Chapter 37 Casey
Casey
I walk outside, flanked by four wolves. It doesn’t feel right without Angel. Still, I’m shocked by what I see. A car? Cars! How did they get up here without me knowing? The wolves must have run up the side of the mountain; there are so many.
It scares me, giving me a terrified flip of my stomach. My whole world crumbles, every future I’d dreamed about crashes in quick glance. There is no getting out of this, no survival, no way to win.
They are here.
The entire Foster pack.
Everyone is here in fur or on two legs, teeth bared, ready to take us on.
“You have rogue feral wolves living on your property, on pack land.” My father calls out. His smug smile is one I recognise. He thinks he’s won.
He has. But I’m not going to give up.
“I don’t. They are perfectly sane. And this isn’t pack land, it’s mine.”
I growl and love the fact that the old prick flinches.
“You utterly useless bitch! Just you wait!” my father spits wrathfully.
Cindel steps forward, her hand wrapped around Jonas’ arm. He is watching me with something that looks far too much like cunning. They are the alpha couple in everything but name, and the pack looks to them. The happy cruelty is just bleeding out of them right now.
It’s Jonas who scares me the most. My father is mean and cruel but predictable. Jonas will cut the throat of the person you love just to watch you cry. He’ll go after what I care about because it hurts me. He can’t be reasoned with.
My knuckles brush against Hazard’s. I turn and look at his face; his jaw is set. He’s ready to fight them.
They will fight and die, unable to survive against that many wolves. There are over forty of Pack Foster’s wolves here. Who could survive that?
I can see it playing out in my head.
We’d kill some. And then we’d die.
“If you and your wolves swear into the pack, we will leave you all alone.” Cindel says it smugly; she knows damn well that they won’t.
“No, you won’t,” I snap back. “Your lies stink so bad you can smell them for a mile. And further, let me repeat for the dumb down in the back, I’m not pack!” My words thunder with the wolf’s howl echoing around my mountain.
“No way, holy fucking shit. Jonas, you are not going to believe this,” a person I don’t know shouts. He leans in to whisper to someone and a ripple, a hungry, desperate ripple goes through the pack.
“It’s him.” Those words are repeated, echoing around the pack as word spreads.
My confusion is just another side of dread, and I wonder what cruel twist the universe has for me now.
My father leans down to listen to a wolf who whispers in his ear. His eyes go straight to Khaos. I tense, wondering what they are talking about. Jonas takes a half a step forward, his eyes locked on my alpha.
“That’s Kerrick Khaos,” the guy who first spoke crows with a malicious laugh.
“Kerrick Khaos?” my father echoes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I went to school with him. That’s the son of the alpha supreme.”
My heart slams into my throat. There’s no way. The alpha supreme is so far removed he may as well be myth, and here’s his son…my fated mate. Nope, it can’t be true.
“Casey,” Khaos whispers.
I ignore him; I can’t…there’s no way.
“The heir, we can use him to get his father to bend to our will,” Jonas says to my father in a rush, his obscene smile making me cringe.
“Use him? Not happening,” I hiss the words, but it sinks in. Khaos is going to be the alpha of alphas? I whip around, staring at Khaos. He’s the prince? The alpha heir? My Khaos?
Khaos has eyes only for me. “I’m sorry.”
The whispered words strip away any hope that this is a nightmare. They steal any chance of me getting them out alive, too.
“If we take him, we can rule all the packs.”
“That would be pointless,” Khaos snarls at Jonas. “My father will never let that happen.”
“Kerrick,” I whisper his name for the first time.
His eyes drop to mine; we linger for a whole long second in the devastation of that news.
They will kill him. They will go after the pack. His identity has doomed Angel, Wrath, Hazard, and Riot.
They will never let them live. They will isolate him and then use me to break him.
I know exactly what my pack is and how they operate. I’ve watched it play out too many times before.
This is my pack. My responsibility.
My father sighs with an exultant laugh and gestures to his betas, who raise guns and take aim at everyone but Khaos. “I’m sorry it came to this, but fortune favours the pack.”
I look frantically between them, trying to find a way out. There are too many of them, and they brought guns. Not even a wolf can outrun a bullet.
“Shoot them,” my father says gleefully.
Four of the pack’s betas tense, training their guns on Hazard, Riot, and Wrath. I step forward, holding up my hands, standing in front of them as best I can.
“Wait!” I’m frantic, desperate. “Please, I will do anything.”
“Will you kneel?” My father sneers. “Will you spread your whore legs for Jonas and breed out mongrel pups?”
I tense. There is only one answer. “I will.”
“Don’t you dare,” Khaos snarls.
“What are you doing?” Hazard hisses. “Get out of the way! You don’t die for us!”
“Take her.” My father barks. “If she struggles, kill the red one first, but make sure it’s slow, and he suffers.”
I throw a desperate look over my shoulder, but my wolves are silent, fierce bombs about to explode. I can feel the danger in the air. But guns.
I look frantically between them. My four wolves and the guns.
They can’t win. It’s impossible.
But maybe. Hands grab at me, and Khaos jerks forward, snarling.
“Stay back!” The beta with the gun trained on him shouts.
I throw the hands off me and turn back to face the four of them.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry we met. That you ended up here with me. That I couldn’t do better.”
Riot cries out. A hand grips my hair and yanks me to my knees. A rope wraps around me.
I keep my eyes on the four of them. It’s only then I realise that someone has a gun trained on me, and that’s what’s keeping them back. Of course. They should let me die.
“Casey!” Hazard screams when someone hits me hard, sending me into the dirt.
My front door explodes, and Angel comes charging out. He blinks, taking it all in, and his face transforms. Rage. Complete madness.
He’s going to charge them, try to free me, and he will die.
No! I’d rather go through anything but lose them.
I’d rather they live far away and be alive than lose them to death.
I love him more than anything. I need them to live.
Angel is moving, but it’s slow motion.
Freida’s voice whispers into my mind. “A curse needs exact perimeters. And often the truth of it is hidden so it can’t easily be broken. You need to consider who cast it and what they truly wanted, but it always requires a massive sacrifice.”
Everything makes sense. The curse was to punish them for taking what they wanted. It’s not an atonement, it’s punishment. They were always supposed to find me and our happily ever after…that was never going to happen.
We never had a chance. It’s about taking from them, punishing them, if they couldn’t have my pack, then my pack was never going to have me.
It’s a perfect moment of crystal clear clarity that breaks my heart. I stare at them, and I realise, no matter what happens, I will always be grateful to have had them, even for a short time.
I know what I have to do because, for me to have what I need, for me to live…I don’t need a mate, I don’t need love…I just need them to be alive. I need them to be safe, and they can’t be anywhere near me. The only way I can have that is if I…rip myself apart.
I close my eyes. Rip it off like a bandaid, Casey, my mother says in my memory.
“I reject the bonds. I reject this pack. You are not mine, and you never will be.” My voice doesn’t tremble. It’s strong.
Khaos screams, his head thrown back, his back arching. Riot collapses. Hazard whimpers. Wrath roars. I see and hear them all.
I glance at Angel. He’s silent, ignoring the pain, still coming for me.
There’s a tearing inside me, an agony that feels like it will never heal, like it will destroy me completely.
I look away from the pack, down at the bracelet that snaps clean in two and falls off my wrist. These witches have got what they wanted.
I close my eyes because I can’t see them like this. I don’t want this memory.
“CASEY!” Khaos roars my name, but it sounds so far away.
There’s a white shimmer, then an explosion of black smoke, and when it clears, they’re all gone.
I shift into my other form, still tied in ropes. I lay there in the dirt, in front of the pack that will try their best to destroy me, and I scream my pain.