Chapter 13 Elias
Elias
Putting Kingsley in a cell felt wrong. But the door closed, trapping him within, closing us off from one of Ivy’s mates.
It felt like a betrayal. Not just to him—but to her, too. What would she think when she found out about this? What would she say?
The last thing Ivy ever would have wanted was to see one of her mates locked away—even the asshole half-Fae. But especially not Kingsley.
We moved in silence to the war room. Tension thickened the air between Archer, Grey, the demon, and me, making it almost difficult to breathe. Dante’s focus on me felt like a confirmation that at some point, he and I crossed paths. That somewhere in my past, I’d been in his control.
I couldn’t prove it until I had someone read my memories.
And the only person I trusted to do that walked stiffly beside me, emotionless and deadly.
“We are alone,” the demon said as we entered the war room, breaking the tension as he sat. “At least, as far as the shadows are concerned. No prying souls. No chance Dante could be listening through someone else’s ears.”
Archer slumped into his usual chair, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, hopefully he isn’t listening through any of our ears.” He looked at me sharply, though I couldn’t read his eyes. “So, you think you were there?”
I stiffened, giving a terse nod. “I recognised one of Dante’s soldiers. He was with the huge bear. The one who took Nash and the Primal.”
“He recognised you, too,” Grey said, clasping her hands on the table.
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, crossing my arms. “I don’t really remember anything. Don’t know how I got there, or how I escaped. Just know that before I was at the orphanage at Phoenix, I’d been somewhere with him.”
I learned years ago to stop thinking about before. To stop wondering. Even when Ivy and I bonded and she learned about the scars, I’d been so focused on our future that the past hadn’t really crossed my mind.
But I thought I’d been taken to Phoenix because I was born an Alpha, rejected by the nearby packs because I posed a potential threat to their leadership.
Obviously, that wasn’t the case.
“You remember the trauma,” Grey said, taking me by surprise. “Your memories are blocked, likely because of that.”
I released a shaky breath, bowing my head. “Yeah. I think so. But I could have also had my memories blocked by them.”
“How did you escape?” Rhadamanthus asked. “You would have been a child in their hold.”
“No idea,” I growled. “I just know I did.”
It had me questioning everything we knew about Dante. Was he holding more children? Had he forced the shifters into breeding? Was I a product of that? Or had he kidnapped me?
It made my stomach turn just thinking about it.
“I still find it hard to believe that Dante could even think about this,” Rowan muttered, staring at the table. He scratched the back of his head, confusion darkening his eyes.
“What?” I leaned forward, catching a shift in his scent.
Rowan shook his head. “His parties were huge. Hidden. Only those who answered his call could find them. But I remember…I remember that once, maybe twice, someone went missing. I mean, we didn’t think much of it, because there was always someone running off with their mate and doing whatever.
No one made a big deal about it. But…” Rowan stopped, scrubbing a hand down his face as he sat back.
“You wonder if he somehow had something to do with it?” Grey asked, eyes narrowing. “That he was somehow building his army with these parties?”
The mage shrugged. “Why else would he throw so many of them? But if he needed females for…breeding, then he would have his pick at them.”
“We have links to this false king, links he likely never thought about,” Rhadamanthus said, his voice cutting through the tension.
“We can use what he has done against him. If you are certain this Windermere witch is powerful, then she could break through whatever spell he used against the charm mage. And now, we might know how to break into his compound. If we unlock your memories.” He directed those last words at me.
I swallowed thickly and looked to Grey. “We don’t need a Windermere witch to pull my memories, right?”
Grey stiffened. “No,” she replied. “I can access them, so long as there are no blocks.”
“You think the reason I can’t access them is trauma,” I said. “So, you could get to them, right? If it’s just me blocking them?”
She nodded once. “Yes.”
“Then do it,” I demanded. “Read them. Do what you need to do. Just find a way to get our girl back.”
I expected to feel fear as I watched Grey rise from her chair across from me and make her way around the table. I waited for a sense of panic, for that tightening in my chest at the thought of letting anyone other than my mate inside my head.
But I only felt determination. A wave of calm washed over me as the tension fell away.
If this was the only way to get my mate back, to protect her and our bond, then I didn’t really care who had access to my memories. So long as it helped me find Ivy.
I felt a little better knowing it was Grey, though.
The vampire slid into the chair beside me, her darkening eyes on me. “Your wrist,” she said, holding out her hand. “When I go into your memories, you’ll see it. Feel it. There will be a physical reaction, and a psychological one. You must be prepared for that.”
I nodded once, giving her my arm. “Archer, stand behind me in case I—”
I didn’t get a chance to finish before the mage was out of his seat and rounding the table. “I’ve got you.”
There was still a heaviness in the air. I tried to loosen my muscles, to escape from the hold it had over me, but it wasn’t going to go away that easily. I almost flinched when Archer put his hands on my shoulders.
The eyes of the demon king were on me, but I closed my own as Grey’s cold fingers wrapped around my forearm.
There was no time to react when she struck.
Fangs pierced the thin skin of my wrist, the pain a burn I’d never felt before.
I’d let Grey feed once during the early days of our mission when we were still waiting for supplies.
It’d been a quick, simple refill on her part, and I’d barely felt anything.
But this…This was fire. Venom from her bite rushed through my veins until all I felt was the burn of her power.
Behind my closed eyes, for a long while, there was only darkness. Only pain.
Then a flash of something.
It struck like Ivy’s lightning, crossing the blackness behind my eyes so harshly I almost pulled away. My jaw clenched as soon as it disappeared, but what it revealed had me wanting to pull away.
Cages. Ten of them, filled with the bodies of small children.
And I was inside one of them.
I was a voyeur of my own memory, trapped in the mind of the child I’d been when it happened.
Surrounding me were bars laced with charms I didn’t recognise, though their power could be felt even by present me.
They were new, like they’d recently been constructed, their silver gleaming despite the smell of blood permeating the air.
Even the feeling came through the memory; the cold metal ground beneath my small body, the lack of clothing protecting me from the chill in the air.
Other than blood, the stench of piss and shit clogged my nose, too overwhelming to be sensed by a small child.
Somehow, I was tapping into my wolf’s senses.
That’s impossible. And yet, despite the darkness of the room, I saw everything clearly.
The other children spread out in their cages.
Some slept naked. Others sat up like me, with their arms wrapped around their legs.
And there was one child in a half-shifted form, which should have been impossible for how young we were.
I wasn’t the only wolf, though I didn’t recognise any of the children as kin. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
Other than the cages, we were alone. The room was small. On one of the far walls were a set of doors that led out of our prison, lights blinking on a keypad. I couldn’t see much else—couldn’t make my head move.
Footsteps sounded outside the room. It had all the children up. Even those sleeping rose like they’d been shocked, their fearful eyes landing on the door.
Despite it, child-me remained still. Eyes on the door. Breaths even. I couldn’t tell if I’d been afraid or not.
There were three beeps that broke the silence. The breaths of the child in their half-shifted form quickened. Scents shifted to reveal their terror.
Still, I held myself like a statue.
I felt nothing.
The doors swung open. At first, I caught only scents; one smelled like lavender and patchouli, another like lemon, and the last one…
The last one had a scent that was all too familiar to me.
Child me didn’t react to the other presences, but specifically his.
The bear shifter entered the small room of cages without a word, wearing the gear of a soldier under the false king. There was something in his eyes, a glint of understanding, but not familiarity.
A tightness coiled around my lungs at the sight of him in my memories. My mentor had been my warden.
The memory disappeared like another crack of lightning. I drew in a sharp breath as my eyes flew open, the image of the cell washed away by the reddish light of the war room.
“That was a development I did not expect,” someone said beside me, their voice muffled.
“What happened?” another asked, this one beside me. “Is he even here with us right now?”
There was a moment of hesitation. “I think he’s coming to terms with the fact that the male who mentored him is the same one who held him in a cage under Dante’s instruction.”
That was the last thing I heard before darkness claimed me, and the memories of my childhood took hold.
The crack of the whip woke me out of sleep. There was no pain, but the scream of another male had me turning in my cage to witness the whip fly again, slicing through his delicate skin.