Chapter 2
Noa
Siggy emerges first, her dark blue eyes wide but vacant.
Her shoulders are curled in, like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible, and I can’t tell if it’s the compulsion or her trauma resurfacing.
Edie follows, usually the light and joy of any room, her deep olive skin now ashen and her lips parted in a dazed, dreamlike expression.
Her bare feet shuffle, dragging softly across the cement floor.
This was supposed to be their refuge, I was supposed to be their refuge.
But as I stare at my Nightingales, blank-eyed and held hostage, all I can feel is the weight of every promise I failed to keep.
I told them they’d be safe here. I swore it.
And now their lives are hanging in the balance.
Next is Rhosyn, and the sight of her knocks the air out of me.
The fire, the confident swagger that’s always accompanied the beta female is nowhere to be seen.
Her walk is stiff and uncoordinated. Her arms dangle at her sides like they no longer belong to her.
Her curly hair, which had been pulled into a bun atop her head when I left them, is now half undone, strands falling into her green eyes and around her neck.
It’s the hair of someone who put up one hell of a fight while she could.
A fight she shouldn’t be part of. She should be with her mate, far from here. Safe.
And then there’s Seren. My other half.
She’s the only one who moves with purpose, the only one seemingly awake. Her light blonde hair is also a tangled mess, and from here I can just make out the trickle of dried blood trailing from the corner of her mouth to her elfin chin. From a punch, no doubt. Seren wouldn’t have gone down quietly.
Her ice blue eyes snap to her daughter the moment she enters the room, widening as Ivey lets out another whimper. The tremor in her jaw tells me she’s barely holding it together, but she’s still with me. Watching and calculating.
Malvina had said it herself when she spoke of her silver-tongued sister Evara.
Charmers are immune to compulsion. That means the others are under a spell.
I glance between the two new witches, my attention settling on the smiley one.
I mark her as the compeller instantly. There’s something hungry in the way she watches my friends, like they’re her favorite toys and she’s brought them out to play.
Malvina, who I’ve marked as the leader of the terrible trio, catches my flicker of realization.
“We had to get creative with that one,” she says, nodding toward Seren.
She jostles Ivey a little on her hip, making the baby whine.
“This little darling woke up from her slumber at just the right moment. Fortuitous timing. Couldn’t have planned it better myself. ”
A snarl more beast than human rips through the tension in the air. Seren. Her eyes have shifted into those of her wolf’s as her animal half pushes forward, every fiber within her desperate to protect her pup.
“Give me my daughter,” my best friend demands through clenched teeth.
I’ve seen her unwavering fight before—for our Nightingales, for me—but this is different.
This is mother. Pure, blinded instinct. Her hands twitch like she might leap, and my heart stutters with panic, afraid she won’t wait.
I silently plead with her. Please, Ser. Not yet.
We’re already at a disadvantage here, acting rashly won’t help matters.
I stand from my crouch before the fallen Alpha, the surge of adrenaline keeping my legs steady.
Kneeling beneath these witches isn’t something I can tolerate any longer, neither is giving them the satisfaction of looking down on me.
I need to be on their level. Ready. If Seren snaps, if everything goes to shit, we’ll have seconds to react. And I won’t be caught on my knees.
The witch tsks, shaking her head mockingly at Seren as she pets Ivey’s head in a parody of comfort. “Now, why would I do that?” she asks. “I’m enjoying her. It’s rare you encounter something in life this innocent. Untouched by the horrors of this world. This fragile…”
Seren’s bare foot has lifted just an inch off the floor when Malvina’s hand goes from stroking the baby to reaching for something in the waistband of her black trousers.
What follows is almost elegant in its efficiency.
One quick pull and a blade gleams in her hand.
Curved deliberately to resemble a wolf’s claw, the serrated steel is brutal enough it could have been forged in the fires of the underworld.
The crusted blood caked on the wicked metal speaks for itself.
It’s the weapon that was used to cut down Lowri.
Seren turns to stone, frozen mid-step, her eyes locked on the edge of the demon-made blade currently hovering too close to her pup’s neck.
Ivey! My best friend’s broken scream cracks across my mind, frayed with the kind of fear that can only be felt by mothers. The intensity of it makes my whole body jolt like I’ve been struck.
“Don’t,” my friend pleads aloud. “Please.”
Beside her, Evara takes in the standoff like it’s theater, her body vibrating with glee.
It’s impossible to tell who she’s rooting for.
Maybe the outcome doesn’t matter, as long as someone bleeds.
The other witch, the one with the braid, looks at them with flat disinterest, as if this is all beneath her.
My heart is in my throat as Malvina’s full attention falls to the baby again, and I catch the shift in her expression.
The chilling kind of interest bordering on clinical.
As if she’s examining something delicate just to see how easily it shatters.
Like how someone might study a glass vase just before they drop it. I need to redirect her.
Now.
“Enough,” I snap. There’s a steady strength in my voice I’m pleasantly surprised to hear. It sure as hell doesn’t match how I feel inside, but these bitches don’t need to know that. “You said you were here for me, remember? So take me and let them go. I won’t fight you.”
Just as I’d hoped, every witch’s attention is now on me. Good. I can live with that.
But that cold dread that’s been a constant since I returned home to find this living nightmare amps up to a new level when both Evara and Malvina laugh.
“No, no, dear,” Evara chirps, skipping on light feet down the row of my girls, booping each one on the nose as she passes.
As expected, Seren’s the only one who reacts, snapping her teeth just shy of the crazed compeller’s digit.
“We’re not leaving without them. They’re our prize.
Our fee for our aid today.” She wanders to stand before Rhosyn, head cocking as she examines the silent Fallamhain Pack member.
“Even betas have a place at our auction. They don’t fetch omega prices, of course, but some alphas will still pay a pretty penny for them.
They’re not built to take a knot, not that it stops these alphas.
They like the fight. The damage. The way a beta’s body splits when it’s forced to take something their biology never intended.
” She spins on her heel toward me, all teeth and madness.
“But no auction for you, Noa Alderwood. You’re a private sale.
Off-market. Pity. A latent omega and Thalassa’s daughter? You would have gone for gold.”
“She would have been more lucrative for us at one of the clubs,” the silent sister adds, her voice as flat as her expression.
There’s no malice or an undertone of a threat.
Just cold, clinical facts. Like she’s the accountant at some twisted board meeting, bringing the focus back to profit margins.
To her, that’s all we are. Numbers. Inventory.
Like we’re not trembling friends or screaming daughters who would be missed when we’re gone.
Brightside? If Seren is gone too, no one will be out there missing me. Aside from her, my adopted sister, I’m untethered.
My wolf, who’s been seething beneath my skin, pacing the ever-present cage she inhabits, snarls at this, her disagreement immediate.
Rennick. He will care. My mate will care. Her message isn’t spoken in actual words, but I hear them nonetheless. Her steadfast belief in the man making it clear as day to me.
Thinking of him is a mistake. It triggers that raw ache, pulling the same useless cry from my soul that rang out the first time. A call into silence. A plea that won’t be answered for a myriad of reasons.
Rennick, please. I need you.
Him being nearly a hundred miles away is the biggest problem right now. I have to find a way out of this on my own. My mind is a tangle of frantic thoughts, grasping and scrambling for any route that might get them out of here alive. Every possibility I cling to unravels as fast as I can think it.
But my attempt at an escape plan is short-lived.
“We need to get moving,” the quiet one with the braid reminds her sisters for the second time.
It already feels like ages since she revealed herself with the rest of them, but I know it’s only been mere moments.
Terror and dread have a way of making time crawl.
“The others won’t keep the distractions topside much longer.
” The whole time, my focus has been on the ones in this room.
But that was a mistake. Of course they wouldn’t risk an attack on a town protected by both wolves and witches without backup.
Someone has to keep the rest of our people occupied while these three tear through my home.
Which means others, people I care about, could be dying.
Or already dead. The realization turns my stomach.
“The Ashvale Coven will know by now a void took out the Priestess’s border.
” What is a void? “And the wolves no doubt have picked up on their Alpha’s absence. ”