Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Sienna was not afraid. She couldn’t explain why, but for some reason, her shyness vanished as soon as Leah clasped her hand.
There was a power sizzling through the nine of them.
She wasn’t just holding Leah’s hand. She was holding all of their hands.
They were linked in a chain, staring into the distance, watching things unfold.
Although Sienna didn’t understand her role or her power yet, it didn’t matter. She absorbed everyone’s power, and she knew the same was true for each of them. She could see what Amber saw, smell what Rylee smelled, hear what Molly heard.
Their attention homed in on a large cage that was holding a man. She understood from the women’s collective thoughts the man was Drow. He was a bear shifter who had recently killed another bear—Firat. He was being held until the council of bears could decide what to do.
But things were about to change. The cage suddenly opened. No one touched it. No one unlocked it. The door simply swung open. Drow turned around and stared at the opening for a few seconds before darting out of the cage and racing into the forest.
The two men guarding the cage didn’t seem to notice his escape as if they were temporarily blinded to that event. They gave no indication they saw or heard the door open, nor did they pay any attention to the rogue bear as he shifted and took off.
A loud roar seemed to shake the mountain, causing the women to almost lose their footing, but they held on to each other.
Sienna wondered if the Alphas had also heard the roar, but she couldn’t break her concentration to turn and look at any of them, not even her own mate.
The roar did not come from the bear. She squeezed Leah’s hand as she acknowledged that fact. She was certain they all squeezed each other. The roar came from a lion. She’d only heard that sound one other time, in her latest vision.
But where was he? Why couldn’t they see him? They could see the bear now, running hard in his shifted form. He kept twisting around, looking for the source of the noise because he, too, could hear the lion. But he couldn’t see him. None of us could.
Was the lion even in the vicinity? How far did his voice travel?
Sienna scanned the area. She had taken on Amber’s ability to see long distances. No lion. Only the bear.
Another loud growl sounded and then another and then several more. When Sienna shifted her attention back to the open cage, she was aware of several bears bounding around the area. They were shifted. They were also angry.
On top of that, shocking Sienna further, they were communicating telepathically with one another. Wolves could not do that. But Olivia had the ability to understand them. She could also speak to them in her mind if she needed. Now all the women were listening to the bears.
“How did he escape?”
“What were the two of you doing instead of watching him?”
“Which direction did he go?”
“We need to go after him.”
“What the fuck was that sound? A lion?”
They all paused, their gazes darting around as they heard the roar of the lion in the distance.
Sienna switched her attention back to Drow. He was running as fast as he could. Bears could apparently move with great speed if they needed to. But how long could he keep it up?
Drow was in a panic, his distress apparent as he kept jerking his gaze in every direction. The roaring continued. It seemed to come from every angle around him, taunting him, driving him mad.
It was apparent that Drow was running out of steam. Another loud roar came from behind him, seemingly closer, tormenting him so that he twisted around, his huge body awkward, his eyes wide with panic.
Sienna saw what was about to happen in slow motion. The cliff at his back as he continued to retreat from the noise coming from something the wolf mates could not see. Sienna was pretty confident Drow also could not see the source of the loud noise.
And then he was right there on the edge, teetering for a moment, a whimper coming from him right before he twisted and realized his fate. He went over the cliff, making Sienna and the rest of the women gasp in horror.
Drow was not a good being. He’d broken many societal rules. And now he was paying. But who had pushed him to his death?
Sienna knew it was a lion. She didn’t even think it was more than one. Just a single being who’d somehow masked himself from every sense. He was there as though omnipresent. Seemingly everywhere at once, or perhaps he simply moved so fast that he could taunt Drow from multiple angles.
The roaring stopped. The urgency lifted. The sizzle in the air lessened but didn’t disappear altogether. There was more to understand, but Drow was gone.
As if yanked out of a trance, Sienna suddenly jolted. She was no longer watching the gruesome scene. She was back in the clearing, able to turn her head and look at the other women.
Every expression mirrored what she assumed she looked like, wide-eyed shock.
Arms came around her from behind as every Alpha did the same to his own mate. Jayce turned her, lifted her up, and drew her against his chest.
His heart raced against her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to hold on tight. Her energy was drained. “Drow is dead,” she murmured before she started sobbing.
Jayce rocked her in his arms, rubbing her back. When she lifted her legs to secure herself around his waist, he supported her with a hand on her bottom. “It’s okay, Little one. I’ve got you.”
“I need to go potty, Daddy,” she managed to mutter. The last thing she wanted to do at this moment was wet herself.
“Okay, Baby girl.” He turned toward the house and hurried inside, moving directly to the bathroom. She’d been in this house in her visions. She’d been in every home. So she knew where the bathroom was, but that didn’t matter. He took her himself.
As soon as they were inside, he shut the door, stood her on her feet, and lowered her leggings so he could remove her diaper. He even lifted her up to set her on the toilet.
Sienna didn’t argue about him squatting in front of her and watching her pee. They were past that. In the short time she’d known him, he’d taken care of every one of her needs. It no longer mattered if he also held her over the toilet.
She was so relieved to have made it to the bathroom on time that she sighed as she relaxed her bladder. When she was done, he helped her to the sink, leaving her leggings down around her knees.
She giggled. “I don’t have panties.”
“I’ll find you another diaper, Little one. Don’t worry. Let’s wash our hands first.” Jayce turned on the faucet, squirted some soap in his palm, and crowded her against the sink as he washed their combined hands.
As he reached for the faucet to turn it off, the nozzle suddenly popped off the base, sending a geyser of water up into the air.
Sienna squealed as water hit her in the face. It was so forceful she inhaled some of it as it slammed into her nose and mouth. The waterspout was so high that it turned the entire bathroom into a shower, soaking both of them to the skin.
Jayce jerked her back, but it was too late. It didn’t matter anyway. The entire bathroom was a soak zone. He yanked the door open and shouted for Elias as he pulled Sienna into the hallway.
Her leggings were down around her ankles, but her dress covered her bottom.
“Elias!” he shouted again. “Are you steady?” he asked her.
“Yes, Daddy.” She grabbed the doorframe to make sure she wasn’t going to fall, and watched as he ducked back into the bathroom, opened the cabinet under the sink, and turned a valve of some sort.
The water stopped just as Elias arrived. “Shit. Oh, man. What the hell happened?” He looked like he was struggling not to laugh, but so was Jayce.
Jayce smirked. “Nozzle shot off the faucet. Luckily it didn’t hit either of us, but we got soaked.”
Leah joined them, holding up a pile of towels. “I knew that faucet had a bit of a leak, but I had no idea it was such a big deal.” She handed the towels to Jayce and turned toward Sienna. “I’m so sorry. You’re soaked.” She reached out a hand. “Come. You can change into something in my nursery.”
Jayce turned toward Sienna, frowning. She knew he didn’t like the idea of her walking away from him.
“I’ll find you some dry jeans and a shirt,” Elias added.
Sienna smiled at her Daddy. “I’ll be fine.” She pointed down the hallway. “I’ll just be in the nursery. Second door on the right. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
He tipped her chin back and kissed her lips before releasing her.
Sienna hitched her soaked legging up and followed Leah into her nursery, grateful that her new friend shut the door. She was going to have to strip completely naked, and she didn’t want any of the Alphas to accidentally see her.
Leah skipped over to the closet, opened it and pulled out a dress. “How about this?”
Sienna’s breath hitched as she stared at the pale blue dress she’d been wearing in her last vision.
“What’s wrong?” Leah asked.
Sienna slowly approached, gripping the towel in front of her. “Nothing,” she whispered.
“I can find another one if you want.”
Sienna shook her head. “No. I’m supposed to wear that one. It’s been foretold.”
Leah swallowed. “Are you sure?” She glanced at the door. “Maybe I should get your Daddy.”
“No. It’s okay. He knows about the blue dress. I already told him.”
“Okay. Do you want me to step out into the hallway so you can change?”
“Yes, please.”
Leah draped the dress over the edge of the changing table and glanced one more time at Sienna. “Yell if you need me.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
The snick of the door behind Leah made Sienna jump in her spot. She had no idea what was happening, but she could no more ignore it than she could ignore the nose on her face. Something was going to happen today. This bizarre event was not over.
A renewed sense of haste overwhelmed her, so she quickly stripped out of her soaked clothes, dried off with the towel, and set the clothes on top of it so they wouldn’t get the carpet all wet.
She didn’t have panties, and when she considered looking for a pair, she stopped herself. She hadn’t been wearing panties in her vision. She’d been diapered. After grabbing a fresh diaper from the pile under the changing table, she stretched out on the floor on her back and put it on herself.
Jumping back to her feet, she grabbed the dress and pulled it over her head. She touched her hair. She had two braids today just like she’d had in the vision. That left the white sneakers. As if Fate had a role in this, there was a pair of white sneakers next to the closet.
Sienna sat on the floor to put them on, not surprised to find that they fit her perfectly. As she tied the second one, she found herself sucked into a vision. Why wasn’t she shocked?