When Ajax left, Ryder opted to pull up a chair beside me. He didn't reach out for me, but I was still able to see the swelling around his knuckles, some of them cracked and bleeding. And I could see the little knife sitting on a reel of wire, looking mercifully clean.

But the smell was the same in here. The feel of the air on my skin was enough to make me want to be sick. I knew this place so well, even if my mind wouldn't recall how.

"You're lucky that she's here," Ryder rumbled, his voice a dangerous timber I had never heard before. "I'm not about to believe any of this bullshit about you not knowing what's really going on."

Milo limply swayed from the ropes. His head was dangling forward, but I could see the occasional drop of something that splattered red over the cement floor. He let out a hacking cough before he lifted his head, moving as if his bones were made of concrete. I wanted to gasp in horror all over again. Blood streaming out of a clearly broken nose, eyes so swollen they could hardly open, teeth coated in blood when he grimaced. "And you are so unlucky that she's here. Now she gets to see you like you for what you really are: a coward." Strong words for someone who looked like a summer's breeze would kill him.

Ryder snorted from beside me, but I caught the way that his hand twitched. "Right. I'm the coward. You're the one hiding behind all your little hunters, perching in tree so I can wait for a werewolf to stroll by and shoot them when they aren't looking."

"This isn't about hunting," Milo corrected. His legs gave out from under him, his arms jerking hard behind his back. A strangled noise left his mouth before he could right himself again. "This is about her. it's about Georgia."

"Leave her out of this," Ryder snarled.

"She's already in this, you idiot."

My gaze followed the lines of Milo's body. With every angle I took in, I felt more and more ill. I could feel the phantom pain spinning up my arms, squeezing between my shoulder blades. I didn't know how long he had been like this, but I knew that even two seconds was too long. His legs must have been screaming for a break, but if his knees buckled even an inch, his arms were be jerked behind him hard enough to make him dizzy.

But the pain and discomfort that must have been ripping through him, wasn't enough to keep him quiet. "You are pathetic. And you are afraid, no matter what you say. You can look me in the face and tell me that you're doing this for her, but we both know that it's not true. Because you dumped her on my driveway. And where did you go?"

"I left to keep her safe!" Ryder defended.

"You left her because you were fucking scared! If you cared about keeping her safe, you would have left her as soon as you understood a single thing about werewolf drain."

"I didn't want her to get worse! We thought that she would be safe since we are mates!"

"You left her alone, Ryder. And you didn't go off to research labs, you didn't spend your nights in a library trying to find answers, did you?"

"I'm not going to argue with you," Ryder hissed. "I went through something awful. I won't apologize for how I acted through it. you don't understand because you're human and you don't want a mate. But when I lost her, I lost everything."

"Right, of course. So, it's completely fine that you left Georgia, your mate, on my driveway. She lost everything too, you fucking loser. And when she wasn't able to speak for herself, you turned around and ran into the woods to lick your wounds. I fed her every day. I bathed her. I brushed her hair and her teeth and washed her face. I was the one who took her to her parents' funeral. And when the staff at the care facility reported her missing, I turned over every rock that I could to find her. until I figured that she was here. With the very people who have hurt her in the first place."

"You shut your fucking mouth!" Ryder snarled, leaping to his feet. His fingers snatched up the small, clean knife from the top of the reel.

"Or what?!" Milo screamed back. "Cut me up like you keep threatening to! It won't change what you have done to her. it won't fix the fact that you hid when she needed you most. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead."

"Tell me what was in the fucking food from that place or I'm just going to kill you," Ryder warned. The knife glimmered in his hand as he twirled it, looking almost casual with the gesture. "I'm done playing your games."

"I wasn't lying to you. I told you that I haven't talked to Dawn or Armond in months. Dawn reached out to me before you two left for the Yukon. She wanted to talk to Georgia so I gave Georgia her number. That was the end of it. you cutting into me isn't going to change the truth."

"Georgia would have told me if anything like that happened." The blade stayed at his side, but his grip remained tight.

"Would she? Because when I asked to see the guest list at the care facility, Dawn's name was on there the same day and the same time that Georgia signed in. Maybe your little mate had her own secrets." A cruel grin twisted up his features, revealing the blood coated teeth again. "I would tell you to ask her yourself, but you've ruined her so badly—"

"Shut your fucking mouth!" Ryder roared, the blade in his hand raising to Milo's throat.

"Down."

It took me a moment to realize that I had spoken and I might not have even noticed if both men hadn't still, Ryder whirling around to face me.

"Down?" he repeated, Milo entirely forgotten.

Christ. I seldom was able to get responses out and now I had wasted my words on something that could be misinterpreted. He needed more if he was to understand what I wanted and I knew that I only had a short amount of time before Milo started badgering him again. And if Milo was at the end of his rope like I had been, he would push Ryder until a blade across the throat was guaranteed.

"Untie," I croaked.

"Georgia?" Ryder whispered. He stepped towards me on wobbly legs, slowly sinking down to his knees. "Sweetheart, can you hear me?"

Of course, I could hear him. But he wasn't listening to me.

"She told you to untie me," Milo said hotly.

"But how?" Ryder wondered, his hands gently settling on top of my thighs. The knife had been set aside.

"With her fucking words. Now let me down."

"I don't understand. I've never heard of her saying more than a word a day, if that. If she spoke to Ajax already..."

The little knife was used to cut down Milo who immediately slumped to the ground with a dull thump. I wanted to rush to him and ask him if he was okay, maybe get him some water and some food because that was what I had needed then. But I was swept up into Ryder's strong arms – arms that felt much safer and more comfortable than Ajax's—and we were off to the main home.

I was settled on the arm chair that I spent so many days on, Ryder kneeling in front of me again. How many times would this man go to his knees for me? "George, can you talk to me?"

"What's going on?" Ajax asked from the top of the stairs. Judging by the foam sword in his hand and his daughter with a bucket upon her head, they were doing some very important work.

"Georgia was talking. Like, more than usual."

Ajax paused for a moment then. "Would you mind playing in your room by yourself for a little while, my little orange?" he asked Clementine. When his daughter nodded eagerly, the king descended the natural wood stairs. "Perfect, it seems like the medication is finally working then. We were worried that she wasn't showing any signs after three days."

"What medication?" Ryder asked, then the realization slapped him, hard. "Fuck, you guys didn't give her that...mixture without her say so, did you? As if you haven't done enough!"

"She said she wanted it."

"How can she say—" Ryder cut himself off. His eyes widened for a second, a bruised and swollen hand laying on his chest. A shuddering breath left him.

"Ryder? Ryder, are you okay?" Ajax pressed.

My lips parted. I had taken the elixir. I was saying more words. It was working. It had to be. I could tell them what I needed, tell them that Milo had no part in any of this.

But as pain ripped through me, the only thing that left my mouth was a blood curdling scream.

~~~Question of the Day~~~

Who is your favorite Disney villian? 

I'm a big fan of Scar and Hades!