0029
Neah
"Stop!" Alpha Dane snaps. His crimson eyes are on me even though he is looking at Devon.
"Don't you want justice?" Devon asks me.
"For everything that they did to you?"
"That's enough." Alpha Dane's eyes shift to him. "Not another word. Neah has made herself clear."
"I'm just saying...... The pack is hers. She can claim it and take her rightful place as Alpha of the Lycans."
"And I'm telling you to stop talking. Right now. You will only answer questions. You will not push her on your own ideas. Do I make myself clear?"
Devon's brow creases a little, but he does as he is told and closes his mouth.
Except for the eyes, he looked a little like my father, well, what I could remember of him.
It was hard for me to remember any image of my father except for the one that haunts me.
The memory of blood dripping down his face as I was dragged away.
"You said they all knew." Alpha Dane is standing in front of Devon.
Was he trying to intimidate him?
"How?"
"My spy told me."
"Your spy?"
"You could have asked him yourself if you hadn't killed him."
I was certain Alpha Dane was going to hit him, but he just stood there, hovering over him. It reminded me of what Kyle and the others did to me. Standing over me, telling me the vile things they were going to do to me. Alpha Dane keeps his fists to himself, "Trey had no idea about the spy?" He asks
"No." Devon's eyes flick to me. "He was the only one who never laid a finger on you. He hated what they were doing to you. He wanted to beg them to stop, but he would have looked weak and he would have looked like a traitor.."
"He still should have helped her though."
"He was one Lycan, he couldn't do anything except give me information otherwise Trey would have known."
"What about you? You sat back and let them beat the shit out of her, just because you thought you might die?" Alpha Danes' tone was cold.
He looks over at me. "If it had been Raven, I would have died trying to get her out. I would not have stopped. I would not have sat back and gathered snippets of information from an insider. I would have gone in and ripped peoples heads from their necks to save my sister."
"It wasn't that simple." Devon protests. "I told you, I tried getting close to the house. Once Trey figured out who I was, he made it impossible. I tried." Devon's blue eyes lock on mine. "I really did try."
"Not enough!" Alpha Dane snaps. He nods at Beta Eric.
"Let's go!" Beta Eric grabs Devon by the arm and hauls him out of the office.
"That was not how I wanted that to go." Alpha Dane sighs as he moves in front of me, "I wanted him to reassure you that whatever you turn into, is not a big deal. Instead, he gave you even more of a reason to hate yourself."
"He looks like my father." I mumble, not really taking in his words. "I.... I don't want to believe it. But his eyes, they....they are like mine, like my mothers."
"Could you sense him?"
"He smelled..... Familiar." I shake my head.
"There's nothing up here." I touch my temple. "I don't even remember a baby in the house."
"He claims he is nineteen. That makes him three years younger than you. You don't even remember a toddler?"
"No, there is nothing." I didn't remember a baby or a toddler. I never even heard of talk about a man attacking. I never heard Trey announcing the need to up security. But what I do remember are the faces of everyone who had hurt me. "And I will hunt down every single one of them." Alpha Dane murmurs as he takes a step towards me
"You read my mind?" I ask quietly. It was still a weird thing to get used to.
"I like to pay attention." He leans in to kiss me when the door is almost taken off of its hinges.
"What the fuck, Raven?!" Alpha Dane growls
Raven was red in the face. Strands of her dark hair had fallen loose. "We have a huge problem!"
Alpha Dane rolls his eyes as he turns away from me. "What now?"
"She's here!"
I look between the both of them. "Who?"
"Are you certain?" Alpha Dane asks Raven
"One hundred percent. She is sitting in the hospital right now. And she is furious."
"Who?" I ask again because while Raven looked concerned, all I could see was pure anger on Alpha Danes face. Even his crimson eyes appeared a little darker than usual. Maybe Aero was saying something to him? They carried on talking like I wasn't even there.
"I told her you were hunting to buy some time."
"Did you tell her about Neah?"
"I like to test your brides, but I would rather walk into a roaring fire than deal with that one."
Another bride?
Alpha Dane spins to look at me. "Ex bride. I absorbed her parents' pack years ago."
"The only one who didn't die." Raven mutters. "Veronica."
"Stay with Neah. I will send Eric over too." He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and leaves, leaving the door wide open.
"Who is she?" I ask
"He told you, ex bride." Raven smiles at me, trying to brush it off like suddenly, it was nothing major, even though she had practically broken the door down to tell him.
"I know but.....but you......."
"It's nothing. Dane will sort it out. It's not the first time she has turned up."
"What does she want?"
"Uh...... she's probably heard about you."
She potters around the office, straightening Alpha Danes paperwork.
"Me?" Why was she here because of me?
"If I tell you, please don't panic."
I snort because everything made me panic.
"Veronica was like the third or fourth bride, I can't really remember. She was head over heels, in love with my brother to the point she betrayed her own family. By the way, not something that he asked her to do. But when the contract was up. Dane decided not to mark her. He didn't feel that she was the right one."
"So he let her live?"
"The only one other than you." She smiles at me as if that was a good thing.
"Why is she here?" My instinct was to hate her. I had never even met her but I hated the idea that Alpha Dane was alone with her.
"She turns up shortly after a new bride has moved in. Reminding Dane why he chose her all those years ago. She desperately wants to get back with him. She killed her own true mate so that she could be with Dane."
"Killed her true mate?" I wanted to make sure I had heard it right.
Raven reties her dark hair and nods her head. "She brought him here. Then to show Dane how much she loved him, she stabbed her mate in the heart. Believing that the action would please him."
"It didn't?"
"He liked her courage, but sadly, no."
"And he lets her just come here?"
"Technically, because he absorbed her parent's pack, she belongs to Black shadow."
"And what am I supposed to do?"
"We sit tight." Beta Eric mutters as he enters the room and hands me a bottle of juice. "And hope that she is just passing through."
"What if she wants to meet her?" Raven asks
Beta Eric looks at me with a smirk. "It's different now. Dane has claimed Neah. We do everything in our power to stop Veronica laying a hand on her." Laying a hand on me??
"You....you mean she is here to kill me?"