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Every grievance. Every moment of joy. The needs and fears; I experience it all along with this overwhelming necessity to protect and nurture.
Just like I sense their hesitancy in how to approach me. The need to ask for a forgiveness that I’m not ready to give. All of this is too soon.
“My apologies, your highnesses. Please blame it on—”
“I’d give my very soul to hear that sound again.” Stepping away from his mother, Xadiel walks the three steps to me and holds his hand out. For a few beats, we just stare at each other, get lost in the magnetic pull of his soul calling to mine, before I place mine in his much larger one. His skin on mine feels like heaven, the pinpricks from before becoming a low electrical current that flows from limb to limb, leaving behind a pleasant tickling sensation. “Thank you.”
“For what?” I ask, taking the offered seat beside his. It’s not lost on me that I’m facing the pack in the luna’s seat, that this is a big moment for us, but right now the honest affection in his golden orbs holds me captive.
This was all I ever wanted. To have my mate look at me like I’m his.
No hate. No doubts.
So why can’t I let it go?
“My King and Luna, the prisoners are here,” Cain’s voice says, and the spell is broken. I look toward the gamma’s direction and find two people at his feet, still wearing the clothes from yesterday.
They’re angry and glaring at me; I’m not the only one who notices this. Cain’s mate steps behind Theresa and yanks her hair, forcing her head to arch back at an uncomfortable angle. Timoth, on the other hand, is forehead to the ground with a boot on his skull, lip busted and staining the light flooring in here.
The room is grand and opulent. A large hall meant for balls and gatherings—decorated with grand chandeliers, expensive stone flooring, and the royal crest hanging between each stained-glass window—from one end to the other.
“Treason is a high charge for any monarch, but we wolves are more than that. Pack is family. Pack is sacred.” Multiple fists meet chests, men and women showing solidarity to their king. “This betrayal goes past hurting a sister, your past queen, but it’s against each and every one of you.”
“Lies,” Theresa hisses from between clenched teeth. “All I’ve done is care for this pack.”
“To your own convenience.” Xadiel gives a nod to Cain’s wife, and the latter pops his aunt’s shoulder out of socket. No hesitation or remorse, and I understand him. If given the chance, my siblings and I would do worse to those who killed our parents. “Deny it now. I dare you.”
Before she can reply, five more bodies are brought in: the fae soldier and four werewolves, each bound by silver.
They’re beaten and limping.
Their scents are also familiar, and it takes me a second to understand why.
“They’re the ones who grabbed me and took me to a cabin in the woods.” The words slip out before I can stop them, and my mate’s resounding snarl makes the room shake. In a flash, he has two of them by the neck, their feet high off the ground, while the others cower. Whimper with their faces now touching the ground.
“Why?” he asks the wolves, both trembling in his hold. “Answer me!”
“They paid us heavily to remove anyone in their way,” the middle-aged one says, sweating profusely. “Your aunt and the beta made a pact with some fae royal. That’s all we know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“May you never find rest at the moon goddess’s feet.” His claws emerge and embed through the necks, from one side to the other, and both go limp. With the other two, he slices a gash from stomach to collarbone and kicks them aside. They’re not dead yet. Wolves heal at alarming rates, but the silver binding their hands will prevent it.
Instead, they’ll bleed out. Slowly. Painfully.
Bartolo’s looking at him with hope for an end, to be put out of his misery. I see his desire to end it all, sense it approaching, but as I look further my vision becomes blurry. Interrupted by someone, and they’re in this room.
The hold isn’t strong enough to keep its grip; it wavers after a minute, and my head snaps toward a thin figure by the back wall. She’s pretty; a blonde dressed in a maid’s uniform but she doesn’t belong here.
How do they not sense her?
Our eyes meet, and I catch the resemblance between her and the fae captive. Possible daughter or granddaughter.
“You,” I say, but it’s interrupted by shouts of joy as Cain is named the new beta and a few second later, Xadiel kills Bartolo. His head rolls away from the body, spraying the ground and Theresa with his blood, before it stops beside her thigh.
But I’m more concerned by another scene.
