More teeth. More hate. More rage.
White-hot fucking fury ripples through me. For a second, I have to physically restrain my wolf as he thrashes against my insides. His claws press against my skin, testing the barrier. He's so close to breaking free.
It's coming. A ripple of fur erupts along my arm. Deidre's spell, explicitly directing me not to shift, hammers against my head. The pain cracks through me as the spell begins to break, and it happens again. Another ripple. Slow, painful, a mere shred of free will, but it's enough.
I tell my wolf to calm. To be patient.
It's like arguing with a tsunami.
But the shift recedes because my wolf knows if we have any chance of making it out of here, of saving Lily, he needs to wait. It's not time.
Pierre notices my internal war, but the sadistic gleam in his eyes tells me he's misread it completely.
I might actually get out of this.
The realization slams into me. One I've thought a thousand times before, but until this very moment, I never really believed it.
My grin grows wider. I bark out a laugh.
Pierre has no idea what's coming for him. He thinks I'm losing my will, my sanity. My humanity, long gone. Maybe I'm not doing a very good job of concealing my smile. My real one.
God, it's been years, but I feel it stretch across my face. My laugh is hoarse, sharp.
Pierre's right eye twitches, his confidence cracking just an inch.
The barriers, the spells, they all fall when the coven dies or dismantles. And I'm going to slaughter every single person in this godforsaken hellhole. I'm going to paint the ceilings with their blood.
A plan forms, fast and choppy. My wolf jumps and paces, ready to shift, but I hold him back. Deidre may have my blood in that vial around her neck, but she doesn't have Lily's.
We just need to get Lily's strength back, and then we're out of here. We will leave nothing behind but corpses.
The witches may have held me longer, but Lily will have just as much revenge in her heart as I do. They tried to steal her autonomy, her body, her will.
I will kill every witch in this hell house, or I will die trying. No more torture. No more rape.
Pierre stares at me for a beat too long. Then, he reaches down and tosses in a few water bottles and a couple of raw steaks, the point of his visit. The door creaks shut, and he saunters up the stairs. He tries to walk slowly, but there's a hitch in his step. I unsettled him. Scared him. Truly, this time. Not the fun, exciting kind of fear that gets him hard.
I wait until I know he's gone, counting his footsteps as they fade up the stairwell, then crawl over to Lily, lumped across the cold floor. I lift her head. Her hair is stringy, matted with sweat. They spelled her, inducing a false omega heat. Or something like a heat, since deltas don't naturally have them. Her body wasn't prepared for it. Worse, I couldn't—wouldn't—fuck her to take the edge off. I couldn't do that to myself, to my mate, or to Lily.
She came at me for hours, and I held her back. It was hard watching her suffer over and over again. Begging for a knot. She can't even take a knot, no delta can. But whatever magic they gave her made her think she could, and she was relentless.
I unscrew one of the water bottles, pouring only enough to fill the cap. If she's going to get her strength back enough for us to break out of here, I need to ration. I dribble the water between her cracked lips.
She doesn't stir, but her throat works reflexively, swallowing every drop. I wait a few minutes and do it again until finally, asoft moan escapes her, eyelids fluttering. They open slowly, red-rimmed, pupils still blown out from the spell.
As soon as she's conscious, she begins sobbing—deep, guttural sounds that wrack her small frame. I hold her awkwardly, doing my best to be patient. Wanting her to get over it and make a plan with me. But also knowing what it would have meant to have someone with me in the early days.
I guess my heart isn't all black, because I hold her while she cries. I say nothing. I rub her shoulder, feeling detached from her emotions, knowing I can't take them on if I'm going to do what needs to be done.
Eventually, she's awake enough to drink more water. She trembles and I help her, capfuls first, before she can hold the bottle herself. I eat some of the meat, but force Lily to eat the rest. She argues, insisting we share.
Until I tell her my idea. How we're getting out of here, how I've got my wolf back, how his fur erupted along my arms, and I'm finally ready to shift. I tell her about my blood around Deidre's neck, and how the other witches have no power over me.
And then she eats everything. Because I was right. Little delta Lily has some revenge on her mind, and for the first time in years, I have not just an ally, but a fucking partner in crime.
We spend the rest of the night making an escape plan.
Chapter 21: Mona
