Chapter 4 - Nicholas #2
I meet her eyes, innocent and untainted, still too naive to see anything but the good in others, and for a second, I wish it wasn’t true. I really do.
“I wish I were lying,” I murmur earnestly, then grab the torn hem of my shirt and rip it open, baring my shoulder and angling it in a way that allows the moonlight to illuminate it.
The bite mark gleams moist and crimson beneath the moonlight, already darkening around the edges.
“You see this? He did this. Right after his eyes turned black.”
Donna stumbles back, her hand flying to her mouth, a small, broken, muffled squeak escaping her. It’s a sound I’ve heard before, once, a year ago. The night I made the biggest mistake of my life.
And Goddess knows I hate that I’m the reason she’s tearing up again, staring at me in disbelief.
Dominic’s eyes widen, fury simmering beneath the surface of his hardened face. Cecelia’s hand tightens on his arm.
“Are you sure?” Dominic asks, voice steady but low.
I know he’s only asking me for his sister’s sake, because Dominic trusts me.
That much I’m sure of. We’ve had each other’s backs during our missions, our lives depending on each other’s skills and combat training at different points during those years.
And his trust is the very reason he doesn’t know about last summer.
“Positive,” I concur with a firm nod as we were back in a mission debriefing.
“He’s a werewolf, and he shifted when I caught him conspiring with that…
thing. He’d been masking his scent all this time to appear human.
I chased him into the forest, but he disappeared.
” I glance at Donna briefly just to gauge her reaction, noticing that she’s still gaping at me with pale disbelief.
“His scent disappeared, too,” I continue as I turn back to Dominic. “Just gone like it was wiped clean. He’s not an ordinary wolf, Dom. He was hiding something. And if he’s working with whatever that thing was, then Donna’s life is in danger.”
Donna shakes her head, tears spilling freely now. “No…he wouldn’t…he wouldn’t hurt me.”
I step closer, my voice rough. “He was planning on doing just that,” I tell her, staring deeply and determinedly into her eyes. “He lied to you, deceived you, and he was planning on doing much worse.”
Donna stares at me with tear-stricken eyes, brows furrowed as if she’s trying to hang on to some part of her that believes I’m lying.
Dominic exhales sharply, running a hand down his face before wearing the expression of a man meaning business, glancing back toward the others’ tents.
“We’ll wake the rest,” he mutters. “Everyone needs to hear this.”
Minutes later, we’re gathered around the dead fire pit as if it’s a makeshift meeting den. The familiar faces of our friends watch me, tension written in their eyes as I recount what I saw and heard.
When I’m done, only the sound of crickets fills the air while silence stretches over the group.
Tyler is the first to break it. “If Tobias masked his scent, he’s not working alone. No one werewolf can do that.”
“We don’t even know where he might be from,” Sean mutters grimly.
“Well, whether he’s from a pack or a lone wolf, he’s tied to some nasty things, and I have no idea what it was,” I add with a shiver.
“What if it was one of the bad witches?” Arianna suggests, eyes narrowing as she stares at Tyler contemplatively.
“Like the one that poisoned Gwen?” he considers, and she nods.
Dominic nods thoughtfully, too, the muscles in his jaw flexing. “But why would they come after my sister?”
Arianna shrugs diffidently. “It’s just a hunch. The dark lord is no fool. He knows we’re all linked. What if he’s targeting you and Donna for simply having anything to do with us?”
“Guilty by association,” Dominic scoffs. “Or, I made an enemy out there in black ops, and this is a revenge plot.”
“We’ll have to do some digging, Alpha,” Santo says, fully in beta-mode.
Dominic nods, and Sean offers to pull out all the stops to dig into who Tobias Peck is.
“We might not know for sure why he's doing this, but this is bad. If Tobias was planted…if he was meant to get close to Donna…”
“That’s exactly what he was meant to do,” I cut in, the words leaving a bitter taste swirling in my mouth. “Like I said, I heard the cloaked figure telling him to. That means whoever is behind this wants her for something. Maybe leverage. Maybe worse.”
Cecelia swallows hard, her hand tightening on Dominic’s arm. “So what do we do now?”
I take a breath while everyone considers the question, my gaze drifting to Donna, her tear-streaked cheeks, the disbelief still swimming in her eyes. My wolf growls internally, protective, possessive.
Right now, the only solid thing we have is the fact that Tobias Peck is a threat.
The rest is merely speculation, and the truth will come to light soon enough.
We'll deal with it then, as we always do.
It was easy to make enemies out there in black ops, but our squad also made stronger bonds with each other, and we'll continue having each other's backs no matter what comes our way. I don't doubt that.
But until then, Donna's life is in danger, and I can't stand idly by and do nothing about it. My inner wolf won't let me.
There has to be something…
The answer comes before I can mull over it or decide that it’s a bad idea.
“She gets married.” The words fall like pebbles into the pond of silence that stretched over us, ripples of shock spreading through the group.
“What?!” Donna exclaims.
I turn to her, forcing myself to stay steady.
“You heard me. If Tobias was ordered to seduce you, it’s because your unattached mate bond makes you vulnerable.
If you’re mated, it seals you off, protects you from that kind of danger,” I reason.
“It’s the one thing no spell, no dark magic, can break.
So, even if it’s the witches or the warlock behind this, you’ll be safe in that sense. ”