“I’m so glad you’re back,” I whispered.
“Me, too,” she replied with a wan smile as I let her go and Remy stepped in to hug her quickly.
As soon as Remy released her, Katy pulled Maren back to her side. Her face was still pinched with worry, though. The same worry I saw reflected on Dante, Tate, and Ryder’s faces as they filled the hallway behind the reunited couple.
“What?” I asked, bracing myself.
Katy and Maren exchanged looks before Katy looked back at us. “We need to talk.”
“Rhodes and Larkin are already here. It’s a nice day, so we were all going to sit out back,” Remy said, jerking his head. He led the way, all of us following like baby ducks behind him until we walked out onto the back patio.
Larkin, cuddled on Rhodes’s lap, looked up. A smile broke across her face and she scrambled up to hug Maren.
There was ample seating around the unlit fire pit, and everyone settled into a seat. But somehow, I still wound up on Remy’s lap. Then again, looking around the circle of my friends, most of us were using each other as furniture.
Larkin was back on Rhodes’s lap, Dante had Tate’s feet on his legs while she leaned against Ryder, and Maren was so close to Katy that they may as well have been conjoined twins.
Katy sighed first, her fingers curled around Maren’s. “Tell them what you told me, baby.”
Maren cleared her throat and leaned forward slightly. “Katy told me that you guys know about the … place I was being held?”
Remy frowned. “We have an idea. We’re planning to head there tomorrow to make sure everyone is released.”
Maren nodded, her head jerking in quick movements. “Good. That’s good. I don’t know how many people were there altogether, but I think it’s a lot.”
“Can you tell us anything about it?” Rhodes asked, dragging his knuckles up and down Larkin’s arm.
Maren’s brow furrowed. “They didn’t let us outside too much, but when they did, we were in an enclosed courtyard. Like a hole in the middle of the building. The building had four floors and looked really industrial. It was always cold in there.”
“Okay,” Remy said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “Do you have a rough idea of how many people we’re looking at?”
Maren sighed, her shoulders curling in a bit. “A hundred? Maybe more? I shared a room with twenty other girls around my age. We were all kept separate in our rooms and classes, but guards were always patrolling the grounds.”
“Classes?” Larkin asked curiously.
Maren flinched and Katy growled softly beside her, her face twisting into a glower. She rubbed a hand up Maren’s back.
“Not classes like at school,” Maren clarified, ducking her head. Her dark hair covered her face like an inky black curtain. “They wanted to make sure we were prepared to be a good mate.”
Tate made a face. “Prepared how?”
“To make their mate happy,” Katy ground out, eyes flashing. Clearly Maren had already told her this last night when they were together. “You know. Like … sex and shit.”
I gasped sharply, my gaze snapping to Maren as Remy stiffened under me. “Did they—”
“No,” Maren said quickly, her head lifting and her eyes huge. “No, they didn’t. It was more instructional. It was really important that we not be … compromised, is what they called it.”
“Jesus,” Dante muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face in disgust.
“I thought they took people to make them wolves? The way Skye’s dad has done?” Larkin shot me a look.
Maren’s brow knit together. “Not with us. We heard about that, kind of. There was a lot of arguing. It sounded like a lot of women died.” Her dark eyes found mine. “Your dad does the same thing?”
“No,” I said quickly, emphatically. “Elias tried ripping off something my dad and Lulu came up with that actually helps wolves.”
“Lulu is the one who does magic?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Apparently Damien had someone like her at the place you were held?”
Maren exhaled. “I don’t know about that. Like I said, we were kept separated. The classes were what we were taught.”
“Mating Etiquette for Beginners,” Tate muttered coldly.
“I think they’ve been doing this for awhile,” Maren added slowly. “I mean, Norwood rarely had a female in their pack at school. I walked by a room that looked like a nursery when I was there. I think they’re taking the girls as soon as they’re born, and they’re assigned a mate by the Alpha.”
“Were Kit and Jayla with you?” Remy asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. Kit was in my room and Jayla was across the hall. I also saw Sierra in the building … but she wasn’t with us. I asked around, and it sounds like she was in a separate area because she was one of the compromised ones or whatever.”
A shudder rolled through me. That sounded way too familiar.
“Explains why her parents never found her,” Larkin whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “They went to Norwood, but she wasn’t there.”
“The separate area,” I started quietly, meeting Maren’s gaze across the fire pit, “do you think it was like—”
“Yeah,” she cut me off with a sad nod. “Exactly like that.”
“Like what?” Ryder pressed, looking back and forth between us.
“Long Mesa,” I murmured, not resisting when Remy pulled me closer. I was practically sprawled across him, but I didn’t care.
“Sierra looked awful,” Maren commented. “She was so skinny and her hair had been kind of hacked off. I called her name, but she didn’t look up.”
“I’m not Sierra’s biggest fan,” Katy added, “but no one deserves that.”
“We’ll get them all out,” Remy promised, kissing my shoulder absently. “We’re leaving in a few hours. I don’t want to wait any longer than we already have.”
“Is everyone in place?” Dante glanced between Remy and I.
“Yeah,” Remy replied. “Nikolai is reaching out to Alexei, who should have his people in place soon. They’ll monitor what’s going on until we’re on the ground.”
“Anything else we need to do before we go?” Rhodes asked.
“No,” Remy said firmly, looking around the circle at each person. “No. But I also don’t know exactly what we’re walking into. Damien and Trace are gone, but there’s no telling what we’ll find when we get to Norwood. If anyone wants to hang back—”
The chorus of refusals from our friends was immediate.
“No.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Not happening.”
Remy smiled. “Okay. Then everyone finish getting your stuff together. We leave soon.”
Slowly everyone started to get up and wander back inside. I turned to Remy when we were alone.
“Are you ready to go, Alpha?” I arched a brow.
“I’m going to talk to Elias,” he replied. “I’m hoping he’ll give us an idea of what we’re walking into.”
“Good idea,” I agreed, reluctantly getting off of him. “I’m in.”
He smiled as he stood up. “I figured you would want to join me.”
“Always.”
He reached for my hand. “So, let’s talk to Elias.”
The room where Elias was being held by guards was cramped and tight in Windale. Judging by the faint smells of chemicals, it was formerly a storage closet for housekeeping.
He looked up, clearly defeated, judging by the hunch of his shoulders. “Alphas.”
“We’re heading to Norwood in a few hours,” Remy announced, leaning against the far wall. The only chair in the room was the one Elias was sitting on.
“Anything we need to know before we get there?” I added, watching the old shifter cautiously.
“I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head. “Apparently so much of what I believed was a lie.”
I knelt in front of him. “You can still help us. Just tell us what we need to know.”<
br />
Elias sighed. “Without Damien or Trace, Damien’s beta will step in. Conrad. He wasn’t there yesterday, but he likely knows what happened by Damien not calling to check in.”
After Rhodes defeated Trace, we’d isolated the Norwood pack into the field using wards from Lulu that would keep them confined to the space until we could decide what to do with them. But also so they wouldn’t give Norwood a heads up.
“You’ll need to get to the facility first,” Elias went on. “That will be the first place Conrad will go.”
“They’ll kill them?” My breath caught.
“No,” he said quickly. “He’ll start evacuating them. Taking them before they can be freed. But Conrad isn’t in New York; he’s in Nashville. And the facility is on the Canadian border. By the time he arrives, you might be there.”
I spun to look at Remy. “We need to tell my Dad. Alexei needs to lock down the Norwood border now.”
Remy was already pulling out his phone.
“What else can you tell us?” I demanded.
Elias swallowed. “There’s four floors and the basement. The basement is storage and supplies. The first floor is offices, mostly. The fourth floor is where our elemental lives.”
“Okay.” I filed that away to let Lulu know.
“The second and third floors are where you’ll find the women. They’re separated by age.”
“Maren told us there’s a nursery?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“You took babies,” I whispered, covering my mouth with my hand.
“No,” he said emphatically. “Never.”
“Then how—”
“Our pack has always let the Alpha assign mates,” he cut me off. “Years ago the pack decided to start the process early.”
“Process,” I spat back at him. “You mean those classes Maren took for how to be a good, little mate?”
Elias’s eyes narrowed. “We’ve realized that mates take better if both mates accept their roles in the relationship. Some have even bonded.”
I stood up and glared down at him. “All that shit you told me about women being Alphas and acting like you supported us? Was it all a lie?”
“Of course not,” he answered. “Look at you, Skye. You became an Alpha just as I suspected you would. But not all women can be a Dashkov. Some have to be shown the proper way.”
My palm cracked against his cheek before I realized what I had done. Remy pulled me back before I could slap him again.
“The proper way?” I shot back, shrugging off Remy.
“Just because your pack believes one thing doesn’t mean the practices of another pack are wrong,” Elias insisted. “The parents of these children willingly gave their daughters to our Alpha. They entrusted him to secure the best future for them.”
“And if those little girls didn’t want that future?” I challenged.
“That’s just it,” Elias replied heatedly. “They do. They understand the responsibility of their role. And they’re all treated well. They’re healthy and thriving.”
“And prisoners,” I said, my tone scathing. I turned away from him and looked at Remy. “I can’t listen to his shit anymore.”
“Go,” Remy said softly. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
I stormed past him and slammed the door on my way out.
57
Skye
By the time we landed in upstate New York, I was slightly calmer. I’d barely looked at Elias as he was brought on the plane. The airstrip we used was as close to the facility as we could get, but it was still another hour drive to reach the edge of the woods where the building was.
Elias had given Remy a little more information that he had on the facility that Damien had been using to house all the women and children, but he still maintained that he was unaware of the seedier side of the facility that Maren had told us about.
Part of me still wanted to believe that the old man who had helped me so much wasn’t a complete monster, but now, looking at the gray building behind layers of fences and barbed wire, I was having doubts.
“It’s like a ghost town,” I murmured next to Remy. My eyes scanned the area, looking for movement or people, but everything was just … vacant. The towers where guards would have sat were empty.
He frowned beside me. “Maybe you should hang back.”
“What? No way,” I said, shaking my head.
“We don’t know if it’s safe,” he insisted, turning to face me.
“Does any of this look familiar, Mare?” Ryder spoke up.
Maren shook her head. “No, but I was unconscious when they brought me in and took me out. The building kind of looks familiar? But I never saw the front.”
“Elias.” Remy’s voice snapped across the group of us assembled and moments later Elias was shuffled forward.
“Where is everyone?” Remy pressed, turning to the older man.
Elias looked around. “The guards don’t appear to be here.”
“No shit,” Rhodes muttered.
“I don’t know,” Elias added with a frown. “When I was here, Damien had this place completely locked down. We should have run into the first wave of people a mile ago. He had a perimeter for his perimeter.”
“That isn’t the case now,” Dante commented, looking around at the trees we had driven through.
My eyes followed his, seeing a few of the wolves we had sent ahead to scout the area before we arrived on the periphery.
“Maybe it was evacuated?” Tate suggested, peering around from her spot between Ryder and Dante.
“There’s definitely people in there,” Lulu said quietly, moving forward with Dimitri on her heels. “I can sense them.”
“Any idea of how many?” I asked.
“A lot,” she answered, her attention still focused on the building. “Some of them are really vibrant and bright. Others almost feel cold and oily.”
“What? Like their aura or something?” Katy frowned.
“Or something,” Lulu replied offhandedly.
“What about the other elemental?” Nikolai spoke up from behind us.
“Too many souls in the way,” Lulu told him. “It’s a huge melting pot of energies, and I can’t get a clear read.”
“Souls?” Remy repeated.
“There’s a lot of fear, though,” Lulu went on, ignoring his question. “It’s in everything, even the ground. Like an oil spill that’s tainted everything in the area.”
“Makes sense,” Maren replied softly, shuddering. “It’s scary being back here.”
“You’re safe now,” Tate said fiercely, taking the hand Katy wasn’t holding.
A gray wolf emerged from the treeline, heading towards us. When he was a few feet away, Alexei shifted into his human form.
I immediately looked at the ground, not wanting an accidental view of his junk. I felt Remy chuckle beside me.
Even though I was curious to know how far down Alexei’s intricate tattoos stretched, I wasn’t interested in him.
“We’ve been here for a few hours,” he told us, pausing several feet away. “No one has entered or left since we arrived. The lights came on, like they were on a timer. There’s no other wolves except us in the woods. All the scents we found were old.”
“So they abandoned ship before we arrived,” Nikolai inferred.
“You think it’s safe?” Remy asked.
“One way to find out,” Dimitri muttered, walking forward and pushing open one of the gates. It swung open easily enough.
“Doors open,” he called over his shoulder, leading the way as we all followed cautiously behind. Lulu tried to catch up and pass him, but he held her back.
“Could you, for once, act like your life matters?” he snapped, irritated.
“Could you, for once, leave me alone?” she snarled back, jerking her arm out of his hold. She stomped away from him.
Remy and I exchanged a look as Dimitri growled in her wake.
“They have a complicated relationship,” N
ikolai murmured behind us.
I shot him a glance over my shoulder. “Clearly.”
Lulu made it up the stairs and slowly pushed open the front door. Before she could step inside, Dimitri shouldered her out of the way and went in first.
“Very complicated,” Remy whispered for my ears only.
We all filled the small lobby inside the entrance, pausing in front of the locked gate that separated the lobby from a long corridor.
“If I may?” Elias asked, slipping between us and approaching the gate. He laid his palm on the scanner beside the door and a second later it clicked open.
“Where is everyone?” Remy demanded, looking around.
“Top floor is research,” Elias said quietly. “If your elemental is here, that’s where he’ll be.”
“I’m going,” Lulu said sharply, starting towards the stairwell.
“Would you wait a damn minute?” Dimitri snapped, grabbing her wrist. He immediately dropped her arm with a hiss, moving back.
“Touch me again and I’ll fry your whole arm,” Lulu said coldly.
“Everyone calm down,” Remy ordered, stepping between them. “We need to split up and take sections.”
“I’m the elemental, so I’m going to the top floor,” Lulu insisted.
“I agree, but you shouldn’t go alone,” Remy shot back. “Nikolai, why don’t you go with her?”
My father nodded, giving Dimitri a look before moving to Lulu’s side.
“I’ll go, too,” I offered, joining them.
Remy’s lips thinned for a second, clearly not liking me going anywhere without him.
“Alexei, can you have your men cover the exits? Just in case?” Remy turned to the still naked shifter.
“Of course,” he replied, clearly not bothered by his nudity. He turned to go give them Remy’s order, shifting as he headed back outside.
“What else are we looking at?” Remy looked at Elias, brows raised.
“The main level is mostly offices,” Elias stammered. “Second floor is where the younger girls were. And the nursery.”
My eyes slid shut for a second. They had a fucking nursery here.
Every time I heard it, anger surged in my veins again. Who would agree to giving up their baby?
Legacy (Blackwater Pack Book 3) Page 48
