Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Kain
The crack of the whip splits the air before the pain registers.
Then, it hits.
Wolfsbane-laced leather tears across my back, and the agony is immediate and all-consuming.
My muscles spasm violently, atrophying instantly wherever the poison touches, cells dying and struggling to regenerate all at once.
It’s like being burned and frozen simultaneously, my flesh trying to heal while the wolfsbane works to destroy it.
I scream. Can’t help it. The sound rips from my throat, raw and desperate.
Another strike. Another explosion of pain that makes my vision white out.
My wolf howls inside me, trapped and panicked, trying to heal damage as it’s being inflicted but falling hopelessly behind. My back is a battlefield of dying and regenerating tissue, the wolfsbane spreading through my system with each lash.
“Please,” I groan, my voice breaking. “Please, somebody save me. Please—”
The whip cracks again. My body convulses against the restraints.
“Save you?” The handler’s voice cuts through my screams, amused. “Who exactly do you think is coming, boy?”
I can’t answer. I can only cry out as another lash lands, the wolfsbane burning even deeper this time.
“Are you dreaming of rescue? You think that one day your pack will come for you?” The handler’s cruel words echo dissonantly, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
“You poor thing. Your alpha knows exactly where you are,” he cackles. “We made him an offer to allow us to take you, and he accepted it.”
For a moment, my brain freezes, despair tuning out even the sting of the wolfsbane. What? No. No, that can’t be—
“He took payment to forget about you. Called it compensation for his lost pack member.” The handler laughs, the sound reverberating off the concrete walls. “You’re ours now. No one’s coming. No one wants you.”
I want to say that it’s a lie, but I can’t get the words past the agony wracking my body.
The whip comes down again. And again. And again.
My back is shredded, muscles twitching and spasming as they try to heal and fail. The wolfsbane is spreading like acid through my system.
“They sold you, boy,” the handler says with wicked glee. “Sold you and moved on like you never existed.”
I let out another hopeless scream, and it is met with the repeated sting of the whip, beating the fight out of me until I hang there in the chains, tears streaming down my face, my young mind unable to process the senseless cruelty of it all.
“This is your life now.”
I jolt awake with a gasp, my body jerking against the restraints. Pain explodes through my wrists where the silver has been burning for hours. I’m covered in sweat. My breathing is shallow and ragged, my heart pounding as if I’ve been running for my life.
Just a dream. It was just a dream.
Except it wasn’t. Not really.
That conversation happened. That torture happened. Hundreds of variations of it over ten years, wearing me down bit by bit until I believed their lies.
Until I became what they wanted me to be.
I hang here limply, trying to get my breathing under control. The dungeon is dark except for a sliver of light coming from a tiny window high above. My body aches everywhere—from the silver, from the poison, from the beatings during the interrogations.
But worse than the physical pain is the weight of what I know now: I was lied to.
The cell door opens, but I don’t have the energy to lift my head. Footsteps approach. Measured. Controlled.
“Your burner phone received a call,” Darius says.
I force myself to look up. He’s standing a few feet away, arms crossed, staring at me.
“We didn’t answer it, of course,” he continues. “But they’ll know something’s wrong when you don’t respond. How long before they realize you’ve been compromised?”
“Not long.” My voice comes out hoarse. “Maybe a day. Two at most. They’ll assume I’ve either been captured or killed.”
“And then?”
“They’ll cut their losses. Pull out of the area. Disappear.” I meet his eyes. “Or they’ll come back with a plan B.”
Darius’s gaze is cold. “If that happens, you will have outlived your usefulness to me.”
I hang my head, knowing exactly what he means.
“There’s still time,” he says. “If you cooperate.”
This is it.
If I say nothing, I’ll either die from the poison in two weeks or be executed by Darius. And the organization may or may not disappear into the shadows.
But if I help Darius, Anne will finally be out of this mess.
The image of her face flashes through my mind. I remember the way she smiled and laughed when I caught that tiny fish at the creek. The way she kissed me like I was everything.
Did I ever really love her? Or was it just the mate bond?
No, that’s not it. I loved her before I left for the war. Before they took me. We loved each other as teenagers planning our future together. And when I came back and saw her again, despite the conditioning I’d been subjected to…I loved her then, too.
The mission was real. The lies were real. And what I felt for her? That was as real as anything could be.
I relished each moment, watching her work, seeing her kindness toward everyone around her even when she was hurting inside.
I fell in love with her twice. Once as a boy who didn’t know what the world would take from him, and again as a broken man who didn’t deserve her but couldn’t help wanting her anyway.
She needs to know that. Even if she hates me. Even if she never wants to see me again. Even if she will never forgive me, she deserves to know that part was real.
“If you let Anne go, I’ll help you,” I hear myself say, hoping I broke through enough of the conditioning the other day to survive this. “Whatever you need to take down the organization, to protect Violet, I’ll help.”
“Is that so?” Darius asks dryly. “So, you’ll turn on the Covenant just like you turned on your pack?”
I slump against the chains weakly. “There’s a reason why I couldn’t simply walk away from them.”
“What reason?”
“They poison every operative before sending them out.” My voice is tired even to my own ears, but at least I am able to speak without searing pain. “It’s a control mechanism. We need an antidote every four months or we die. Slowly. Painfully.”
Darius purses his lips. “And you’re due for the antidote.”
“Past due.” I smile bitterly. “They refused to give it to me unless I delivered Violet. So, either way, I’m dead. I just ask one thing of you. Tell Anne I never meant to hurt her. I never lied about how I felt toward her. That part was real.”
Darius is quiet for a long time. I see him struggling inwardly; his eyes glow gold then return to normal, as though he is warring with his wolf.
Then, his shoulders drop slightly, and I see his hands clench into fists at his sides before relaxing deliberately. His jaw works like he’s biting back words—or maybe a growl.
“We’ll figure out the antidote,” he says finally, the words sounding like they cost him dearly.
I stare at him, not understanding. “What?”
His eyes flash gold again for just a second before he controls them. “You heard me.”
“You would try to save me after what I…” I trail off, surprised.
“Don’t mistake this for forgiveness.” Darius’s voice is hard, clipped, making sure I know this choice did not come easily for him. “Or charity. My wolf is screaming at me to tear you apart for threatening my mate.”
He takes a step closer, and I can see the tension in every line of his body. The Alpha is fighting against his most primal instincts.
“But Anne is Violet’s friend, and she asked me to spare you both if I could.”
My heart twists in my already hollow chest. “Can I see her? Anne?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“That depends on what you do from now on,” he says, then he pauses, looking me in the eye. “If you’re lying to me about any of this, if this is some elaborate ploy, I will make what you’ve experienced so far look like mercy. Understood?”
“Understood.”
I take a shaky breath and begin.
“As you know, the organization calls itself the Covenant.” My voice is hoarse, but I push through. “I don’t know how far it reaches or who funds it. We were never told. They compartmentalize everything; each operative only knows what they need to know for their specific mission.”
Darius listens, his expression unreadable.
“I was eighteen when I was taken.” Painful memories come flooding back.
“For the first year, it was nothing but torture. Breaking us down, making us compliant. They used wolfsbane, silver, sensory deprivation. Whatever worked to strip away our resistance until we were fully trained to be operatives.”
I pause, the phantom agony of those early days making my current injuries feel almost insignificant.
Darius asks, “How many operatives were there?”
“I don’t know. We were kept isolated from each other except during training exercises.
I’ve seen maybe twenty others over the years, but there could be hundreds.
” I shift against the chains, and the silver burns deeper.
“Each operative has a handler. Mine is called Rick. He’s the one who gave me this mission, the one who refused the antidote. ”
“Where is the Covenant based?”
“Multiple locations. I’m aware of three safe houses—two in human territories, one near the border of neutral land—but there must be more. And they move constantly. By now, they’ve probably already evacuated the ones I know about.”
I tell him everything else I can think of. Communication protocols. Training methods. The way they select targets—always hybrids, always those with rare or powerful abilities. How they’ve been studying Violet for months, tracking her movements, analyzing her magic.
“They want to replicate her abilities,” I explain. “Create enhanced soldiers who can wield both wolf shifter and witch powers. That’s why they need her alive.”
By the time I finish, my voice is barely above a whisper. The effort of talking combined with the poison is too much.
Darius is silent as he processes everything I’ve told him. Finally, he says, “Come with me.”
Two guards unlock my chains and pull me to my feet. My legs nearly give out, but the men keep a firm grip on my arms as we leave the cell.
We take an elevator up—how many floors, I lose track—and then I’m being led into what’s clearly Darius’s office. Sleek, modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking pack territory.
The guards push me into a chair. I slump forward, barely able to hold myself upright.
Darius sits across from me and spreads a map across his desk. “Show me the safe house locations.”
I lean forward and point to three spots on the map.
He marks them, then says, “Walk me through the hierarchy as you understand it.”
He pulls out a blank piece of paper and starts to sketch an organizational chart as I talk.
We spend the next hour strategizing. He asks questions I don’t have answers to, but I give him what I can.
Patterns I’ve noticed. Weaknesses in their protocols.
The fact that handlers check in with operatives every forty-eight hours—if I don’t respond to that call soon, they’ll know something is wrong.
“We can use that,” Darius mutters, making notes. “Stage a response, buy ourselves time.”
When he runs out of questions, he leans back in his chair and studies me.
“You’ve been cooperative,” he says. “More than I expected.”
“I told you I’d help. How is Anne? Will you let her go now?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “There’s something you should know.”
My chest tightens at his words. “Is she okay?”
“Physically? She’s fine. She’s been at home since”—he pauses—“since she reported you.”
It feels like he just kicked me in the stomach. “What?”
“Anne is the one who turned you in.” Darius’s tone is frank. “She overheard your phone call in the parking lot. Heard everything you said to your handler.”
No. No, that can’t be!
But it makes sense. That faint vanilla scent I caught after the call…I thought I just missed her too much.
“Wait, so she’s fine? That screaming—” I choke out.
A faint smile crosses Darius’s face. “One of the female soldiers. I would never have tortured Anne, no matter what she might have done. In this case, I knew she wasn’t guilty of anything. But she was your weakness.”
I should feel angry, but instead, I’m relieved. My Anne is fine. Nothing happened to her. I don’t even care that she turned me in. But…
She heard everything.
And then, I remember my own voice, cold and dismissive, saying she was “just useful.” Claiming my relationship with her was “all fake.” That the mission was what mattered, not her.
Devastation crashes over me like a wave.
“Turning you in destroyed her. She fainted when I left to arrest you, and she has become a shell of herself,” Darius continues, and there’s an almost cruel tinge to his clinical delivery. “She hasn’t eaten properly in days. She can barely sleep. Your betrayal broke her.”
Each word is a knife twisting in my chest.
“In your quest for revenge against a pack that never gave up on you,” Darius says quietly, “you shattered the one person who truly loved you.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think past the horror of what I’ve done.
“I need to see her,” I manage. “I need to explain—”
“You’ll get your chance.” Darius stands, moving to look out the window. “You’ll be staying with her for the next week while we coordinate our efforts against the Covenant.”
I stare at him, not understanding. “She’ll never agree to that.”
“She doesn’t have a choice. We need you close, under supervision. And your apartment isn’t secure; the organization may have it under surveillance.” He turns back to me. “Anne’s building has pack security. It’s the logical choice.”
“But she won’t forgive me,” I say, my voice breaking.
“That’s your problem to solve, not mine.” His expression hardens. “The only reason I’m allowing this is because my mate is urging me to give you a chance to make things right. Violet believes Anne deserves that closure, even if it is painful.”
He walks back to the desk and leans forward with both hands braced against it.
“But understand this: I don’t trust you. I’ll have guards watching Anne’s building twenty-four seven. If you try anything—if you so much as upset her more than you already have—I will execute you myself. Clear?”
I nod.
“Good.” He straightens. “You’ll be escorted to her place tonight. What happens after that is between you and her.”
The thought of facing Anne, of seeing the hurt I’ve caused reflected in her eyes, makes me want to beg Darius to kill me now and be done with it.
But I owe her more than that. I owe her the truth, even if it destroys me. Even if she never forgives me. Even if all I get is one chance to tell her that what we had was real.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
Darius’s laugh is harsh. “Don’t thank me. All I’ve done is give you enough rope to either redeem or hang yourself with.”
He’s right.
And I have no idea which it’s going to be.