“Shawn will come for me—”
“I’m counting on that, my dear. At the moment, I’m just waiting for the best possible timing. I have to say, it was a lot easier stealing you out from under his nose than I thought it would be. I was worried for a moment there that maybe he actually didn’t give a fuck, and you wouldn’t even be any good for leverage.”
I glare at him, not daring to speak in case I unwittingly give him ammunition.
“Oh, now she’s quiet. Nothing to say, nothing at all?”
“I hate you!” I moan, despair, and pain mingling inside me until my body and soul feel like one singular ache. “I’d do anything to be free of you.”
“Even die?” he asks, stepping closer to me to glare right in my face.
Okay, maybe not that.
“C’mon, boss,” I hear Rafe somewhere behind me. “You said we could finally have her. My mouth’s waterin’ like crazy, seein’ her tied up like this.”
“Will you shut the fuck up?” Father growls, looking past me at Rafe. “I need you guys to do your fucking jobs and be good little doggies. This entire situation is turning into a fucking cluster fuck, and if we don’t act fast, it will be all our necks.”
Disbelief trickles through me, and I start to giggle.
“What’s so fucking funny?” Father demands.
“You’re already fucked,” I laugh. “The other alphas know everything. It doesn’t matter what you do now. The other packs will take your fucking head. It’s over.”
“Not if I kill you,” he says, grabbing my throat. “I’ll use you for leverage, kill Shawn, and you, then frame someone else for it. While the other alphas chase their tails over their dead pal, I’ll head to Eccles with my chosen few and check out that stone everyone’s talking about.”
“Oh, no,” I gasp.
“Oh, yeah,” he answers. “I was so fascinated by that legend as a kid. Something didn’t fit right. We had the story of the fire, and the quake, but meanwhile, don’t trust people—Eccles people in particular. Got me thinking that maybe this power was something that could be controlled.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” I swear at him. “Everyone who’s ever tried for the power of the stone has died.”
“Ah-ha!” he says. “So, it is controllable. That makes everything really simple.”
“You’re out of your mind!” I yell. “How can you possibly think you will get away with any of this. Shawn is coming—”
“Shawn is going to die,” he says calmly. “So are you. I wouldn’t worry your ugly little head over it any further. I’ll keep getting away with it exactly the same way I always have.”
“You didn’t get away with Talon’s death!” I say, taking a wild guess and trying to provoke him.
Father smiles slowly, a cold glint in his eye. “My dear, I wasn’t even there when Talon died. How could I possibly have anything to do with it?”
“Everyone knows you set him up. Shawn told me!”
“Well, Shawn isn’t ‘everyone’ now, is he?” Father scoffs. “If by ‘everyone,’ you mean the pack, don’t worry, they are totally fucking clueless. I told everyone Talon was hell-bent on attacking Eccles because he was sick of living under the threat of them, and he finally snapped. So far as the rest of the pack knows, he was completely unhinged.”
“How did you make him go?” I ask, my bravado finally failing me. “What did you tell him that made him go there?”
Father laughs softly. “I was really hoping I’d get the chance to share this with you, actually. I told Talon and Jess that Eccles warriors had kidnapped some of our women—specifically, you.”
“What?” I gasp, my heart breaking in my chest.
“I had one of your old dresses, torn up and splattered with a little blood. I took it to Talon with tears in my eyes and told him that you led a few of our girls out that way on a peace mission and got attacked and captured. I begged him to go and liberateyou, but here’s the thing—I didn’t even have to beg! He was out the door before I could even finish talking.”
“That’s why Jess went, too,” I sob, my voice drowning in tears. “Oh, God. They went to save me!”
“They did,” Father agrees, grinning. “Earlier in the day, the boys and I threw some torn clothes around in a rough trail, and Talon led the warriors straight to their deaths.”
I have so many questions, but my sorrow swallows them, and all I can do is cry, trying desperately to take a breath.
