46. Sadie #2
Two ice daggers crystalized in her palm and flew across the room, directly into the heart of the two alphas.
Crack.
Crackkkkkkk.
There was a loud crunching noise, then suddenly Molly and Z shattered into a million pieces and dissipated like frost.
Like they’d never even existed.
Aran’s eyes were pitch black, her face burning with fury as she trembled with rage.
“Harness your rage, escape your cage,” a man’s voice said from somewhere behind her.
Aran whipped her head around, like she was searching for the voice, but there was nobody there.
The don sighed heavily, and the room buzzed with the sounds of motion and mumbles as he released all the shifters from his compulsion.
“Well, that solved that problem,” the don said casually, staring down at Aran with something close to respect. “You said you were a water fae?”
Aran nodded her curly head, eyes unfocused as she stared at the frost where two alphas had stood.
There was nothing left of them.
“Everyone who assisted Molly and Z, please present yourself at the dais.”
The twelve betas who had drawn their guns on the men walked forward and stood in a straight line.
The room was silent.
Then, the Don pulled out a handgun and walked down the line. Pops rang out as he shot each one in the forehead.
Their bodies tumbled off the dais.
The “Loyalty” tattoo on the don’s neck twitched as he clenched his jaw with rage. “Well, even though we’ve had a little show this equinox, we are still here for one reason.”
The don turned to his son and gestured to the pretty omegas who sat on the stage with him.
“Which one will you be bonding with tonight?”
He’d just casually shot twelve men in the head without explanation.
He’d shown us the sheer power in his voice.
There was no disobeying him.
I backed away toward Aran, wanting the comfort of my best friend as my men chose a different woman and undoubtedly broke my heart.
The gold halo was heavy around my wrist, a reminder that I was birthed for a purpose.
It’s fine, you have a different life path , I tried to reassure myself, but it wasn’t comforting.
I grabbed Aran’s hand and turned away.
We gripped each other like we were the only lifelines we’d ever had.
She was the only person who could understand what I was going through, what it was like for your life to crumble beneath you, over and over again.
“No,” Cobra hissed. “We’re not taking an omega.”
My eyes widened. The blood loss was making me delusional.
“I choose Sadie, and if you can’t accept that, then you’ll have to fight me to the death.”
Cobra’s voice echoed.
Jax growled, “We all chose her a long time ago.”
“You’ll have to kill me before you take her from me,” Xerxes snarled, and there was a sharp sound that signaled he pulled out his knives.
“We’ll kill you all if you try to stop us,” Ascher promised.
Suddenly, there was a pressure on my scarred shoulder, and icy fingers tugged me, so I turned around.
“Look at me when I say this to you,” Cobra snarled roughly.
I blinked as I stared up at him.
Suddenly, four men fell to their knees in front of me and bowed their heads low.
They defied the don.
They chose certain death for me.
“You can’t,” I whispered as my eyes burned and moisture streaked across my cheeks, as blood loss made my head spin. “He’ll kill you.”
Cobra’s eyes glowed as he grabbed my hand and snarled, “Shut the fuck up, Kitten. I told you I loved you. What did you think that meant?”
“Actually, you told me you owned me,” I pointed out with narrowed eyes. I was still slightly salty about it.
“Don’t be fucking dumb,” he growled. “What I feel for you is more than love. You’re my everything, and if that means I must die to be by your side. Then so be it.”
My face crumpled, and my throat burned.
“But you can’t. He’ll hurt you.”
This time, it was Xerxes who growled, “Baby girl, we’re already fucking dead if we’re not with you.”
For a moment, I paused with horror. Did they know about my plan to kill them if they chose an omega?
Jax’s chest rumbled, the chains on his golden braids tinkling as he shook his head. “We’ve told you, little alpha, that we love you. Do you think we lied?”
“Yeah, but he’s threatening to kill you!” I snapped back, my hands shaking with fear even as their devoted words made my heart sing.
Had everyone lost their fucking minds?
I just found out my entire life was a lie and now this .
There was only so much a person could take.
Just because I was planning on killing them didn’t mean I wanted the don to do it. That was different.
Ascher had the audacity to laugh, neck tattoos rippling as he knelt before me.
Suddenly, his amber eyes hard and voice harsh, he said, “Princess, they can try to kill us. But they won’t succeed.”
Great.
They were dumb.
I pinched my working fingers at the top of my nose as I prayed for patience.
Shaking my hand, I waved my hand that was missing a finger at them; blood splattered across the ground, and if that didn’t sum up the vibes of the night, then nothing did.
It reminded me of what was at stake.
I yelled at them “No! Stand the fuck up right now. You don’t get to just choose to die for me. It doesn’t work that way.”
Cobra’s perfect face transformed into a cruel smile.
That was my only warning.
Suddenly, he stood up, wrapped his jeweled hand around my throat, and dragged my face toward his.
Cobra whispered menacingly, “You’re going to accept our love and bond with us right now, Kitten. You think you can stand here hurt and bleeding and tell me I can’t bond with you? That I don’t get to care for you?”
I rolled my eyes and ‘accidentally’ flung some blood on him. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Cobra’s face darkened. “I’m going to punish you later for your little act of disobedience. Understood?”
I choked on my scoff.
The. Fucking. Audacity. Of. This. Man.
“Or are you too chickenshit to accept us?” Cobra bent his massive body low so he could snarl in my face, “Are you too much of a little bitch?”
I saw red.
It took every ounce of control I had not to shift into a saber-toothed tiger and bite his cocky ass.
“Fine.” I leaned forward and snarled back, “I was going to kill you anyways.”
A purring hiss rattled in his chest.
“Oh, Kitten, don’t talk dirty to me in front of all these people,” he whispered huskily.
He really was a psycho.
“Fine, what the fuck,” I growled as the anger coursing through my body allowed me to make a massively stupid decision.
Cobra gloated, a smile splitting his too-perfect face as he once again fell to his knees in front of me.
Xerxes pulled his knife out of his pocket and quickly slashed all the men’s hands, and asked, “Will you bond with us, baby girl? Will you allow us to be yours forever?”
Under six full moons above a glittering ballroom where dark secrets had been revealed, in the cruelest realm, with all my scars on display, four men knelt and offered me the world.
“Just do it,” Aran whispered her voice cutting through the thousands of reasons not to that echoed in my mind.
Xerxes lifted his head. “We refuse to live without you.”
Ascher’s voice broke. “We need you, Princess.”
A low rumble echoed through Jax’s chest. “Please, let us be yours.”
Cobra hissed, “I refuse to go another fucking moment without you as my mate. If this is an ownership issue, I understand that I might be a tad…possessive sometimes. But I won’t fucking apologize for it.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Why are you so obsessed with me?” Clearly, the blood loss was getting to me.
“Stop being so scared. It’s pathetic and weak.” Cobra snapped back.
He did not just call me weak.
My chest twisted with anger at the insult, and the emotion propelled me to grab the knife with my good hand.
Cobra wanted to be crazy.
I’d show him crazy.
I slashed my already bloody palm, because why not? At this point there was more blood outside my body than there was inside.
Before I could think about it, I slammed my mutilated hand against each of their outstretched palms.
A golden thread exploded through my chest.
The world remade itself in shades of shimmering jewels and an unfathomable depth of devotion.
Suddenly, the men stood up and enveloped me in a massive hug.
Of course, Cobra got to me first, and there was a brief scuffle as he snarled “mine” and tried to keep me away from the other men.
Jax growled and wrestled me out of his grip so everyone else could hold me.
Meanwhile, Cobra whispered that he was going to kill me if I ever got a finger chopped off again, and then went on about all the sordid things he was going to do to my body.
I ignored him.
Because gold was exploding in my chest and surrounding me with the endless warmth of love and devotion.
Far away, Aran and the girls cheered.
The don cleared his throat, and I sighed as I tried to push away, but the men held me tighter.
Refused to let me go.
Together, we turned to him.
Great, you acted rashly, and now you’re all dead.
Instead of pulling out his gun and shooting us in the foreheads—which I was 99 percent sure was about to happen, but had decided I didn’t want to live anyways without the men—the don did something even more shocking.
For the first time since I’d met him, a smile split across the don’s face.
His voice boomed, “Congratulations, you passed your third trial.”
I blinked.
The men were still beside me as confusion and hope strummed across the gold thread connecting all of us.
“The third trial is a loyalty test, and Sadie proved her loyalty to you in her first initiation trial. She refused to give up any information on you, even under extreme duress. Your test was to see if you’d earned her loyalty back.”
We all stood in shock.
“What about the Ortega brothers?” Jax recovered first. “And the Black Wolves?”
The don shrugged. “Decades ago, the brothers worked with the wolves to steal Xerxes from the omega center. You needed a red herring, and I gave you revenge as a boon. I knew you’d handle them.”
He waved his hand casually like he hadn’t almost killed us, had just sent us on an easy quest.
My jaw gaped.
The don shook his head like we were hopeless. “I even gave you Warren to protect the girls. He is extremely talented.”
The young boy blushed under the don’s praise, and we all glared at him.
We weren’t impressed.
“Clarissa, you were told in the beginning of your trial to befriend Sadie to help her adjust to this realm, since you’re both female alphas. That was your loyalty test. You failed.”
The don aimed his gun at the dance floor, and Clarissa dropped dead.
I grimaced.
A lot of people had been dropping dead recently, and I was starting to feel sick.
The don beamed like a proud father and gestured to Cobra.
He yelled, “Well, this is the best time to announce my son has returned to the beast realm. Cobra is the crown prince!”
The room gasped.
Then the orchestra came alive, champagne was handed out, and everyone began to twirl around.
Missing a finger, scars on display, with a goddess inside me, I spun with each of my men across the glittering dance floor.
Love was more than a sentiment.
It was unwavering loyalty, even in the darkest place.
* * *
The Don
I smiled as my beloved son twirled his mate across the dance floor.
Physically, she was nothing special, but there was a fire that burned within her that I hadn’t seen in centuries. A similar fire burned within the Aran boy.
I glanced across the room, smiling when I saw Jinx was glaring down at a beta soldier who was wiping at his face like he was crying.
She glanced up at me, and I tipped my hat to her. I’d been don long enough to know a soldier when I saw one.
She was going to grow into a magnificent killer.
Cobra twirled Sadie close to the dais, and I smiled fondly down at my long-lost son, who’d grown into an impressive man.
I smirked as Sadie narrowed her eyes at me over his shoulder.
I’d always known this would be their outcome. Known since my beloved son’s eyes had glowed white as the moons when he’d bonded with the other men.
All their eyes had glowed an even brighter white when they’d bonded with Sadie.
They were fated mates.
And fate always found a way.