Chapter Twenty #2
Silas grunts. Bishop has the two wolves haul Lenora into a chair. Then he warns against her using any magic. Her niece is here and unharmed, but a captive. The implication is clear. Use magic, and I’ll pay the price.
Clever Bishop. I might hate him using me to keep Lenora calm, but it’s better than beating her into submission.
Bishop removes the gag. When it’s off, Lenora shakes her hair, as if waking herself up and finding her dignity.
The movement has her inhaling in pain from her injuries, but she quickly masks it.
Her gaze goes to me, and she’s finally awake enough to see my bonds.
Her eyes narrow, but I shake my head, conveying that I’m fine, wishing I could say it, tell her I’m sorry, tell her how much I love her.
That can wait. For now, I must stay calm.
Lenora rolls her shoulders, settles in, and turns to my father.
“Hello, Silas.” Her head tilts. “I thought we had an agreement.”
“We did. It ended.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me, I see.”
Silas turns to me. “Your aunt paid me to stay away. Paid me a small fortune each year. I didn’t ask for it. I asked for access to my daughter, but she took advantage of my financial woes to keep you all to herself. Now that the Pack has recovered its footing, she no longer has that power over me.”
I keep my expression blank, but inwardly, I roll my eyes. After all that he’s done to me, he still thinks he can position himself as my loving father?
Go along with it. Let him think I believe him. Lenora’s lips tighten, and she remains equally silent. Don’t argue when we are not in any position to do so.
“I presume this isn’t a renegotiation,” Lenora says dryly.
“No. I’m the Alpha. Cordelia is my daughter. By law—Pack and human—I can do with her what I choose. I’ve chosen to give her to Bishop.”
My aunt’s calm cracks, and her gaze flies to Bishop. “What?”
“Cordelia has agreed to be my mate,” Bishop says.
A note in his voice warns my aunt to play along, but my aunt doesn’t know Bishop. She hears his cool voice, sees his shuttered gaze, and snaps, “You mean you’ve threatened her until she agreed.”
I shake my head, trying to tell her not to do this, don’t push, but her attention only moves from Bishop to my father.
“Have you told Cordelia that you had her mother murdered?” she says.
My head whips up. The shock passes in an instant. I wouldn’t put it past him to murder my mother, and if he did, he’ll pay. What I care about right now is that Lenora is antagonizing him.
I want to shout at Lenora to stay quiet, speak to me later about this. Not now.
To my relief, my father only smiles and shakes his head. “As I’ve told you, Cordelia, your aunt is jealous. Paranoid as well. First she accused me of killing her beau, and now her sister. I loved your mother.”
“Loved her?” Lenora says. “You had an affair. A very brief affair. That was all she wanted, but then she couldn’t get away from you. When she learned she was pregnant with your child, she fled.”
Stop, I desperately try to warn her with a look. Please stop.
Even Bishop shifts, almost imperceptibly. His gaze, though, is on his Alpha. Gauging his reaction.
Still, Silas only smiles. “She left to protect our child. I understood that.” He looks at me.
“I did mislead you, my dear, in saying we decided it together. I was still only the Alpha-elect. If I had a child, Pack law would compel me to tell my Alpha, and my father was…” A moue of distaste.
“Not displeased by my medical difficulty siring children. He wanted to hang on to power as long as he could, and my lack of offspring was the one thing that kept his wolves from clamoring for him to make me Alpha.”
I bite my cheek. Does he not see the irony in this? He’s doing the same thing to Bishop, naming an heir who won’t succeed him anytime soon.
Silas continues, “Your mother took you and kept you safe, even from me. I heard stories, though, and ten years ago, I found you. Your mother and I made a pact that allowed her to keep you safe until you came of age. Then she died, and your aunt and I made a new pact.”
Lenora’s blazing eyes call this a lie, but she’s calmed enough to keep her own counsel.
“Enough chatter,” Silas says with a wave. “We’re boring the Pack with dull family business. I think Felix there’s already falling asleep.”
Gazes turn to the young man, who’s leaning against the back wall, eyes half shut until someone elbows him awake and everyone laughs, tension snapping.
Silas claps his hands together. “The meeting is adjourned. We have a wedding to plan. Marjorie will help my daughter clean and dress for dinner. Bishop? You can escort your bride-to-be and then meet me in my office. Boys? You two take Lenora to the cage.”
Bishop heads my way. Silas walks over and bends to whisper something in my aunt’s ear. I stiffen, but whatever it is, she’s relaxed, only grimacing when his hand strokes her cheek.
Then he grabs her jaw and twists hard.
A crack echoes through the room.
I stare, my mind refusing to process what just happened. He twisted her head and—
Silas lifts my aunt by her collar, and her head lolls, and my mind still refuses to explain what I’m seeing. It screams that whatever I think he’s done, I’m wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
No matter what Silas threatens, he wouldn’t dare follow through.
“This is what happens to those who defy me,” Silas snarls. “Those who mock me. Those who question me. Those who accuse me of cowardly treachery.”
My aunt’s head swings my way, and I see her eyes, open and blank and staring.
I don’t scream. I can’t. Whatever whips through me, it’s dark and hot, stealing breath and thought. It explodes in me, and my hands fly forward, and somehow they break free, the rope dropping.
Henry Cain charges, and I hit him with a knockback that’s unlike any knockback I’ve ever cast. The force of it sends him flying. I follow up with an energy bolt, and he howls, writhing in agony as he clutches his stomach.
I turn from him and advance on Silas. For a moment, my father freezes, and in his eyes, I see fear, and it feeds whatever courses through me. He drops my aunt’s body as I lift my hands—
Someone grabs me. I twist, but my hands are wrenched behind my back, held in a viselike grip I know only too well. I struggle and snarl behind my gag, but whatever power let me break free of my bonds, it’s already ebbing, and my struggles are futile.
As Silas bears down on me, Bishop yanks me away from him.
“She’s in shock,” Bishop says. “Her aunt—”
“Take her,” Silas growls. “Get her out of my sight and punish her.”
“ I’ll do that,” says a raspy voice behind me. Henry’s voice, raw with pain. “I claim the right—”
“No,” Silas snaps. “I don’t trust you to make sure she can still bear my grandsons. Bishop will. This will be her first lesson as a Pack mate. Teach her obedience, Bishop. She might have wolf blood, but she isn’t a wolf. She’s a woman.”
Bishop tugs me. When I resist, he drags me, and I start to fight, but then I see my aunt, dead on the floor, and howling grief drowns my rage.
At the last moment, I realize Bishop has dragged me to Silas. Before I can fight, Bishop leans toward his Alpha and whispers, “Everyone’s unsettled. Maybe it’s better if they don’t hear her screams? Use the cage?”
“Yes, fine. Take her to the cage. Teach her a lesson and”—he locks eyes with Bishop—“I’ll inspect your handiwork.”
“Of course. May Julius tend to her afterward?”
Silas nods, relaxing. “He can see to her wounds. Then she is to stay there, alone, until morning. We’ll see if she feels like fighting back after that.”