0131
Dane.
"You see it too, right? I mean you have to. You are our older brother. You are his Alpha." Raven is leaning on my desk, staring at me with her dark eyes while Damien has his hands on her hips, trying to calm her down.
"Which one do you think it is? It can't be both. He can't be trapped and trying to kill his Wolf's spirit."
"What if it is both?" Mallory mutters from the chair in the corner.
She rises to her feet and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
Her brows are almost knitted together.
"Like a weird cry for help. He knows that his Wolf and Raven's Wolf are twins. What if it's his way of asking for help? What if he is doing it in a way that means Blair doesn't know."
"That!" Raven points at Mallory as she glares at me. "That is what I mean."
"Raven...." Damien starts.
"No. I love you Damien, but I am not giving up on him yet. My gut is telling me this is wrong. He is skin and bones. He speaks differently, yet uses familiar terms, he even laughs differently." She pleads with me.
"Jenson chose to mark her."
"It's not like you have never made a mistake, is it? Are you forgetting about all those women that you dragged into contracts before Neah came along?" She snaps, smacking her palm against my desk. "And what about if things changed after that?" I see Damien cock an eyebrow at me.
I lean back in my chair to look at her. She had pleaded with me over the years for all sorts of things. But nothing like right now.
"You're the Alpha." Damien mutters. "Your decision."
My brother had caused so many problems over the years.
I had bailed him out on multiple occasions when he had fucked up or gotten himself into trouble.
For years I had put up with his excuses, letting them slide over my head until my mate walked into my life.
And even now, he is still getting himself into shit situations.
He hadn't learned anything.
"He's hurt too many people."
Tears spill down Raven's face. "You promised. You promised that you would look after us. You promised mum and dad."
"Raven, he isn't a kid anymore. He hasn't been a kid for a long time. Sometimes, the decisions we make will live with us for the rest of our lives."
"So what you are saying is that you are giving up?"
I sigh and fold my arms across my chest.
"She's killing him. I don't know what she is doing to him, but she is killing him." She shakes Damien off of her hips and storms out of the room. Damien follows her as she stomps up the stairs which is followed by multiple doors slamming shut. "She loves him." Mallory mutters.
"I know. He is her brother."
"He is more than that." She frowns "I know it's complicated and I know you are probably going to tell me to keep my mouth shut. But even you must see that he should have woken long before you chucked him in the dungeon. Wolves can heal just as quickly as us and those with Alpha blood, even quicker. But he didn't, which is weird in itself."
She blows out her cheeks. "I'm a watcher, Dane. I like watching people. I like learning how people work, how they hide things. It's something that I'm good at, most of the time."
"Most of the time?"
"Yeah, though trying to read Neah is like looking for a needle in a haystack."
I laugh, because it was true.
"Something just isn't adding up."
"You took her mate. That's why she shifted."
She cocks a brow. "I don't think so."
"Damien said you were pushing her."
"She had already shifted long before then. Probably the moment she realised that me and.... That I put Jenson in the car."
I cock a brow at her, she was trying so hard to keep her mates identity a secret. Though I'm pretty sure I know who it is.
"I already know you had help, Mallory. Honestly, I'm not bothered who you are mated too as long as you don't try to kill him." "What if he tries killing me?"
""Has he?"
She scrunches up her face like she has said too much.
"That's how you ended up with the mark on your stomach and not your neck?"
She nods. "He has been ignoring it for a while and just snapped. He attacked and somewhere along the lines, he claimed me."
"How do you feel about that?" She wouldn't be the first to be marked against her will.
Mallory shrugs her shoulders.
"We are working on it. Anyway, I know I have no place to say this. Can you just hold off from killing Jenson for a little while, just let me puzzle things together first. If I can't come up with anything, then you can do what you want." "You are right, you don't." Truthfully, I didn't want to kill him either. "Forty Eight Hours Mallory."
Forty eight hours." She repeats and turns to the door.
"Say hello to Eric for me."
She spins around wide eyed, staring at me. "I didn't say anything."
"You don't need to, Mallory. He was supposed to be in the party to rescue you. Turns out he had already left the pack. I'm just grateful he wasn't out buying more alcohol."
"I said I wouldn't say anything." She splutters
"And you haven't. Just answer me this, is he still drinking?"
She shakes her head at me.
"Good. Forty eight hours." I mutter and she hurries from the office.
I sigh, spinning my chair until I'm facing the window. How had it come to this with Jenson? My father would be livid if he was here. I felt this overwhelming sense of failure when it came to my brother. Like I had failed him and my parents.
Jenson and Raven had been raised in exactly the same way.
When they were children, they had rules to follow, just like everyone else.
Where Raven stuck to the rules, he never did.
Time and time again he would cause problems. This time, this time he had really fucked up and he might have just cost me my family.
Neah slips into my office. Her scent quickly replaced the others. She's quiet too. Waiting for me or maybe it was because she could feel my anger.
"You were listening?"
"I was sat on the stairs. Damien and Raven are arguing. Mallory has just run out the door, I don't think she even realised I was there." She pauses and even her heartbeat is quiet. "Forty eight hours isn't that long, Dane. You gave me longer." "You were scared shitless. You needed time to adjust when I brought you here and you weren't planning on killing us."
She moves in front of me, blocking my view of the window and sits on my lap.
Her arms slipping around my waist as she rests her head against my chest. "You know your brother better than anyone. He has helped you get through wars, helped you build your contracts. Mallory said something isn't adding up. Did he really give you nothing when you were interrogating him?"
"The only thing he made comments on, was me bringing the Lycans here. I can't even force an answer from him because I am no longer his Alpha. I will give Mallory the agreed forty eight hours. Then I will make a final decision."
Her head bobs up and down, "And if Blair turns up?"
"Blair can be killed. To be honest, I'm surprised she hasn't turned up yet. It's already been a couple of days and there have been no reports from the guards."
"What's that saying Raven uses? No news is good news."
"In most cases, yes." I muse, "But when we are waiting for her to show up, it's the furthest thing from good. Where are the boys?"
"Sleeping. If you hadn't noticed," She points to the dark sky, "it's late."
"Will you stay here for me? I need to ask my brother a few more questions."
She nods and slides off my lap, staying in the office as I make my way back to the dungeon.
Jenson is in Wolf form. Laid on his side while his lungs struggle to inflate. It looks like Mallory is right, he is trying to kill his Wolf spirit.
"Look at me." I demand. But he stays completely still.
"Look at me Jenson!"
His body starts to shift to human form.
It's slow and painful to watch, like it is using every last bit of energy to make it happen. He lets out a bloodcurdling scream as his back snaps back in position. He stays on the floor. Panting and screaming with each bone break. I had hurt a lot of people. Some of my punishments were beyond cruel, but this was horrendous and it isn't even my doing.
"She's coming." He mutters and passes out.