Chapter 4 Silas
Deidre thinks she knows everything about wolves. What a mate bond is. She thinks she gets it.
She has no idea what’s inside me. What I feel, what Mona feels.
Every step closer, her scent is overpowering. The honey is too sweet, almost sugary, crystalline. My knot thickens at the base, making my steps falter.
“Are you listening to me, Silas?” Deidre asks, pausing halfway down the stairs leading to the basement.
I haven’t been. My head is swimming. I’m about to face Mona. My mate.
I wish I could turn back the clock and start all over again. Give myself time to become a better man, to learn how to court her properly. To not become this—whatever I am.
“I want her blood. Do not fuck this up like you fuck up everything else. I swear, I’ve never met someone so useless.”
It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. Nothing I don’t already feel.
“What do you want it for, exactly?” I’ve asked before, but witches speak in riddles. They love subterfuge. Wolves are more straightforward. You can’t directly lie to a wolf; our senses are too strong, so we tend to be blunt.
Deidre’s eyes flicker. For a heartbeat, the mask slips. Her fingers drift to her abdomen, lingering there as she stares past me.
“What do I want?” She straightens her shoulders, hand falling away with the vulnerability of the moment.
“That girl carries the most powerful shifter bloodline on Earth, and on top of that, she’s an omega.
But if you impregnate her? Her blood will become more potent than anything I’ve ever worked with.
An untapped wellspring of ancient power I’ve spent decades searching for. ”
More vague megalomania. But there’s something she isn’t saying, layering her lies in histrionics, so you almost get too distracted to realize she hasn’t actually revealed a thing.
But I’m too stuck on the bit about her bloodline to ask for clarification.
She asked me once if I knew whose blood ran through Mona’s veins, but at the time, I didn’t really think about what she meant. I had other shit on my mind.
Deidre descends the stairs, continuing her villainous rant, threatening Mona before we even see her. Each step forward carries waves of unease.
The basement is mostly empty. One bright light hangs overhead.
The witch standing beside my mate, an older man, rough around the edges, looks annoyed.
“This bitch is impossible. Pierre said to take care of her, but it ain’t my fault she won’t eat or drink anything,” he snaps, pointing a finger at Deidre, who raises one eyebrow.
I can’t look. I don’t glance down, not yet, not until these witches leave the room. I’m so tense, my molars crack.
“All right, Seymour. Thank you so much for all you’ve done. Ben is upstairs adjusting the wards. You’ve done a wonderful job. Pierre paid you, though, yes?”
“Yeah, he did, but—”
“Wonderful. Now, why don’t you go on upstairs? I’ll be up momentarily. You can brief me, and then take your leave.”
“You, uh, you need any more help, I’m happy to stick around. For more money, a’course,” he adds.
Deidre says between gritted teeth, “Let’s discuss it in a minute.
Go on now.” She waves her fingers. He nods and mumbles his way up the stairs.
The more power a witch has, the longer they live—different from shifters, who all age slowly.
That man looks about sixty, and that’s probably pretty close to his actual age.
My eyes follow him. Mona is a gravitational pull, and it takes physical effort not to look, not to fall to my knees.
“Remember our deal, Silas. And we’ll leave as soon as Tracy gets here.” She lifts her palm up, feeling for Ben’s wards. It’s odd; I can’t feel them at all. So it surprises me when she nods, satisfied by their strength.
She gazes down at Mona, her eyes softening in a way that transforms her face. The same expression I caught earlier, something wistful flickering across her features, a mixture of envy and longing. Her hand twitches by her side.
“I was right, she is pretty,” Deidre whispers.
“Don’t worry, your mate will recover from the magic soon enough.
Seymour didn’t spell her too strongly. I can already tell it’s leaving her system.
” Then she turns and pins me with a glare.
“There’s no escape. Fresh wards, three witches.
You don’t want to risk her life, now do you?
I won’t kill her as long as you behave.”
“Kill her, after everything you did to get her here? Thought you wanted her alive? Most powerful bloodline, and all that.”
She laughs lightly. “Yes, well,” she starts, turning toward the stairs, pausing on the bottom step, hand on the railing.
“That is true. It would be a great loss. But I learned something interesting after working with that delta—Lily, right? She wasn’t much of a delta at the end there, was she?
Imagine what I could do with dozens of omegas?
Might just offset one very powerful one. ”
I school my expression, but my alpha roars inside of me, remembering Lily’s tortured screams.
This fucking cunt. Deidre stumbled onto that discovery after transforming Lily into an omega by forcing her through spelled heats. Now she’s going to weaponize that?
I don’t care what she says, now that she knows she can do it, she will. Whether Mona and I cooperate or not. And despite her newest threat, she won’t kill Mona either. She would never do that, not intentionally, not after everything she did to capture her. I have to get Mona out of here.
Deidre winks, then heads upstairs. My eyes follow her the entire way, while I count all the ways I’m going to kill her.
I wait until the door clicks, and then, finally, I allow myself to look.
I’m glad I waited because the moment my eyes land on her, it’s all over.
It doesn’t hit me in a wave. It’s slower than that. Choppier, like a hurricane pelting rain and debris at my soul.
I feel sick to my stomach, remembering how I last laid eyes on her, covered in blood. I could already feel her transformation, I knew she’d be okay. But still, I left her there, like that, all alone.
I knew she’d be scared. I knew she’d be confused and in pain.
And I left her.
Here she is again. At my feet, curled in a ball. In pain. Wrists bound in plastic that digs into her skin.
She’s been keeping quiet, like Lily used to. It’s for the best. Play dead in front of Deidre and she won’t toy with you.
Somehow, Mona is more beautiful than I remember. She’s gained weight, her pale, freckled cheeks are fuller and rounder, but they’re bright red now, flushed with heat.
I take a step toward her. She flinches, and I pause. My alpha is pin-balling around inside me, reaching out for her, elated to be so close, finally, after so long—he’s savoring the potency of her.
Her perfume is so sweet. My knot swells thicker.
The tip of my cock presses against my jeans, which are still damp from when Deidre forced Ben to pull over so she could hose Pierre’s blood off me.
Said the smell was making her gag. No love lost, apparently.
Pierre was nothing but a sycophant. They weren’t related. He just loved her power.
I can still smell him, hear his last words. It all clings to my skin.
You were the best I ever had.
An involuntary shudder runs through me, nausea churning in my stomach.
Mona is in heat, and there’s nothing I can do about that, but I can get her somewhere safe.
A plan begins to formulate. Grayson. She needs Grayson. I’ll get her to safety, to my brother. He can help her through her heat.
I can’t touch her, not like this.
Everything realigns. I’m out from under Deidre’s thumb, but I haven’t had time to appreciate it. Out of the pan and into the fire, now I need to get Mona to safety. That’s the only thing that matters now.
“How long?” I finally ask, kneeling down, shifting my claw so I can slice through the plastic zip tie. I’m careful not to touch her skin.
She places one palm on the floor beneath her before pushing up to a seat, then shakes out her arms.
“You’re in heat,” I say matter-of-factly. “For how long?”
She lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t know. A day, maybe?”
I curse. I don’t know anything about omegas, but if it’s anything like what they did to Lily… “How are you still functional?”
She laughs, but it’s raspy. “I think it’s the magic, or whatever they did to me. I can’t feel my wolf. But… it’s also keeping the heat from coming in full force. W-what are we going to do?” she stammers, looking up and meeting my eyes.
I don’t have time to look away, and her bright, arctic-blue eyes capture mine. Holding me hostage. Crystal clear and… kind. Scared. Trusting.
What are we going to do, she asked…
I step away from her, then look around.
Behind the staircase at the back of the basement, there’s a door. I don’t open it, not yet, just in case they can hear us, or it sets off some kind of alarm or trap. Deidre made it seem like the wards were up, but I can’t feel them.
The way that witch, Ben, got us out of the compound so quickly and efficiently, these wards should feel like concrete. Makes no sense.
I press my ear to the door. Closing my eyes, I relish the feeling of having my full power again.
My wolf is strong. We listen beyond the door, beyond the neighborhood.
There are woods behind us. Another neighborhood.
I can’t sense past that, but judging by the route we took to this house, the highway was twenty minutes from here, I’d say we’re close to dense forest. A few miles, minimum.
Walking the perimeter, feeling the cement wall, testing for witch traps, I stiffen when Mona works herself up to standing, then tries to follow. Her nearness makes me twitch.
“You should be resting.”
“What are you doing?” she asks, putting a hand up to the wall, mimicking me.
“Listening. Now be quiet.” Guilt stabs me. My alpha, already drowning in shame, nudges me. He wants me to be nice. He can smell her heat, her honey. He wants her. Desperately.