Chapter 39 Plans
thirty-nine
Plans
*BENJAMIN*
Every bone in my body seems to ache when I try to shift my position.
There is a throbbing pain at the back of my head as if something keeps hammering against my skull from the inside.
Ugh, it’s such an uncomfortable feeling, making me almost nauseous.
The ground beneath my fingers feels cold. Where the fuck am I?
“Benji!” Someone shakes my shoulder. “Please wake up.”
“Lori?” I mumble.
“No, I am sorry, I am not Lori. It’s me, Nova. Benji, we have been abducted!”
Her voice bores itself into my mind, finally alerting me fully. “Abducted?” I force my eyes open, blinking up to look right at Nova, who is sitting next to me. She looks a bit roughed up, but thankfully seems to be unharmed. “Right, the weirdo with the cape who took Maddie!”
“Exactly.” Nova looks relieved. “Good to know you haven’t lost your mind. The creep in the cape knocked you out pretty badly, I think.”
I groan, rubbing my head. “Certainly feels like it.” I look around, looking for Maddie, to realize she isn’t with us.
“She isn’t here,” Nova informs me, guessing my surprise. “When I woke up, it was just the both of us.”
I scramble to my feet, ignoring the way they tremble slightly.
Nova and I are in a cell. It smells slightly humid, as if we are underground.
The bricks of the building are thick, and everything looks old, almost like a castle.
I stalk forward to the door, tugging at it, only to have a jolt of pain go through me. “Fuck!” I curse.
“What’s with the door?” Nova asks, hurrying to my side.
“Covered in silver,” I frown, stretching to look through the small window on the door. Right behind it, I spot a guard. “What did you do with Maddie?” I yell.
The guard turns to us with a frown.
“Did you kill her?” I demand to know.
“She is just getting tested,” the man says as if he isn’t even bothered that we are here.
Tested?
The man who took Maddie, Nova and me had long hair, very elegant features and looked quite similar to Silas. It’s the cheekbones and the nose in particular. I frown. Wait a moment, could this be…
I decide to take my chance. “Tell Aloysius he’d better keep his creepy fingers off that tiny girl!”
“You think my lord would touch a child?” the guard hisses.
So, it IS Aloysius! I don’t know much about the situation, just the little Silas and Marc told me, about how Silas’ brother is trying to keep his bloodline clean.
Back then, I felt they didn’t trust me enough, but now I know it’s not about trust or the lack thereof.
They kept secrets to protect everyone around them.
I don’t know who Maddie is to Aloysius, but I doubt he has anything good in mind.
And by all means, blood-related or not, she is Sheila’s daughter, and I will make sure to bring her back to her.
Nova tugs me away from the door and further into our cell until our backs hit the wall. “Okay, Benji, give me the short version,” she whispers.
“Aloysius – crazy, nutcase, psycho brother of Silas,” I whisper. “He’s obsessed with a clean bloodline, so is on a hunt to kill all his potential children.”
She stares at me. “You just made that up.”
“How I wish.” I grimace. “Silas has been trying to take him down for ages. He came close to it once, but-“
Nova sighs. “I know that part of the story,” she admits quietly. “Julianus told me about it.”
I gaze at her curiously. “So, you know?”
She nods.
“Can I ask something, Nova?”
“Of course.”
“How did you manage to forgive him?” I ask. “Julianus, I mean.”
“That’s the point, Benji,” she says. “And what you refuse to see when it’s about yourself.
There is nothing for me to forgive. He is so kind to me.
I know he fucked up in the past, but he is doing everything to change.
The same goes for you and Lori. It doesn’t matter to her who you were before.
She just knows the Benjamin of today. There were lines you didn’t cross, that’s all she needed to know. Everything else doesn’t matter to her.”
I hear noises, carefully scooting closer to the small window again that leads to the corridor. I spot a woman who looks oddly familiar.” Do you know her?” Nova whispers.
“I think it’s Juniper,” I reply. “One of Silas’ entrusted allies.”
“Just awesome,” she sighs. “Now we know who fucked us over.”
We both move away from the window again, and Nova pokes my chest. “And now focus! Okay, so, Maddie? What is with her?”
“I don’t know anything about her,” I whisper. It’s true. Silas never told me anything about the little girl that grew in our hearts.
“So, they are testing if she is that creep’s daughter?” Nova considers. “Did I get that right?”
“Yes. Vampires can’t sense blood relations,” I say quietly. “They are very powerful, but they don’t have bonds like we do.”
“That could be to our advantage,” she muses. “It buys us time.”
“We need a plan,” I say. “I want to return to Lori as soon as possible.”
“She has to be worried sick,” Nova says quietly. “Poor Lori. After all the trauma she went through, we put her through another one.”
“Julianus, too,” I point out. “I bet it’s driving him crazy that you aren’t with him.”
“It’s different for him, I guess,” she says, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “He is very kind, don’t get me wrong, but the bond works differently for vampires. It takes time. For him, I am just his new girlfriend.”
“No, for him, you are the woman who fully accepted him despite his faults and his past,” I point out.
“Don’t underestimate the feeling of hope you gave him.
I know what it did to me when I met Isla, and she instantly looked down on me.
No mate bond made me feel better. And then Lori came along, and she never judged me.
It’s not just the bond to her that made me feel better about myself, it’s been… her.”
Nova looks at me, swallowing thickly. “I want to make sure to return to him,” she says quietly.
“Then, let’s ensure we don’t make them wait for too long!”
Nova tilts her head, furrowing her brows. “Say, isn’t it weird that they didn’t inject us with wolfsbane?” she asks.
“You are right.” I frown. “I still have all my senses. To them, we are probably nothing but dirt under their shoes. They think they are above us in terms of strength and wit.”
“Whatever the reason, we have our senses. My wolf is fully on alert,” she pauses. “Could we use that to our advantage?”
“But how?”
She frowns slightly. “Maybe we can give them a show…”
I furrow my brows, sinking deep into my thoughts and slowly feeling an idea forming. “You need to get out,” I say. “We’ll find a way for them to release you and only keep me.”
“So, I am supposed to let you rot here?” she asks with a frown.
“Exactly. We have no chance when we are both stuck here together.” I look at her intently.
“You are the beta of your pack. You know it. Between you and me, you are the better strategist. They will highly underestimate you. So, if we look at it from the outside, if we pretend it’s not both of us but two strangers stuck here, what would you tell them to do? ”
She sighs. “I would tell the girl to pull off a show so she can get out of the cell. As a female, they will underestimate her.”
“Right!”
“I don’t like it,” she admits. “But it’s worth a shot. My parents always wanted me to be a little princess, the alpha’s sister. At least for once, I can make their wish come true.”
“Get off me!” Nova yells, tugging at my shirt and trying to push me off her.
I slap her hands away, pushing her to the ground before straddling her hips. “You stupid s-“ I want to say slut, but can’t bring myself to do it. “Bitch,” I add.
Nova rolls her eyes at me.
“Someone help!” She yells, whipping around like crazy. Man, she is good. I actually have to fight her for real to keep on top of her. No surprise her brother wanted to have her as his beta. Nerves of steel. It’s almost scary. “No, please, someone help!”
She lets out a scream so loud I am scared my ears might explode.
Before I can even realize what’s going on, the door flies open and a guard rushes inside, pulling me off Nova.
Tears spill out of Nova’s eyes, and she looks clearly shaken.
“Thank you,” she whispers while clinging to the guard who just helped her.
“Thank you.” Sobs shake her body. “I thought he would…”
“We don’t allow such behavior here,” the guard snarls in my direction.
Nova clings to him. “Please,” she begs. “Don’t make me stay with him. I… I… my older brother is an alpha, he will do anything to get me back.”
She looks completely helpless and desperate.
The guard looks confused and anxious, raising his head when another man enters the cell.
He is taller and looks more sophisticated.
He must be of higher rank. “Get the female into a room,” he commands.
“Our guest rooms should be good enough for an alpha’s little sister.
Guard it well. I will inform Lord Aloysius. ”
It’s working! I am actually slightly shocked at how well it worked.
Nova is right, they didn’t even think she could be a danger.
She is just a little she-wolf to them. It comes in handy that she hasn’t received her rank officially yet.
As things are, she indeed is the alpha’s younger sister, and not the beta of her pack.
Nova is escorted away before more guards come pouring into the cell, surrounding me.
I brace myself inwardly. If there is one thing I am good at, it’s that I can easily dissociate when being beaten up.
I barely feel it when they kick and punch me, my mind going to a place so far away I can barely register what’s happening to me.
It feels as if a power pushes me back to the times when I was a kid, being beaten by my father.
Stay… with me. You are in control.
What?
I could swear I just heard a male voice.
My eyes feel swollen and heavy. I can taste blood on my lips.
Around me, it’s silent. Seems like the guards have left me in the cell after they were done with me.
Slowly, I feel my senses returning. I am still alive, I am fine.
This is nothing. I’ve been through worse, and this time I had control. It was all part of the plan.
They are not going to kill me just like that.
But who was the person just talking to me?