by Yara Gharios
The last thing he says is too shocking and horrifying for me to be able to process right now, so I focus on the first only. “Wha–what do you mean strengthened?”
“I know my nephew, darling,” he says. “He’s got too much honor to lay a hand on a minor, and that’s exactly what’s preventing you two to find each other’s thoughts and taking that one step further to becoming each other’s, for lack of better words, other half. So now, you’re open for picking, darling.”
I don’t know how I manage to do so, but a rational part of my brain registers fully what he said. Hope blooms in me.
He thinks Logan and I can’t hear each other’s thoughts.
Well, I can’t, but he can. Better to stay quiet and let Colton still believe that. Maybe I can send Logan a message when I’m strong enough to let him know where I am and what’s happened to me. This would be the perfect time for the heroine to get the villain talking and stall so that help will come for her.
Logan, if you hear me, please come find me. I need you. Your uncle is crazy.
In my mind, I recount to him everything that’s happened, while at the same time asking Colton questions.
“You seem to know an awful lot about true mates,” I mock. “Do you have one yourself? Is that where you get all your information?”
Every hair on my body stands on its end when he stares at me with that clown–like sneer on his face. “I don’t need to have a true mate, darling. I have you.”
I lick my lip nervously and swallow. “Just out of curiosity, what is it exactly that you mean by ‘becoming each other’s better half’? Are there, like, phases and stuff that we have to go through to get to that?”
Colton stares at me some more before breaking into laughter again, in the same creepy way. “You’re smarter than you look, aren’t you? Look at you trying to get some information out of me. I’m curious as to what you hope to accomplish by having these answers.”
I attempt to grin. “Humor me. I’m tired and bored in here.”
Surprisingly, he looks a Reena with a mock condescending expression. “Now, Ree, I know my brother taught you to keep guests entertained.”
Reena fearfully averts her eyes. “Sorry, Uncle.”
He studies her from head to toe. It’s even creepier than the looks he was giving me. “Get back to work, then. You’re not much help around here.”
She almost looks relieved to have an excuse to leave the room –or rather, prison. She rushes past him to get to the door as fast as she can. Out of nowhere, his arm whips out when she’s right next to him, and the back of his hand flies over her cheek so fast that even I miss it. Reena flies two feet back, twisting in the air until she lands on her hands and face. Scared out of my wits at the sudden violence, I jump and attempt to retreat into the wall further.
As she lay facedown on the ground, sobbing helplessly, Colton looms over her. “That’s for letting him wake me.”
Jace. Frantically, I look at the two boys to see if they’re still okay. Thankfully, Jace has slept through the backhanded slap. Paul has covered his eyes with both his hands. It may be dark, but I can see some moisture seeping through his fingers, and I can hear him suppressing his sobs. I crawl over to him and grab his hand. He clutches it back like a lifeline. I don’t know if anyone has ever hurt the two of them, but they’re so young and scared that I can’t help wanting to protect them.
“Now go,” Colton barks.
Paul and I jump at the same time and tighten our hands around each other’s. Reena scrambles up and runs out. Colton studies our joint hands oddly. I stare back at him defiantly until he speaks.
“You’ll be eighteen in two days, based on what Jason tells me,” he says. “Now I’m not like my nephew, I don’t care about doing the honorable thing. But I do however care about not being a pedophile.”
I glare at him. “And two days are somehow going to make a difference in that?”
“By my standards, yes,” he simply replies. He pauses as I glare at him some more and it continues not to affect him in any way. “When the morning of your eighteenth birthday comes, we’ll be mates.”
With that, he turns on his heels and follows after his niece. Unconsciously, my shoulders sag, and a huge part of my fear seems to lift off my heart. Relieved, I relax on the ground and close my eyes, trying to bring my heartbeat back under control and my breathing slow.
A sharp pain stings my shoulder all of a sudden. I tense up again and try to see what cut me. It’s a dart with some kind of little flask on the other end. I sniff it and immediately recognize the scent. My eyes fly back to Colton, who’s still at the door, when I realize what this is.
“This will last you till noon,” he states.
I glare at him with every part of my body shaking and burning with hate. I’ve never hated anyone this much. What gives this guy the right to stop me from doing the one thing that makes me a werewolf? And for what? Just because he’s worried I might shift and break out. Well, if his intimidating size and demeanor as well as the sheer thickness of this prison’s walls aren’t enough to hold me in here, then a tranquilizer filled with some heavy alcohol is sure to do the trick.
“Are you okay?” Paul asks me shakily.
Of the two of us, I refuse to be the one in need of help. He’s twelve, for God’s sake, he shouldn’t be the one worrying about me. I may not get along well with kids or even like them all that much, but when their situation is as bad as this, I can’t help wanting to save them.
With the effects of the drugs starting to wear off, it’s not as hard as it was the first time to lift myself up, crawl to his side and sit next to him with my hand still in his. I drape my arm over his shoulder as a sign that I will keep him safe.
“I’m fine, kid,” I assure him. “Just pissed. Get some sleep. We’re going to need it when… if help comes.”
Surprisingly, Paul listens to me and curls up at my side like a cute little puppy, putting his head in my lap. My thoughts drift to Logan, hoping he’s listening somewhere. I also think about my family, and how worried they’d probably be. I should have made up with Daniel when I had the chance. Who cares about some stupid fight between us when I’m not sure if I’ll see him again? If he knew what happened to Zoey, he would lose it. It’s not hard to see how he feels about her, and how hard it would hit him to lose her. I hope for both their sakes that she’s okay.
After Paul falls asleep, I spend all night trying to send some kind of telepathic message to Logan while foolishly waiting for an answer. By the time light starts streaming in through the window, I’m too tired to stay awake. When I wake up again, there’s food that’s been thrust into our now illuminated prison. That’s the only time we get fed.
Again, I try to send messages to Logan. However, enough time has passed for something to happen by now. Soon enough, I realize the bitter hard truth. Help is not coming. I’m going to have to save myself, and these two boys with me. Good thing I’ve had some training with my brothers, huh?
Yes, I’m aware how delusional that sounded.
I am so dead.
CHAPTER 27
Logan
I wake with a start. This was the weirdest dream I’ve ever had. I was Dylan, and I was locked up somewhere with two boys. Then Reena and Jason came in, then my uncle Colton, and that’s when I woke up. The more I think about it, the clearer my mind gets. Did I actually dream this, or was it all real?
“He’s coming around!” Sadie’s voice shouts.
“Logan?” Cade calls my name. “Can you hear me?”
Red spots dance beneath my eyelids as I try to open them, which makes me briefly think that it’s morning. Slowly, I come around and am able to open my eyes. There’s a white light dancing above my head. I recognize it from having spent time here during my childhood. Immediately, everything comes back to me, and I fling myself up into a sitting position on the hospital bed.
“Dylan,” I gasp.
Then the pain hits me. Bones healing fast, but not fast enough
to outrun the feeling of being broken. I can also feel the wraps and metal sticks around them keeping them in place so they’d heal properly. A much worse pain is a nausea that’s so intense, and that spreads so widely across my body, that I feel like my insides are melting lava, spinning like a tornado. I’ve been drugged. Heavily.
But the worst are the internal feelings churning inside me, just like the lava. I don’t know what to feel first, anger, guilt or fear? Someone staged the accident, poisoned me with enough drugs to kill a human being, and took my mate. Not just someone: my own family did this. I saw it all through Dylan’s eyes. I heard all of her thoughts as she pleaded with me to find her, even her final thought of saving herself.
I don’t know how this is possible, but I don’t have time to think about it right now. Zoey could be dead for all I know, and Dylan, the one I’m worried about the most, is in even more danger.
“You have to stay put for a bit more, Logan,” Sadie begs, sounding like she’s been crying. She pushes me back down on the bed. “You need to get your strength back.”
“How did I get here?” I growl. We were a good two hours from the old pack house in Maine when we crashed.
Her eyes tear up, and Cade steps in. “You didn’t get here when you should have,” he tells me. “We waited half an hour before I tracked the GPS on your phone. We found you and Zoey, and you just… you didn’t look so good, her more so than you. So we got you both out and drove here as fast as we could. Dr. Ackhart was on call, so I asked him to come immediately. You’ve been sleeping for hours.” He hesitates before he continues, looking like he really doesn’t want to be the one to break it to me. “Dylan… she wasn’t there. I couldn’t find a scent trail. I’m sorry, man, we don’t know what hap– No wait, you can’t get up! Your bones are still healing, you need to rest.”
Ignoring him, I push against my weakened muscles to stand on my own two feet. Not even Dr. Ackhart, our old pack doctor, can speed up the healing process. But I’m not about to let anything stop me from getting my mate back.
“I don’t have time to rest,” I try to protest, but only end up whispering it. “Dylan’s running out of time. I have to get to her.”
A hand grabs my forearm and helps me up. “We don’t even know what happened to her, let alone where she is to go after her,” Cade says, trying to reason with me even though he’s worried and unsure of what’s going on.
“I do,” I grunt, my anger settling as the dominant emotion and shoving the weakness out of me.
The room suddenly spins. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath. Then I change my mind and decide it might be a good idea to let out as much of the poison as possible. I get myself dizzy on purpose by spinning in place three times very quickly. My skin feels suddenly cold and clammy, and I can’t keep my eyes straight ahead. Two seconds later, I lean against the wall with my hand and hurl all the contents of my stomach in the corner next to the bed. It doesn’t get me back to normal, but at least now I can stand and move on my own without feeling too weak.
Without a word to either of my friends, who were trying to talk some sense into me, I march out of the hospital room and into the office right next to it. Not having much time to reminisce, I don’t spare a second glance at any of the familiar furniture in here. I go straight for the phone, not even thinking about who to dial. Cade’s here, Dylan’s been taken, one of my uncles is responsible for it, and the son of the other helped him, so there’s no telling who else is involved. I don’t have time to do an investigation and find out, either. There’s only one set of people, other than those with me, whom I’m sure would share my state of mind right now.
He picks up on the seventh ring, which I count. I’m guessing it’s the middle of the night. Neither of us will care. “Hello?”
“Steven, it’s me,” I say. “I need you to do me a favor, no questions asked.”
“Logan?” By his confusion, it’s obvious no one’s told him what happened.
“Go to my office,” I instruct. “There’s a safe hidden in the floor under my desk. The combination is your daughter’s birthday. There’s a book in there that contains the names and contact information of all the allies my pack has. I need you to call them all and tell them to meet us at the old Wilson Manor immediately. Rally everyone in the pack who’s old enough to fight with you and meet us there, too.”
“Wait, wait, slow down,” he says. “What’s going on?”
I let out a heavy and angry breath. “Your worst nightmare has come true. Dylan’s been taken.”
CHAPTER 28
Dylan
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”
He’s been at it for almost an hour. The stupid song is now stuck in my head.
“Is that seriously the best lullaby you could find?” I groan.
Paul shrugs. I noticed he does that a lot out of habit. “I want to picture myself out at sea,” he states.
I frown. “But that song isn’t about the sea.”
He simply shrugs again, and then he goes on singing Jace to sleep. The little demon child with the powerful vocal chords was my alarm clock this morning. He kept on wailing even after I had tried to snooze him by touching his nose. Only when Reena showed up with his breakfast did he stop. She didn’t bring a single thing for Paul or me other than a tiny sandwich for each, but Jace got a whole meal.
If it wasn’t for the tranquilizer dart Jason shot in my ass during the night, when I was sleeping, I would have pounced on them both and gobbled down that baby food. I don’t care what it tastes like or that there isn’t nearly enough to feed my appetite; I’m hungry. Hell, at this point, I’m considering chewing my way through the bars to freedom, just to fill my stomach.
“Aren’t you scared about what might happen to you in the morning?” Paul asks worriedly.
His question forces me to think about reality again, which I’ve been trying to ignore because it sends me to a panic every time I think of it. Even though I know it’s pointless, I’ve spent all night trying to reach Logan, and all day today. Now it’s dark again, and still nothing. I don’t want to admit my feelings out loud, especially not to a child, no matter how smart he seems to be for his age.
Curious about his question, I frown at him. “How old are you again?”
“Twelve.”
I pause. I’m not sure how much he realizes of what’s going on, and I don’t want to freak him out in case he knows less than I’m giving him credit for. “How could you understand what might happen to me in the morning?”
Again, he shrugs. “I’ve been here six years,” he reminds me. “I haven’t always lived in a dungeon. They used to put me here only at night, until two years ago… In a place like this, after a while, you start to understand some things.”
This kid is brave. If what he’s saying is true, then he’s seen some horrible things during his captivity. Yet, he looks after Jace like a boy protecting his baby brother. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him on his own in here. I’ve been here two days and I’m already starting to feel like I’m losing my mind.
The truth is, I’m terrified. I don’t want morning to come. It’s why I can’t sleep, why I’m lying on my back right now, staring at the walls. No one other than Logan has ever tried to come near me –sexually speaking, I mean– and I don’t know what might happen, or if I might be able to defend myself against the psycho Colton. But I can’t admit all of that to Paul, because talking about this to a kid his age would be like telling a three-year-old that there really are monsters under his bed. Plus, it also feeds my terror even more, and I’m trying hard enough as it is to stay sane.
“Shouldn’t you be thinking up a way to get out of here?” Paul asks again when I don’t answer.
“Relax, kid,” I tell him. “I said I’d get us out and I will.”
“I’m more worried about you.”
I almost smile, if not for the impending doom looming over our heads
. “Thanks, but don’t be. I have a plan.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
I roll my eyes. “Yes.”
I’m not lying, not entirely. I really do have a plan; attack Colton the second he tries to lay a finger on me. Doesn’t matter how or with what, I’m just not going to let him ‘claim’ me. No one has any right to do that. If anyone might get away with saying that, it’s Logan. I am already his. Only his. Colton will have to kill me first.
“Did you pee at all last night?” Paul asks.
Annoyed, I grimace and cover my face. “Oh my God! I liked you so much better when you were sleeping! Why can’t you be as quiet as the sleeping demon child right now?”
No answer. For a moment, I enjoy the absolute silence and try to close my eyes. Maybe the lack of sound around me will help me sleep better. However, not three seconds after I feel myself start to drift off, Paul speaks up again.
“I think it’s unhealthy if you hold it in.”
I sit up with a huff and face him. “Jeez, Paul! Yes, I freaking peed during the night! Now will you please let me sleep?”
“I was just trying to help,” he mutters in a small voice.
“Yeah, well, I appreciate it, but if you really want to help me, stop making any noise,” I retort.
“Okay… Sorry.”
In all my life, I’ve never been swayed by the cuteness of children. I’ve seen people melt over the sight of a baby or even the sounds that it makes, but I’ve never myself had an urge to share their sentiments. Yet for some reason, Paul’s voice breaks me. I’ve hurt his feelings. I may be a lot of things, but making kids cry is not something I ever want to do.
With a huff, I crawl over to him and awkwardly wrap my arm around his shoulder. “I’m sorry, kid, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I’m just a bit cranky, but that’s no excuse.”
He nods. “I understand.”