Chapter 20 Silas
Witch fire sizzles out of his fingertips. He's not as skilled with the fire element as Deidre, but up close, it doesn't really matter. The zap fires out of his fingers, tracing up my leg.
I could kill him. Deidre hasn't reinforced the directive in a while.
And Pierre no longer has any magical power over me, not like in the beginning when I was first taken.
They threw so much magic at me, it was like they pumped me full of heroin and I complied—I didn't resist, anyway—with whatever they wanted to do to me.
I could snap his neck. Snuff out his life forever.
But I'd still have to get out of here. I can leave the basement, the spelled barriers are weak to me.
But the last time Deidre sent me on a mission—to meet my honey-sweet mate, who I likely will never see again—she still needed to lower the barrier for me to cross the property.
It's flexible down here, but there are enough setbacks that I'm not prepared to make a break for it. Not yet.
And not without Lily.
She's put up a hell of a fight for a delta. I can't just… let her die.
I keep seeing my Mona in her. Physically small, pathetic, weak.
Mentally, an absolute powerhouse. I don't even know Mona, but I keep asking myself what she'd want me to do.
And I like to imagine her as a kind person.
Someone who doesn't take the easy route.
She couldn't, not with that man who pretended to be her father, or Deidre, pumping her full of drugs her entire life to suppress her wolf.
Mona would want me to protect Lily. And since I'll probably die soon, I'll do it protecting her. Both of them.
As long as Deidre is busy with me, trying to figure out why I won't—can't—impregnate Lily, she's too busy to hunt down my omega.
It's impossible to ignore Pierre, so I do the opposite.
I smile wide, letting my sharp teeth hover close to his neck.
He smells of magic. Sulfur and anthracite.
Stones and deep earth, like a musty root cellar.
It's tinged a little sweet. He gets turned on when he's scared.
He's a total simp, begging me to snap and have my way with him.
He loves my teeth so close, even knowing I'm dreaming of the day I sink them in and tear out his carotid.
Pierre sits on my chest, tearing holes in my flesh.
The witch fire leaves a trail of that burnt-flesh stench, and the acrid, oily scent of fire.
He cuts through layers, and in some ways, I'm immune to the physical pain, but with every cut, it feels like he's making my heart a little smaller, a little darker.
When I met Mona, the finest sliver of humanity ripped through me—a flash of light after years of darkness.
But she's gone, and that light is fading.
I still dream of her—my Mona, free from Deidre's grip, finding Orion and my brother, living a happy life somewhere safe—but I have to bury the dream deep, protect it from all this misery, hide it where I don't have to confront the painful truth: I will never be a part of her future.
For now, I survive to kill all these people. And to free Lily. That is my goal.
I let the darkness twist my black heart.
Pierre's weight shifts as he shimmies down my legs, fingernails carving runes into my flesh.
Blood wells up in thin lines across my abdomen before the skin stitches back together.
Pierre fucking delights in a shifter's ability to heal.
I tense when he moves lower, closer to my pelvis, hating myself more than him in that moment—hating that after everything, my body still remembers how to fear.
But Pierre doesn't touch my cock. He's not allowed to, not anymore. Not now that Deidre has decided my only purpose is to impregnate a wolf—any wolf, apparently. Pierre pouts before climbing off me. And I lie there, perfectly still, counting all the ways I will kill him.
"Pity." He gets up and wanders to the cell door, still swung open. He spares Lily a glance. She's passed out, thankfully. Or maybe in a coma. That would be better.
It's been a while since she's spoken.
The air is damp and musty, but her sunny, beachy scent cuts through the stench. She's naked except for the torn shirt I draped over her body. She shivers even in her sleep. Not from cold, but from terror.
Pierre's eyes glitter in the dim light. His tongue darts out, wetting his lower lip.
"You would make a beautiful child. I don't know what the hold-up is, but I will figure it out.
You'll impregnate the girl, and then I can have my toys back.
And when she gives birth…" he sucks air through his teeth.
The bulge in his pants throbs, but he doesn't touch himself.
I grin wide.
Wider, still.
More feral.
More psychotic.
More teeth. More hate. More rage.
White-hot fucking fury ripples through me. For a second, I have to physically restrain my wolf as he thrashes against my insides. His claws press against my skin, testing the barrier. He's so close to breaking free.
It's coming. A ripple of fur erupts along my arm. Deidre's spell, explicitly directing me not to shift, hammers against my head. The pain cracks through me as the spell begins to break, and it happens again. Another ripple. Slow, painful, a mere shred of free will, but it's enough.
I tell my wolf to calm. To be patient.
It's like arguing with a tsunami.
But the shift recedes because my wolf knows if we have any chance of making it out of here, of saving Lily, he needs to wait. It's not time.
Pierre notices my internal war, but the sadistic gleam in his eyes tells me he's misread it completely.
I might actually get out of this.
The realization slams into me. One I've thought a thousand times before, but until this very moment, I never really believed it.
My grin grows wider. I bark out a laugh.
Pierre has no idea what's coming for him. He thinks I'm losing my will, my sanity. My humanity, long gone. Maybe I'm not doing a very good job of concealing my smile. My real one.
God, it's been years, but I feel it stretch across my face. My laugh is hoarse, sharp.
Pierre's right eye twitches, his confidence cracking just an inch.
The barriers, the spells, they all fall when the coven dies or dismantles. And I'm going to slaughter every single person in this godforsaken hellhole. I'm going to paint the ceilings with their blood.
A plan forms, fast and choppy. My wolf jumps and paces, ready to shift, but I hold him back. Deidre may have my blood in that vial around her neck, but she doesn't have Lily's.
We just need to get Lily's strength back, and then we're out of here. We will leave nothing behind but corpses.
The witches may have held me longer, but Lily will have just as much revenge in her heart as I do. They tried to steal her autonomy, her body, her will.
I will kill every witch in this hell house, or I will die trying. No more torture. No more rape.
Pierre stares at me for a beat too long.
Then, he reaches down and tosses in a few water bottles and a couple of raw steaks, the point of his visit.
The door creaks shut, and he saunters up the stairs.
He tries to walk slowly, but there's a hitch in his step.
I unsettled him. Scared him. Truly, this time.
Not the fun, exciting kind of fear that gets him hard.
I wait until I know he's gone, counting his footsteps as they fade up the stairwell, then crawl over to Lily, lumped across the cold floor.
I lift her head. Her hair is stringy, matted with sweat.
They spelled her, inducing a false omega heat.
Or something like a heat, since deltas don't naturally have them.
Her body wasn't prepared for it. Worse, I couldn't—wouldn't—fuck her to take the edge off.
I couldn't do that to myself, to my mate, or to Lily.
She came at me for hours, and I held her back. It was hard watching her suffer over and over again. Begging for a knot. She can't even take a knot, no delta can. But whatever magic they gave her made her think she could, and she was relentless.
I unscrew one of the water bottles, pouring only enough to fill the cap. If she's going to get her strength back enough for us to break out of here, I need to ration. I dribble the water between her cracked lips.
She doesn't stir, but her throat works reflexively, swallowing every drop. I wait a few minutes and do it again until finally, a soft moan escapes her, eyelids fluttering. They open slowly, red-rimmed, pupils still blown out from the spell.
As soon as she's conscious, she begins sobbing—deep, guttural sounds that wrack her small frame. I hold her awkwardly, doing my best to be patient. Wanting her to get over it and make a plan with me. But also knowing what it would have meant to have someone with me in the early days.
I guess my heart isn't all black, because I hold her while she cries. I say nothing. I rub her shoulder, feeling detached from her emotions, knowing I can't take them on if I'm going to do what needs to be done.
Eventually, she's awake enough to drink more water. She trembles and I help her, capfuls first, before she can hold the bottle herself. I eat some of the meat, but force Lily to eat the rest. She argues, insisting we share.
Until I tell her my idea. How we're getting out of here, how I've got my wolf back, how his fur erupted along my arms, and I'm finally ready to shift. I tell her about my blood around Deidre's neck, and how the other witches have no power over me.
And then she eats everything. Because I was right. Little delta Lily has some revenge on her mind, and for the first time in years, I have not just an ally, but a fucking partner in crime.
We spend the rest of the night making an escape plan.