I pull harder against the ropes. “There is no debt!!!” I struggle further against the ropes, wanting to strangle him alive for laying a finger on any of them.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Now, that’s no way to speak to someone who literally holds your life in his hands, is it?”
“What do you want? Name your price,” I pant.
“You are my price. Trust me, the Randolph’s have already tried the financial tactic. But there’s nothing that can compare to this. A debt is a debt.”
I see Risa’s tears streaking down her face, and from here I can see the gleam of the healed skin of her scars. It makes my shoulders shake with anger. “If it’s me you want, why are they here? Let them go.”
“Oh, I will let them go, but not before they watch you die.” My heart is frantic in my chest. This is really happening; he’s going to kill me.
I yank and pull at the ropes, but all it does is burn my skin further. My wounded shoulder starts to ache from the angle they have me tied up at, and even the adrenaline can’t overpower that pain. I struggle to get into a position that eases the ache, and that’s when something catches Vance’s eye.
“What’s this...?”
He comes closer and is looking straight at my neck, and I think he’s looking at my pendant, but he isn’t. He grasps the vial of liquid Caleb placed on my neck hours ago and yanks it off, opening the lid to sniff at it.
“Oh, that’s too good, Caleb. You were trying to protect her from me. How chivalrous.” He laughs again, and the rage inside me starts to boil over.
He puts the stopper back in and turns and twists the vial in his hands over and over again, seemingly mulling something over.
“You know what? I think a change of plans is in order.”
Lowell’s eyes are following Vance’s every move, and when he sees me staring, he tries to mouth something to me, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. I look at Caleb, but his eyes are burning a hole through Vance. If looks could kill, Vance’s guts would be splayed for the world to see…
“Because I’m feeling especially kind today, I’ll make you an offer, Isabella….” Caleb winces at his use of my name. “Since my price is not to your liking, I’ll offer you something else…in fact, I’ll give you three different offers, and you’ll get to choose.”
He stares at me, waiting for me to speak, but I don’t. I know whatever he’s about to say can’t possibly be anything that would interest me.
“The first option - and, I think, the best one - is that I’ll let them all go, safe and unharmed, debt paid, if you stay here with me forever.”
I scoff, and Caleb’s chains rattle as he shakes violently. Vance just looks over at him with a wide smile.
“No. I didn’t think you’d like that very much, Caleb. Okay, second option is that you and Caleb walk out of here, unharmed and safe, free to live happily ever after, debts paid, but these three must stay with me.” He gestures toward Callum, Risa, and Lowell, and my insides twist and turn at the thought of what he’d do to them.
“You’re a sick prick.”
“Be that as it may, I’m also being quite kind, I think.” He is so amused with himself, you’d think he wasn’t playing with five innocent lives. The fact that he could just toy with us like pawns for his sick, twisted game.
Just then, a thought nags at me…
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I ask him.
“Me?” He points to himself. “What?”
“You’re the person behind the missing hikers.” His laughter fills the cold, cement room, and the men on either side of us laugh, too.
“Well, when I found out your profession, it was hard not to pull some strings to get you here.”
Realization sets in, and my insides turn at the implication. He killed them... because of me.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. They shouldn’t have been hiking around here anyway.” He reaches over to touch my cheek again, but Caleb lets out a long growl.
Vance smiles in his direction. “A while ago, I decided to go back to the witch, because why would I need to curse Caleb? There was no reason for that, when the one I really wanted was you.” He leans into my personal space, and I feel his hot breath at my cheek. “There is nothing that could hurt Caleb more than your pain. So I took an interest in you early on, and I must say, Caleb should thank me for how you turned out.” He walks around the room in a flourish, as if he’s some kind of showman. “You were so broken and lonely, of course you’d fall into his arms. It was quite easy. You see, mates can go their entire lives without meeting, and I just couldn’t have that, could I? You had to meet; it was the only way to get my revenge. One by one, I took the things you loved most, making you feel so lonely and isolated that when the time came, there would be no question of whether you’d accept him or not, and you did.”
The tears come at his revelation. He’s the reason my family is dead, and I sink to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably. For Caleb. For his family, for mine. For the hikers. I hear chains clinking back and forth, and I don’t have to look to know it’s Caleb; I can feel his anger from here.
It was me. I was the cursed one all along.
True love requires sacrifice.
I hear the words in my head and look up, and through the tears I see Lowell. He’s not crying; he’s stoic, but he nods at me in confirmation. I lift my good shoulder and wipe the tears the best I can and try to speak as clearly as I can.
“What’s the third offer?” I ask as my voice shakes.
It’s then I see the vial reappear in his hands. I’d forgotten about it. “The third option - and, I think, the most generous one - is if you drink this liquid and break the bond, I’ll let everybody go immediately, debt paid, fair is fair.”
Caleb pulls at the chains, and I know he doesn’t like the option, but it’s the best one we have. I look to Lowell, who just nods, as if confirming my thoughts. I look at all of them one by one and see the pain and destruction I’ve caused, and I just want it to be over. I look at the man responsible for it all and nod.
He claps excitedly. “Wonderful. I was hoping you’d choose this one.”
He comes over, and I shoot one last glance at Caleb, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any other choice.” His throat bobs. “What you’ve given me in one month is more than I’ve had in a lifetime,” I say. “No matter what happens, I won’t ever forget it, or you.” I mean it with every fiber of my being. “I won’t forget any of you.” I hope in my words, they know I love them.
Vance unstops the vial and holds it against my lips, but I pull back before he can pour in any of it. “I don’t know what made you this way, but even if it’s in the next life, I swear I’m going to find you and make you pay for what you did to me and my family.” I look behind him one last time. “To both my families.”
He smiles wide despite my threats and pours the liquid into my mouth. I swallow it, and a pain like I’ve never felt before lances throughout my body. It’s like a piece of me is being ripped out. I try so hard to fight against it. I shake violently, so much so that I feel the ropes give way and fall flat onto the cement, struggling for breath, like a fish out of water.
Minutes pass, and everything around me goes still and silent as I pass out.
My heart, ripped in half. Shredded.
11
It’s November 24th, my wedding day.
Quite honestly, it’s a day I’ve been dreading for months since my accident. They found me and my car outside of the Woodlands months ago, and although I was badly injured, I healed just fine, even if I never felt quite right inside. Throughout it all, Eddie stayed with me at the hospital. When they discharged me and he asked me to marry him again, I gave in. It just seemed like life was too short to keep waiting for something that was never going to come. Some elusive dream of what I thought could really exist. A fairy tale.
I stand in front of the mirror in a horrendous white dress Eddie’s mom picked out because I had no desire to pick one. Guilt eats away at me because I
know this is wrong. It’s wrong to marry a man I don’t love. Something picks at the edge of my subconscious, but I push it aside, like I’ve done for months. A soft knock at the door, and Emma comes in, holding a box. When she’s in front of me, she opens it, and before I can look, she’s wrapping it around my wrist.
“I know he doesn’t like it, but it just doesn’t seem right to get married without it.” I hold up my wrist, and there’s a chain wrapped around it twice, with a small pendant dangling…
A wolf. “Where did you find this?” I ask, stunned.
“When you were in your accident, they put all your stuff in a bag. Eddie asked me to keep it instead of giving it back to you. I’ve held on to it for months, but Mom gave it to you, it just didn’t seem right.”
I sit down on the ottoman by the mirror and stare at it, the tingling at the back of my mind stronger than ever. I look up at Emma with wide eyes. “This is a mistake.”
She nods silently. I put my face in my hands, and Emma sits next to me and runs her hand down the back of my hideous dress.
“I always thought you’d end up with Caleb.” The words both shock me and ignite a fire in my veins.
“Caleb? Who’s Caleb?” Saying his name out loud feels like I’m grasping at something bigger.
“You don’t remember him? The day of your accident, he came to see you.” She looks out of the window as if she has a perfect sightline to that day in the past. “The way he looked at you, the way he held you, I’d never seen love like that. It’s the reason I decided to go through with the divorce. Because I wanted something like that, I wanted someone to look at me the way he looked at you.”
I look down at my hand at the wolf pendant and rub it with my fingers. The longer I look at it, the more my skin starts to heat. My stomach starts to ache, and I double over with pain. I see visions of light blue eyes and deep scars. I remember the dreams from when I was a kid, and I stand up in a jolt.
“Oh my God,” is all I can say as the memories flood back like the doors of the ocean floor have been opened. The rush of emotions over power any guilt I’ll feel over what I have to do.
“I have to go. I have to find him.”
Emma claps her hands together. “I know exactly how to get us out of here.”
12
I forego changing out of my wedding dress in the interest of time as I drive like hell toward the Woodlands. Emma’s happiness is palpable, but all I can focus on are the memories that have come back. Caleb. Caleb. Caleb. How could it have taken me this long? What if he’s dead? What if Vance didn’t keep to his word? No, there was no way. The books I read said wolves are bound by their word. If he said he’d let them go, he’d have to let them go - unless he had someone else kill them. My nerves are shot as we make it down the last leg of the drive. My anxiety ramps up to the next level, and I’m terrified at what I might find.
We park outside the gate and I leave the car running as I get out and start making my way through the dense brush and forest. The closer I get, the faster my heart beats - and I realize this could be it, this could be the end of me if he’s not here.
I say a silent prayer to anyone who will listen. “Please let them all be alive.”
As I get closer to the house, the door swings open and Callum races to meet me. “What took you so long?”
I can’t even be excited that he’s okay because he’s dragging me up the stairs so fast, my feet aren’t even touching the ground.
We finally stop at the door I recognize as being Caleb’s. “Is he okay?” I ask, afraid to know the answer.
“No, but he will be,” Callum says.
He pushes the door open, but there’s no one in the room. “He’s in the bathroom,” Callum says softly behind me.
He gently pushes me forward. When I push the door open in the bathroom, I see Caleb’s back hunched over the toilet, Lowell at his side with a wet towel. When he sees me, he doesn’t even look surprised. I rush over to him and hug him.
“You brave girl.”
He hugs me hard, and when he releases me, he hands me the cold towel. I look down at Caleb, and my whole body shudders. I did this to him.
Lowell lifts my chin. “He knew what he was doing when he gave you the vial. He knew Vance wouldn’t hesitate to make him suffer. It was a gamble, but he baited him, and it worked. He walked right into it. It’s taken its toll on him, but he knew it would be worth it. Now the debt is paid and he’ll leave us alone forever.”
I nod and use the towel to wipe my cheeks. When he steps aside to walk away, he grimaces as he notices what I’m wearing. Luckily, he doesn’t say anything about it.
I quickly kneel beside Caleb and wipe the sweat off his head. His eyes are screwed tightly shut, and I wonder if he even knows I’m here. I kiss the side of his head as I cry.
“You came,” he utters, his voice hoarse.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” I say between sobs.
“All that matters is that you’re here now.”
“Let’s clean you up and lie you down,” I say to him and help him up. Together we clean his face, then he washes and rinses out his mouth and changes into clean clothes while I wait for him. There are things I want to say to him, things I want to ask, but when he steps into the room, we just lay down and hold each other, because that’s what we both need the most right now.
As I feel his breath even out, I whisper the thing I don’t want to wait another minute to say, the thing I’ve known all along, even when I was supposed to forget.
“You brought me to life.”
13
Caleb’s recovery is quick, and within a week he’s able to keep food down and get up and walk around. He was still weak, but he was getting stronger every day. I checked in on all of them to make sure they were all okay; thank God they were. Turns out, while I was healing from my accident, they’d found the hikers’ bodies and more than enough evidence it was the Lyall gang trying to frame Caleb. There was a warrant placed for their arrest, but they evaded the police and fled the country. It stings in the back of my mind that Vance was able to get away, especially after all he’d done to me. I couldn’t help reliving the anger I felt that night, and I remembered the vow I made to him. It was something I wanted to honor, and even though my conscious told me it was best to let it go, I couldn’t.
I didn’t have to tell Caleb how angry and bitter I was about it, because he could feel it. The vial didn’t erase the bond at all, it just smothered it long enough to placate Vance. It was brilliant. Caleb saved me. He saved us all.
We lay in bed, silently staring up at the ceiling, my head on Caleb’s chest, listening to the rise and fall of his breaths. His hands are splayed in my hair and down my back. I wondered if there was anything that would ever compare to this. Since I’d come back, we hadn’t even really spoken about the bond, or even sealing it. In fact, every touch, every kiss remained chaste, and I started silently doubting whether he still wanted me. I started thinking maybe the vial did more than just smother the bond.
I feel and hear Caleb groan as he gets up. I get up, too. We stand on opposite sides of the bed.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“You’re maddening,” he says, and I can feel his frustration from here.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I realize he has a direct line to my thoughts. It’s so hard to shut them down, though, especially when I’m around him.
“Believe me, I want to be more than chaste with you,” he says as he rubs his hand over his eyes.
“But?” I ask.
I watch his Adam's apple as he swallows deep. “I’m dealing with a lot of guilt right now, Isabella. What he did to you, to your family. How can I ever forgive myself? I should’ve known he would hunt you down and find you. He’s never played fair. I should’ve protected you, even when you didn’t know who I was. I was responsible for you. You were always mine to protect.”
“There was no way you could’ve known and he’s the last thing I want to think about right no
w.” I don’t want to waste any time I have with Caleb, especially after I came so close to losing him.
“I would’ve found you, one way or another. Nothing would have kept me from you. In this life or the next.”
My heart jumps at his admission, then I ask the thing I’m afraid to ask but have to know. “Is that why you don’t want to seal the bond? I mean, before, it felt like we couldn’t stop and now…”
I see the vein in his forehead throb. “Believe me, it's taking an unbelievable amount of restraint not to touch you every second of every day.”
“Caleb,” I say, and it comes out throaty.
“Fuck, when you say my name like that….”
I stand up and go to him. Silently and without question, he picks me up by my thighs, and I wrap my legs around him, already feeling his arousal. “Make me yours,” I whisper in his ear before lightly biting and sucking on his earlobe.
He rips my shirt at the shoulder, and I tense at the feel of his teeth on my neck. He nibbles lightly, scraping the surface of my skin and whispers against it, “It won’t hurt.”
“Will it hurt you?”
“No. A male werewolf can find release from the bite alone. It’s that powerful. It won’t hurt; it’s all pleasure in its deepest form.”
My skin heats and tingles at his words, and now I can’t wait. He holds me steady as I pull his shirt and hold it as I trace his skin with my lips and tongue. He groans into my ear, and I feel him adjust himself so he’s holding me with one hand while he lowers his pants. I get on my feet, take off the torn shirt, and toss it onto the ground. He takes a deep breath at the sight of me in my bra, and it makes me brave. I slowly slide down my pants and underwear. He sucks in another breath, and when he stands in front of me completely naked, I can’t stop staring. My mouth waters at the sight of him. He’s perfect, and he’s all mine, something I still can’t believe.
“Believe it, I’m yours. Forever,” he says as I continue to stare.
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