36. Sadie
PUPPETS ON A STRING
We sat around the roaring fireplace in the great room.
Well, everyone faced the fire except for Aran, who sat with her back to the fire and a hoodie pulled over her head.
I’d asked Walter to turn it off, but Aran had snapped at me that she didn’t need to be babied and was fine.
Her face was pale, and her blue curls stuck out of her hood in every direction.
She wasn’t fine.
None of us were.
The fact that we had only tonight to capture the Ortega brothers and eliminate the Black Wolves was a tangible noose above our necks.
Now, after an hour of fruitless brainstorming—while the girls screamed upstairs like they were participating in their own fight club—we were no closer to a plan that sounded effective and feasible.
The whole not being able to shift in this realm, not having weapons, and having to get the attention of what sounded like masochist BDSM-prone alphas with a sex problem seemed impossible.
Cobra said for the millionth time, “I don’t understand why I can’t just use my snake venom to take them out.”
Jax snapped, “We’ve been over this. We’re not risking you getting killed because you shifted in front of people.”
“Technically, it’s not shifting,” Cobra argued back.
“Stop with the semantics.” Jax’s chest rattled with a roar. “No one’s going to care about the technicalities when there’s an enchanted bullet in your brain.”
“Jax’s right,” I said as Xerxes and Ascher nodded in agreement.
I sipped the hot coffee from my cup, which glowed blue with an enchantment that kept the liquid warm.
A sudden thought struck me. “Wait, how is everything in this realm enchanted? I thought it was a fae thing.”
Aran waved her hands dismissively. “Common misconception. A person ‘pure of soul’ who is particularly powerful burns a part of their flesh as a sacrifice to the sun god or moon goddess, and then the gods allow them to channel their will into an object. So any species can create an enchantment.”
I had the sudden urge to fling my coffee cup out of my hand. “That’s fucked up.”
Xerxes shrugged. “In this realm, the entire industry is run by one reclusive family. No one knows how they keep themselves pure, but it’s an extremely difficult endeavor.”
“Yeah, Mother had a man trapped in a palace room. He gave the flesh sacrifice. There was a separate palace department that came up with the uses.” Aran shuddered like she’d been overcome by a phantom chill.
I opened my mouth to ask a million more questions, but I remembered Aran saying she’d helped create enchantments.
From the sadness in her eyes, it hadn’t just been for fun.
“Back to the problem at hand,” Ascher said. “How the fuck are we supposed to catch the attention of the Ortega brothers, somehow get information on the Black Wolves, destroy the latter, and capture the former? All tonight at a BDSM club?”
He raked his hands through his horns and slumped back in his chair.
We were doomed.
Jax dragged his hands over his face tiredly.
“ Kill him !” Jinx screamed from the floor above, and then there was a loud crashing noise that sounded like a chandelier had shattered.
Walter was a blur of gray as he sprinted past the room.
None of us moved, but the anxiety in the room increased in intensity at the reminder that it wasn’t just our lives at risk if we failed at the third initiation task.
The girls would be alone in an unfamiliar world.
I dug my palms into my eyes. “Well, there’s only one option for the first part of the plan. We get the Ortega brothers’ attention by standing out in the club.”
Everyone stared at me.
“Sexually.” I grimaced.
Jax asked tiredly, “Sadie, how are we supposed to stand out in a club full of experienced BDSM players?”
“We could figure it out,” Xerxes said slowly as he thought about it. “It really is our only option.”
Cobra smirked, “I’m down.”
Ascher ran his hands roughly over his horns. “So you’re all fine with wax play? Whips? Floggings? Knife play? While a room full of strangers watches us? It’s fucking not that simple.”
I glanced over at Xerxes, who had a smirk on his lips. “I may have some experience with knife play.”
The men turned to him in shock.
Memories of his savagery in the bedroom made me shiver. I was not surprised.
Xerxes said with conviction, “It’s the only thing that makes sense. We have one night to pull this off. We don’t really have any other choice.”
“He’s right. We can do this,” I agreed.
Jax arched his brow like he didn’t believe me, but no one refuted the plan.
No one had a better idea.
“Say we catch the Ortega brothers’ attention,” Jax replied. “Then what are we supposed to do? They’ll have weapons and aren’t just going to give up the Black Wolves.”
Aran sat up straighter and waved her hand. “Oh, that part’s easy. It’s pretty obvious what you need to do.”
Everyone stared at her.
She narrowed her eyes when she realized it wasn’t obvious to everyone else, then sighed heavily.
“You’ll have to pretend to be disappointed with Xerxes.
And tell the Ortega brothers you want to give him back to the Black Wolves.
Then once they lead you to them, Sadie infects the brothers with her blood and holds them hostage.
To take out the wolves, Xerxes will have the element of surprise and he has the best chance of slitting their throats with the sex knife before they realize it’s a trap. ”
There was a long pause as her plan sank in.
“Fuck, that might work.” Ascher smiled down at Aran, who avoided eye contact and bit harder on her nails.
“I like it.” Cobra’s jewels flashed to snakes like he was imagining the carnage.
Jax shrugged. “I don’t have a better idea. I say we go for it.”
The three alphas nodded, clearly relieved that we had some type of game plan and there was some hope we would survive this.
“We can’t,” I said as my stomach hurt thinking about it. “We can’t do that to Xerxes.”
Xerxes had been sitting as still as a statue the entire time.
But I knew him enough to notice that his fingers gripped the hilts of his knives too tightly.
I remembered the horror on his face when he was worried he’d bitten me too hard.
How he’d trembled to hold himself back, terrified of driving me away with his intensity.
The shame etched onto his face.
Rage bubbled in my throat.
The fucking Black Wolves hadn’t just hurt him physically. Emotional scars went deep.
With flames casting shadows across his almost too-pretty features, long blond hair flowing around his waist, Xerxes’s purple eyes hardened into chips of amethyst. “I can do it.”
I said quietly, “You shouldn’t have to. It’s not fair to you.”
He clenched his jaw. “Life isn’t fair.”
Cobra hissed, “We will do thissss to destroy the cowardssss that hurt him. We will tear them limb from limb and sssshow them what happenssss when you hurt our pack.”
Xerxes looked over at Cobra, his lips parting slightly, like he hadn’t expected him to care so much about his well-being.
Xerxes looked away. “You don’t need to do this for my sake. We can just take out the Ortega brothers and ignore the wolves. I don’t expect everyone to put themselves in danger for me. I know the circumstances of our pack were forced.”
Cobra hissed, and Ascher’s horns expanded.
It was Jax who laid a hand on Xerxes’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter how it came to be. We are a pack, and you are one of us now. We look out for each other.”
Ascher shifted uncomfortably. “Besides my idiocy in the past, what Jax says is true. We’re a pack, and you’re our omega. I wouldn’t want to stand beside anyone else.”
Cobra nodded. “From what we’ve learned, omegas are usually weak, simpering fools who can’t defend themselves from harm.” He shivered, like the thought disgusted him. “You’re the only omega I’d want in our pack.”
Panic bubbled in my throat at the reminder that the don still expected them to find a female omega.
Xerxes stared at the alphas, a sheen across his eyes, and when he spoke, his smooth voice was uncharacteristically rough. “I wouldn’t want any other alphas.” He paused. “Besides Sadie, of course.”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Don’t let me ruin the moment. And seriously, Xerxes, you belong with us—them, I mean. Anyone can see it.”
“Kitten’s right,” Cobra confirmed as he leaned over and slammed his fist into Xerxes’s arm.
From anyone else, it would have looked like Cobra was attacking Xerxes.
At the contact, a massive grin split Xerxes’s face, and he slammed his fist back into Cobra’s bicep. “You’re not so bad, for an alpha.”
Ascher chuckled. “Just give it a year. You’ll want to kill him.”
Jax wrapped his arm around Cobra’s neck and ruffled his dark hair. “He’s an acquired taste. Like whiskey.”
Cobra’s canines lengthened, and he bit down on Jax’s forearm.
Jax didn’t flinch.
“He’s definitely vodka,” I said, thinking about how Cobra’s alpha scent resembled frostbite.
“How very touching,” Aran said dryly as she chewed her nails. “The only problem with the plan is the Black Wolves themselves. We don’t know what they know, and they could have a contingency plan, or be expecting us.”
I looked at her in confusion. “How would they have a plan when we just decided to try to get to them? We weren’t even going to go after them until the don gave us a hint.”
Ascher shook his head. “I think your plan is sound, Aran. You don’t need to worry.”
Jax and Cobra nodded in agreement.
Xerxes stayed silent. He seemed to be reeling from the alphas’ admission that they viewed him as their omega.
Aran stood and said she was going to bed.
As she walked by, she muttered something under her breath about attending our funerals.
In her absence, the flames in the fireplace cracked and popped louder, reaching new heights.
Like her presence had been stifling them.
My gut twisted as, once again, a sense of déjà vu washed over me.
Like something was so obvious, but it was just outside my fingertips.
The men formulated the specifics of the plan, how we would treat Xerxes, and what toys we should use.