. 

He would be waiting in their room.

He’d be home in her arms.

Home.

Noon.

It couldn’t be noon, but it was. Her pocket watch was properly wound, and hadn’t once failed her in the years she’d had it.

Each of her steps up the stairs to the bedroom was heavy and light—heavy and light, the sensation shifting with each heartbeat. She’d stop by the door only long enough to see if he’d returned.

A roaring silence hovered around her, a cresting wave that she’d been trying to outrun for hours. She knew that the moment the silence finally hit her, everything would change.

She found herself on the landing, staring at the door.

It had been unlocked and left slightly ajar.

A strangled sort of noise broke out of her, and she ran the last few feet, barely noticing as she threw open the door and burst into the apartment. She was going to scream at him. And kiss him. And scream at him some more. A lot more. How dare he make her—

Lukas and Edward were sitting on the couch.

Victoria halted.

They slowly got to their feet. She saw the expression in their eyes and she knew what Edward was going to say long before he opened his mouth and whispered, “I’m sorry.”