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One of the alphas slammed the door at the top of the stairs, and a grinding click sounded. Theodore’s best guess was they were locked inside. Good, he thought. The less attention from these imbeciles, the better.
Struggling to his feet, Theodore inspected the basement as best he could—there was little light coming in from a small bay window. The only furnishing was a stained and derelict mattress in one corner, stuffing spilling out the side. The room was made of packed dirt, the scent of mud, mildew, and worms overwhelming—a cellar perhaps. When he found nothing that could be used to his advantage, he paced for something to do. Meanwhile, the witch clawed at the ground until her fingers found purchase on the mattress and her frail body collapsed onto it.
Even without the aid of his glasses, he could tell she was in bad shape. Her elbows too boney, her legs sickly thin, her clothes too large. He wondered how long she’d been their prisoner.
“I’m Theodore,” he said, trying to repair their relationship after he jabbed her in the ribs.
“I know who you are.” Her voice sounded as if it were being torn from a bloody throat with barbed wire. Her startling green eyes opened and fixed on Theodore. “They’ve had me searching for you, every day for one thousand and ninety-nine days.”
A chill ran up Theodore’s spine. If they’d been using a witch to search for him, how had it taken this long?
“My scent,” he whispered. “I’ve been suppressing it with alpha birth control.” Her green eyes narrowed, and Theodore knew he was right. “But then how did they know I was at the clinic or that I would be outside?”
The witch rolled until she was facing the wall, effectively ending the conversation. Her hair pooled behind her and the dip in the neck of her dress revealed her spine and shoulder blades. They were dangerously close to poking out from her sallow skin.
Theodore frowned. This omega didn’t need to be bombarded with questions right now, what she needed was something to eat and probably a bath. And to have that blasted copper removed.
“I might be able to—to get that copper off you,” he offered.
Her head inclined minutely. He took that as encouragement and crept closer to her. Turning around, his bound hands searched behind him for the cold metal. Fingertips finding purchase, he ran along it to find an end. It bumped her bare skin. Blood-curdling screams pierced Theodore’s ears, and the metal became hot to the touch. Startled, he fell forward onto his face.
“Okay, I won’t do that again,” he said.
When the witch didn’t respond, he adjusted to sit against the wall next to her.
“I have a mate, he should be coming for me,” Theodore said. It was meant to comfort the witch, but who was he kidding? Theodore needed to hear it himself to make it real. “Royce. Royce is coming. He’ll bring his friends. I’ll make sure they get you out too.”
He wanted to believe it … He wanted to believe in fairytale endings and knights in shining armor, in good triumphing over evil. But sitting in this dank cellar with the beaten and starved omega, he was finding it hard to believe anything good could survive this world.
Chapter thirty-one
Royce
Amelia’s hawk had disappeared what must have been four hours ago. After they reached a main road, she’d flown ahead for some time. Upon her return, she screeched four times in succession. Then five beats of silence, she screeched twice.
They couldn’t talk when shifted, so the enforcers had their own code. Four meant ‘on the left,’ and two meant ‘home base.’
Amelia was letting Royce and Buford know they had to follow the main road until their query was found on the left-hand side of the road. She was also letting them know she was returning to Elk Cove. In this instance, it was for her to get back up.
They’d wasted so much time cutting through the rough terrain of the rocky woods surrounding the road. The sun had already set when, at long last, they found a dirt road on the left of the main road.
The little two-track dirt road led to a structure in the distance. It was illuminated from the inside, a modest one-story building made from old and rotting logs. A rustic hunting cabin. Was this just a pit stop, not the final destination?
Royce and Buford moved from the asphalt to a trail of packed dirt and into a sea of leaves, traveling through the trees in hopes of keeping the element of surprise. Buford was practically foaming at the mouth, eager to barrel forward and charge through the front door. Caution be damned.
While part of Royce appreciated the urgency, caution was essential. From the scent in the area, there were five alphas inside with two omegas. Royce had no intention of camping out in the woods waiting for the enforcers from Elk Cove to arrive while his mate was trapped inside, but he still wanted to do this smart.
He snapped at Buford. With a snarl, the bear whipped around, paw raised, claws extended, and swiped at Royce. He leapt backward in the nick of time. To his credit, Buford’s grizzly curled in on itself and walked backward after the outburst as if he hadn’t realized what he was doing.
Growling, Royce’s wolf pointed to the thatch of trees close to the back of the cabin. That was their ticket to getting close to the traffickers without being seen first.
The rumble of a car came through the silent night. Royce and Buford turned in anticipation at the same time. The car was far down the road, but it was moving fast. Was that their reinforcements?
Royce sure hoped so, but he didn’t recognize the vehicle.
A luxury car rolled to a stop alongside the paneled van in front of the cabin. The driver’s side door opened and closed, a single alpha emerging. He scanned the tree line, and Royce’s hackles went up. Beside him, Buford’s bear rumbled. They both knew that face, the one Lucy had taped up in their conference room.
Gage fucking Prescot.
