Page 33 of Hidden Nature

Zander decided that it would be better for us to drive over to the main pack area instead of walking, so we piled into the SUV and headed down the gravel road. Rath sat next to me with Lane on my other side. It was going to take some getting used to the fact that I could now catch snippets of their thoughts.

“I wonder how the other pack members will take my presence? How much of what we were taught about werewolves was correct?” Rath mused as he looked out the front of the vehicle.

Lane reached out and took my hand, giving me a wink. “Peggy better not say anything to upset Finley. Nothing was ever going to happen between us. She has never meant more to me than a pack mate.” Then his thoughts went darker. “What if we have to kill her? One of the alphas has to do it. That’s the right thing to do. Will her sisters hate us for doing it?” Lane was full of emotions, flickering between worry and anger at the situation.

I leaned my head to the side so it rested on his shoulder as I sent him waves of calming vibes. The situation would work out as they should, and everyone would understand that. Pack always sticks together, and if the sisters decided to leave, then so be it, that was their choice. No one but them should be responsible for their feelings. As Lane accepted my help, I could feel him relaxing and agreeing with what I was feeding him.

The drive only took a few moments and we were out heading to a shed that I’d not noticed before. It was by itself off to the side behind the pack house, so it wasn’t surprising most people would miss it, but I wasn’t most people.

“Look at it again,” Rath whispered. “Only this time, pull some of your magic forward to enhance your perception.”

Frowning, I called on my magic and saw the air around the shed ripple as if it were a mirage. “Why is it doing that?”

“There is a spell cast on it, so anyone who looks at it ignores it unless they purposefully look for it,” Rath murmured. “I don’t want to speak about this too loudly in case other pack members don’t know this is here.”

I sought out Colt knowing he would be the one to have chosen to do something like this. He glanced at me and shook his head slightly, telling me not to push the matter.

As we passed through the spell, my hair stood on end and goosebumps appeared on my arms. Whatever it was, it was strong. Since none of the others appeared to be affected by it at all, I kept a straight face when the bitter taste hit my tongue.

“Snuggles, what are you doing here?” Mason asked as he stepped out of a cell, locking it behind him. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing is wrong. I just need to speak with Peggy,” I assured him.

The space was bigger than I thought it would be, with two large cells across from each other. The shine of the metal made me think they were made out of pure silver, one of the only metals that will deter a werewolf. One cell was empty and the other held a woman with rumpled clothes and dirty hair hanging in her face. She appeared unharmed physically, but the hollow look in her eyes told me they’d broken her mind. When her eyes landed on me, some life came back to them but only in the form of terror.

“You can’t be here!” she yelled. “They said you’d never come back, and everything would be fine.”

Before the guys could stop me, I walked up to the cage staring down at the woman sitting on the concrete floor. “It would seem we were both lied to. They told me I was on a job to stop a group of people attacking the supernaturals in our world but instead, they were going to sell me to those very people.”

“Good riddance, you will only ever bring trouble to this pack and our alphas. The Senate wanted to know all about you, and when they changed their focus like that, I knew it was nothing good. Then they told me they wanted to get you out of the pack away from your men. I couldn’t turn it down,” Peggy shot back, her eyes wild with anger directed toward me. “The Senate will get what they want eventually. They always do.”

“What else did the Senate want?” I questioned.

Peggy narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you care? This isn’t your pack. Those are your mates. You left them the moment they called you. How can you act like you give a shit about anyone but yourself?”

Reading her, I could tell her mind was shattered, but it wasn’t from anything that Zander or Elias had done. No, there was something else at work here. Turning on my heel, I looked at the men before me and noticed Noah had joined us with a bowl in his hands with something hot inside it.

“Who else has been in here?” I demanded. “Someone did something to Peggy that muddled her brain, and I know it wasn’t one of you.”

“Babe, no one but us know that this is here. The pack knows we have these cells, but they’ve only been used once, and we purposely keep the knowledge to ourselves,” Noah answered. “I thought she was acting strange, but I assumed it was the situation and knowing she might die.”

“Did you have a witch come out here and cast the spell, or did they give you a charm that you activated yourself?” I pressed.

The Organization didn’t teach us as much as I would have liked on witches and wizards, but enough to know what happened to Peggy. Someone had come and scrambled Peggy’s mind until she was no use to us or reliable enough to believe if she told us something of value. We’d never know if we could trust it or not. It’s a brilliant plan, really.

“We didn’t have it built right away, but after we had a bitten wolf shift and kill two people before we could put him down, we decided it was needed. Zander was a part of our pack and he had a connection with a witch that came out to do the spell for us,” Lane shared.

Zander swore under his breath as if he realized what I had done. “Son of a bitch, you don’t really think they would waste the energy to do that do you?”

“Clearly, she knew more than they wanted her to, or they just weren’t willing to take that chance. Either way, she was nothing to them, so what did it matter if they ruined her for life. I can’t tell if the anger toward me is real or if they used that and amplified it more.”

Elias grimaced at my words, but I knew that Peggy didn’t like me, and if they could use that to cause problems, they would.

“What is their end game, though?” Rath asked. “Why bother doing this when it doesn’t truly give them something in return?”

“If their end goal is to cause trouble internally, then this would serve a purpose. None of us have that much experience with witches and I would never have guessed that they would send someone to deal with her,” Zander said, rubbing a hand over the top of his head. “The Senate was already watching this pack based on how fast it was growing. Now we have an omega as well. It wouldn’t have taken them long to learn Finley returned to us alive and well with another man.”

Rath listened to Zander speaking, but his gaze was on Peggy as she took the bowl of food from Noah. She acted like a puppet doing what she needed to but not really having any emotion. The hollow look was back in her eyes, telling me that I was a trigger for her. I stepped closer to the cell, and she noticed the movement, focusing on me. Rage flashed to life in her face confirming my guess had been right.