Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
MAGNUS
The chains were silver-threaded. Contrary to folklore, silver didn't burn werewolves. If that were the case, we couldn't handle coins across centuries and cultures. We couldn't have built wealth and crafted jewelry. Silver didn't hurt a shifter, but it did interfere with our ability to shift.
It also produced a headache if exposed to it for too long. My headache came from the voice droning on and on. Viktor Volkov had been talking for some time, doing his whole speech in praise of the villain thing. I was not listening. My focus was on the door.
It was a plain metal door set into the boat's cabin structure, approximately twelve feet to my left.
Darius Omondi had walked through it six minutes ago.
I had watched him come across from the boat docked alongside ours.
Had watched him step onto our deck with the easy, unhurried confidence of a man arriving somewhere he had arranged to be.
He had looked at me, chained to the chair, and smirked. Then he had gone through the door. Nell was behind that door. I needed to get to her. Yes, because she was being held hostage. More so to get in between the two of them. I did not want that male anywhere near my mate.
Viktor's fist connected with my jaw. My head snapped to the side and back to the present task. I tasted blood. I spat it at his leather shoes. He hadn't earned my gaze. I brought it back to the door where my mate was trapped.
"The Blackwood heir sitting in my chains on my boat. Your father built this empire on the backs of every pack in this city and you—" Another punch, body shot. My ribs absorbed it without comment. "You sent a human woman to do your dirty work. A pet."
I let his words about Nell sink into me.
It cleared the fog created by the chains.
My wolf wanted out, was clawing to get out despite the silver holding it back.
The chains were bolted to the chair. The chair was welded to the deck.
The weld points were only four. I had been feeling the deck with my feet since I came back to consciousness, mapping the geometry, calculating the force required.
"I had plans for your pet," Viktor said, his voice dropping into something that pulled my attention fully to him for the first time. "If Omondi hadn't gotten here so quickly, I would have had a very enjoyable evening. Your human is very beautiful, Blackwood. I can see why you kept her."
The wolf came to the surface. Not a partial emergence — the full weight of it. The beast pressed against the inside of my skin. My pupils dilated. Amber flooded my vision. Chains clanged as every muscle in my body went toward the sound of what he had just said.
Viktor saw it. He smiled wider.
"Take the chains off and we settle this as Alphas. A true challenge. Old law."
Viktor laughed. "Old law." He shook his head. "Do the Blackwoods play by the old rules, Magnus? When you use a human woman to steal three billion from my family's accounts. Is that the old law?"
He hit me again. The jaw this time. My head snapped, and then my teeth did. I nearly caught the tip of his pinky finger.
"You touch her, and I will kill you."
"I sold her," Viktor said. "Back to her family. The Omondi paid well for the return of their lost princess. And when I'm done with you, I'm going to kill your brothers. Your sister. Your mother. Your father last. He should live long enough to understand that everything he built is gone."
I ignored everything he said after the word princess. Sold her back to her family? What was he talking about?
Viktor got close again — too close, like he had forgotten that chains were not the same as helpless. I head-butted him.
The full weight of my skull, forward and down, connected with the bridge of Viktor Volkov's nose. The flat crack of cartilage and bone met each other at velocity. It was not elegant. It was not strategic. It was the wolf, finally given one inch of opportunity, taking it.
Viktor stumbled back. He hit the deck railing and caught himself. He stood there for a moment with both hands over his face. Blood came freely between his fingers.
The four shifted wolves moved toward me.
Viktor lowered his hands.
His was not the face of a man who had been surprised into reconsidering. It was the face of a man whose rage had just found a new temperature; hotter and less rational than before. The fury of ego injured added to everything else.
He roared. Then launched himself at me.
All I could think, as Viktor Volkov's full weight came across the deck toward me, was that Nell was behind that door and I needed to be on the other side of it.
I needed to get to her before Omondi took her somewhere I could not follow.
I pulled against the chains with everything I had.
The weld points groaned.