0145
Neah
Mallory guides a crying woman into the office. The red haired woman has her hands clutched to her chest, almost hyperventilating as a wide eyed Mallory ushers her into a chair. "He can't hurt you now." Mallory tells her.
The bang made sense now. Abraxas had killed someone else. Someone that he had deemed unworthy to even meet me. By the mark on this woman's neck, my guess is the person was her mate.
"I'm sorry." I mutter, knowing there would be no words to actually soothe the loss of her mate. She is most likely in agony.
"He's really dead?" She splutters through tears.
"Yes." Mallory offers her a smile
"Good!" The woman looked so relieved to here the confirmation. Now I was even more confused. "The bastard marked me when I received your link."
"You weren't his mate?" I ask as even more questions develop in my head
'It's a trap.' Nyx mutters.
'You think everything is a trap.' I snap back
"No." The redhead mumbles. "I was sold to him."
I was starting to see why Abraxas had shot him. "You were sold?"
She drops her gaze, her long red hair falls down over her face "It's not the first time."
"You've been sold more than once?" Mallory mutters in disgust.
The woman nods her head. "When I received your link. I saw an opportunity. I told him I had to come. That you had sent an order."
"He was a Wolf." Mallory adds, explaining why the guy hadn't heard my link
"It was the only thing I could think of. But he marked me. Told me that he needed to keep tabs on me." She runs her fingers over the mark on her neck.
"Why didn't you just shift and kill him, Maddie?" Mallory presses.
The woman's brows knit together and she presses her lips into a thin line. "I can't shift."
'Lies!' Nyx snaps
"You can't?" I ask while trying to ignore my Lycan. I was starting to feel like there was something seriously wrong with Nyx. She was so up and down. She made me question myself far too much. She constantly tried to make me see the bad in everything. Sometimes it seemed like I wasn't just fighting the darkness but her too.
Especially when she started hating the idea of me trying to link everyone. Something she was on board with at first and suddenly changed her mind over.
Maddie shakes her head at me and fidgets with the ends of her waist long hair. "I knew you are going to ask me and I don't know the answer."
"Were you bound?" Her tears had finally stopped
"No, I was just their plaything. I can do everything else. I heal quickly, I'm fast. Uh, I have a great sense of smell and hearing. Obviously you can link me. I have just never been able to shift. I can prove the other stuff if you like. Do you have a knife?" 'Bullshit. She has to have been bound.' Nyx growls
"You said you have been sold multiple times. Did any of them drug you?" I press
She shakes her head at me. "They didn't need to."
"What do you mean?"
"A long time ago, I learned that if I just did what they asked, they wouldn't hurt me."
I wasn't following her at all. They bought her but didn't hurt her? Trey, Cassandra had found an excuse to hit me for any reason, even when I did conform.
"You had sex with them?" Mallory breaks my thoughts. She looked horrified by the thought
Maddie bobs her head. "It might sound crazy to you. But as long as I did that, they didn't hurt me. None of them did until...."
"Until Enzo?" Mallory asks
Maddies eyes drop to the floor again. She had figured out what she needed to do to survive and it sounded strangely like she had come to terms with what happened to her.
"How old were you when you were first sold?"
"A week short of fourteen. They gave me a year thinking that maybe my ability to shift was late. When it didn't come....." She shrugs her shoulders.
"Your parents sold you?" Mallory frowns
"Yep." She was very open with information. Not something I expected from someone who had gone through that. It had taken me ages to share anything with Dane. "I wasn't worthy of being their child."
She gets to her feet and flicks her red hair over her shoulder. "Thank you for getting me out of that situation. You have no idea how much it means to me."
"More than you will ever realise." I mutter
She gives me a smile and Nyx mutters something about reminding Maddie who's presence she is in.
"Can I ask why you asked us to come here?"
"Have you heard of a Lycan called Blair?" Mallory asks
She shakes her head at us. "Not a name I'm familiar with. But then again I have spent the last ten years mostly in the company of men."
"How did you know where Black Shadow was?" I ask. We weren't the easiest pack to find, especially for those that had never been here. "Enzo said he knew the Alpha here."
Mallory stands behind Maddie and shakes her head at me. 'Dane didn't act like he knew him' She links me.
'See, lying.' Nyx presses
'If you don't stop nagging me, I will find a way to block you!' I snap back at my Lycan
"Can you get Dane and Abraxas?" I ask Mallory.
"Sure."
Maddie's eyes widen a little and her heart starts to race all over again. "Are you going to let them shoot me?"
"Just need to check something." I offer a smile
She sits in silence, fiddling with the ends of her hair as we wait.
Dane is the first through the door, he walks around and presses his lips against my forehead. Maddies chestnut eyes follow the movement and I see a tiny hint of a smile. "Where's Abraxas?"
"He's coming. He was cleaning up his mess." Dane tells me.
Maddie shudders and combs through her hair with her fingers. "He really is dead?"
"Yes. Are you okay?"
"It hurts, but that's because he marked me, right?"
I explain to Dane that this Enzo guy wasn't actually her mate. That he was keeping her as his property. It made me so angry and I'm a little disappointed that she didn't get to kill him. There wasn't anything quite like watching the life drain from those you hate.
Shaking my head, I close my eyes and focus on my sons as I push the dark thoughts away when I catch the scent of Abraxas.
"Blondie and the surfer guy are keeping guard." He mutters, but he is watching me again with an amused expression. He watched me alot.
"You mean Eric and Klaus." Dane reminds him of their names
"Yes. They said they will let you know when more Lycans arrive." His hazel eyes move to Maddie. "You've told Neah you can't shift?"
Her head snaps back over her shoulder to glare at him. "How did you know that?"
Abraxas smiles. "I know a lot of things." His hazel eyes move to me. "I believe you wanted to see me?"
"What else do you know?" I still wasn't a hundred percent sure if I believed everything that he had said, but he did know an awful lot.
He casts his eyes over her, "All good."
"What's happening?" Maddie asks, her voice going up a notch.
"Can you shift?" I repeat, but keep my eyes on Abraxas.
"No, I swear."
Abraxas yawns, "She's telling the truth."
"Are you some kind of psychic?" Maddie mutters
Abraxas laughs. "No, I'm a Hunter."
Maddie almost falls out of her seat as she tries to back away from him. "You lured us here to be killed by a Hunter?" She demands, edging behind the desk toward me.
"You are right to fear me." Abraxas tells her, "Though right now, you are of little interest to me." He shoots her a wink.
She turns to me. "I know you are the Alpha, but what the hell are you thinking?"
Dane growls at her and I hold a hand up to him.
"You know about Hunter's?"
"Most Lycans do, so why is he here?"
"Abraxas wants Blair dead, as do I and several others." I tell Maddie
"Hunters kill our kind." She splutters as her eyes dance between us. "You are making a mistake. He will turn on you."
Abraxas laughs again. "Don't make me change my mind about you gingernut."
"Brax!" Dane snaps at him
"I will be outside unless you need me for anything else."
"It's fine." I take a deep breath and watch Abraxas head out with a grin on his face. "Maddie, you don't have to help us. You don't even have to stay here. But if you want to, you are more than welcome." I had already decided that I wasn't going to force any of them to help. Something Dane and I massively disagreed on.
For so long, I had hoped for Lycans to die out, especially when I was told that they are a dying breed and then I got pregnant, with my own Lycan sons.
"With him here?" I didn't think Maddie's voice could go much higher, but it does.
"You can stay at mine." Mallory offers
Maddie drops her shoulders and looks around the office. She probably didn't have anywhere to go, especially if she had been passed around and sold.
"Abraxas did want me to give you this." Dane mutters, dropping a wallet on the desk. "He took it from Enzo before he threw his body in the fire. After all the stuff you've been through, he thinks it's only fair for you to have access to Enzo's money."
"Why would he do that?" She asks as her brows shoot up. "He's a Hunter. I'm a Lycan. He kills our kind. Is it some kind of trick?"
"No one really knows how his mind works." Mallory mutters
"I shouldn't take it, should I?" Maddie asks quietly.
"Yes, you should. I think you should think of it as payment for what he did to you. Compensation!" Mallory mutters happily Maddie slowly picks up the wallet. "He has millions."
"I will get Klaus to set you up your own account and move the money across." Dane smiles at her. "Welcome to Black shadow."