Peter pointed, and Livie turned on a heel and headed down the hall, leaving him alone with his alpha. What the hell did he say to the man? He’d been an ass for months. And Cade looked like he was about to fall over. “You know we won’t stop until we get her back, right?”
Cade sank down onto the couch and dropped his head into his hands. “I love this pack. Never wanted to be alpha. But after Mike died, it fit.Ifit. Without Mara…I can’t keep doing this. Hell, I don’t know how to live without her.”
Before Peter could shift Sameen out of his arms so he could take a seat next to his alpha and try to comfort him, try to findsomethingto say that would make any of this even slightly better, Cade jerked up. “I need a shower.” He stopped only a few inches from Peter and stared down at him. “Don’t fuck up with her, man. If you do, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Chapter Nine
Mara
“Wake up!”
She tried to force her eyes open, but every cell in her body wanted to stay asleep. What did it matter anyway? She’d be dead soon.
Why wasn’t she upset about that?
“Because those damn practitioners are messing with you. Wake up! Now!”
Mara cracked her lids, but she couldn’t see anything beyond the faint outline of the cell bars in front of her. She lay on the thin mattress, cradling her rapidly growing belly.
“Better. You have to fight.”
“Can’t,” she whispered. She had to obey. Had to listen to Celia. Sleep when the lights were off. Wake when they were on. Eat all the food she was given. Let them take her baby. Accept her fate.
“No. We’re going to stop them.”
How? Mara was locked in a cell, the Thirteen’s sigil burned into her side, and she was—by her estimation—at least six months pregnant now. Werewolf babies were born at seven months. Three or four more days and she’d give birth to a daughter she’d never know. All so a crazed group of practitioners could use her baby to channel this mythical element she wasn’t even sure existed.
“It exists.”
“You couldn’t have shared this information with me earlier?” Mara whispered. “Or maybe warned me when you were going to take over my body? I don’t even know who you are—what you are.”
“I’m you. And a little bit of Katerina.”
Great. So she had multiple personalities inside her. This wasn’t getting any better. Or giving her any hope. She couldn’t fight the Thirteen’s magic. Even now, all she wanted to do was sleep.
“You can fight. But you have to want it.”
Did she? She loved Cade. Loved their baby. Rachel Eleanor Bowman. Her daughter had a name. She wasn’t some vessel to beusedand manipulated by power-hungry lunatics.
As if the baby knew what Mara needed, she kicked—hard.
Mara pulled the blanket up to her chin and felt for the brand under the thin gown they’d given her. No. The gray dress they’dforcedher to put on. Celia hadn’tgivenher anything. Her wrists ached from when they’d tied her down. This wasn’t how she wanted to die. Alone. Afraid. Without her mate. Without ever knowing their daughter.
“I want it.”
“Good.”
* * *
Mara didn’t knowhow much time passed before the lights came back on, but she’d managed to stay awake since her sister—or whatever part of her sister had locked on to her own fire element—had started yelling at her.
As she pushed up to sitting, the cramp took her by surprise, and she hissed in pain. A contraction. Not labor. Not yet. But the baby was definitely running out of time. And Mara was too.
She expected one of the witches or their apprentices to come with a tray of food for her based on the empty, gnawing sensation in her stomach, but instead, the younger practitioner, Freya, stalked down the corridor with two of the black-robed servants in her wake. “Get up, elemental.”
Mara struggled to rise, hungry and dizzy, bracing her hand on the wall for support. The very cold, magic-infused wall. She could feel it seeping into her skin, and jerked her fingers back when Freya made the center portion of the bars disappear.
“Bind her.”
