Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rafael
Samantha turns into a feral beast in my arms. Her nails rake deep furrows everywhere until I manage to secure her hands into mine. She still keeps struggling, twisting and turning, lunging at Santiago and trying to bite him.
“Let me go,” she snarls in a voice I’ve never heard before.
“No,” I growl back. “Now, stop struggling.” I push the compulsion at her, but at best it makes her movements a bit sluggish.
“What the fuck is going on?” the alpha shouts.
“Zack, he’s hurting me,” Samantha suddenly wails. Large tears trail down her cheeks.
“No, he’s not,” Santiago says. He moves closer and mashes Samantha between us so she has no space to move. He brackets her throat and neck and squeezes until Samantha’s eyes roll in her head.
Unconscious. He fucking knocked her out.
“What the fuck, San?” I roar, but he doesn’t pay me any mind and keeps the pressure on Samantha’s neck.
“She pleaded with us to knock her out, Rafael. Breathe and get those protective instincts under control.”
“I—”
“Do you honestly think I would hurt her? Really hurt her?”
I take several deep breaths and try to clear my head. “No.”
“And would the alpha just lounge over there if he thought I was hurting her?”
“Fucking wolves,” I mutter, ignoring San’s question.
“Right back at you, vamp,” the alpha replies. “Now, get your asses moving and get her back inside.”
I gather Samantha’s limp body in my arms, while Santiago makes sure she stays blacked out. Grim lines form at the corner of his mouth. That, more than anything, snaps my head back into the game and gets me moving.
There are things Santiago doesn’t like to talk about, things that he has done. For once, I’m grateful for his past and the skills he learned. I couldn’t keep Samantha unconscious without hurting her, while Santiago certainly can.
I rush her back inside and the alpha is immediately hovering. I want to snarl at him until I realize he’s trying to scent her.
“Fuck,” he mutters and inhales again. “I hoped it was just a lingering effect, but I can smell another scent mixed with hers now that I’m looking for it. It’s very faint, almost hiding, but it’s there.”
“What does it mean, shifter-wise?” Santiago, ever calm, asks and adds pressure to Samantha’s throat when she begins to stir.
“I’m not sure. Nothing about this is normal, shifter-wise.”
“She said he was speaking to her before flipping out. Somehow the thing is affecting her?” I sink into our bond, looking for clues, but she repels me.
Even unconscious, she’s fighting to get away.
Or something is forcing her to fight. My mind is whirring, sorting through options and possibilities, and none of them are good.
“She should have stayed immobile from your first order, yet it barely held her in place,” Santiago muses and strokes a hand over her hair.
“I heard her begging you to knock her out. Any idea why?” The alpha sits down and winces from pain.
“Not really. Haven’t ever come across a changeling who can resist their maker’s compulsion. We need to know what is going on,” I say and sit beside the alpha. “You can hold her legs. Santiago, you make sure she doesn’t tear into any of us.”
I hate that we need to restrain her like this, but it’s better than tying her up. It doesn’t take long for Samantha to stir again and when her eyes fly open, the look in them is terrified.
“Shh, sweetheart. We’ve got you.” I try to comfort her, but I’m not sure it’s working.
“Not letting you go anywhere,” the alpha promises. Santiago just strokes her neck and throat and that, more than anything, seems to reassure her. Her mouth gapes, fangs peeking, but she’s resisting the hunger. Almost inaudible whimpers fill the air and tear into me.
“I’m not his mate.” She gasps. “I’m not.”
I freeze. So does everyone else. She says the words like she expects us to contradict her, and her eyes are pleading.
“Please, tell me I’m not,” she whispers brokenly.
“Fuck no.” The wolf seems to struggle against turning on the spot. Her eyes turn to him and there’s something unspoken shared in that glance. “I’ll kill him before I let him take you.”
“So—”
“No,” I spit the word out, trying to untangle my feelings. Rage and disbelief rise to the surface. She’s mine. Every facet of civility unravels when I think of some filthy thing laying claim to her.
“I—I don’t know if I can resist…” Samantha trails off, strain evident in her eyes. “He’s calling… me.”
She breaks down, crying silent tears. Her hands twitch in mine, curling into fists, and behind the tears, a new snarl rises.
The moment she lunges at me, Santiago wraps his hands around her neck.
She is not fighting him. She’s pressing against his hold, but he’s not pressing hard, only curbing her efforts to bite me.
“You think the thing can see through her eyes?” I ask the wolf.
“No. Shifter bonds don’t work like that, even the mate bond.
And she’s not that thing’s mate.” The alpha’s voice is tight, barely controlled, and he holds Samantha’s feet down.
She tries to kick him again, but he doesn’t budge an inch.
“At most, he can deduce that something is holding her back and preventing her from coming to him.”
“And the mood swings?” Santiago asks as he cradles the back of Samantha’s head against his chest.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe the poison? I tried to clean the wounds, but it’s possible it already absorbed into her. I have no idea what it was, just that it tasted foul.”
“Didn’t it affect you?”
“No. Werewolf, remember? Would have to be wolfsbane or similar to work on me.”
“Hmm…” I hum. “What are we going to do about this?”
“Kill the fucker,” Santiago replies.
“We need to draw the thing out. No way I’m letting Samantha anywhere near him again,” Zack growls.
“Agreed,” I snarl.
There’s no debate over killing the thing. We are not going to leave some beast with any hold over her. If there’s a mate bond—which there fucking is not—we’ll find a way to break it, so it dying doesn’t hurt Samantha.
“The pack needs to be part of this too,” Zack says and cuts me off when I open my mouth. “That thing killed their alpha’s mate. If you—we—go behind their backs on this, there’ll be trouble.”
He’s right, but I don’t have to like it. I want to cut that fucking piece of shit into itty-bitty pieces, burn them, and scatter the ashes to the winds. I guess I’ll have to settle for sharing. It’s doubtful that Santiago is willing to sit back and let me have all the fun either.
“The pack can run the perimeter, make sure we get him where we want him.”
“Far away from Samantha,” Santiago says and then huffs when she tries to twist free again. She’s not struggling hard against my hold, but clearly, it’s taking effort to keep herself under even a shred of control.
“You’ll need to use me as bait,” she says quietly.
“No.” All of us protest at once, and she hisses, fangs shooting out.
“Yes. If you think I’m going to hide in a tower while you slay the dragon, you are wrong.”
A frown tugs at Santiago’s lips and he strokes her throat, reminding her that she’s ours and not going anywhere.
“Sweetheart,” I start, “I—we want you safe.”
“And I don’t care what you—any of you—want,” she replies, getting back some of her fire. “I want to be rid of that thing as soon as I can be, and the fastest way to do that is to use me as bait.”
“You can’t control yourself now,” Zack says reasonably. “How do you think it will go when the thing gets close to you?”
Samantha shudders against me and I want to punch the wolf for making her fearful again, even if he has a point. A very good one.
“You won’t be able to draw him out.” She sounds sure about it.
“Why not?” I ask and again she presses against my hold when she twists to face me.
“I just know.”
“You don’t think he’s influencing you to think like that?”
She falls silent for a moment and then shakes her head slightly. “I don’t think so. At least when I try to focus on finding him, his voice fades a bit.”
“You hear him?” Zack sounds horrified.
“I said he’s calling me. Mate. Come to me. Come. Over and over and over again.” She’s talking faster now, like getting the words out quickly will help. “I feel a tug, a constant pull in my stomach, the base of my spine. My body wants to go. My mind, not so much.”
“Oh hell,” Zack growls and his eyes take on a yellow tint.
“What does that mean?” Santiago asks, beating me to the punch, and Samantha shivers.
“I’m not sure. It’s only a legend I heard as a child,” Zack says.
“What does it say?” My harsh tone seems to fray Samantha’s control and she begins to struggle in earnest. San doesn’t hesitate before tightening his hold and she falls unconscious again.
And her heart skips a beat.
The loss of that sound freezes everything.
Everyone stays quiet and immobile until Samantha’s heartbeat finds its rhythm again. Even unconscious, her hands twitch and her eyelids flutter. I try looking at our bond but only get a confusing feeling of a shifting black mass.
“There’s an old story,” the wolf finally says. “A pair of shifters that could hear each other. Things didn’t turn out well.”
“Could you be a bit more specific?”
“I’m trying to remember, but I only heard it once and the person who told it to me is no longer alive. My great-grandfather.”
“Well—”
“Rafael,” Santiago cuts in and I close my eyes, trying to calm down.
Zack’s voice is rough when he speaks. “She was a powerful shifter, power-hungry too. According to the legend, she bonded with someone and drove them mad. Like literally frothing at the mouth mad. He went on a killing spree. Some say she told him to, others say that he just tried to get rid of the voices in his head.”
When he drifts off and I lift my head, Santiago meets my gaze. Forcing my voice to stay even, I ask, “And you think it has something to do with Samantha?”