Fated To Three, Betrayed By All… Until She Rose.-Chapter 349: The body 2.

Kael.

"No!"

That single word, charged with so much emotion broke whatever was left of my already fragile heart. My knees hit the floor the second it sounded from Caelum’s lips and I found myself shaking uncontrollably with tears streaming down my face as the firefighter slowly crouched low to drop the body in his hands on the floor.

The body.

Goddess, I couldn’t believe that that was the word I had just referred to her as now.

The body.

It sounded like an insult, like a curse. It sounded like something straight out of my worst nightmares.

"Is... is that... her?" Caelum cried from beside me, his voice dripping with pain and anger and a kind of despair that ran so deep, I could even feel it on the tip of my tongue.

He stared at me as if expecting me to respond, but for some reason today, I, the usually smart brother, the brother who always had the answers to all questions, found myself speechless. My throat closed on its own accord, refusing to open back up and my eyes, hell, my eyes burned with so much emotion, it was a wonder how I could still see.

I clawed my way to my feet, my eyes trained on Zevran’s stiff back who for a couple of minutes now, hasn’t moved an inch. Goddess, he hadn’t even done as much as said a word.

My hands clamped down on his stiff shoulders when I stood beside him, and as soon as I did that, he flinched. His hands shot out to grab me, only freezing when my eyes met his.

And then, he crumbled.

He literally broke in front of me.

First, it was his face that fell, then his shoulder and his knees that hit the hard pavement with a loud thump. His arms circled around midriff, pulling me to his shaking body as a loud cry tore out from the back of his throat.

His grief was so great, it nearly brought me to my knees; But deciding that I had to be the stronger brother, I held on, gritted my teeth and let my tears run free.

"Good evening, sir... good evening. Please may I have a word with you?" One of the firefighters, a sturdy looking man, said to me, but I was too lost to form any coherent sentence.

I turned to look at him but couldn’t bring myself to speak, and as if understanding my grief, he bowed his head briefly but continued; "I believe that you are somewhat related to the dead woman..." he said slowly, but in that moment, nothing he said made any sense to me anymore.

Why?

Because he’d referred to Leilani as a dead woman.

He’d thought of her as dead and reduced her entire beautiful existence to nothing but this charred corpse on the floor.

The muscle in my jaw ticked with irritation, and wiping the tears on my face with the back of my hand, I hissed; "Her name was Leilani..."

"Yes, late Ms Leilani Sinclair—"

"Just Leilani Sinclair!" I growled, angrily fisting my hands into the collar of his shirt.

A loud cry left his lips when I fisted so hard, his face turned red. He coughed violently whilst slapping at my hands but I didn’t let go. I instead continued to yell in his face;

"She is Leilani... just Leilani, not late! You filthy motherfucker!"

"I believe... I believe you have it all wrong!" The man cried. "I am sorry that made you mad, but I only said that because she has been confirmed to be dead."

"She is NOT dead!" I growled so loudly, my voice reverberated through the night and due to how loud I was, the crowd of neighbors who were stunned by my reaction turned to stare, their eyes holding sorrow and pity.

Pity. Hell, I hated that with every fiber of my being!

I do not know how Zevran managed to pry the firefighter’s collar out of my stiff hands but by the time he was let go, he scrambled away from me, his eyes wide with apprehension and fear. He croaked; "I am sorry, I really am, but I simply wanted to inform you that we found out the cause of the fire."

"Which is?" Z spat,

"It was caused by some electrical failures in the house. And then when we went in, we realized that even her cooker was left on..."

His voice trailed off as if scared of continuing, but I was long past listening to whatever shit he had to say. I was long past believing this sloppy story.

"Goddess, I cannot believe this!" Zevran cried out in anguish, snapping me back to the present. "I cannot believe that something like this happened! How? Why? She is never careless enough to leave her cooker unattended to or her..."

"I think it was staged." Caelum cut in, interrupting Zevran.

Silence.

"I do not know."

"Leilani is not careless. She never was...!" Caelum argued.

However, while everyone argued whether the situation had loopholes or not and while the mourning neighbors watched the firefighters put out the rest of the fire, I slowly walked over to the corpse, my steps heavy and slow as if I afraid to see the truth which was right in front of me— truthfully, I was.

I let out a deep breath as I crouched in front of it, a heavy feeling settling at the base of my stomach. My heart felt as heavy as a boulder and my ankles shook so badly, it was a miracle how I wasn’t sprawled on the floor right now.

My tears threatened to spill but I held them back, refusing to let it drop.

Why?

Because beyond these emotions flooding my veins like a freaking stream, I couldn’t feel anything else.

And it wasn’t until this moment that I realized that there was never any pain from the mate bond at any point this evening. There was a bit of fear but besides that... nothing.

"That is not Leilani." The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them, and Frostclaw who had been standing so close to me turned to look at me, his lips still trembling slightly as he whispered;

"What do you mean?"

"I think this is not Leilani." I muttered just as my eyes caught onto a small tattoo on the girl’s wrist.

Leilani doesn’t have any tattoos.

She was burned beyond recognition, and even though all her hair seemed completely lost, I couldn’t miss the small brown strands caught behind her back. Lani’s hair was silver.

I shook my head. "It is not Leilani." I said again, with more conviction. "I don’t know who this person is but she is not my mate. Hell, I can even feel Leilani through the mate bond and I swear, she is alive."

As soon as I said that, Alpha Frostclaw’s eyes widened and a feeling akin to relief crossed his face before he managed to school it into one of indifference.

He crouched beside me, his voice so low, I could barely hear him as he asked; "Are you sure?"

But I didn’t respond right away. Instead, I simply pointed to the tattoo on her wrist then to the small tangled hair that had caught onto the girl’s charred flesh.

He gasped. "It is indeed not her!" He hissed, and at the sound of his voice, Caelum and Zevran scooted over, their eyes filling with hope.

A moment of silence passed between the four of us, especially since we didn’t want to show so much emotion due to the amount of people gathered around us.

Zevran was the first to ask about the elephant in the room. He took one long glance at the body, then at the tattoo, and then asked; "since this is not Lani, then who is she?"

I sighed, shaking my head.

But Caelum... Caelum didn’t look so relieved anymore. A frown had now made its way to his face and goddess, I could swear that for an instant, I saw panic in his eyes before it disappeared.

He whispered. "This is indeed not Leilani."

I frowned. "Do you know who she is?"

For a moment, he didn’t speak, but after a while of tense silence, he finally looked up at me and nodded. "Yes. This is Agnes."