Chapter 23 Sydney

Chapter 23 Sydney

 

 

It was the bloodiest nightmare I’d had to date. I was propped against the brick wall of a building in a dark alley, trying to breathe through the pain wracking my entire body. Adam strode toward me, wearing a smirk and holding a heart in his right hand. Blood seeped between his fingers, dripping to the ground, leaving a sickening trail as he neared. Was he going to rip my heart out with his bare hand next?

My heart galloped at an unhealthy pace. I swore it would jump through my rib cage. Adam bent down, his grin turning sinister as he held out the bloody organ in offering. Gasping, my eyes flew open.

“Aah!” I clutched my left leg as pain sliced through it.

“Hey, stay still. The wound is still bleeding.”

Blinking rapidly and fighting nausea, I turned to find the owner of the voice.

I gasped. It was Adam, the heart ripper. I crawled back, trying to get away from him, and realized I was on a bed. I almost fell over the edge, but he reached me in time to grab my arms, keeping me upright. “Get away from me.”

He frowned. “Seriously? I just saved your ass and stitched you up.”

I surveyed the room. There was only a bed and a chair. The concrete floor wasn’t very clean, and it was chilly. “Where am I?”

“The abandoned warehouse. You know where. I gave you the address, remember? But you never showed.”

I took a deep breath to compose myself and hide my fear. That was almost three months ago when I’d decided to ask him for help with my hunting problem. “I was uh…intercepted.”

“By Cole’s guard dog, Damian. Yeah, I know.” Obsidian-like eyes held me hostage. What was scary about Adam was his unreadable eyes and his calmness. I had no idea what he was thinking or what he intended to do. “I haven’t seen you at the diner.”

“I’ve been…”

“Shacking up with your boyfriend?”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Really?” He lifted an eyebrow. “You reek of Cole Grayson. Do you just sleep with him for kicks?”

My entire face got hot, and indignation replaced my terror of what Adam had planned for me. “That is none of your business!” Damn these shifters and their shifter noses.

Adam smirked, and it did a little to lessen his formidable air.

“What do you want?” I asked. “Did you save me just to kidnap me so you could grill me about my love life?”

He raked his fingers through his jet-black hair. “No, Sydney, I couldn’t care less about who you’re involved with.”

Clutching the edge of the mattress with both hands, I swallowed hard. “Then what do you want with me?” Did he kidnap me to use against Cole? They hated each other, and maybe he took me as collateral or leverage for their ongoing battle.

“I want you to give me Benjamin Pierce.”

I gawked at Adam. “Who?”

“Benjamin, the man who watches you like a hawk at the diner.”

“You kidnapped me to interrogate me about someone I don’t know?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked, and his eyes darkened with irritation. “You’re lying to me.”

“I swear, Adam, I don’t know him. I’ve told you this before.”

He moved so fast I didn’t realize he had until he towered over me, his hands wrapped around my arms. He gave me a little shake, and I gasped more from shock than being hurt. He was surprisingly gentle in his anger. I doubted Adam wanted to hurt me. If he did, I’d be dead already.

“I hate liars,” he bit out.

Holding his gaze, I replied, “I’m not lying. I’ve never seen Benjamin before we exchanged a few words in the diner.”

Adam still held on to me, his eyes boring into mine. “Yet, you were supposed to give me information about him the night you agreed to come here.”

Swallowing hard, I confessed. “Okay, I was going to come with his location because I needed your help with something…someone. But that was it. I ran into Benjamin in my apartment building, and he said he lived there. That’s all I had.”

Slowly, Adam’s features transformed from stormy to curious. “He lives in your building.”

I nodded, although he didn’t ask a question.

“It’s funny how you claim not to know him, yet he stalks you at your workplace and just so happens to live in your building.”

“I assume he’s a hunter and was just spying on me.”

He blinked his surprise and pulled back. “Why would a hunter be watching you? You’re not much threat as a half—”

“Don’t even say it! I’m so sick of hearing people call me half-breed in that disgusted tone.”

Amusement danced across Adam’s face as he held both palms. I relax a little more. He didn’t seem a danger to me at all. Even my wolf was calm, as if she felt secure in the shifter’s presence. In fact, he felt somewhat familiar to her. It was strange.

“Calm down. I mean no offense. I thought hunters would be more interested in getting their hands on full shifters who are more of a threat to them than someone who is mostly human. I mean, I barely detected your wolf when I first met you.”

I sighed. “It’s a long story.”

He quirked an eyebrow and glanced at my bandaged leg. My jeans had been rolled up so my wound could be cared for. Already, the white bandages around my calf were soaked with blood. “You’ve got time,” he noted. “You’re not going anywhere until that starts to heal.”

“I can’t stay that long. Cole will be looking for me. He’s going to be so pissed when he gets home, and I’m gone.”

“Who are you more afraid of? Cole or me? Because I’m the one who has you prisoner in my lair.”

“Funny, I don’t feel like a prisoner, and this is hardly a lair,” I quipped. “If you were all that evil as Cole seems to think you are, I’d be dead by now.”

Adam grunted in that way I gathered was typical when he was irritated or amused. “Yes, you would be. Good thing for you. I’m not the terrifying monster your boyfriend has told you I am.”

“Yeah, good thing,” I grumbled. “Why did you save me?”

“It wasn’t intentional. I was at Cole’s apartment to get the information I needed about Benjamin. I orchestrated a whole scheme to get them all away from you for nothing. I got my pack to stir up trouble in town, knowing Mr. Hero—”

“I’m guessing that’s Cole?” I asked.

Adam laughed. “Your boyfriend might as well run around in a cape. He’s always trying to save humans and shifters as if he’s going for the fucking Nobel Peace Prize.”

“That’s commendable. Maybe as a fellow Alpha, you should try to be more like him.”

Adam’s derisive snort almost made me laugh. Was being good really that detestable to him?

“I’m no hero.”

“You’re no villain either.”

He sighed. “Sydney, didn’t you hear me before? I didn’t intentionally save your life. I showed up at Cole’s place to kidnap you for information. It just happened that you were being attacked, and I killed those shifters because I wanted you alive to question you about Benjamin. Saving your life was purely selfish.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right.” Something told me Adam was a nice guy under his gruff exterior.

“I wasted my time getting involved in your drama, though. You have absolutely nothing for me.”

“I gave you Benjamin’s location,” I argued.

“Which I’m sure he’s abandoned by now. Benjamin disappeared the same time you stopped showing up to work.”

“Shit, then he really is a hunter.”

Adam watched me through a narrowed gaze—probably still trying to gauge if I was lying.

“Why are you so hell-bent on finding him?” I asked. “It almost seems like an obsession.”

Adam exhaled and walked over to a window. Staring out, he said, “Benjamin killed my mother.”

“Oh…” Sympathy flooded me. Adam and I had plenty in common, then. “Assuming he is a hunter, which looks like that’s the case, I hope you find him.”

Adam glanced at me with a frown.

“Hunters killed my mother too…I think.”

“Isn’t that something you’d be sure about?”

I shrugged. “I never knew my mother. I was told she was killed when I was around two. I was adopted by her friend and kept safe until hunters found me.”

Seemingly intrigued, he turned to me and folded his arms. “How did they find you?”

“That’s the puzzling part. Seventeen years flying under their radar, and they just showed up one day, killed my aunt, and have been after me since. The only culprit I can think of who would tip off the hunters is my Uncle, Sam, but he loved Aunt Lydia. I don’t think he would want her killed.”

“Maybe not intentionally,” Adam murmured.

My gaze flew up to meet his. Adam could be on to something. Perhaps it was Sam who tipped off the hunters. Combing my fingers through my hair, I sighed heavily. “I feel like I’ve been living in a confusing nightmare for months. I’m so tired.”

“Well, you’d better perk up, Sydney. Getting tired and letting your guard down in this world will get you killed. Has your mate taught you nothing?”

“Sounds to me like you care. I guess you’re not as awful as you pretend to be.”

He scowled. “Whatever. I’m sorry about your aunt. Humans sometimes get caught in the crossfire.”

I nodded and leaned against the headboard. My head and my leg ached. “Thanks. Aunt Lydia was my mom’s best friend. Mom’s last wish was for her friend to take me and protect me from the shifter world, so I didn’t know I was a half-werewolf until recently.” I felt comfortable talking about my mother with Adam because he could relate. “From Mom’s letters, she knew trouble was coming because she’d fallen in love with the wrong man. A human. A hunter.”

Adam drew closer, his eyebrows knitted. “Huh. Sounds a lot like my mother’s story.”

“What a coincidence, huh?”

He nodded, but he still wore that frown, and he was watching me with new curiosity. “My mother was with my father for a while,” he shared. “It wasn’t a match, as in she wasn’t Dad’s true mate. Their union was more for procreation. When I was around seven, Mom left. I was mad at her for a long time. She abandoned me. But when I got older, I understood why she left. She hated being one of my father’s concubines, sharing him with other females to create as many offspring as possible to help the pack grow.”

My eyebrows shot up.

Adam shrugged. “A lot of the older shifters still engage in archaic practices. Anyway, Mom wanted more. She wanted love.” His lips kicked up slightly at the corners. “She told me all of that in a letter. In the other letter she left me, she told me how much she loved me. How hard it was for her to leave me. But she hated her life in my father’s pack and had to leave. Dad wouldn’t allow her to take me. She said she’d get her life together and come back for me. However, she joined the Moon Guardians, and her life went further downhill. They ostracized her, and without the protection of a pack, she was murdered. You understand, now, why I hate them? Why I hate the Alpha?”

Adam’s mother and mine had too many similarities to be coincidences. “Cole had nothing to do with what happened to your mother all those years ago.”

“No, but his father did. I hate Cole by extension, and after I find Benjamin and kill him, I intend to stick around New Orleans and make your mate’s life hell.”

I rolled my eyes. “Grow up.” He hit me with another of his fierce scowls. “Okay, Adam, this sounds crazy, but your mother’s story sounds exactly like my mother’s story.”

He snorted.

“My mother left her first pack, too, and joined the Moon Guardians,” I said. “She fell for a hunter and was shunned by the pack for her betrayal. She was killed by hunters. Her name was Sophia Elliot.”

Adam’s gaze jumped to my face. “Sophia Elliot? That’s…” His eyebrows cinched together. “That’s my mother’s name.”

The silence that ensued was deafening. Adam and I gaped at each other for…I wasn’t sure how long.