Chapter 27

"What do you mean three bad men took her?” Sebastian asks him softly.

I look at Jax. He looks shaken and terrified, scared out of his mind. No child should go through this. “They hit Max. Two of them took Krystal, they covered her mouth. When I tried to call for help they put a handkerchief over my nose,” he murmured shakily.

So they drugged him. Such sick bastards. To do that to a child was heartless.

"Where did they take her, Jax?" I ask, trying to keep my voice calm.

He looks at me, the tears falling down his face. I hated seeing that. I wipe them away, but they keep falling.

“The forest. They carried her into the forest.”

Without waiting to hear another word, I rush out. I hear Sebastian calling me, but I don't stop. My mind is completely focused on my daughter.

I get outside and shift into Blue. The usual pain of shifting doesn't even register. I was afraid, and rightfully so. Different scenarios were playing through my mind. The worst of them was finding her dead—her body mangled like those of the serial killer's victims.

I speed up and try to catch her scent, but it was everywhere, which was weird.

“You've got to find her, Blue. We have to,” I cry.

I couldn't imagine losing Krystal. She was my beautiful baby. What would I do without her? How would I survive if I had to bury her?

“Don't think like that,” Blue grounds out. “We're going to find her.”

We kept running through the forest, but it felt like we were running in circles. We were about to go back and start again when we heard a terrifying sound.

We stop dead in our tracks. Krystal's painful scream, filled with terror, froze me where we stood. They were hurting her, and it nearly killed me.

We turn in the direction of the scream and run, almost blindly.

"What if we're too late?” I ask, fear gripping my heart in a tight vice.

Blue growls but says nothing. I could feel her trying to push down the fear, trampling on the panic that wanted to take over. She shakes her furry head and focuses.

In the distance, I hear a terrifying roar. Sebastian. Blue doesn't stop, though. We needed to get to Krystal quickly.

We breakthrough a clearing. There was no one else around, except for a small figure lying on the ground: Krystal.

Blue gives me back control and I rush to her. I kneel down next to her and a sob catches in my throat when I see three claw marks running down her back.

The tears that had stopped now begin to fall freely.

"Krystal, baby... wake up, please,” I cry, my heart heavy.

I push the hair away from her face. Her eyes are closed and she looks pale. The wound was bleeding, and it looked deep.

I needed to get her back to the house and call a doctor. I try to lift her into my arms but she whimpers, breaking my already broken heart.

“You're hurting her,” Blue snaps at me.

I growl back at her. “Don’t you think I know that?”

This wasn't the time for us to argue. We had to think of a way to get her back to the house. I bring her slowly to my lap. After a minute of having no idea what to do, Blue and I decide to risk it. She would be in pain, but we had to get her to a doctor.

I was about to carry her when Sebastian broke through the forest. He runs towards us, a dress clutched in his hands. I would have been afraid if I weren't already. He was in a partial shift.

A partial shift was a state of "in-between" shifting—between man and wolf, not fully beast and not fully human. It was rumored that only Sebastian could manage it; others have tried, but they ended up dead. The co-existing consciousness of man and beast at once is too much for them.

He reverts back to human, but his eyes remain glowing, his expression murderous. He throws me the dress and I catch it.

"Could you please help me carry her? She's hurt,” I ask softly as I put on the dress, my voice catching at the end.

He nods and takes her gently from my arms. Krystal curls into his warmth without whimpering in pain. I stand up and follow after him. He walks quickly but gently at the same time.

Soon enough we got to the house. We take Krystal to her bedroom where we find the pack doctor waiting for us. I guess Sebastian, or maybe Hunter, had called him.

“Lay her on the bed,” he commands, which Sebastian does.

"We have to stop the bleeding,” he says, cutting her dress, revealing three long, jagged claw marks. My emotions fight for dominance between anger and pain. A sound reverberates from Sebastian's chest. I look at him to find his jaw set and his hands fisted at his sides. I wasn't the only one burning with anger.

The doctor starts cleaning her wounds. The moment he does, Krystal starts screaming. My mind switches off and our protective instinct is activated. My fangs and claws elongate and I lunge at the doctor.

It didn’t register in my mind that he was trying to help. The only thing that ran through my mind was that he was hurting our pup and we needed to protect her.

Sebastian grabs me before I can do any real damage to the doctor.

“Get her out of here. And keep her out till I'm done.”

Using brute force, Sebastian drags me out of the room, fighting and screaming.

“Calm the fuck down, Red,” he commands, his Alpha aura washing over me. I sag against him, all fight leaving me.

He lets me go before going back to Krystal's room and locking it. I sag against the wall and begin to cry. My daughter was hurt.

Three grown men clawed her without any remorse. Why would anyone do that to a little girl? Was it because she was my daughter or because she was Sebastian's stepdaughter?

It was probably because she was mine. They didn't hurt Jax, and he was Sebastian's biological child. My cries are interrupted when I hear soft sobs coming out of Jax's room, which was across from Krystal's. I stand up and go to him, my heart wanting to comfort him. I find him curled on his bed in a fetal position.

"Jax?" He sits up when he hears me and looks at me with tears in his eyes.

"Oh, sweetie, what's wrong?” I ask softly.

Pushing my own pain aside, I go and sit with him on his bed. I pull him to me and hug him close. His arms wrap around me and he hugs me back strongly.

“It's my fault that Krystal is hurt. If I had been brave enough to do something, she wouldn't be in any pain. I wasn't brave enough or fast enough. I'm her big brother, I should've protected her.”

It warms my heart that he sees Krystal as his sister, but his words tear at my soul. That he would carry such a heavy burden is unacceptable.

If anyone was at fault, it would be me. I heard someone in the woods that day. I heard him chasing me, and instead of telling Sebastian, I kept quiet.

I should have told him. He would have taken more precautions. Instead, I kept quiet and my daughter got hurt because of it.

“No, my love, you're not at fault. None of this is your fault. Those bad men are responsible and we are going to find them and punish them for what they have done. Okay?”

He nods his head. His tears stop, but we don't let each other go. We both needed the comfort we were providing to each other.

We stay holding on to each other as Krystal's screams echo through the walls. Finally, after a while, they stop, but those screams will always haunt me. The pain in her voice will always burden my heart.

“Lauren,” Sebastian's voice penetrates through the fog.

I realize that Jax has fallen asleep in my arms. Gently, I lay him down on his bed before getting up. I turn to look at Sebastian. He was looking at me softly and worriedly.

As if I hadn't cried enough, I burst into fresh tears. Immediately, arms go around me and my head is pushed to his chest.

“It's okay, she'll be okay,” Sebastian murmurs soothingly.

"We'll get whoever is involved in her attack,” he vows.

With one of his hands around my waist, the other digs into my hair and starts massaging my head. If I wasn't so distraught, I would have appreciated how good it felt to be in his arms.

When my sobs die down, he disengages from me. Luckily, Jax was still asleep and my crying hadn't woken him up. Sebastian takes my hand in his and leads me out of Jax's bedroom and into Krystal's. We find the doctor dressing her wound, the cleaning and stitching done. He was giving us instructions on what to do and how to give her medication when Krystal's eyes suddenly snapped open.

"Mommy," she calls softly.

I rush to her side. “It's good to see those sparkling eyes, sweetie,” I tell her soothingly, forcing a smile. The last thing I want is to send her into a panic.

“They told me to tell you something,” she says sleepily, her eyes seemingly heavy.

The doctor had given her pain medication so she wasn't in any pain, but it did make her drowsy. "Who?" I ask, even though I already knew. My heart was beating wildly and I couldn't stop it.

“The men that took me and hurt Jax and Uncle Max," she says before pausing. “They told me to tell you that she’s coming for you.”

Her eyes close immediately after saying that, and terror took over me.

So I was right after all. She was attacked because of me. But the real question was, who is "she" and why the hell was she hell-bent on hurting me?