by Bella Jacobs
I’m braced to greet every word that comes out of her mouth with a high degree of skepticism.
Even if she believes what she’s saying, she’s in a relationship with a monster—one look at Bane was enough to convince me of that.
And you know what they say about lying down with monsters…
You rise up with horns and a belly full of bad intentions.
Still, I’m not prepared for her next announcement. “I just want to help you rule, sis,” she says. “I want you to be my queen, because stars know you’re far better suited for it than I’ll ever be.”
“You’re the one we’ve been waiting for,” Elsbeth agrees, “And the pieces have fallen beautifully into place. All that’s left is for you to embrace your role and take your vows to the sword and to our people at the next full moon.” She winks. “Which is the day after tomorrow, so we have our persuasive work cut out for us. But I think you’ll come around. The stars tell me so anyway.” She points a pale, gnarled finger toward the ceiling. “And they never lie. Sometimes, we misunderstand them, but I’ve been charting this course for over eighty years and all roads end with you as our queen. I think if there were any confusion, I would have sorted it out by now.”
My brows lift.
Eighty years, so she must be…a hundred? Older?
“I’m one hundred and five years young,” she says, seemingly reading my mind. “And as sharp as I was at twenty-two. I’ll take care of you, my queen, and guide you well. And when the time comes for me to leave this world, I’ve trained your sister to fill my shoes. You’ll never want for an advisor you can trust with every piece of your heart and soul.”
“I could never fill your shoes,” Kelley says, wrapping an arm around the shorter woman and giving her a gentle hug. “But I will serve our queen faithfully to the end of my life.” She glances back at me, before adding in a whisper, “All that’s left is to get a few bad apples out of our way. Starting with Bane. Most of the others will be easy once he’s gone.”
My brows shoot up my forehead.
Kelley’s lips twist in a hard smile. “You thought I couldn’t see what an evil sack of shit he’s become? Come on, sis. Give me a little credit. I can be single-minded at times, but I’m not stupid.”
No, she’s not.
Neither am I, but I’d be lying if I said I was sure where I should go from here.
I have no idea what my next step should be, I only know that I need someone I can trust in my corner right now. Desperately.
“Diana,” I say, figuring these women should be open to indulging their future queen. At least if they want a chance in hell of having me play along with what they have planned. “I want her in on this. She’s here every step of the way, privy to all the information and planning and…whatever else needs to happen, or this isn’t going anywhere.” I lift a hand, stopping Kelley before she can speak as I add, “And I’m not sure anything is going to happen at all. Even then. I’m a long way from being on board. But if Diana’s here, I’ll listen to what you have to say and maybe we can come to some sort of agreement.”
Kelley glances at Elsbeth, who is already nodding. “Done. She’s young but born under auspicious skies. And if you trust her, Pathfinder, that’s all that needs to be said.”
It’s only then, when she names my pack gift, that I realize my eyes are glowing, casting a golden light on the hopeful faces of the two women in front of me.
I’m not sure what it means in this situation—whether it bodes well for their plans or my secret scheme to get out of here ASAP—but I’ll worry about that later, once Diana is under my wing and I know exactly what these women want from me.
No matter how devoted they seem to this cause, I’m not sure they’re being honest about what it will take to make me queen.
And I’m certain that whatever secrets they’re keeping are so dark I’ll have to pry them out into the light with my bare hands.
Chapter Ten
Maxim
Days pass. Maybe weeks.
Months?
I lose all concept of time.
There is no day and night, no light or sun, only the darkness of the stone room and the sound of my own screams—or the absence of them.
Sometimes my throat is too raw for screams.
Sometimes I open my mouth and only a soft wheezing sound seeps out.
Sleep is my only escape and even there the pain haunts me, infusing my dreams with terror and foreboding. Even when I’m unconscious, I know there’s something terrible waiting for me on the other side of my closed lids. I cling to sleep with the stubbornness of a teenager who partied too hard the night before, but my Fey tormentor has ways of waking me when he chooses.
There are only his choices now.
He is in complete control, and I hate him for it, though hate seems too small a word for what I feel for that man. I despise him with every cell of my being and the day that I spill his blood—for that day will come, no matter how certain he is of his absolute dominance—will be one of the best of my life.
I’m fantasizing about Gray’s death—I call him Gray for the flat, merciless color of his eyes—as I lie on my stone bed, waiting for sleep to return and take me away from my wretched new reality when the wooden door on the other side of the room opens and someone new steps into my torture chamber.
Someone so familiar I know it would break my heart if it weren’t already a shredded, useless piece of torture-traumatized flesh.
“Brother,” I mumble through my swollen lips, still puffy from the fist Gray slammed into my mouth a few sleeps ago. “I wondered if you had a hand in this.”
Bane smiles, sending starbursts of wrinkles exploding around his eyes.
He looks so much older than I remember—thicker and stronger and with a hint of gray at his temples—but that’s my brother. Or at least, some version of him. Even after Mother’s death, when our relationship was on its rockiest ground, he would never have taken pleasure in seeing my body broken and brutalized, but he’s clearly enjoying it now.
It seems to be all he can do to suppress laughter as he crosses the room, letting his gaze drift from my swollen face, past my nail-free fingers, down to the leg I’m fairly certain is broken.
My neck is pinned to the stone table so I can’t lift my head to see it, but I’m certain I heard things shatter under Gray’s wooden mallet sometime in the pain-fogged past and my shin bone has throbbed fiercely ever since. At first the agony was so intense it kept me from sleep. But eventually my brain was able to cut off my awareness of the poor, suffering appendage, to erect a roadblock keeping the nerves from carrying reports from the front lines of the war.
The reports were useless anyway. There’s nothing the rest of me can do to help my poor leg.
If I could shift back and forth between my forms and get something real to eat, the bones might start to heal themselves without medical attention. But trapped in my human body, the best I can do for my ravaged bag of bones is sleep as much as I can.
“Consequences, little brother,” Bane says, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans down to get a better look at my throbbing leg. “You always were good at avoiding them, but karma catches up with all of us sooner or later.”
I’ve done nothing to deserve this kind of karma, but I don’t bother defending myself. My instincts assure me Bane is beyond logic and far beyond love.
Whatever path he’s chosen, it forced him to leave the brother love we shared far behind him. He’s still walking around, talking and breathing, but the brother I knew is dead, and he’s never coming back.
It would make me sad, I think, if I had any energy left for feeling things other than pain and hate.
“So, there’s only one thing left for you to decide.” He reaches out, tracing a finger along the crooked line of my shin bone.
The skin is so swollen and hot that I can barely feel his touch, but it still sends a shiver of terror up my spine. It would take so little effort on his part to send me back into t
he brightest part of my suffering.
Before my time on this stone tablet, I would have imagined agony as a shadowed place. But now I know it is a cramped room filled with blinding light, screaming instruments playing off key, and acid poured into every inch of tender tissue. It is a place no soul should ever be forced to inhabit—at least not more than once, just before they’re granted the mercy of death—and it will haunt me for the rest of my life, long after I’ve escaped and left this pit far behind me.
But I will escape. I will.
I hold tight to the thought as Bane says, “How much do you love your mate?”
A record scratches and skips in my head as my weary mind tries to make sense of his words, but Bane doesn’t keep me guessing for long.
“Willow is here. With me. Under my protection,” he says. “And she will remain protected as long as you remain here. If you try to escape or give up fighting and abandon this sorry body of yours, she dies.”
My face contorts, my throat aching as I force out, “Why?”
“Because you took what is mine. So now, I will take what is yours. I will take your woman and your pack and finally your place in Father’s heart. But most importantly, I will take your hope and happiness, the way you took mine.”
“I took nothing from you,” I say, ashamed to find tears seeping from the corners of my eyes. But this happens now. I’m too raw to have much control over my emotions. “I didn’t want to be Alpha. I just wanted you to come home. Always.”
Bane’s brow furrows with false sympathy. “Maybe that’s true. If so, then you’re an even more pathetic pawn in this game than I thought. But here’s the truth, brother…” He steps closer, bracing a hand on the table by my face as he leans down. “Father forced me out. He called me a psychopath, swore I would never rule his people, and told me to get the fuck out of his tower before he tossed me in a cell and threw away the key.”
I grunt. “If that were true, he would have told me.”
My brother’s lips curve in a hard smile. “Perhaps. Pops loves his secrets, but maybe he would have told you, if he could remember what we fought about back then. But Cam made sure to take that ugly memory away.” He laughs. “He has such a pointless crush on dear old dad, it’s pathetic. But useful. He was willing to do anything I asked, including doing a memory wipe on North Star’s allies, so long as I promised I wouldn’t poison Jimmy again.”
My soul shrivels in my skin.
Cam’s pack gift is banishing memories…
“That’s why they didn’t come to your aid, brother,” Bane continues, clearly relishing every word. “They don’t remember they were ever your friends. It made it so damned easy to win them over to our side. One heart-to-heart with Kelley and they pledged to give us whatever help we needed.” He stands, stretching his arms over his head. “My girl is one hell of a persuasive speaker, and immune to Cam’s pack gift, thank the stars. She helped get me back on track the one time Cam was stupid enough to try to use it against me.” He glances down at me as his hands come to rest on his hips. “Willow is likely immune, too. Children of wolves with the Forgetting Gift usually are. Nature’s way of keeping them from being abused by their parents, I suppose.”
He sighs. “Nature. It’s a miraculous thing, isn’t it? Always ensuring the superior specimens come out on top.” He paces a few steps away before turning back to me, his head cocked thoughtfully to one side. “Really, you should thank me, brother. You don’t have the temperament to be a good leader. You’ll be much better off down here, suffering for your true love as a show of your devotion.”
“If you hurt her,” I grit out, “I will kill you.”
“Oh, you’ll kill me anyway, if you manage to get out of this room,” he says, proving he’s no fool. “But the only way you’re leaving is in a body bag. And if that happens, I will kill Willow, don’t doubt that for a moment. She’s only useful to me so long as you’re alive. Fucking her pretty little mouth while she’s on her knees for me won’t be any fun without knowing I’ll be able to bring the footage down for you to watch later.”
“Don’t you dare,” I start, but he cuts me off with a laugh that echoes off the stone walls.
“I’ll dare whatever the hell I want, you pathetic excuse for an Alpha. And when she’s in heat, I’ll put my baby in your mate, too. I’ll keep her pregnant and pumping out pups while Kelley and I focus on ruling our people.” He rubs his hands together, the soft shush of his dry palms the only sound in the room aside from my increasingly labored breath. “My first order as ruler will be to encourage my people to form mate bonds as they see fit, no more restrictions or cultural norms enforced by shame. Gay, straight, bisexual, polyamorous—all relationships will be acknowledged and welcomed. I’ll be praised as a progressive and tolerant king, and no one will think twice about the fact that I married a pair of sisters.” He smiles. “And I won’t let anyone close enough to Willow to realize she might not be happy as my little breeding cow.”
I swallow past the fist lodged in my throat and silently vow to castrate my brother at the earliest opportunity.
“But maybe she’ll be happy as my second mate, who knows,” he continues, moving toward the door. “Maybe she’ll enjoy getting fucked by a man who knows how to treat a Beta bitch. Who’s not afraid to put her on her knees, tell her to present her cunt, and show her who she belongs to.”
“She’ll kill you,” I whisper. “If I don’t get to you first.”
He laughs. “Let her try. I’m not afraid of women half my size, brother. Just another point where you and I differ, and why I’m here and you’re…” He trails off as he opens the door, revealing Gray waiting on the other side, making dread swell like a giant wave inside of me. “Talk soon, Maxim. Wouldn’t want to keep you from your…previous engagement.”
And then he’s gone and the pain returns, giving me no time to consider what I’ve learned or how much has been lost.
Chapter Eleven
Willow
I wake with the sun warm on my face and the smell of sourdough toast and bacon drifting through the air.
It’s so cozy under the heavy covers, breakfast smells so good, and the birds are chirping so happily outside that for a moment I can’t imagine why my sleep was full of nightmares.
And then I open my eyes and see the bare log walls of the tiny cabin and it all comes rushing back—being taken captive, getting an earful of crazy from my long-lost sister, whispering over tea by the fire late into the night, and eventually being tucked into bed on an air mattress in the corner like a child with Diana already out like a light beside me.
Diana did a good job staying awake for most of the plotting and planning, but the stress of the previous twenty-four hours got the better of her around midnight.
I turn my head to her side of the bed, flinching when I find her already watching me.
She puts a finger to her lips then mouths, “Go pee with me? And we can talk in private?”
I nod and glance over to the fire, where Kelley is alone by the hearth with her back to us, moving pots and skillets around on archaic wrought iron cooking shelves that can be shifted in and out of the flames with iron tongs. Elsbeth is nowhere to be seen, which means Kelley likely won’t be able to abandon her work to escort us to the outhouses the way she did yesterday.
I stretch, making a sleepy yawning noise. “Oh man, that’s smells amazing. Good morning.”
Kelley smiles at me over her shoulder. “Good morning. Food should be ready in about ten minutes. Still like your eggs scrambled with a little cheese on top?”
“You know it,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “But I need to run to the ladies’ first and wash up.”
“Me, too,” Diana says, stretching beside me before sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the unusually firm inflatable bed. “I actually slept pretty well.”
“Good. You had a big day yesterday,” Kelley says. “You needed rest. If you can wait a few minutes, I can walk you both over. The bacon’s nearly read
y to come out of the pan.”
I stand, waving a dismissive hand before straightening the dress I slept in. “It’s fine. We know the way by now. We’ll be back before the cheese is melty.”
“But no cheese for me, please,” Diana says, pulling on the cardigan she was given over her own brown linen dress while I fetch mine from the floor beside the bed. “I like my eggs pure, just salt, no pepper.”
Kelley hesitates a moment, but then nods. “Got it. But be careful out there, okay? Don’t talk to anyone if you can help it. The more we keep to ourselves until the ritual tomorrow night, the better.”
Diana and I both murmur our promises to keep our lips zipped, step into matching, over-sized clogs by the door, and step into the crisp early morning air.
Outside, the forest smells incredible. My inner wolf lifts her nose and inhales deeply, eager to shift and explore all the captivating new scents, to run free through the woods for the first time since she wasn’t much more than a pup.
But sadly, this isn’t the time for unbridled joy. Diana and I only have a few minutes alone before we’ll be expected back in the cabin.
“I’m inclined to believe everything they said last night,” she whispers as we set off through the open glen toward the row of portable toilets set up at the tree line a good distance from the main camp. “I think they really want you to be queen, but something still feels…off.”
“Agreed,” I say. “There’s something they’re not telling us.”
“Because whatever it is would be a dealbreaker for you?” Diana muses, glancing over her shoulder before turning back to me. “Or because it’s just…scary maybe?”
My brows lift. “I was assuming option one, but you could be right.”