Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Blake
We crest the final hill and a squat concrete building comes into view. This is it. We’re here.
My stomach twists with nerves and memories wash over me as the truck creeps closer to the place where everything changed, where my life turned into a nightmare.
The structure ahead of us is plain, the nondescript exterior not so much as hinting at its awful purpose as the place Wanda kept the “troublemakers”—the drugged and collared shifters she sold—while they were waiting for transport.
Rockcastle’s Alpha Mate, or maybe former Alpha Mate by now, never liked me much, especially once her mate, Earl, started paying more attention to me, started acting like he was grooming me to take over as his successor instead of Wanda’s beta son.
Dad died not long after Ollie was born, and I was only ten when mom died, leaving me in charge of protecting my six-year-old little brother.
She never explained exactly what the danger to Ollie was, though.
I’d like to think she thought I was too young to be burdened with the truth, but she never worried about shielding me from the ugliness of the world before then, so I have no idea what she was thinking.
And my naivety and ignorance of the stakes meant I walked both me and my brother right into trouble.
The first few years after mom’s death, Ollie and I lived in one of the tiny, dilapidated shacks on the edge of Rockcastle territory.
As long as we completed our chores and didn’t start any trouble, we were mostly ignored and left to our own devices.
It wasn’t until my first shift at thirteen when my alpha designation became undeniable that things really started to change.
There weren’t many alphas in my generation. In fact, the only other alpha born to our pack in the last two decades supposedly disappeared as a child. Knowing what I know now, I’m pretty sure Wanda had a hand in Jonathan’s disappearance, but I can’t prove it.
And back then, I didn’t care.
The Alpha took me under his wing and, for the first time in my life, I was treated like I mattered. Like I was important.
Mom had doted on Ollie, but she never had much time for me, so all the attention from the Alpha—the praise and flattery—went straight to my adolescent head. I’ll be the first to admit I quickly became spoiled, entitled even, and I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to what was happening around me.
If something didn’t directly affect me, it didn’t matter to me. But isn’t that the case with most teenagers, especially alphas? They think they’re the center of the world.
So blinded by my overinflated ego, I never thought to question any of it.
Not why Earl treated me better than his own son.
Not why he “gifted” me with a small, two-bedroom house near the main part of the compound for my fifteenth birthday.
And not why he was always asking after Ollie.
I should have known better. I should have seen it, should have known what Earl was really after: Ollie and the alpha heir a male omega could provide.
In my defense, Wanda didn’t realize that either.
She thought I was trying to take her beta son’s place as Earl’s heir, an idea Earl encouraged, intentionally or not.
Earl bided his time, waiting until Ollie was old enough—in Earl’s mind anyway—to give him what he wanted.
I was twenty, Ollie sixteen, when Earl finally made his move.
I’m not sure what his plan was beyond me getting killed and him being there to console my brother, but he probably should have clued his mate in since she’s the one who, in the end, fucked everything up.
Earl sent me out to investigate some manufactured problem on the outskirts of the territory and had some of his buddies lying in wait to ambush me. His plan might have worked if not for Wanda.
I never made it anywhere near the ambush because Wanda drugged me, locked one of her special collars around my neck, and shoved me in a cage.
A lot of time after that is a blur, the memories scattered and disjointed, and I don’t know how Ollie came to be here when the humans showed up to cart me off.
He was standing on the incline directly ahead of where I am now, watching the humans load me into the back of a truck. The drugs had mostly worn off, and I hadn’t been forced to shift yet, but I was still collared, powerless.
So, I did the only thing I could: I yelled for Ollie to run.
But he didn’t, instead he froze in place as one of the humans smiled, getting his tranquilizer gun ready and joking about getting two for the price of one.
My wolf pushed forward with a roar, and I used an Alpha command for the first time, screaming for Ollie to shift in the hope that being on four legs might give him an advantage.
But it I forgot he hadn’t had his first shift yet and using an Alpha command to force it would be painful, disorienting… and slow.
Ollie shifted into a beautiful white wolf, but he wasn’t quick enough to avoid the dart that hit him in the shoulder.
I watched in horror as he took only few halting steps before his legs went out from under him and he collapsed.
One of the humans went up to retrieve him, dragging his limp body down the hill as I raged and screamed.
The humans finally shot me with another tranquilizer dart to keep me from bashing myself against the cage bars. The next time I woke, I was already in Vegas, a hazy memory of the dirt and leaves embedded in Ollie’s white fur haunting me.
A hand brushes against my forearm, jolting me out of the past, and I spin on its owner, teeth bared and a growl rumbling in my chest as the memories threaten to bleed into the present.
“Blake?” The hesitance—and hint of fear—in Neil’s voice is like a knife in my gut. My growl cuts off, and I flinch away from him, shoulders hunching as I push my back against the passenger door of the truck.
Neil doesn’t speak again, only stares at me with his brow furrowed and mouth turned down. He reaches out and slowly places his hand on my arm again, gently stroking his fingers across my skin. The touch grounds me, as does the understanding shining in his deep brown eyes.
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head in an attempt to clear some of the mental fog. “Being back here is harder than I expected.”
“Because what happened here was traumatic for you,” he says in a soft voice, tilting his head to the side.
I nod, my gaze moving down to my hands twisted together in my lap. Neil’s hand moves to cover mine, gently squeezing until I look up at him again.
“Do you not want to do this?” he asks. “We can think of another way to find your brother if going in there is too painful for you.”
I sigh. “We’re already here, so we might as well at least take a look around and see if we can find anything.” After casting another glance at the building, I take a deep breath and set my shoulders. “Let’s do this.”
We both hop out of the truck, and I walk around to meet him at the driver’s side, gravel crunching under my shoes.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” asks Neil, tilting his head toward the building.
“No,” I say honestly, shrugging. “But I am ready to get it over with.”
He only chuckles in response, reaching out to take my hand and squeezing my fingers as the two of us make our way to the building’s entrance.
A heavy padlock hangs on the door’s latch, but it’s not closed—odd, but convenient—so it’s only a matter of unhooking it and flipping the latch to get inside.
The interior is dim, the only light coming from the strip of narrow windows set high on the walls, and there’s a layer of dust on everything inside.
Some shifter-size cages sit against one wall and metal shelving lines the opposite wall with a long metal table on the far side and a couple standing cabinets.
A chemical scent lingers, but it’s old, and the stale air in here gives me the impression no one’s been in here for a while.
Something loosens in my chest, my muscles relaxing in tiny increments. A part of me was worried I misheard that night or assumed too much, that the humans might be gone but Wanda’s part of the operation was still ongoing.
But it seems that’s not the case.
And isn’t that a relief.
My memories of being in here are hazy, locked behind a layer of fog that I can’t clear, but instinct draws me to the back corner where there’s a small office area with a desk, a phone, and a filing cabinet.
Bingo.
I tug at the top drawer of the file cabinet, expecting it to be locked, but I’m pleasantly surprised when it slides open. Unfortunately, it’s empty except for some blank hanging folders. The same holds true for the other two drawers.
“Any luck?” Neil asks as he flips through a stack of paper on the desk. I shake my head and he mutters a curse. “So much for things being simple.” He sighs and glances up at me. “Any idea where else these records might be kept?’
I shake my head. “I don’t even know for sure that she kept records, but since the triumvirate took out the humans she was dealing with, it’s possible they traced things back here to Wanda. For all I know, they’ve already taken any records there were.”
He purses his lips. “I guess we’re going to have to figure out something else,” he says finally. He cracks a smile. “The first words out of Raquel’s mouth when we return empty-handed are definitely going to be ‘I told you so’.”
I chuckle and grab his hand, pulling him into a quick kiss before releasing him and heading back to the door we came in.
As I cross through the doorway, there’s a sudden sting of pain in the side of my neck.
I reach up to brush away whatever bug bit me, but instead of an insect, my hand comes away with a small dart.
One with the same blue and green fletching I last saw buried in Ollie’s white fur.
They’ve found us.
How?
They—
Neil.
No. I refuse to relive what happened to my brother.
Spinning around, I grab my mate’s shirt, pull him past me, and shove him toward the woods. The sudden movement makes a wave of dizziness come over me, but I grit my teeth and force myself to stay on my feet.
Must. Protect. Neil.
“Shift,” I yell, as blackness encroaches on the edges of my vision. “Run.”
There’s enough of a command behind those two words that Neil almost instantly shudders through his shift, shakes himself out of his clothes, and sprints toward the trees, his wolf having no defense against the strength of my Alpha command.
As he disappears over the hill, I send out a silent apology for taking his choices like that, but I need him to be safe.
Another dart hits my arm, and I whirl around, taking a few jerky steps toward the truck and the two shifters who have used it to take cover, my wolf almost rabid with rage.
If I can…
I need to…
But the drugs are too strong. My knees give out, and I crumple to the ground, blackness taking over my vision.