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“I don’t know,” he answered. His tone was grave. Swallowing hard, I turned back to the window and bit back tears as they razed our town to the ground.
“Garren?” I asked, worry for our family we had left at home choking my voice. That was answered for me as the door opened and the rest of our pack was shoved inside, including the old man in question. We rushed to his side to check him over but he was fine outside of being shaken up.
“They have Callum,” Leven told him. “They’re taking over the Bluffs.”
“For now,” Garren sighed.
“For now,” Nyx agreed. “Thankfully Callum insisted on not keeping the weapons here. With the tracker getting acquainted with our town, he thought it would be a bad choice.”
“Thank fuck,” I breathed out a sigh of relief. My heart ached for my poor alpha that was likely living through a different kind of hell than we were here. They were depleting our resources and herding us like cattle into the slaughterhouse. Our access to tech was likely nonexistent.
All in all, hope was lost.
ChapterSixteen
Callum
“Hey. Get up!” a man’s voice urged. I blinked my eyes open and winced as reality sunk back in. Pain in my head ebbed as memories assaulted me. The attack. Emma and Ava. Saying goodbye. Then darkness.
“Where am I?” I asked as I tried to focus on the figure in front of me but the room was dark. My mind was such a jumble I could barely consider that my senses were weak before I was onto a new worry.
“Good question,” he said with a dark laugh. “I’ve been wondering that for years. Yet I’m no closer to a real answer.” I’d wager the fact he still had sarcasm in him was a good sign, but I was sure after that long he’d disagree.
“Who are you?” I asked, switching tactics.
“My name is Holt,” he answered. I started to sit up and swayed. Somehow he could see through the darkness and reached out to steady me. Even my wolf senses were dampened here.
“I’m Callum. Why can’t I see?” The hint of panic in my voice was unavoidable.
“Magical dampeners. They work on wolves too and they keep it dark in here always,” he sighed. “I miss the sunlight.”
“Gods,” I choked out. “They brought me to Nevada, didn’t they?” Somehow I’d been knocked out and carried right into the lion’s den. I just hoped my pack was able to get away from the assholes who sent me here and had executed our plans. This had to end. Tormenting and enslaving our people should never have been something that went unseen for so fucking long.
“I can’t answer that. Our entire coven was brought here, and we weren’t exactly given a tour before we were thrown down into this fucking dungeon.” The bitterness in his tone was thick.
“We’d just found the location and were laying plans to attack,” I admitted.
“You’re not the first to come here and say that,” he reassured me. “You won’t be the last. Welcome to the caves, Callum.”
“What can I expect?” For the first time in years, I was filled with nervous energy and true fear. Losing Vanya was awful but losing my pack like this was excruciating. I should be there to protect them from things like this.
“Pain. Hunger. Forced bondings,” he said. His voice was so casual and desensitized it was like he was merely reading off a grocery list or something mundane.
“We knew they were getting magic somehow,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m sorry you were put through all this.”
“Me too,” he said. “But at least they haven’t been successful.”
A question I knew I didn’t want to have answered was on the tip of my tongue. It took three tries before I was brave enough to ask.
“How do they force a pairing?” He let out a long breath. When he spoke again, his voice was resigned.
“Witches have a bonding ceremony. They took something that was once sacred to our kind and turned it into a forced torture device,” he explained. “Once a successful pairing is done, it’s sealed with sex.”
“He forces you to fuck his guards?” I clarified.
“Or each other. If we can’t bond with his people, then they force us together so the charms we produce are stronger. They’ve been after me for years but apparently fate was on my side and hasn’t let a single one work.”
“My Luna will kill me if they bond me with someone,” I said. My breath caught at the mention of Vanya. Seeing the pain in her eyes as I was dragged away had nearly killed me. But now that I had no clue what was happening to her and the others, I was fucking losing my mind. In hindsight I should have looked more into that mating ceremony we read about but waiting for a full moon and learning the proper runes to use hadn’t put it at the top of our priority list. That extra strength would have come in handy right about now. Though part of me feared she’d find out we weren’t fated to her and leave. Thoughts like that seemed so silly now that we were facing all of this.I’m a fucking alpha, I have to let go of this anxiety.
