Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
MAVE
Iwilled myself to ignore the throbbing of my swollen jaw and the sting of the cut on my forehead—which I assumed was the source of the warm trickle of blood that seeped down my cheek, narrowly missing my eye.
I was thankful that I could at least still see out of both of my eyes.
Despite Nikka’s best efforts to hurt me as she took out her long-simmering rage on my face and torso, she hadn’t managed to break anything major or cause me so much swelling that I could no longer use both eyes.
She’d tired quickly—done with my goading, or maybe she’d broken a nail—and she’d disappeared upstairs a while ago to (I assumed) continue to plot my downfall and her ascension as Alpha Mate.
In her absence, I’d managed to work the wolfsbane ropes that had been wound so tightly around my wrists and forearms a tiny bit looser, but I had to take breaks often since straining against them only made the ropes burn hotter.
Another unfortunate side effect I’d discovered of having this poison pressed into my skin—I wasn’t healing my other injuries as fast as I should have been with my shifter blood.
I seethed. I envisioned over and over what I was going to do to Nikka, her mother, and the fucking Alpha of this moon-forsaken pack once I’d managed to extricate myself from this mess.
I was thirsting for blood. For violence.
To unleash every ounce of hurt and frustration I’d collected and buried inside myself from the first time I’d been called a slut by someone in my old pack, to being so callously rejected by my fated mate, to all the bullshit I’d dealt with from that day forward.
Especially from the Alpha. Oh, he’d fucking done it now. If I didn’t gut him, I had a feeling my dad would.
I gave no shits that Knox and I had come to some kind of tentative truce—his dad had ordered me, and likely Blake, drugged and kidnapped, and he was about to turn over a teenage mage to the highest authority of his kind’s historic mortal enemy.
And if I found out Ice Man was somehow involved in this… I would let my wolf rip him apart and feast on his entrails.
I sighed and sent a prayer up to the Moon for Blake’s safety.
If I knew him at all, he was probably giving the Alpha the same attitude I’d given the Parkers, and I had no idea if they’d be able to hurt him because of it.
They’d be wary of his magic, not knowing much about it, but if they could figure out a way to make him suffer, I knew they would.
I twisted my fingers into my bindings again, wincing against the harsh burn that singed my fingertips and rattled my wolf with every touch. It might take all night, but progress was progress, and I felt the rope on my left wrist loosen just enough to keep me going against the pain.
I heard a rustling from somewhere in the dim basement room, and I froze. Fuck. If Nikka or Naomi had decided to come back down here to harass me, I’d lose valuable minutes to work on my restraints.
More rustling, then faint clatter. I sucked in a breath and smelled… rabbit.
“Holy shit,” I whispered into the room, frantically looking around for Harriet’s dark bunny body. “Be super quiet, girl—I have no idea where they are or when they’re coming back.”
Then I saw her scurry into the light along the wall to my left. She disappeared into the shadows behind my chair, then I felt her presence grow larger against my back.
“What the fuck,” she hissed in my ear as she fiddled with my restraints. “Is this wolfsbane?”
“Yeah, be careful,” I urged, worried she’d be overpowered by the burn as a prey shifter.
“I got this,” she said, and I felt the ropes loosen as she tore them away from my raw skin. “Wolfsbane doesn’t affect me at all.”
As soon as the ropes were no longer touching my skin, I felt my wolf jump out of her cage and my power roar back to life. My swollen face stopped throbbing, and my open cuts began to slowly knit together. My arms and wrists were still burning and sore, but I’d ignore it as best I could.
I stood up and faced Harriet, who was naked and very pissed off. She wound the rope around her arm for safekeeping.
“Come on, girl,” she whispered, grabbing my hand but dropping it when she saw me wince in pain. “Ben’s up there distracting Nikka’s mom, so she didn’t see me sneak into the vents. I haven’t seen her devil spawn, though. We need to get you out of here.”
“They took Blake, Harriet,” I said, the panic rising in me. Now that I was free and had the ability to save him, the adrenaline and worry and urge to go suddenly became overwhelming.
“I know, babe,” she replied, the concern shining from her big brown eyes.
“Or at least we suspected. The Three Stooges barged into Marilynn’s looking for you about five minutes after Ben noticed you were missing.
They knew the Alpha was up to something but were pretty useless otherwise.
They’re out looking for where the Pack enforcers might’ve stashed him. ”
My wolf growled. Looks like we wouldn’t be tearing Knox’s guts out after all, so we’d just have to focus our rage at the Alpha.
She added, “We’re just lucky Ben caught Nikka’s trashy perfume scent by the dumpsters after he’d basically panic-shifted out in the open. He called me, and we snuck onto Pack land from Jackson French’s backyard so we could check the Parkers’ house first. And here you are.”
“Here I am,” I agreed. “But Nikka and her mom know where Blake’s being held. They were trying to barter my cooperation for that information. They seem to think they’ll be escorting me back to Utah tomorrow.”
She snorted. “They’re delusional. Come on. We should see if Ben needs our help, then we can beat some information out of them.”
She’d reached out for my hand again when we heard the door at the top of the stairs bang open.
I quickly sat back in my chair and stuck my hands behind my back. “Hide!” I whispered to Harriet. I wanted the element of surprise with whichever Parker bitch was headed our way.
Harriet slunk quietly back into the shadows behind some shelves that lined the side wall. I pasted a dejected look on my face as Nikka appeared at the foot of the stairs and stalked toward me.
“You stupid bitch—” she started to hiss at me before a lithe body appeared at her side and a small fist smashed straight into her temple. She crumpled to the floor immediately, and Harriet, still stark naked, kicked her in the stomach for good measure.
I hopped up to hustle over to them and peered down at Nikka’s unconscious form. Satisfied she was completely out, I extended my burned knuckles to Harriet for a well-deserved fist bump.
“You fucking clocked her, girl!” I crowed with pride. I gestured to the wolfsbane rope still wrapped around her arm. “Use that to tie her up. I’d help you but….” I held up my red, blistered hands.
“Say no more. I’ve got it,” she said, bending over and roughly yanking the bitch’s arms behind her back. She grinned up at me as she wound the rope around Nikka’s hands. “That felt so good.”
Harriet deserved to get more shots in, given what Nikka and her minions had done to her, but we were out of time.
Together we dragged Nikka’s scrawny body up the stairs to the main floor, then we headed in the direction of what could only be the loud snarling of wolves.
We came to a large ostentatious living room—because of course the Parkers lived in a gaudy Pack mansion—that was currently being destroyed by the two wolves fighting each other amongst the stuffy furniture and china figurines.
“Ben!” I shouted, throwing Nikka’s body out into the middle of the room. “Finish her!”
Our appearance, along with seeing her daughter tossed into the room like a sack of potatoes, was enough to pull the sleek black wolf away from her focus on the fight. Ben’s huge golden wolf seized the opening and leapt at her, clamping his jaws around her neck.
She whined with pain, and Ben only growled and sunk his teeth in deeper. I stepped gingerly over a broken coffee table to make my way to Ben’s side, stopping briefly to drag Nikka along with me.
“Naomi, you seem to have found yourself on the losing end of a fight with a Fortune Alpha,” I said as I stroked Ben’s shiny fur. “Now you and your daughter have something else to bond over besides being treacherous cunts and spreading your legs for the Monroes.”
Harriet snorted behind me and Ben chuffed, but then he decided to squeeze Naomi’s neck harder, causing her to yelp.
I crouched next to Naomi’s wolf head, grabbing Nikka by the hair as I did.
She was starting to stir, and I was glad she might be awake for this next part.
“You’re going to shift back, and you’re going to tell me where the Alpha is keeping Blake.
If you don’t, I’m going to slice your worthless daughter to ribbons. ”
To emphasize my commitment to this threat, I shifted my free hand into my wolf’s sharp claws, and I held them to Nikka’s pale exposed neck.
Naomi’s wolf eyes widened, then she shimmered back into a naked woman as Ben released his hold. “Don’t you touch her!”
Nikka was groaning as she came to, no doubt enjoying the feeling of the skin of her arms and wrists melting under the wolfsbane ropes. I pressed my sharp talon harder into her neck, making sure to draw blood. She hissed in pain.
“Okay!” Naomi shouted as Ben lorded over her, having haphazardly pulled his pants on at some point. “Okay, just get your claws off of her and I’ll tell you.” She started to stand but fell immediately back to her knees as Ben pulsed out his Alpha power and clobbered her into submission.
“She didn’t say you could get up,” he taunted her, smiling like he was complimenting her hair instead of threatening her life. “Do not fucking test us. Out with it.”
She shuddered and shook her head. I removed my claw from Nikka’s neck and sliced it down her arm in a quick, violent slash, opening a deep gash in her bicep. She screamed, and I relished it.
“He’s being held in the abandoned Pack dungeon house on the northwest corner of the territory!” Naomi screeched in horror, trying to reach for her daughter. I yanked Nikka out of her reach.
“Who else knows?” I barked at her while Nikka cried and struggled against her restraints.
“I… uh…,” Naomi stammered. Not fast enough, so I opened another deep cut on Nikka’s shoulder. They both screamed that time.
“My husband, the lead enforcer, and his deputy!” Naomi sobbed. “The Small Council all know about the mage, but the Alpha only trusted Angelo and two of the enforcers with the plan to capture him and turn him over to the National Council for the reward!”
I looked at Ben and nodded, indicating I was satisfied. “Drag her over here,” I said, and we set out tying Naomi and Nikka together with the wolfsbane rope with Harriet’s crucial help.
We gathered Harriet and Ben’s clothes into the small backpack they’d brought, which also contained their phones, and I added my clothes as I undressed and prepared to shift.
“I sent a text to Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest,” Ben said as we exited the house through the backyard, hoping to minimize the chance we’d be spotted on the main roads and reported to the Alpha. “I have no clue where the fuck they went to look for Blake, but apparently they’re an hour away from here.”
“Fuck ’em,” I said. “We don’t need their help, and I don’t trust them anyway.”
I shifted, followed closely by Harriet and Ben, who carried the backpack around his neck, and we ran into the Pack forest abutting the Pack leaders’ neighborhood. Harriet’s speedy rabbit kept pace with Ben and me as we loped toward the northwest corner of the territory.
“Keep calm, Magic,” Ben said in my head. “They’ve underestimated us again. We’ll get him.”
I snarled. Damn right we would.