Stay calm, Beep hisses.
I’m fucking trying, I snap back silently, each wooden step taking me deeper into my nightmares, my chest tightening with every breath.
Try harder. They’re counting on you,she insists.Let me be your strength, but you must be theirs.
I force out a shaky breath and try to channel her confidence. Ghost is an anchor at my back, his scent soothing my omega. I will not fall apart now. I did this. I came here.
Andrea’s body hangs limp between three witches, head lolling. Magic pulses around her, but her alpha strength burns through their spells so quickly, the magic doesn’t hold for long. Each time her eyes flutter open, she throws a punch, only for another blast of magic to send her slumping again.
We crowd into an old-fashioned elevator with an exposed pulley system and a wrought-iron gate that closes with a metallic screech. Ghost immediately wraps a protective hand around my waist, pulling me against his solid chest. I lean into him, drawingin his scent. It’s an inappropriate time to feel fluttery that he’s touching me, but I can’t help it.
The elevator groans downward with a weightless lurch. Deidre’s incessant preaching fades to background noise, my mind whirring. I led Ghost straight into danger. Andrea, too. I’m so fucking stupid. She never had any intention of letting the wolves go, and I led us straight into her hands.
Beep’s voice cuts through my self-loathing.Kendrick is coming. Your father and your mates will save you.
But I didn’t know they were coming for me, I protest silently, the gravity of my mistake crushing down. I practically gift-wrapped myself and walked straight into the slaughterhouse.
Thoughts pull me in a dozen directions at once. Beep’s attempts to comfort me only sharpen my guilt. Ghost keeps half his attention on me, half on our surroundings, while Andrea wants to protect me but is struggling to maintain composure, knowing what’s coming—Ingrid, her mate, bound in chains.
The elevator rumbles and shakes. An older witch—in years and appearance, with bony fingers adorned with stacked silver rings—yanks on a lever. When we finally stop, the doors creak open, revealing a dimly lit corridor. A wall of scent slams into me—musty earth and sulfuric witch-magic hanging thick in the stale underground air—and my knees nearly buckle as reality blurs with my nightmares. I’ve been here before, in my visions.
Andrea, still shaking off the magic, walks unsteadily in front of me. Ghost’s presence is warm at my back, while witches form a suffocating circle around us as we all move forward. Deidre struts ahead, chin high, her red-painted lips lifting into a smile. She looks like a ringmaster. And we are the main event.
I’ve seen these shifters haunting my visions for weeks, but nothing could have prepared me for the visceral shock of seeing them in person. Eyes peer from cells along the curved wall,hollow with desperation, while their scents—more vibrant than any vision—flood my senses.
Andrea’s body goes rigid, and then I scent her, too—Ingrid. Sweet summer strawberries—I glance around, but she’s out of sight.
Part of me wants to pull Andrea into a hug, let my omega soothe and fill her up. The other part wants to wrap my hands around her like a vice grip and tell her she better not do anything reckless.
Ghost catches Ingrid’s scent, too. I’ve described her so many times, he recognizes her immediately. Our eyes drift left toward the third cell at the bottom of the metal grated stairs, its darkened entrance carved directly into the cylinder concrete walls.
This all just feels so fucking hopeless.
I know this pit of despair—I’ve been there before. On that cliff, where I leaped off the edge after tearing out an alpha’s insides for trying to force himself on me. When Andrea and Stance dumped my broken body in a cell and I thought death was coming. Alone in the basement, my heat looming, my body betraying me, and I was all alone. And before all of that—the beginning of everything—when Silas’s teeth tore into me, awakening my wolf, and he left me to bleed out, triggering the transformation into something stronger.
Something shifts inside me—something desperate and wild. The hopelessness crystallizes into a hard, sharp thing. My heartbeat steadies even as my thoughts race, ideas tumbling through my mind. My mates may never forgive me for what I’m about to do, but as our group steps onto the catwalk and Deidre leads us forward, I stop abruptly.
“Wait!” I shout. Deidre turns, one eyebrow arched in question. “I want a new deal.”
A predatory smile plays on her lips. “I’m listening.”
“I will bring my mates here.” Behind me, Ghost stills. I can practically taste his silent tension, but I press on. “I’ll make sure they come, but everyone in these cells walks free. Right now.”
Deidre’s laughter cuts through the dank air. “Why on earth would I want your mates here?” She points toward Ghost. “I’ve already got one, that’s plenty to get the job done.” She says that like she’s not planning to use him to impregnate me, like I’m nothing but a walking womb. Like he’s nothing but a seed factory. Like we’re not even real. She may not need me pregnant; my blood is potent enough as it is. But that it could be stronger is still a temptation. “The last thing I need is more alpha wolves posturing and cluttering up my operation.”
“And Silas? His brother, Grayson? You don’t have any use for them? Their blood?” Beep knows what I’m doing, but my betrayal still pierces my chest like a white-hot poker as I try to convince her. But we need to get the wolves out of here.
Her right eye twitches. She tilts her head, considering, tapping a blood-red fingertip to her chin. “I do miss Silas. He’s such a good little toy when he screams.”
My jaw locks so hard I taste blood. My reaction ignites her, eyes blazing with sick pleasure. The thought of Silas bleeding at her hands intoxicates her. Ghost’s scent grows sharper, more bitter.
The witches surrounding us coil tighter. I scan the silo—a half-dozen more witches lurk at the mouth of a larger room, opposite us. All hovering, waiting, watching.
We have to end this. It’s the only way.
“Alright,” she drawls. “Let me get this straight. You’re offering your three mates—Grayson, Silas, and the other one...?”
“Orion,” I grit.
