by Kali Argent
Still, she waited. The night was hushed but for the sound of the wind, the occasional gust rattling the glass panes of the windows. Tired and growing impatient, Thea leaned against the wooden beam in the middle of the room and yawned.
Finally, emerging through the double swinging doors that led to the kitchens, Alpha Chase entered the main room with long, purposeful strides. He jerked his head, and the enforcer at her side nodded, retreating to stand near the exit. Two other enforcers—the ugly bald one who had tormented Abby when they’d first arrived, and one she didn’t recognize—stood at attention several feet back from their alpha.
Thea was almost flattered that Bricksten Chase felt he needed so many guards present just to speak with her.
“Please sit.”
Straightening, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’d rather stand.”
“Suit yourself.” Alpha Chase smiled, a feral light in his eyes. “I have a problem, kitten, one I think you can help me with.”
“And why do you think I’d do anything to help you?”
Ignoring her, he hooked his foot around the leg of the closest chair and jerked it to the side. He sat, leaning toward her, resting his forearms on the tops of his thighs as he pressed the tips of his fingers together in a clichéd act of contemplation.
“My daughter has a certain fondness for your mate.”
Thea pursed her lips, unwilling to comment.
“Currently, Rhys holds no value to me. In fact, your arrival has made him a rather dull plaything lately. However, I have no intentions of allowing my little girl to associate with that kind of filth.”
Her blood pressure rose along with her anger, but Thea bit the inside of her cheek, gnawing on the flesh until the coppery taste of blood coated her tongue. The alpha was goading her, but she wouldn’t rise to the bait.
“Now, I can’t release him, obviously, but I can’t just kill him, either. Kara would be quite upset if I did.”
“Get to the point,” she blurted, growing impatient with his meandering.
“If Rhys were to die in the Gallows, well, these things happen. Kara is aware of this fact. She would shed a few tears, of course, but move on quickly.”
“And?”
“Don’t be thick.” Alpha Chase growled, all pretense of civility gone. “You will kill Rhys during the Gallows tomorrow night.”
“No.” Well, that had been easy.
“I don’t think you understand. I’m not asking, kitten.”
“Oh, I understand, but that doesn’t change anything. I’m not going to kill my mate just so you don’t have to tell your daughter ‘no,’ because it might hurt her feelings.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Standing, he turned just as the front doors opened, and two enforcers wrestled Zerrik into the café. “Remember, you did this.”
Before she could ask what he meant, Alpha Chase drew his gun, pointed it at Zerrik, and pumped three rounds into the vampire’s chest.
“No!” Sprinting across the room, her pulse pounding in her throat, Thea slid onto the floor beside her friend, covering the bullet holes with her hands as if she could stop the bleeding by sheer will alone. “No, no, no. Zerrik? Zerrik, can you hear me? Say something.”
The tears came hot and fast, flowing down her cheeks as blood seeped between her fingers. Beneath her palms, she felt only stillness, no rise and fall of Zerrik’s chest, no beating of his heart. His icy blue eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling, and his thin lips remained parted on his last breath.
The alpha’s footsteps echoed as he came closer and crouched down beside her, caressing her arm with the still-warm barrel of the 9mm. “It really is a shame.”
Thea growled, the world blurring momentarily through her tears as her eyes shifted to their feline counterpart. Midway through her turn—fangs bared, claws extended, arms still reaching for the bastard who had murdered her friend—hard steel pressed against her forehead.
“Uh, uh, uh,” the alpha tutted. “Now, who should we bring in next? How about the little brunette? She’s feisty.” Pulling the gun away from her brow, he waved it front of her face. “Maybe that handsome human male? How many of your friends have to die before you realize this is not a negotiation?”
The doors swung open again, and a single enforcer stepped around the corner, dragging Roux over the threshold by her hair. She struggled valiantly, twisting and flailing, kicking at his shins.
“Let go of me, you sack of shit!”
“No,” Thea growled, her stomach twisting itself into knots. “I’ll do what you want. Just let her go.”
Alpha Chase simply arched both eyebrows toward his hairline and stood.
The guard shoved Roux to the ground, forcing her to kneel, but made the mistake of releasing her curly locks. Rearing back, Roux slammed her head into the male’s groin, drawing a strangled moan from him as he doubled over, clutching his balls in both hands. Lightning fast and deadly efficient, she kicked one leg out to the side, bent forward, and delivered a powerful kick to the guy’s kneecap that dropped him to the ground with a muffled thud.
He was still curled on the floor, holding his crotch in one hand and his knee in the other, when Roux climbed onto his back, grabbed the lanyard across his nape, and yanked it tight, twisting it around her hand as she pulled. He thrashed about, clawing at the thin rope around his neck, his face turning a violent shade of red as his eyes bulged from their sockets.
Lazily, looking almost bored, another guard sauntered over to them, wrapped his hand around Roux’s throat, and lifted her from his comrade’s back. Roux didn’t go easily. Still gripping the lanyard, she jerked hard, pulling the prone enforcer up from the floor far enough to catch his head between her knees. With a hard twist of her hips, she corkscrewed sideway, effectively loosening one guard’s hold while snapping the neck of the other.
The male standing behind her growled, cursing under his breath as he brought his fist down on her temple. Dazed, Roux fell to the floor again, her eyes unfocused as she swayed on her knees.
“Stop! Just fucking stop!” Thea shouted, slipping in Zerrik’s blood as she struggled to her feet.
Alpha Chase ignored her as he nudged his lifeless pack member with the toe of his boot. “You know, female,” he said to Roux, “if you weren’t so much fun to watch, I might be upset about that.”
“What can I say?” Roux drawled, her eyes still glazed, “I just live to please you.”
Lifting his right arm, he pointed the gun at Roux, holding the barrel just inches from her forehead. “Such a waste.”
“No.” Shoving his arm to the side, Thea positioned herself in front of Roux, blocking the alpha’s view of her friend. “I said I’ll do it. You win, okay? Just let her go.”
She’d been a fool—a prideful, ignorant fool. There had been no reason for her to deny his request. She could have agreed, knowing that if everything went according to plan, she and Rhys would be free well before the Gallows ended. It wasn’t in her nature to bow to anyone, or to give into the demands of madmen, even for show, but she hadn’t been thinking clearly.
Death didn’t frighten her, but she’d never imagined her friends would pay the price for her arrogance. Their blood was on her hands, both figuratively and literally, and the realization destroyed her.
The tears stopped. The pain ebbed. She didn’t feel grief, or guilt, or even anger. She felt absolutely nothing, and that numbness was her salvation.
“I’ll do it,” she repeated, her tone devoid of inflection. “Whatever you want.”
Obviously pleased, Alpha Chase grinned, lowering his weapon to his side. “Good girl.” Holstering the handgun, he motioned to the guards with his other hand. “I’m not a total bastard, you know. I’ll even let him have a chance to say goodbye.” To the enforcers, he added, “Take them to the cabin with the others.”
Robotically, Thea turned when one of the males took her arm and guided her toward the door. The cold wind that swept over the threshold barely fazed her.
“Oh, and kitten?” the alpha called from the doorway. “If you fail, death will look like a day at Disneyland compared to what I’ll do to the people you love. Well, the ones who survive the Gallows anyway.” He laughed at this. “Do we understand each other?”
Thea dipped her head but stared right through him.
He mirrored her nod. “Good.”
Blackness crept into her heart, snuffing out all light, its snaking tendrils as wild and dangerous as a tempest. Even the silvery beams of the moon that had once given her comfort appeared dull and diminished. In its place, a dark moon was rising, calling to the beast within her, and Thea made a silent promise as she met the alpha’s cold, ruthless gaze.
Come the Gallows, the night would run red with his blood.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Where the hell is she?”
Fisting both hands in his hair, Rhys paced the common room, wearing a path through the carpet in front of the fireplace. He’d awoken in the cabin next to the fire, his head throbbing and his muscles aching. That had been hours ago, and still, there was no sign of his mate.
Deke paced on the other side of the room, pausing every third or fourth pass to drive his fist into the wall and curse. A string of imaginative threats spilled from his mouth, and he’d even attempted to storm out of the cabin—twice. After waking up in a puddle of his own vomit the second time, he hadn’t tried again, but the electric shock had done nothing to tame his anger.
“I’m going to kill them,” the captain raged. “Every last fucking one of them. If they hurt her, I’m going to rip their goddamn spleens out with my bare hands.”
While Rhys had been unconscious, the guards hadn’t just taken Thea. They’d also dragged Roux and Zerrik off into the night to places unknown. While he didn’t know why their group had been brought to the cabin instead of the enclosure, he’d been around long enough to know it couldn’t mean anything good.
He’d just turned on his next trip past the fireplace when the front door swung open, the force of the wind blowing it back against the wall with an echoing boom. Roux stumbled into the cabin, her eyes red and her low lip trembling.
“Are you okay?” Deke was at her side immediately, checking her over for injuries. When he found none, he lifted the female into his arms, crushing her in a desperate embrace. “I was so worried about you. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
“Someone punched me in the head.” She shook her head when Deke growled. “I don’t blame him. If someone killed my friend, I’d punch them, too.”
“You killed a werewolf?”
Rhys tuned out after that, focusing on the footsteps that shuffled up the steps and across the wooden porch. When Thea stepped through the doorway, his heart stopped for a moment, then tripped into a thunderous gallop. Crossing the room in three strides, he took her face between his hands, searching her eyes, dismayed by what he found. He knew that look well, that cold, dark, emptiness, and it scared the hell out of him to see it staring back at him from Thea’s face.
Whatever she’d seen, it had finally broken her.
Her collar had been removed, just like the rest of theirs, but the skin on her throat was marred with bruises and abrasions from the cold metal. Blood covered her hands, her dress, the side of her neck, and smeared across her cheek, but none of it was hers. Since Zerrik hadn’t returned with her and Roux, he didn’t have to search hard to find its source, and he could only imagine what she’d had to witness.
She blinked twice, then withdrew from his touch. Without a word, she wandered down the hallway toward the bathroom, her gait stiff and unnatural. Rhys didn’t follow. He knew better than anyone that a person didn’t need an audience for their breakdown.
“What happened?” he asked, still staring after his mate.
Roux burrowed closer to her mate and sniffled. “Zerrik’s dead.”
“Why?”
She shook her head, tears streaking over her cheeks. “I don’t know. I was outside when I heard the gunshots, then Thea screaming. At first, I thought she’d been shot.”
Rhys’ veins ran cold and a red haze overtook his vision. “What next?” He barely managed to keep the growl from his voice when he added, “Please.”
“An enforcer dragged me into the café, we fought, and I killed him. The alpha said something about it being fun to watch me before pointing a gun at my head.”
Deke snarled, his arms clenching around her hard enough to make her squeak. “I’m going to destroy that miserable fuck.”
“Zerrik’s dead?” With his hands clasped together on the kitchen island, Brody looked up at them with an unfathomable expression. “They just shot him like a fucking animal?”
Roux nodded, moisture shimmering along her lower eyelids.
“What else did Alpha Chase say?” Rhys hated to make her relive it, but he needed to know if had any chance of helping his mate. “I know this is hard.” He hadn’t known Zerrik that well, not enough to truly mourn his loss, but she had, and he tried to respect that. “Please, Roux.”
Her brow furrowed, and she sucked her lower lip between her teeth while she scraped her fingernails over the fabric covering her thigh. “Thea said she’d do something for him, but I don’t know what. He basically warned her not to fail.” Her nose twitched, and the vein in her throat throbbed. “He said something about letting ‘him’ say goodbye. I think he meant you, Rhys.”
That didn’t surprise him, but he didn’t know who the alpha had threatened, him or his mate. If they managed to escape during the full moon as planned, there was a long line of people out for blood. If Bricksten Chase had any sense at all, he’d run and never look back.
“Thank you, Roux.” He started to turn toward the hallway, but stopped. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“I’m okay, or at least, I will be.” She smiled gently. “Go. She needs you.”
At the end of the hallway he found Deidra leaning against the doorjamb of the communal bathroom, three long scratching running across her chest.
“She didn’t mean it,” she said when she saw Rhys looking at the gashes. “She’s hurting, more than she can even let herself feel right now. It’s going to tear her apart.”
Nodding, she left him standing in the doorway and disappeared back down the hall toward the common area.
Entering the bathroom, Rhys approached his mate cautiously, not wanting to startle her. In the corner, beneath the spray of the last showerhead, Thea knelt in a puddle of swirling water. She hadn’t bothered to remove her dress, and the hem fanned around her in a spray of gold and crimson. Rocking back and forth, she muttered under her breath, her wet hair falling over her shoulders to obscure her face.
She’d lashed out at Deidra, and when she climbed out of her emotional trauma, she’d feel terrible about it. Rhys didn’t care. If it made her feel better, she could rage and claw at him until the sun came up, but he knew it wouldn’t. It would only add to her guilt and her pain.
Thea twisted her hands together and rubbed at her wrists. Then she grabbed the skirt of her dress and use the fabric to scrub over her knuckles, between her fingers, and across her palms. The skin on her hands had turned an angry red, the flesh raw and swollen.
“Stop, Thea.” Kneeling in the cold water, he took her wrists, holding tight when she tried to jerk away.
“It won’t come off,” she told him, her eyes wide with panic. “The blood. It’s everywhere. It won’t wash away.”
His chest constricted, and he forced himself to swallow around the lump in his throat. “I know, baby. I know.”
He wouldn’t tell her it would be okay, because it wouldn’t. She’d learn to live with it, but she’d never fully get over what had happened. Some days would be easier than others, and after a while, she’d mostly think about the good memories of her fallen friend, but his death would always be a part of her.
“Look at me,” he said, his tone sharp when her eyes strayed to her hands. “That’s it. Just keep looking at me. You’ll
get through this.” That much he could promise. The panic was a good start, and far more promising than the deadness he’d seen in her gaze earlier. “I’m going to turn the water off, okay?”
She frowned, her head lilting to the side. “Okay.”
Tentatively, he released her wrist and reached for the shower knob. Her hand remained where he’d left it, suspended in the air, her fingers curled against her palm. She stared, unseeing, her eyes fixated at a point near his shoulder, her lashes fluttering when water dripped into her face.
“It was cold,” she mumbled. “There was snow, and it was so cold.”
“When, angel? When was it cold?”
“When my parents died.” When he released her other wrist, she lowered her arms, folding her hands in her lap. “It was after the Purge, and we were driving to Chicago to find my mom’s sister. Hunters came out of nowhere. They ran us off the road, and the car flipped.”
Thea could still hear her mother crying, her father yelling for her to get out, to run. She wanted to help them, but they’d been pinned, trapped by the crushed metal, and she’d been afraid.
“Their boots crunched in the snow, and they were shouting to each other.” She closed her eyes, falling deeper into the memory. “The Hunters were happy, celebrating. My parents were going to die, and I ran like a coward.”
“Thea, look at me.”
She opened her eyes without thinking, and focused on Rhys’ face. A shudder rippled down her back, and her arms and legs began to tremble. “I’m cold.”
Gathering her into his lap, Rhys leaned back against the wall, holding her while he stroked her hair. “There is nothing you could have done, and you weren’t a coward for running. Do you think your parents wanted you to die, too? Because that’s what would have happened.”
Logically, she knew this, but it didn’t stop her from running down the list of what-ifs. What if she’d stayed? What if she’d fought? What if she hadn’t gotten carsick and her dad hadn’t stopped at that pharmacy? Then they wouldn’t have been on that stretch of road at that exact moment.
