95. Jax

95

Jax

There were at least fifteen dead wolves at our feet. Adrenaline surged through me, but I was losing too much blood. London could barely stand. A familiar male werewolf loomed over us.

"Jax. London." He spoke with a harsh rasp that further identified him. Dolan. Maeve's second-in-command. We never interacted much because Dolan rarely left the territory. Normally, her third traveled with her, something most alphas practiced, but Dolan was a different breed of wolf. Apparently, he enjoyed disciplining. There were rumors that Maeve had wolves in confinement for lifetime prison sentences, and Dolan liked to make them bleed, wait for the heal, and then rip them open all over again.

"I see you left your whipping station," I said hoarsely as I stood. My legs shook so badly that I nearly fell over again. "Just how many wolves did you bring to take us?"

"I have twenty more rogues on their way here," he said in a bored tone. "My alpha has commanded me to give you a choice. Continue to fight and die swiftly or come with me and say goodbye to your mate."

His eyes flitted over London with disinterest, and my stomach knotted. Chances were good that Maeve had ordered anyone with me killed, and that would include another alpha. She was about to take over a mountain. What did she care who she killed?

"He comes with me," I said as I pointed. "Alive."

Dolan smiled, revealing a mouth of missing teeth. A wolf who fought too much. "I always did respect your intellect. It will be a shame for you to die. If you kneel before my alpha, she may make you her third."

"Third?" I raised my eyebrow. "You think you can best me in a challenge?"

"I think I can remove enough parts beforehand to make sure a challenge isn't even warranted."

"You're really selling the position." Bending over, I spat blood. "Take us to your leader."

He turned, and I reached down and helped London up. With five wolves closely watching us and more on the way, he didn't bother caring about us being so close to his turned back. Slowly, we limped half a mile before we came across the parked helicopter.

If we got out of this alive, I was blowing this thing up.

Half an hour later, we were in the air. London and I had caught some of our breath by then, and our wounds had healed, but we'd lost a lot of blood. There was no plan, but I wouldn't give up an opportunity to see Anna again. To grasp at any chance of taking her away from this nightmare.

Leaning out of the helicopter, Dolan grinned maliciously. Slowly, I leaned over the edge and looked out the open window.

My heart stopped. Maeve had an entire pack of mutated wolves lumbering all over the place. I glanced up at him. "Why haven't you taken the serum?" I shouted.

"I don't need it."

That was a lie. Dolan might be a powerful wolf, but any one of those monsters below could shed him to pieces.

Of course, I wasn't worried about him. I was worried about us.

The helicopter landed, and Dolan shoved London and me out. We fell to the ground and were roughly hauled up. There was a team of wolves who, like Dolan, were still normal. The large, mutated wolves lumbered almost twenty feet away, but I only had to lock eyes with one to know why Dolan hadn't taken the serum.

The wolves were losing themselves. Maeve had never found a way to perfect it. They were going insane, and that made them all the more dangerous.

We were dragged into a brick building and through several heavy-duty guarded gates. Finally, we were taken to a large hall with divided glass partitions. One look from some of the wolves trapped inside, and I knew these were cells.

The glass slid open, and I was thrown in one and London in the one next to me. Doors slid closed, and Dolan pushed a button on the other side. "The glass is lined with invisible security bars. They can't be smashed, so settle in."

"Where the fuck is my mate?" I demanded.

"On her way." He grinned. "She's been asking to see you."

When he stepped away, I turned to London. His eyes were already moving around the cell with a calculating look on his face. "Can you hear me?" I asked.

He nodded. So the cells weren't sound proof. We could communicate, but we would most likely be overheard. "Any ideas?"

Grimacing, he shook his head. I settled back and closed my eyes. At least we had some time to recuperate. I had no idea what Maeve was going to throw at us next, but I needed to be ready. Anna needed me. Our mating bond pulsed stronger now that she was near. It gave me all the comfort that I needed.

I had no idea how much time had passed before I heard movement in the hall. Cracking my eyes open, I tensed when I heard the cell door on the other side of me open. A small woman was shoved inside, and Dolan laughed wickedly.

The woman uncurled herself, but for a moment, I forgot to breathe.

Anna.

Her face was a bloody mess, and her leg hung at a strange angle. "Anna," I shouted as I raced to the window. Her head slowly looked up at me, but it wasn't relief or even sorrow I saw in her face.

It was rage. Real rage.

"You," she spat out and crawled to the glass. She pounded on it with her fists, leaving bloody marks everywhere. "This is all your fucking fault. All you've done this past year is tell me how you'd save me, and now look at me! Do I look saved to you? I'm going to die, and you're going to sit there and watch!"

She screamed, and I slowly backed away from the wall. Dolan came to peer in on me, and I returned to my spot against the wall. "She's not Anna," I told Maeve's second. "Clever ruse, but I can feel Anna, and I know that horrid creature next to me is a witch glamoured to look like Anna."

"I suspected the ruse wouldn't last long, but I think I'll leave her in there a little bit longer to torture you."

"Where the fuck is Anna?"

"She's being prepared. She has a big day ahead of her tomorrow. All that power inside of her will raise an immense amount of magic for my alpha, and you will bow to your new queen." Tomorrow. I had no concept of what time it was now. Was it the afternoon? Middle of the night?

"You told me that I would get a chance to say goodbye."

Dolan nodded. "And you will. You'll get a front-row seat as she bleeds out for Maeve. You can scream your goodbyes then."

Next to me, London growled. "You can't perform the ritual. You don't have Anna's kin."

"The witch has proven difficult to capture, which is why I'm leaving now to join the hunt. I suspect will have her within a few hours. After all, she only has to be alive for the first few minutes of the ritual. It'll be fun to take her down. The granddaughter of the Crone herself. Poetic considering it was Evalina who started Maeve on this path, and Lunessa, well she is quite the looker, isn't she? I wonder if she'll fight as hard when I'm between her legs."

London roared as Dolan laughed and walked away. Fake Anna continued to taunt me, and I studiously looked anywhere but right at her until she fell silent. Wondering why the witch had given up, I looked over at her.

While tormenting me with my failures, she'd been writing on the glass with a red marker. I managed to glance at it once before she smeared it with her blood just as a guard walked by.

"You couldn't save me, and you couldn't save our child," fake Anna snarled. "God, I hope I get to see you die. You're no better than my father. You're worse! I would have been better off with Emerson. At least he knew how to fuck."

I ignored her as I stared at the words she'd smeared from the glass.

Thousands of paths have converged to two. We have not given up. Neither can you.

She was a seer, and somehow, against everything else we've heard, she still thought there was hope.