Chapter Nine
“Where do you want me to start?” Badr asked, addressing the trees out the window.
“After you buried me alive and left me for dead would be a good start.”
The six of us were in my chambers. The guys were scattered around various parts of the room as though they didn’t know how to come together after being on opposite sides for so long. But I was there, wrapped up under my covers, so they were too.
Badr nodded, still not looking at me. “After I left you, I ran from the grounds and went to hide at a friend’s house. I kept waiting for someone to come for me—arrest me—but no one did. While I waited, everything you said to me replayed over and over again in my mind.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t believe my father or the alpha council could do those horrible things. I believed that easily,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe that the brother who told me everything would leave out the little tidbit of him being murdered while on the hunt for a soul stealer, all so he could protect his unborn child.
“It was too big a secret to keep from me, especially when he knew that secret affected me too. I refused to believe he wouldn’t have told me, but then one day, it occurred to me... that he did.”
My brows snapped together. “It occurred to you that he did tell you the truth? What does that mean?”
Badr sighed. Coming away from the window, he perched on the end of my bed—meeting my gaze head-on. “After Castor tracked me down and we got to know each other, he told me about his life growing up and I told him about mine. Castor had it all. Butlers, chefs, grand playrooms, and a treehouse in the backyard that might as well have been a treemansion.
“I told him I didn’t grow up with any of the above, but I did sometimes wish for a treehouse.” Badr cracked a smile. “So what did the sentimental geek go out and do? He paid a forest wolf to build a treehouse in the woods halfway between our houses. I told him you don’t give your fucking seventeen-year-old brother a treehouse for his birthday, but he just laughed at me and said, I’d better meet up with him in there at least once a month, or he’d track me down.”
A laugh, just like Castor’s laugh, left his lips. “We hung out there for a year, but then Cygnus sent him to Europe and Mom sent me away for alpha training. After that, we still hung out, talked, and called each other, but we never went back to the treehouse.
“It didn’t occur to me until I was holed up in my friend’s basement, trying to make sense of things, that if my brother had to tell me something and he wanted to make sure no one else would find out—”
“—he’d leave you a message in that old treehouse.”
He nodded. “And that’s exactly what he did. In the treehouse, under a loose floorboard, was a letter explaining everything you told me. About Dagem, the wolfsbane, the shadow, and Project Destiny. All of it laid out in his weird, loopy, unintelligible scrawl. After I read that, I made a plan.”
“A plan that you didn’t bother to let me in on.”
“Yeah.” He gave me a look. “How’s it feel?”
I snatched up a pillow and flung it at his head.
He easily ducked it, chuckling.
Orion came over from his seat at my desk. “After he read the letter, he came to visit me in prison.” Orion knelt beside the bed and took my hand.
I let him.
“All that rage that I felt toward you then just vanished,” Orion said softly. “I was making everything about me and my daddy issues, while you were fighting to protect our kid and her future. I didn’t know and I still hate myself for getting in the way.
“I deserved you putting me in prison,” he gritted. “I didn’t trust you. I didn’t trust Luame. I didn’t trust anyone after my father, and it made me into everything I didn’t want to be—a cold, hateful loner destroying everyone around him.
“It made me into him.”
“Don’t say that,” I cried, grabbed our linked hands with my other one. “It wasn’t your fault. Of course you thought I was your enemy, I did everything in my power to make you think I was.”
“So did I when I came back.” He winced, scrunching his regal nose beneath his glasses. “I hated saying those things to you, and sabotaging the forums. Even to keep up the act, that was a new low.”
“Yeah, why did you have to act like total, rotting assholes?” I swung to Badr. “You turned all the alphas against me, kicked off a riot, and tried to murder me!”
His face was grave. “We had to. That was the plan.”
“Getting students killed was the plan?”
Badr didn’t drop his gaze. “No, getting you to lead us to the vocal cord killer was.”
I rocked back, falling quiet.
“I knew you did something to my father the day Orion was arrested,” he continued. “There was just no way he’d stand there like an idiot, nodding and smiling over everything you said, unless something was wrong.
“After I heard he was out of work sick , I tracked him down immediately. That fucker never takes off work. His only goal in life was to die at his desk. If he was gone, he was either in some dark hole licking his wounds, plotting revenge, or both.
“Unsurprisingly, it was both,” he said. “He was raging about you taking his voice, and even though he was supposed to be working for you to get it back, the whole time he was communicating with the rest of the alpha council to take you down.” Badr gave me a wry look. “You know the secret police were never sent here to investigate Dagem’s murder, right? The whole time, they’ve been waiting for orders to strike.”
“I did know,” I admitted. “They made it too obvious. The whole time, the bastards didn’t even pretend to gather evidence or interrogate people. The truth is the alpha council didn’t want them or anyone near Dagem’s murder, because if they did enough digging, they’d find the trail to Castor’s murder... and them.”
“Yeah,” he whispered, fists crumpling the sheets.
We were quiet for a moment.
“There’s more,” I spoke up. “There has to be, because so far, you haven’t explained why you kicked off a riot.”
“We didn’t want to,” Orion replied. “Cygnus’s plan was to have the secret police drag you, the epsilons, and everyone on your side off the grounds by their tails. They were going to lock you up in some secret prison, and torture you for the vocal cord killer, your allies, everything. And then when he was done breaking you, he was going to force us to bond.”
“We couldn’t let that happen,” Badr said, picking up the thread of the conversation. “We couldn’t let him bring you somewhere we couldn’t control or that you couldn’t escape from. We couldn’t let him hurt you, or kill the omega scourge festering in the academy. Because that was his first and last plan, Daze. To kill every omega in the school and throw you in a hole where you’d never be found.”
He sighed. “I convinced him there was a better, easier way. Let you keep playing pretend queen while we secretly sabotage you. Then all of Wolf Nation would see you and your little uprising implode, and they’d never question alpha dominance again. While you’re failing, I’d search for the cord killer, destroy every last bit of it, and then I’d bring you in for the bonding.
“He agreed,” Badr forced out. “The shit even praised me for my wickedness, but it all hinged on destroying the voice killer. The rest of the alpha council refused to set foot in the same room with you until it was gone, and we needed them in the same room if we were going to challenge them all, and end this fight once and for all.”
Paxton, Nyx, and Edric posted up at different parts of the room, saying nothing, but listening to every word.
“We tried more subtle approaches to get you to lead us to the voice killer,” Orion said. “I got in your face that night in the great room, hoping I could provoke you into wanting to shut me up for good—didn’t work. Then I encouraged Megan to make a scene at the first forum and blew up the projection equipment—still nothing.” He jerked his chin at Badr. “That’s when I told him to come back. Badr walking the halls again would have to do it, but again no.”
I tossed my head, eyes blown at all the secret maneuvering going on right behind my back. Badr was right, it didn’t feel great.
“Is that why you pushed to see Hope, and then insulted her?” I asked. “Because that was quite the fucking risk. I was more tempted to rip your vocal cords out.”
Badr cringed. “I hated saying every single fucking word of that. I pushed to see her... because I just wanted to see her. To know what I was fighting for, because she’s worth you almost taking my head off. I knew that with one look.”
I swallowed hard, eyes filling. “Yes, she is.”
“But we did need to push harder, so... we had Tracy attack you,” Orion forced. “An alpha making one of your friends hit you, that was big-time reason to bust out the voice killer, but you didn’t.”
“So you took the final and most extreme step.” My eyes squeezed shut. “Causing a riot, hurting my friends, getting me beaten within an inch of my life, and making me truly believe you were going to kill me.” I barked a mirthless laugh. “Well, points to you, you were right. That did work.”
“We didn’t want to do it, Daciana,” Badr cried. “Cygnus was getting impatient. The other night, he told us we had twelve hours to deliver, or he was taking over. He could read a calendar too. He knew it was the full moon. He knew whatever he busted in here to do, you couldn’t stop him.
“We believed that nothing we did would be as bad as what he and the secret police were willing to do.” Badr heaved. I knew Melisent’s screams as the blade fell rang as loud in his head as it did mine. “And we were right.”
“Still,” Orion said forcefully. “We’re sorry. We’re so sorry for everything that happened that morning. I hated every fucking minute of it. I showered for five hours after Nyx took you away, and I still don’t feel clean.”
Badr closed the distance, taking my other hand. “I’m sorry, Daciana. I never wanted to hurt you, and I swear on Luame,” he said, shocking me, “I will never hurt you again.”
I was quiet for a long time, considering. Nyx, Paxton, and Edric could’ve spoken up in my head, chiming in with their own thoughts, but they didn’t. They gave me space to think about it on my own, and I appreciated that more than I could say.
My own mates conspired behind my back to destroy my only weapon against the alphas. A weapon that wasn’t just for me, but for Hope. Cooing in her crib in Incepe Din was the most powerful omega in the world. How many alphas and betas would try to use her? And how would she stop them if they did?
I grew that patch to pass down to her and our future children someday, and it was all gone—along with seven innocent lives. I should’ve protected Zarina, Ava, Melisent, and the others. They were never pawns to me. I cared about protecting them and giving them a better future in the way the alpha council was supposed to—unselfishly. So in every way that mattered, we may have struck a victory that day, but we hadn’t won.
“Okay,” I said softly. “This is a war. It was going to be bloody. There would’ve inevitably been days like this, but when a soldier goes to war, they know who and what they’re fighting, and they make the choice to do so. You—” I shook my head. “ We took that choice away from them. You two did by running your games and cons, and I did by keeping the shadow and Project Destiny a secret.
“People need to know,” I got out, feeling my chest loosen just that tiniest bit. “They need to know the next generation of super wolves arrives in less than three months. They need to know there’s a lurking, shadow-stealing beast on the hunt, and they need to prepare to protect their children.”
I lifted my chin, holding tight to their hands. “You are the alpha council of Wolf Nation. I am your high priestess. We have a chance to do what the ones before us never fucking did, and that’s fight for all of our people—not just ourselves. Let’s do that by being honest with them. Let’s do that by listening to them.
“And let’s do that by killing for them.” My gaze flicked to my desk, and the sketch lying on top. “Starting with that filthy, evil bastard—the shadow.”
Five pairs of eyes flashed gold.
“Agreed.”
***