AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You promise me you’ll leave them out of this,” he pleaded. “Promise me my pup will live, and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
“You’re not in a position to bargain here,” I snarled, my spit flecking on his face as I tried to keep control. “You’ve cost so many women their lives. Why should I give your women any mercy?” I snarled. I was going to plunge the syringe into his thigh when Celeste came forward.
“I’ll guarantee the safety of your child. Your mate’s life is forfeit as she had to know about your activities, but perhaps your child can have a life with a nice foster family,” Celeste said. The calm way she lied about killing his mate surprised me and filled Atlas with pride.
Hope sprung into Levi’s eyes at her words.
“No, please. She didn’t know anything. She doesn’t know what we’ve done. She thinks I’ve been away on pack business. Please! Think of my pup. She needs her mother,” he pleaded to her, but Celeste’s eyes turned black at his words.
“You dare ask for mercy for your mate when I just saw my friend robbed of her life. Where was your mercy when you took Clara, or Sophia or Janet? Where was your mercy when Lucas tried to rape Maya? Or when you beat me senseless after I stopped him?” she growled. I heard a growl and Danny’s fist connecting with some part of Lucas’ body at her words. I nodded at Gillian, who instantly ran to pull him back from murdering the man. Recognition and fear crossed Levi’s eyes as he processed Celeste’s words. One of my warriors came downstairs and gave Celeste an item before he silently set up a tripod, bowed and left when he was done. “No, you don’t get to ask for mercy. Mercy will be what I decide your family deserves after you tell us everything we want to know. If I feel like you’re keeping something from us, if I feel you’re lying to my mate, whatever little mercy I have for your pup will vanish. I will make sure she’s turned rogue and left in the middle of the forest, defenseless. Just as defenseless as all the newly shifted women you took all these years,” she warned. Levi gulped and nodded. Celeste placed a burner phone on the tripod and pressed record. She nodded to me before returning to the corner I’d left her.
“So then, let’s begin,” I said.
Chapter twenty-nine
Celeste
Ihadtroublekeepingmy stomach from emptying itself while I watched Markus interrogate Levi. It wasn’t what he was doing that was causing my nausea, but the screams of both prisoners that made me flashback to the beatings I used to get and the times I was forced to watch the public beatings Alpha Geoff liked to give. Kara was doing everything in her power to give me strength, but I was beginning to regret coming down here. I couldn’t leave now, though. I didn’t want Markus to believe his actions sickened me because they didn’t. His actions were necessary, and I loved him all the more for it. It took strength for someone as good as Markus to do something like this for the good of the pack. When he talked about Levi’s pup, I knew without needing him to tell me that he would never harm the child. He would never punish an innocent.
I could also tell that despite the despicable things this man had done to us, he loved that little girl more than life itself by the fear that took over his body when it was threatened, so I played into my role of the soft luna to get him to cooperate. I promised him I would make Markus give the pup mercy, and I had someone bring me a burner phone to take video. I didn’t know if this man would be alive by the time the council arrived. This information was too valuable to risk him dying before then.
‘Nicely done, Luna. Video will go a long way,’Danny mind-linked as he came to stand behind the camera to make sure the video didn’t stop recording. His knuckles were bloody from the beating he imparted on Lucas after I reminded Levi of what they’d done to us.
“State your name, your pack and what you have been doing for the last decade to the surviving women of the Sky Moon Pack,” Markus and Atlas’ voices mixed together, sharing control perfectly and making Kara and I swoon at the power they exuded.
Mates are really something,Kara purred. She wasn’t wrong. It was known for ranked members to be able to overlap voices as they experienced extreme emotions, but it was rare to see a wolf and human sharing full control in harmony with each other and on command.
“My name is Levi Rhodes. I am from the Dessert Moon Pack. Over ten years ago, Lucas Rogers approached me to help him sell some prisoners from the Blood Moon Pack. I was given twenty percent of the sale cost on any completed transaction. After the initial bulk of the women were sold, we continued to sell one or two girls per year as they came of age.” Levi looked at me while he spoke.
“What do you know about these girls you’re selling?” Markus asked.
“Just that they were she-wolves about to be exiled from the pack or killed. We picked them up the day after a full moon, given an encrypted tablet that tells us when the payment has been received, where and when the meet is, and who to look for. Once they were sold, I was paid via wire transfer to an offshore account. Once the deal was done, I waited for Lucas to come and tell me when we had to pick up another she-wolf.”
“Who is in charge of the whole operation? Who gives you your instructions?”
“Technically, Lucas is my boss, but I know Luna Luisa and Beta Trevor are the ones that interact with Lucas the most. They pull the strings. Lucas and I are just muscle. I am not supposed to know this, but over the years, things slipped and I eventually found out Lucas is Luna Luisa’s cousin. His father and her father were brothers. Lucas’ father defected from Blood Moon after he found his mate because Alpha Geoff’s father wanted to take his mate as his chosen luna.”
“So Alpha Geoff isn’t involved in this whole operation?”
“That oaf doesn’t have the brains for the sophistication of the operation to be the brains, but I have no doubt he is aware of what’s happening. I heard Alpha Geoff and Luna Luisa arguing one day about one of the girls we were taking. Alpha Geoff was asking why it was necessary to send her away when she didn’t have her wolf yet, and Luna Luisa shouted that if he could have kept his dick in his pants, the she-wolf wouldn’t have needed to be gotten rid of. I also heard a conversation later between her and the beta about getting rid of a pup so that her daughter had no competition to inherit the pack. They believed the pup to be a threat to their daughter and that Alpha Geoff would be able to tell Luna Luisa’s daughter wasn’t his when he felt the pull to the other pup. Of the three women we took with us that time, one was visibly beaten and emotionally broken. She kept cradling her sweater, speaking to it as if it was a baby.”
“How many women in total have you sold?”
“Fifty-two women total.”
“Did they all come from the same place?”
“Yes, they were all omegas working in the pack house of the Blood Moon Pack. They were all malnourished, beaten and most of them looked barely old enough to shift.”
“Why? Why would you agree to sell these women?” I asked finally. I needed to know why this was happening. Levi shrugged.
“I don’t know. It was easy money. These girls looked so malnourished and weak. They barely put up any kind of fight when they knew what was happening. I told myself most of them would probably even fare better wherever they were taken than where they were. I needed the money. I wanted to give my mate and pup a life I couldn’t afford.”
“What was it that Ruby told you about me?”
“She said that you were Alpha Cory’s daughter. The one that Alpha Geoff and Luna Luisa had been looking for many years ago. I don’t know why. It was confusing to me why it mattered, but Lucas insisted that you were special and we would get a bonus if we delivered you to Luna Luisa.”
“How did you get into the pack house? How did you know people were coming?” Markus asked when I nodded to him that I was done.
