by S. Young
“Conall.” Callie pulled back to grab his shirt, her gray eyes bright with anxiety. “He has her, Conall. Ashforth has Thea at Castle Cara. We have to save her. I know she’s your mate. I recognized the scent. Ashforth was going to throw James and me out but Thea wouldn’t let him until she’d cured me. She cured me, Conall.”
Thea was with Ashforth.
She’d cured Callie … and she’d done it because …
Conall stumbled back, remembering her expression as she turned to him in bed last night.
“And you know I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She was sacrificing herself for him, for the pack.
Well, fuck that!
His claws shot out, his gums aching as his canines slid down. He bared his teeth as Callie gave him a dark grin and released her claws in support. His next words were guttural but clear. “Let’s end this bastard.”
“As your reinstated lead warrior”—Callie tipped her chin back—“I hope you know I’m coming with you.”
He wouldn’t dare deny her. His sister was one of the fiercest wolves in his pack. And she was saved—alive. Thea had done that. Thea gave him that gift. Emotion threatened to overwhelm him, but he pushed it down.
“Thea told me to tell you who betrayed you.” Callie glowered at Sienna.
Conall turned to the American.
Sienna flinched. “It was Richard, Conall. I tried to stop him.”
Richard Canid. Fuck.
“Why?”
“Richard gambled away a significant amount of the pack’s assets, which is a catastrophe on top of the pharmaceuticals fiasco. He hoped he could play hardball with you for our betrothal. That he could get enough money for my dowry that would cover the debts so that my father would spare him. But with the betrothal broken, Dad told Richard that when we returned home, he was to be demoted to enforced omega status. Early this morning, I awoke and found Richard sneaking back into the Coach House. He had a package with him, and he told me he’d gone to Castle Cara to make a deal with Ashforth. Ashforth would give him the money we needed in exchange for Thea.” Her gaze turned pleading. “I tried to stop him. But he attacked me. I just came to … I’m so sorry.”
“No.”
The word was harsh with grief and torn out of the mouth of another American.
They all whipped around to see Peter Canid at the entrance to the Coach House, his pallor ashen from overhearing his daughter’s tale.
“Dad.” Sienna’s face crumpled. “I’m so sorry.”
Peter’s expression hardened as he turned to Conall. He seemed lost for words.
“Where is he now?” James demanded.
Sienna shook her head.
Peter said, “I can’t find him anywhere.”
Conall respected Peter … but his rage was too great. “You find him, you tell him he comes back here. I have his scent so I can find him, but it would be in his best interests not to make me hunt him down. Get him back here, Peter. When I have Thea back, when this business with Ashforth is dealt with, your son will meet me in Challenge.”
Canid suddenly looked haggard as Sienna whimpered. But he nodded his consent.
“I’ll understand if that means you want to withdraw your warriors.”
The older alpha shook his head. “The least my pack can do now is offer you aid.”
Conall looked to Callie and James. “We had a plan to rescue you—now we use it for Thea. Get familiar with it, and quickly. We leave in ten minutes. Even that is too long.”
Ashforth would die today. Conall knew he’d promised Thea she’d be the one to drop the killing blow but Conall was a six-foot-six mountain of wrath, and Jasper Ashforth would never survive the avalanche about to be set loose upon him.
That’s what happened when you kidnapped an alpha’s mate.
Thea … Conall wished she could hear him through the bond. Thea, I’m coming for you.
29
The drug wore off completely and her wrists no longer burned from where the iron shackles had been.
She was at full strength.
Thea had thought that very unwise of Ashforth, even if she’d said she’d play nice (a lie), until her captor pushed her into a chair at the dining table and said, “If you try to escape, I’ll destroy your mate’s pack. Every single one. I’m not bluffing, Thea. And you know I have the means to tear their world apart. There are certain people that would be happy to receive information that the owner of GlenTorr Whisky turns into a dog every full moon.”
She bared her teeth at him.
“God, he’s turning you into one of them.” Rage flashed in Ashforth’s eyes. “How dare he try to take what belongs to me.”
Thea shuddered. “No matter what you do to me, I will never belong to you.”
He harrumphed. “I assume you will not cause me trouble?”
If it meant protecting the pack, she’d let him think so. Just long enough to kill him. “No, I won’t cause any trouble.” She sneered at him. “All this because you want to open a fucking gate.”
Ashforth raised an eyebrow. “It appears you’ve learned some things in the six years we’ve been apart.”
“I know what you think I can do.”
He pulled out a chair and sat beside her, casual, as if they were sitting down to dine.
She wanted to rip off his head.
“As a child,” Ashforth said, his expression hard, “I was powerless. I had to watch as my father beat my mother daily. When I was ten years old, he accused her of sleeping with our neighbor, and then he raped her for it on the kitchen table, in front of me.”
Despite herself, horror filled Thea.
Ashforth studied her carefully. “As I got older, I started to fight him, but he was a big man, my father, and I never won. Not even having youth on my side. So, I decided that I would have to take him down another way. Find a different kind of strength and power. I studied hard, got a scholarship, and from there I used every opportunity put in front of me. None of it went to waste. My plan was to become wealthy and influential, give my mother a house of her own, give her freedom, and do everything I could to squash my father beneath my thousand-dollar shoes.
“But he killed her.” Ashforth’s eyes filled with tears. “He killed her before I could save her.” He blinked rapidly, that granite expression returning. “I made sure he died in prison. Yet I’d lost, hadn’t I? I’d never won that battle. I vowed to myself that it would never happen again. If I could become as invincible as any man could hope to be, nothing would ever make me feel weak or helpless like that again.”
He glared at her, his eyes filled with hate. “I admire you almost as much as I despise you for being born with gifts you’re not even grateful for. You’re almost impossible to kill and you’ll never die of old age, Thea.
“Immortality. I didn’t know it then, but it is everything I have ever wanted. And until I have it, this emptiness inside me will never abate. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I hope that you can understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. Maybe if I’d explained all this years ago, things would have turned out differently.”
Thea sighed, her heart pounding at his confession. “It’s not going to work,” she told him, the words echoing around the great hall. “Instead of a hundred years of emptiness … it’ll be a goddamn eternity of it.”
“No.” He pushed back from the table. “You don’t understand. You don’t know enough about the world of the fae. They live forever there. They … wouldn’t live forever if their lives weren’t everything it could never be in this world.”
He was crazy.
Thea knew that.
But listening to him … talking about a place he had no concrete evidence even existed, Thea realized the utter depths of his insanity. And she feared that it had started long, long before she even knew him.
“Eirik killed three of the kids, you know that, right? You can’t open the gate.”
“One is not enough.” Ashforth shook his head. “My research is su
re on that. But two will suffice. You’re not the only one I’ve been hunting for six years.”
Her heart lurched again. “Have you found one of them?”
He smirked. “I’m getting close.”
“And how does the gate open?”
“Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?”
Thea let her hatred for him show. “Is it worth it? Is this worth all the death … Amanda’s death?”
“Don’t you speak her name,” he spat, a rare moment of discomposure.
“She was afraid of you. The only reason she didn’t come with me was because of Devon.”
Ashforth abruptly nodded to someone behind her and two seconds later, she felt the hands around her neck, a quick burn, followed by the sound of a loud crack before the world went dark.
It couldn’t have been that much later when Thea woke up. She healed fast, even from someone breaking her goddamn neck.
As she sat up in the unfamiliar bedchamber, she rubbed at her nape even though it didn’t hurt. Still, she winced. A neck break was unpleasant. She’d forgotten just how unpleasant.
Suddenly she had the urge to apologize to Conall for that time she’d broken his.
Conall.
Thea moved her hand from her throat to rub at the ache in her chest. Her eyes caught on the new scars around her wrists.
“You’ll never be free of the marks I’ve made on your life.”
Until the moment Ashforth said that, Thea had begun to bear her scars like a warrior would. Because of Conall. He made her feel proud of them. They were evidence of everything she’d endured. She’d especially been proud of the scar across her wrist where she’d cut it with the iron blade to save Conall’s life.
Now it was concealed by the much wider scar caused by Ashforth’s shackles.
Marks from Ashforth to match those on her back and the one on her lower gut.
He’d stolen their meaning from Thea as soon as he’d turned them into brands. And now, if she lived, she was stuck with the fucking things, always remembering it was him who had done this to her.
“You’re awake.”
She startled, whipping around to look behind her.
The bedchamber was small, the exposed brick covered with paintings and tapestries, much like it was in the great hall.
Standing in the gothic doorway was Devon Ashforth.
Thea drank him in, nostalgia hitting her in wave after wave.
She could see them running around the Ashforths’ Hampton estate, playing in the ocean, laughing together at school.
Devon was older now, of course. His jawline no longer soft with boyishness but angular and covered with a little designer stubble. There was an unkemptness to his blond hair that matched his style, which wasn’t preppy like it had been six years ago. He wore faded blue jeans and a fitted sweater that showed enough of his physique to tell Thea he worked out. The hardness of his body matched the pitiless expression in his eyes.
This was not the Devon she’d left behind.
Thea slowly stood to face him. “I didn’t kill her.”
The muscle in his jaw flexed but to her relief, he nodded. “I know. My father thinks I’m an idiot. But I bribed the guards who were there … I know she died helping you escape, and that it was one of his men who put the bullet in her head.”
Despite her gratitude that Devon knew the truth, Thea couldn’t understand why he was here. And why he was looking at her as if she meant nothing to him when once upon a time, he’d loved her like a sister. “Then why are you here?”
“I told him I wanted to be here to watch him make you suffer for her death.”
Thea took a wary step back.
Devon shook his head and pushed the door open wider. “I just wanted to be here to finish what she started.”
“Devon,” Thea whispered.
“End this, Thea, or he’ll never stop.” He lifted his hand and in it was a gun. It had a silencer on it. “I’ve taken care of the guards in this part of the castle. They’re gearing up to get out of here before your pack arrives to attempt rescue, so they’re distracted. I said I’d watch over you while they organize our departure. Instead, I’ll lead you to the great hall and then I’ll trick my father into coming to you. Alone.”
Sickness roiled in Thea’s gut.
This was it.
This was the moment.
“Are you sure you want to be a part of this, Devon? You don’t know how this will affect you.”
Rage flashed across his face. “My mother was murdered, and it’s his fault. His obsession led to this. Let’s go.”
There were two dead guards outside her room, bullet holes in their heads. Devon must have been quick with the gun. Thea glanced away, despair washing over her. What had Ashforth done to his family? Tortured his adoptive daughter, inadvertently murdered his wife, and turned his son into a cold-blooded killer. It was horrifyingly tragic.
They hurried down the narrow, dark, windowless hallway and when they reached a tight, turreted staircase at the end of the hall, Devon raised a finger to his lips. Thea sent out her shadow energy that cloaked them both in silence. Being human, Devon didn’t feel it, but neither of them could be heard as they slowly took the uneven spiral stairway down to the first floor.
To their left was an archway that led to what looked like the kitchens. Thankfully, they were empty. To the right they crept past two small rooms that served as pantries, stocked to the brim with food. The dark hall was empty as they moved silently along it, coming to a small set of stairs that went up, leveled out, and then went downstairs.
Devon stopped her where a light shone on their left from a doorway. A chill wind swept over her and he turned to mouth “Exit” as he pointed to the opening. Then he gestured ahead and mouthed, “Hall.”
Thea nodded, and they made to move off when voices from outside caused them to halt. It sounded like the two voices were getting nearer.
“I’ll be glad to be out of this place,” a deep male, American voice said.
“Yeah, me too. I’m sick of being this close to vamps.”
A snort. “Yeah, lucky bastards, get to sleep in the fucking wine cellar while we do all the grunt work.”
“Let’s just get Rick and Drew and get this bitch on the boat.”
Their footsteps came closer.
Thea gently pulled Devon toward her and then urged him behind her. He scowled but acquiesced as she pressed her back to the entrance wall and waited. Twin earthy scents hit her nostrils. They were werewolves.
As soon as the first booted foot appeared, Thea attacked. She grabbed the large wolves by the scruff of the neck and yanked them deeper into the castle hallway so no one outside would see. Before they could get their heads around what was happening, Thea smacked them together. They snarled, staggering apart, and she threw a punch at the bigger out of the two, hard enough to knock him on his ass.
Once he was down and dazed, Thea spun as the other swiped out, claws protracted. She ducked, narrowly missing a hit, balanced her hands on the cold castle floor and swung a leg out, catching his with enough force to put him on his ass too.
Thea whirled to her feet as the big guy recovered, fists guarding his face, ready to fight.
So she opted to hit him in the place he wasn’t protecting. His balls.
He dropped with a muffled yell; Thea cut him off with a quick twist of his neck and the sickening crack echoed around the entrance hall. She hoped he was the one who’d broken her neck earlier.
Tit for tat and all that.
A popping sound startled her, and Thea jerked around to find Devon pointing a gun at her.
The color drained from her face.
But then a loud thump behind her drew her attention.
The second wolf was laid out on the floor with a bullet hole in his head.
Thea swallowed the bile in her throat. She’d been determined not to kill anyone. Glancing warily back at Devon, she saw nothing.
There was nothing in his eyes as he
lowered the gun.
“You were taking too long,” he whispered. “Help me hide them.”
Thea brushed Devon’s assistance aside. It was quicker for her to move the bodies. She hid them in the pantries they’d passed, closed the doors, and tried not to worry about the emptiness in her adoptive brother’s eyes.
Hurrying down the hallway, she followed Devon past the entrance and up another small flight of stairs. They turned left at an open landing and up two more steps where he shoved open a large, gothic wooden door.
They were back in the great hall.
He led her across the room to another door near the fireplace. Beyond it was a small drawing room with no windows. It was lit by wrought iron sconces on three walls. “Stay here. Hide. I’ll be back with my father and then you can come out and do what needs to be done.”
Distrust niggled at Thea as Devon disappeared. She stared up at the massive tapestry covering most of the wall opposite the door. It depicted a battle scene. Probably a famous Scottish battle but Thea didn’t know enough about Scottish history to figure out which one. Conall would know.
She immediately threw her mate out of her head.
She needed to focus, and she couldn’t do that if she worried about how Conall was dealing with her disappearance.
Thea focused on Devon and why he’d brought her to this room. She had to consider if this was a trap to hurt her further, why kill the guards and bring her here? He could have easily tried to dispatch her in that bedchamber.
The thought made her stomach turn.
The last person Thea wanted to hurt was Devon, but if he betrayed her, she would.
It felt like an age as she waited with her ear to the drawing-room door. Despite her vow not to think about him, Thea wondered if Conall was already on his way to the castle with the pack. She knew he would come for her, there was no question of that. But Thea feared how many of the pack would lose their lives trying to rescue her.
Gut churning, sweat gathering under her arms, Thea waited impatiently.