My skin crawled. I wanted to bite his fucking hands off, but everything felt so far out of reach I could only sit there and take it. “Fuck off.” Even my voice came out slurred.
He must have drugged me.
It had taken an embarrassingly long time to come to that conclusion. Whatever they’d given me must’ve still been in my system, because even putting the pieces together in my mind had taken a huge effort.
Tombs laughed again. “You’ve changed quite a lot since the last time I saw you.” He slid his hand down to cup my jaw, tilting my head up. “Being an alpha suits you.” He spoke as though we were down at the pub having a nice friendly chat over a beer.
I glanced down at the chains wrapped around my hands and lower legs. Iron and silver if I had to hazard a guess. I smiled up at him. “Let me out of these chains and I’ll show you exactly how much I’ve changed.”
He laughed. “Gabriel always did have good instincts. I knew that from the moment I met him. I’m not surprised he chose you to break the rules with.”
At the mention of Gabriel, I saw his scars in my mind, and a white-hot fury burned through me, taking some of the effects from the drugs with it. Lurching forward, I snapped at his fingers, teeth sharper than human for one glorious moment, but Tombs was fast, dancing back out of the way with a shake of his head.
“He showed you, huh?”
I growled.
“I didn’t enjoy doing that to him.” Tombs sighed, his expression full of regret. “I taught Gabriel everything I knew. Ilovedhim.”
I growled again, straining at the chains, because Gabriel wasmine. No one else’s, especially not Caleb fucking Tombs who’d left permanent marks on his skin aspunishment.
“He broke the rules,” he said with another heavy sigh and a shrug. “I couldn’t play favourites that time, no matter how much I wanted to.”
I didn’t give a fuck about his reasons. “Why am I here?” I gritted out. A slumped figure in the corner caught my eye, and I suddenly remembered who else I’d smelt earlier.
Axel.
He wasn’t moving, and the more I concentrated, the heavier the scent of blood on the air. I made a move to get to him, forgetting that I couldn’t move a muscle. A pained sound tore from my throat. Being this helpless was bad enough when it was just me, but a member of my pack was injured, and it physically hurt not to be able to go to them.
“Is he dead?” I forced the words out, not wanting to face the prospect but needing to know.
“No, he’s not.” Tombs grimaced. “Not yet anyway.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Rage stirred inside me, but I couldn’t do anything with it, chained like I was.
“I was going to choose Falon, not you,” Tombs said, ignoring my question.
“Choose him for what?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry it has to be you. You’re an impressive alpha.”
Had he been watching me? I struggled again to shrug out of the chains, but whatever they’d given me to get me here hadn’t worn off and the metal took care of the rest. My memories of how I’d got here in the first place were hazy at best.
I remembered the text from Gabriel telling me to meet him at Midnight. There’d been something off about it, but I couldn’t recall what. I’d gone there, taking Axel with me because Gabriel had said they needed to talk to him. And that was all.
Had we gone inside?
Had we met Gabriel?
Dread crept up my spine like icy fingers. “What have you done with Gabriel?”
“Nothing.” He looked back at me, gaze boring into mine. “And I’m not going to.” He seemed sincere, which was odd given our circumstances. Before I could feel relief at that statement, his expression turned to one that looked a lot like pity. “You are.”
“What?” My mouth went so dry the words were more of a croak, because I knew. I knew what that bastard was going to do even before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe.
“I really am sorry about this, Rys.” He held the syringe up to the light and squeezed a little of the pale blue liquid out. How considerate of him to get rid of any air bubbles. “I have nothing against non-humans.”
I snorted. “You’re a hunter.”And you’re about to kill me, like you’ve probably tried to kill Callum and all the others, because I had no doubt now that he was behind it all.
