“No,” he cut me off. “You can’t trick me. This needs to be done.” He started to unbind my wrist and latched one of the handcuffs around my arm.
Seeing that he wasn’t about to put a stop to this, with my free hand, I rooted around in my pocket. I clasped onto the silver arrowhead that Sera gave me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said before aiming for his throat.
“Shit,” he grunted, his glasses falling from his face.
I held my breath when I realized I had missed the mark and stabbed him in his shoulder. Christophe screeched and instantly pulled the arrowhead from his body, tossing it to the floor. A few plumes of smoke rose from the wound.
I braced myself for a slap or punch from the anger on his face. But, instead, he grimaced and yanked my other arm up, cuffing it to a second pair of hanging handcuffs.
“What the hell is going on up there?” Rufus yelled from below.
I peered down to see we were over a sizable meeting space. There were desks and stairs in a semicircle formation at the end closest to the balcony. The chairs all sat empty. At the head of the room stood a podium and behind it, a large television screen built into the wall.
“N-nothing,” Christophe replied, looking back at me before turning away. He started for the doorway we’d come through.
“He’s going to kill you too,” I yelled.
Christophe stopped with his back to me.
“Once he doesn’t need you anymore. He’s not your friend. A friend wouldn’t ask you to do something like this. He would tell you that you deserve better. Your voice, it should’ve been heard, Christophe. I’m so sorry it wasn’t,” I said, honestly.
He didn’t turn around or acknowledge that he heard anything I said. He slammed the door behind him.
I yanked and rattled at the handcuffs. That was when a searing pain shot through my arms, down the rest of my body. Glancing up at my bound wrist, I noticed the burns that started to form where the handcuffs touched.
Before I could even ask why silver was burning me, a booming sound came from somewhere in the building.
My body tingled. Chael. I knew it was him. He was close by.
“Where the hell is my mate?” His voice echoed around the room.
* * *
Chael
I bolted through the doors of the Alliance’s headquarters after kicking the doors in. Guided by my nose, I knew Reese was close. I could feel her fear as deeply as I felt my own.
“Where are you?” I asked through our private ability to speak to one another.
“Balcony, over what looks like a meeting room,”she replied.“Christophe handcuffed me to a wall. I-I think the silver is burning my wrists.”
I growled. My brother had betrayed me. The entire drive to the Alliance’s headquarters, I told myself that it wasn’t possible. The brother we had taken in before his first-ever shift couldn’t dishonor our entire pack like this. But the puzzle pieces started to fall into place.
It explained why he had too much trouble tracking down Pines’s information or vehicle or who he might’ve been working with. Christophe knew all along.
“I’m coming,” I told Reese. Without thinking, I started for the balcony only to be stopped by the click sound of a gun cocking.
“You chose your mate,” Rufus said from behind me.
I stared straight ahead as I watched Christophe emerge from the door that led to the meeting room. My pitiful brother couldn’t even look me in the eye.
“Isn’t this a nice little family reunion?” Rufus cackled. “Too bad I won’t ever get to reunite with my family. The one you slaughtered before my eyes.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, turning my head sideways to better look at Rufus.
He stuck the gun in my face. “In Florida. You murdered my father and mother and brothers right before my very eyes.”
