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‘With Ledger on our side, I think the tables have finally tilted in our favor.’
‘We’ll see.’ She didn’t sound convinced.
‘What’s up?’
‘I just feel like there’s more going on than we realize. I can’t pinpoint why I feel like this, but I’m expecting a shoe to drop at any moment.’
I frowned, trying to get my sluggish mind to speed up so I could figure out why she was feeling this way. From the beginning, I felt like there was more going on than just Tamra wanting to control all of the packs. Discovering the darkness had helped the puzzle pieces fall into place, but maybe I was missing something else. Tamra had control of the packs at the moment, except for our small one. What more could she want?
My wolf was right. There had to be more to everything that she was doing and had done in the past. What was her end game?
The crossroads that the Moon Spirit revealed to me popped up in my mind from the night everything was revealed to me. The left path was extinction, the universe’s way of righting the unbalance with our species. The right, safer option was near extinction. Neither one was great, but was the universe ready to take that sort of drastic measure?
The Moon Spirit thought so, and that had to be enough for me. For now.
Estella and I were halfway to the cabin when a sudden chill ran down my spine, followed by a decrease in temperature. We both stopped, looking around the area for any sort of danger. My wolf was alert, ready to push forward and protect us from whatever the threat was.
Estella’s wolf let out a low warning growl, making my muscles tense.
What was going on?
Instinctively, I reached for Rylan to alert him that something wasn’t right out there, but my thoughts ran into a wall that cut off our bond. My heart lurched, panic bubbling up inside me when I couldn’t reach him. My wolf rammed against the mental barrier, but it didn’t budge.
Rustling from the shadows drew all of our attention. Estella’s wolf moved between us and the shadows, her teeth bared and a growl rattling her chest. A figure stepped out of the darkness, and a second later, one became two.
Estella’s white wolf in front of us charged, but the first figure backhanded her, causing her to fly backward and hit the ground with an audible whine. Estella dropped my arm and rushed toward her wolf but was intercepted by the second figure.
The first grabbed me before I could help. Its icy touch made me shiver. My arm burned, and I thought it might combust. Darkness pressed in around me, and my arm hung uselessly at my side. I tried to summon the light like I had in Ledger’s mind, but nothing happened.
Terror slammed into me when a deep chuckle sounded from the darkness. I’d already heard that voice tonight.
I opened my mouth to scream, but a cold hand wrapped around my throat, the fingers squeezing, cutting off the sound before I could get it out.
“We meet again, my little moonbeam.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rylan
I took off the chains binding my cousin to the wall, thankful that he hadn’t broken free, even though he could have easily done so.
“Now that the girls are gone,” I said, watching as Ledger rubbed his wrists, “is there anything I should know about?”
“Are you asking if I know what my mother is planning?” Ledger asked bluntly.
“Yes.”
“You’re in luck. I know part of the plan, but not all of it. Mother is particular about who knows what.”
“Has she always manipulated you?” I couldn’t help but ask. If so, it would explain everything.
“Yes, but only a little bit in the beginning. It got worse the older I grew. Then, when the Alpha Seeker escaped the Cage, she ramped it up to a whole other level. I remember feeling the intense urge to protect the Gala at all costs. I had to plan for every contingency. Looking back, it was strange, even for her, but then shit hit the fan and everything started to make sense. She needed to ensure another Alpha Seeker didn’t show up and ruin her plans to take full control.”
“Why did she send you and Alder?”
“If Alder failed, I was supposed to step in and finish the job. She knew you had the power to release wolves from her control after the Gala incident; she just didn’t know how.”
“So, Alder was a decoy, basically.”
