Chapter 120: One More Step

Astrid’s POV

I woke up in a place I didn’t recognize.

The room was strange and unfamiliar. A cloth had been draped over me and a warm, damp compress rested on my forehead. I pulled it off and tried to sit up. I couldn’t. My body had nothing left ... I was so weak that even speaking felt like an effort.

The last thing I remembered was fighting Jace. Struggling with him, wanting to end him right there. We had both gone into the river together. And now I was here, in a strange room, with no idea where Jace was or whether he was even alive.

I tried to get up again. That was when a male wolf walked in and came straight to me. He pressed his hand to my forehead where the compress had been and nodded to himself.

"Better now," he said.

"Who are you, and what am I doing here?" I asked him. He looked elderly, so I kept my voice calm even though everything inside me was boiling.

"Is that any way to say thank you?" he said.

"Thank you, but please ... who are you and what am I..."

"I found you inside the river," he said, cutting me off. "I was going to catch fish and you were drowning. I pulled you out."

Which meant I would have died without him.

"Thank you, sir. But did you see anyone else in the river with me?"

"No. Maybe the current took him somewhere else. But you were almost gone when I found you."

Bloodmoon was such a treacherous, waterlogged territory. How was I going to find Jace now so I could finish what I started?

Because that was still the plan. That hadn’t changed. What he had done to me ... to my marriage ... was the kind of wound that didn’t close. It couldn’t be taken back, and I wasn’t going to let him walk away from it.

"You can’t leave yet," the old wolf said. "Your muscles and bones need to rest for a while."

He went out and came back with a hot cup of tea, said it would bring my body temperature down.

He was a kind wolf. I was grateful, genuinely, to at least be alive.

After about twenty-five minutes of resting, I managed to get to my feet.

"Sir, I have something I need to handle," I said to him. "But I’ll come back to see you one last time."

He pointed to where my car key had been set aside.

I thanked him again and left.

I drove back to the exact stretch of river where Jace and I had gone in together. Then I started going door to door, asking around the neighborhood if anyone knew a wolf by the name of Jace.

Everyone said no.

It was maddening.

I made up my mind to push the last person harder. They had to know him ... this was clearly his territory, and people in areas like this didn’t miss two wolves falling into a river.

The next one I approached was a young she-wolf.

"Do you know anyone around here named Jace? We both fell into that river earlier," I said to her.

She gave me the same blank look as the rest.

Someone was protecting him. They were all lying.

I pulled her aside.

"I don’t think you know who I am," I said quietly. "But I know you know Jace. I will fuck you up right here and nobody will know a thing ... so just tell me where he is."

She went pale. Her mouth opened almost immediately.

"He came out of the water and left through the other side," she said, pointing me in the direction.

So Jace had gotten himself out of that river while I nearly drowned in it.

I got back in my car and drove fast toward where she had pointed. But I didn’t pull in immediately. He would recognize my car and know it was me.

I parked around a corner instead. Then I reached into the back and pulled out a small axe I kept there. No gun, so that would have to do.

I slipped into the area quietly ... slow steps, soft landings, eyes scanning every corner. I moved through the compound looking for any sign of him, focused and ready. I was going to catch him. I was going to take him out once and for all ... for what he had done to me, and for what he had done to my husband. For destroying what we had.

Then I heard something behind me.

A sharp impact hit the back of my neck before I could turn. I spun around and came face to face with Jace. I reached up ... my neck was bleeding. He had come at me with something bladed.

"Jace, you motherfucker!"

I pulled out the axe and we went at each other right there in that empty compound. He hit me. I hit him back. Within two minutes, we were both covered in blood.

I was furious. I swung harder. But he was no amateur ... he matched every move, absorbed every blow, and kept coming. He drove me to the ground, and on my way down I dragged the blade of the axe across his face.

"Ahhhhh!" He stumbled back, clutching his face.

It bought me just enough time to get back on my feet ... barely. I was staggering, running on nothing, and I threw the last punch I had left in me. He ducked it, swept my legs from under me, and sent me back down. My axe skidded out of my hand. He picked up a hammer and stood over me with it.

I was finished. There was nothing left.

"Not everything gets its reckoning, Astrid," he said, looking down at me. "Some things we do and walk away from clean ... and then go on to do even worse."

"Is that why you ran from your post after pulling all this shit?" I said up at him.

He punched me across the face for that.

"The center of attention. Married to the most influential wolf in the territory. Living a life you were never supposed to have." He leaned down. "I might as well take something for myself. Consider this one off the books."

He picked up my axe. Raised it above his head.

I closed my eyes.

Boom.

A single gunshot. Clean, direct ... straight through Jace’s head. His body collapsed forward and landed on top of me.

When I opened my eyes, my husband was standing there with a gun still smoking in his hand.

"Ethan..."

He crossed the distance in seconds, lifted me up, and carried me to his car. I was bleeding, fading. My eyes kept trying to shut on their own.

"I’m sorry for leaving you on your own," I heard him say, somewhere above me.

He was going to have to come back for my car later. That thought drifted through my head like it mattered.

"Thank you, Ethan," I whispered.

We drove to the hospital in his car.

Jace was dead. But it was far from over.

Thalia had made herself my enemy ... an enemy of my marriage ... and I was going to deal with her the same way. If I let her live, I would make her suffer first. Slow and deliberate. But she deserved to die, and I had already decided that she would.