Chapter 20
MIA
Ihave to get outside.
The thought arrives in my head fully formed and entirely reasonable, the same way thoughts always do, except that it isn’t mine. I know it isn’t mine the way I know the difference between a dream and waking. Barely but enough.
Go outside, the thought says again, patient and pleasant. Ramsey is waiting.
On a rush of friendship, I start walking.
My wolf snarls, No.
I stop walking.
Dutch, Razor, and Marcus file past me in the corridor. Crow is a step ahead, all of them unhurried and purposeful and pointed toward the back of the house like I was. Nash follows, barely looking over at me as he goes.
My wolf snarls, Don’t.
The desire to follow them pushes back. It's not unpleasant. That's what's so wrong about it. It doesn't feel like invasion; it feels like wanting, like a craving that makes perfect sense. My feet take two steps forward before I clock what’s happening and stop them.
What the—
Don't fucking do it, my wolf says again, and this time, she’s not loud about it. She’s quiet as a mouse, which is its own alarm.
Someone grabs my arm. I yank, half-panicked, until I see that it’s Grey. “The air vents,” he says so quietly I almost miss it.
His gaze flicks upward. Then he points to his nose. I follow and note the strange, subtle taste of my next inhale. Nash pointed it out before—
“Gas,” Lexi breathes from beside him, eyes wide with horror.
Inside me, the urge to follow the others isn’t nearly as strong as it was a moment ago. I look at Lexi and Grey, who are also clearly immune to whatever’s happening. No, whatever’s being done to us.
Gas.
I inhale, tasting it again. And suddenly, I know exactly what’s gotten into everyone.
“What’s happening to them?” Lexi asks.
“Magic,” I say.
Grey nods. “Compulsion, most likely.”
“But you’re immune,” I say, the words half-question, half-relief.
“Maybe because we’re alphas,” Lexi proposes.
“It’s working on Nash,” I say, dread pooling in my gut at the dead look in his eyes as he walked right past me a moment ago.
“The serum,” Grey says with an expression like granite. He’s worried. The lack of it in his expression speaks volumes about how bad this is. “It makes us immune.”
“That explains us,” Lexi says. “What about you?” she asks me.
I blink, completely at a loss until I remember: seven years of Null. A drug that masks your scent and your wolf and maybe whatever else Davina used in her hex spell that let her control the others.
I swallow hard, shaking my head. “It’s a long story.” I look at Grey, my thoughts racing through strategy after strategy, but none of them work if I have to fight my own pack.
“What do you want me to do?” I hiss.
“Go with them,” Grey says. “Pretend you’re compelled. See what he has planned.”
“Stay in the house,” I tell him, already moving.
I hurry to catch up with the others. The moment I do, my expression goes neutral. My feet move with the group. I watch Dutch’s shoulders drop into that loose, easy set that means he’s not thinking about anything, and my chest squeezes so hard I have to breathe through true fear.
Dutch, Razor, Crow—they are the strongest wolves I know. They might be right beside me, but I’m in this alone now.
Outside, the lawn fills up with pack members I recognize from morning patrols. Estate staff. Marcus. Elena. Dozens of wolves. More than usual. And then I remember: We called all of our security forces back to the house, which means every single fighter we have is now under Ramsey’s control.
I scan every face and feel the wrongness of them like a song sung off key; they’re all present, but none of them are here. My stomach roils at how fucked we are. How Ramsey set all of this up so perfectly to make this moment happen.
He’s smarter than I gave him credit for. That hurts my pride.
Nash is three people to my right.
I look at him. He’s watching the tree line, and his face has an open, uncomplicated quality I’ve never seen on him before. The Nash I know always has something going on behind his eyes. Something turning over, assessing, measuring.
Right now, there is nothing.
It’s the most frightening thing about this moment.
Focus, my wolf says.
Ramsey steps out of the trees, and it’s all I can do to keep my expression neutral. Happy. Welcoming.
I want to throw up. To claw his eyes out. To let my wolf sink her teeth into his throat. He did this. He compelled their free will away. And now, I’m left standing alone in a sea of robots to face this pack’s greatest enemy. And at the end of it all, I am what I feared most: alone.
No sign of his pack, though. Not on the lawn. Not at his back. Which should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. Ramsey isn’t the kind of man to walk into enemy territory without an exit plan and a second knife hidden somewhere close.
I nearly let my lip pull up in a teeth-baring snarl and tackle him when his attention switches to me.
But I don’t because I’m very aware of the fact that he owns this crowd around me.
And of just how exposed I am when they all learn I’m not going along with their new fan club agenda—whatever that is.
So, I force myself to play this role because the alternative is tipping my hand before I know what I’m doing with it.
I’m all yours now, I hear myself say. What can I do to help?
The words taste like ash on my tongue.
Ramsey’s smile reaches his eyes. That’s the worst part. He’s genuinely pleased. He’s looking at all these people I love standing on this lawn like they’re nothing more than puppets on strings.
When he orders me to kill Grey and Lexi, I almost lose it.
No problem.
The words catch in my throat, and I have to force myself to shove them out. But I say it. And I watch everyone around me echo it. Dutch and Razor and Crow, all of them with that same vacant cooperativeness.
And Nash.
Nash says it too, and whatever composure I’ve been holding in place cracks at the center. Not visibly. But something breaks open inside my chest when I hear his voice say yes—that familiar low cadence turned to nothing.
I look at Ramsey and see red.
Get to him, my wolf says. Now.
Not yet. I need a clear line.
The pack begins to move toward the house. Toward Grey and Lexi. I follow, knowing I’d never reach Ramsey before he saw me coming. Not from my current position.
So, I join the others as we converge on my alphas.
Framed by the open doorway, they stand. Grey’s hand finds Lexi’s without looking.
I watch him clock the numbers—the estate staff, Nash, Marcus, our security forces, several members of the Crossvale pack—and I watch him do the math in real time and come out the other side of it with the same answer I have.
He looks at me.
It’s one full second. Just that. His eyes on mine across the lawn with the particular clarity of someone who has made a decision and needs me to know it.
Take him out, he says.
Not out loud. He doesn’t have to.
I nod.
I’ve got you, I say back, also without words. A language that’s only possible because he’s my alpha and, before that, my friend.
Then he turns to Lexi and gives her a look that I know contains words only she can hear.
She nods, the fear only contained because she believes in her mate’s ability to protect her. I can only hope she’s right.
They shift mid-step—two huge wolves where two people were, the speed of it so fluid it barely registers as a change—and then they’re gone, blurring through the gates on the east side of the estate grounds before the advancing line has reached the terrace steps.
“Go get them,” Ramsey calls.
The wolves surrounding me begin to shift and run after Lexi and Grey.
All of them, one after another, the wave of it rolling down the line—Razor and Crow and Dutch and a dozen others, their wolves given the instruction and taking it without question.
“Don’t worry,” Ramsey says gleefully. “If they don’t catch your alphas, my pack will. They’re all stationed and waiting to ambush.”
Merde. No wonder he didn’t bring them here. He wants Grey and Lexi oblivious until it’s too late.
I grab Nash’s wrist, yanking hard enough for him to look at me.
Then, I do the last thing I ever thought I’d do: I open myself up to the mate bond between us. His eyes widen, and I know his wolf feels mine.
Come back to me, I tell him through that thread I’ve felt connecting us since that first night we met. Even if it was dull enough to pretend away.
My words are half-plea, half-demand combined with my wolf’s full dominance. I don’t say anything out loud. And I can’t afford to wait or repeat myself. Not with Ramsey and Davina watching.
Instead, I let go and step back just as the rest of the pack takes off through the gates after Grey and Lexi in a flood of fur and purpose.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nash shiver as the beginning of the shift takes him over.
Defeat washes over me, so strong I can taste it.
I won’t fight Nash. Not even if it means letting Ramsey live. I can’t.
“You two,” Ramsey says.
I turn.
Ramsey is watching us. His eyes move between Nash and me with the careful attention of someone totaling a column of numbers. Davina stands at his flank, arms crossed, her gaze doing its own quiet cataloguing. She looks at me the way you look at a variable you haven’t solved for yet.
I hold still. I let my face reveal nothing.
“Hang back with us,” Ramsey says. “I have something else in mind for the two of you.”
I don’t let myself react to that, mostly because I’m not sure whether this new angle will save me or make it worse. “Of course,” I say. Easy. Agreeable. The performance of a woman who has handed her will to someone else and found it a relief.
Makes me wonder if the spell is simply called patriarchy.
I glance at Nash.
His gaze has drifted to the middle distance. His jaw is slack. His hands are still.
My wolf presses close to the surface and says nothing.
I look away.
Ramsey takes a slow step toward us, then another, with the unhurried confidence of a man who believes he’s already won.