Chapter 37 #3
Vae, always the peacemaker, attempts to diffuse the situation. “We aren’t leaving her there forever, right, Dax?”
I back up until I’m against the wall. Both males face me, boxing me in. I’m trapped. For the briefest moment, I thought maybe Dax felt it—an echo of the pain pulsing through my own chest—exactly where our Mate Bond should be.
Then his jaw hardens, and he shoves whatever he’s feeling down and away. He drops his hands from his chest and takes a deliberate step away from me.
“Right,” he replies, glancing at Vae.
Except… we all know he’s lying. I can smell it, and based on Vae’s wince, he can too. My eyes flick from one Alpha to the other. Both of them are unmovable. Both are completely unwilling to negotiate. Both are full of hate and mistrust in their own ways.
Both mine.
“Please don’t make me go down there,” I beg, wringing my hands in panic. “Please don’t make me—”
Dax doesn’t let me finish. He jabs a finger toward the stairs and growls. “Go. Now.”
A tremor runs down my spine, but I know there’s no swaying him. Whatever hope I had is well and truly buried now. I bow my head… and walk.
When I reach the door, I peer into the yawning darkness beyond. There are no lit sconces down here. Nothing but old stone and the smell of still water.
I brace myself and step down.
The stone is ice cold against the soles of my feet.
When I glance behind me, I can’t help but notice that Vae and Dax found shoes to throw on at some point.
Vae follows my gaze to his sneaker-clad feet and pointedly looks away.
His hands clench into fists at his sides, and his scent warps and spikes into something sharp.
Shame. Or guilt, maybe. At what he’s allowing to happen. His body twitches, like he wants to reach for me. Then he looks at Daxen and stays where he is.
Coward.
The thought is vicious in a way that surprises me, but doesn’t make it any less true. My Mate is a coward. He knows this is wrong. He’s known for days that this is all wrong, but he refuses to say anything.
I want to point out that forgetting I’m barefoot is far from the worst part of this night, but I bite my tongue and take another step down. I keep moving until I get to the bottom landing. Dax reaches above my head to yank on a cord, and a dull, flickering fluorescent bulb buzzes to life overhead.
It’s a dungeon. An actual dungeon. Like my father’s
Another tear escapes, and I swipe at it angrily. Why do I keep allowing them to disappoint me?
“That one,” Dax points at the open cell on my right. With nowhere left to go, I walk through the door.
Both Alphas follow me in.
Exhausted, I take a seat on the built-in concrete slab that apparently passes for a bed, and tuck my shaking hands under my thighs.
It’s so, so cold down here.
My Mates loom over me like executioners, while I just sit here, waiting for the axe to fall.
Dax doesn’t waste any time.
“Tell us who you are.” How many times have we been through this?
“I’m Idril Varenthrall.” I sigh, exhaustion making my limbs heavy.
“I’m twenty-two. I’m an Omega. My father is Jonathan.
My mother was Annalise. She died soon after I presented.
My father works in acquisitions. No, I don’t know what that means.
Yes, he kept me prisoner in my home for almost a decade. No, I don’t know why.”
“Cut the shit,” Dax snaps. “Tell me who you are.”
”I don’t know what you’re asking! Just tell me what answers you want from me, and I’ll give them to you,” I beg.
He plants his hands on his hips and throws his head back like he needs to pray for patience.
Well, freaking same.
“Let me try,” Vae cuts in, crouching down in front of me. ”Why did your father have vials of your blood hidden in his study?”
I rear back, eyes wide. “What?”
“Don’t fucking—”
“Daxen,” Vae growls. “Shut the fuck up, godsdamnit. Let me talk to her.”
I can see how on edge he is. It’s hard not to notice the long, muscular lines of his back and torso, or the way they’re strung so tight I worry he might snap in half.
He turns his attention back to me, forcing a calmness he obviously doesn’t feel.
“Your father had vials of blood hidden in a freezer in his study. Blood that shimmered, and didn’t decay like normal blood.”
I blink, trying to wrap my mind around what he’s saying.
“What does that mean? How does blood decay? Isn’t it just… in your body?”
“It didn’t act the way blood was supposed to act,” he says, instead of answering. “The first time Caelan was at your home, he was on recon. The blood he found there had to be sent out for gene sequencing because it wasn’t behaving like blood should.”
Dax interrupts like he can’t help himself. “The person who ran the tests said she put a drop in soil. And flowers grew.”
I frown.
“In under an hour,” he adds.
I blink. “Why would she put it in soil?”
“That doesn’t matter,” He snaps, raking both hands through his hair. “What does matter is that your father had blood with magical properties hidden inside your home. Blood that he’s using to hurt other people. Things I know you know about.”
“I don’t. I don’t know about anything he was doing.”
Despite the way my voice wavers, I push on. “We’ve been over this, and my answer isn’t going to change. I don’t know what my father did. I only know what he did to me. I don’t know who he worked with outside of Alexander or what the blood he had was for. All I know is what I’ve already told you.”
I pause to take another deep breath, then decide… to hell with it.
“Caelan is my Mate.”
Dax rolls his eyes. Vae exhales as if I’ve disappointed him.
“He is.” I insist. “And when he wakes up, you’ll have to believe me. You’ll have to listen. You’ll have no choice.”
I laugh, but it’s not a funny sound. “Do you think I wanted this? Do you honestly believe I was some mastermind pulling strings for the man who kept me locked away for years like an animal?”
They don’t answer, and that just makes me angrier.
“Do you think I volunteered for this?” I demand. I stand and take a step closer, heart pounding with fear and anger. “That I wanted to be the daughter of a man who locked me in a basement just like this one for days without light, or food, or water?”
Vae flinches. Just barely, but I notice it. Like what I’m saying makes him uncomfortable.
Good. My whole life has been uncomfortable. It’s only fair he’s forced to acknowledge it.
“I spent my entire life tiptoeing around the moods of a man who was supposed to protect me. Who was supposed to love me. I was his daughter.” My voice breaks. I don’t even try to fight back the tears that fall. There’s no use.
“I thought if I could just be good enough, quiet enough, obedient enough… he might finally love me. So I stayed away from him. Stayed on my wing of the house. Read books and thanked him for allowing me two meals a day like I was some pampered guest in my own home.”
I scoff, bitterness coating my every word like venom. “Do you know when I finally stood up for myself?”
Neither answer.
“The day after I met Caelan. Father came to my room and realized someone had been there because my door wasn’t locked from the outside anymore.”
Dax tenses, but Vae’s body goes completely still. My voice is steady, even though my limbs continue to shake.
“He threw me against a wall, used Alpha Command to try and force an answer out of me. Then choked me until I nearly passed out.”
I narrow my eyes at Dax, and then at Vae.
“I never told him, because even then, even after only a few minutes, I knew Caelan was important to me. I kept my mouth shut.”
I straighten my spine, even though fear has sweat blooming on my palms. The air is stifling now, so much warmer than it had been minutes before.
”Right before he left my room, he told me that he’d find out who I was protecting and he would ruin them while I watched. Then he said he would bleed me dry.”
In the next breath, a sob tears out of my chest. I can’t hold it back anymore. I’m so tired. So exhausted. So sick of reliving the horrors over and over again, just to be dismissed and called a liar. All because of some misplaced loyalty and extreme self-denial.
Do I understand why they believe what they do? In a way, yes. I understand some of it. I understand what they heard and how what I said when I was concussed probably sounded, but they’ve been unfair. They’ve been cruel. They haven’t listened to me or given me a single chance.
And these are my Mates. On top of all of it, these males are supposed to be mine. They’re supposed to be the ones who will protect me and have my back and love me no matter what. Fate made us for each other.
I just… I can’t do it anymore.
I retreat until I hit the wall, where I slide down until I can wrap my arms around my legs and curl into a ball. Then, I cry. And neither of them utters a word.
“I wish he’d done just that,” I whisper, more to myself than to them. “I wish he’d left Caelan alone and bled me dry like he promised instead.”
Would that have been better? If I’d just been gone now rather than being forced into this prison? My Mates will never love me. They’ll never care for me. And they can never, ever know about the Mate Bond—because if they do, and that’s the only reason they change?
Gods, that would be a thousand times worse than just being rejected.
Vae inches forward, and before Dax can voice an objection, he’s crossing the room in long strides and sitting down in front of me, legs folded beneath him.
He doesn’t speak. For long minutes, he just lets me cry. Then, softly, he asks, “When did he start taking your blood?”
That startles me enough to stop my tears, and my gaze collides with his. Vae doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t touch me. But his eyes soften, and that softness breaks my heart.
It’s such a pretty echo of the way he always should have looked at me.