15 Imprisonment and Unlikely Allies

Ember

The next couple of days go by quietly, and I spend most of my time resting in my room and letting my injuries heal. Dark thoughts overtake me, stripping away the hope and joy I had found in Onyx’s pack.

My heartbreak seems trivial after Onyx almost lost his life. We are lucky Orion agreed to spare him, even if it was some kind of sick proposal to me. Joke’s on him. I will never accept him as my mate.

After I tire of cold cereal and my ribs have healed enough I can breathe without pain, I walk to the cafeteria to get some hot food .

“Hey Ember, I’ll sneak into your room if that’s what you like,” a man jeers at me. I ignore him and load my tray with meatloaf and powdery mashed potatoes.

A strangled yell startles me and a body thumps to the ground.

“Apologize,” a deep voice commands. I spin to see Orion pressing his boot to the man’s throat.

“S-s-s-sorry!” he says, choking on the word. Orion steps off his airway and raises an eyebrow at me before stalking off. He’s waiting for his answer.

Feeling sick, I turn back to my food.

No one else bothers me while I eat the swill our pack serves. I would give anything for Clove’s fresh bread right now. Although I’d give up bread for the rest of my life if it meant I could go back to Onyx.

There’s no use in wishing.

I force myself to focus on the discussions at the tables around me. Orion’s name comes up often and it seems he has the support of most of the pack, if the dozen wolves around me are an accurate sample.

He’s the biggest threat to my mother, and he’s asked me, the Heir, to be his mate. That is a clear path to becoming Alpha.

What will he do when I reject him?

Or should I set my pride aside, let my heart shatter, and agree to be his? It would keep me safe. He might refrain from challenging my mother and wait until she steps down. Either way, he would end up in power.

It’s too much to handle. I hide away in my room for the rest of the day. My mother never visits me. Maybe, if she was honest with me, we could find a way out of this mess together. But that will never happen. Some rifts are too deep.

My best option is somehow eliminating Orion. And since my daydreams of being with Onyx are now intermixed with visions of murdering Orion, I have a head start in brainstorming solutions.

Unfortunately, I’m not fast enough.

That evening, as the sun lowers behind the trees, the roar of a crowd pulls me from my solitude. It starts as a hum that I almost ignore, but rises in intensity until shouts emanate through my windows and down the hallway.

With stiff legs, I scramble from my bed and push off the wall as I cover the distance. The pebbles prick my bare feet as I rush down the stairs and out onto the dirt.

The entire pack is gathered. What the hell?

With this level of uproar, I expect a formal challenge within the painted ring in the training building. Instead, the jostling pack circles around figures in the center of the main road.

Muscling my way in, I snarl as someone elbows my chest. Dust stings my eyes as dozens of feet shuffle around me. Throwing my weight forward, I push further into the mob.

“Ah, there she is,” Orion says, his voice yelling over the din.

The wolves part, letting me through. I wish they hadn’t .

Orion stands in the center with blood spattered across his shirt. He grins at me, his teeth red.

At his feet, my mother sprawls out. Her chest rises and falls, but her eyes are closed. Crimson streaks her face from a broken nose and her wrist bends at an unnatural angle.

“Mom!” I cry, dropping to the ground beside her. Reaching for her neck, I feel for her pulse. It’s steady, and I exhale in cursory relief. Even with a shake, she doesn’t wake.

Rising, I face him. “How could you do this?”

“The pack wants a strong leader,” he says with a shrug.

“You’re disloyal! Why would anyone follow you?” I growl, wishing I had a weapon.

“There’s my feisty little wolf,” he purrs. Without even glancing down, he steps over my mother. I flatten back until I bump into the wolves surrounding us. Still, he comes closer. “Are you ready to accept me as your mate?” he asks.

“Why would I do that?” I growl.

“I’m the Alpha now,” Orion says. The wolves around us whoop and howl in approval. “You are mine now. I’m wondering if you’ll give in, or if you’ll fight. I love when females fight.”

My heart races, in a way that makes me sick. Tingling spreads through my limbs, panic overcoming me.

“It’s okay, you have time to change your mind,” he says with a dark laugh. “Why don’t you spend some quiet time thinking it over? ”

He gestures to his cronies and hands seize my upper arms. There’s no use in struggling as I’m led back into the house and roughly pushed through the door to our basement.

Stair treads cut into my ass and thigh as I slide down a few steps before grabbing the railing and halting myself. I deserve this. Without bothering to rise, I lay my head against the step and give up.

I can’t even find the willpower to tell myself everything will be okay. Orion won’t be a good Alpha. He won’t be a tolerable mate. There’s no silver living, because eventually war will come for Onyx and his pack.

Hopefully they can defeat us. But the bloodshed will be my fault. He will never accept me again, marked by another and responsible for even more death.

Eventually, I limp to the sofa and curl up, grim images of the future playing in my head.

When I wake, all is quiet so I suspect it’s night. It’s fully furnished like an apartment, but the lack of windows is disorienting. At least there are frozen meals in the kitchenette from when Hazel was locked down here two years ago.

It seems poetic that I’m now the one imprisoned down here.

I force myself to eat and clean myself up. There are a few spare clothing items, but even that doesn’t make me feel any better. There’s no way out. And what’s the point?

Onyx

Two days later and every bit of me still hurts, but none of it matters when I had to leave Ember behind. My soul aches, distracting me from the work before me. Grabbing the arms of my chair, I force my focus to the screen in front of me, where Sienna looks down her nose at us.

Jasper shifts his weight, clearing his throat as he addresses his mother. “Please, I need to know everything you can remember. Any detail might help.”

Sienna sits straight and proud, despite the purple bruise across her cheeks and the medical tape over her swollen nose. A small, vicious part of me is gratified to see her hurting like I am, but considering Ember is now in greater risk, my feelings toward Sienna are moreover apathetic.

“The details aren’t important.”

“Ember is still there,” Jasper says patiently.

“Who knows what’s happening to her right now,” I snap, unable to stay silent.

“She’s most likely preparing to become mates with the new Alpha,” Sienna sniffs.

“You can’t be serious.” Jasper scowls at his mother.

She ignores him.

“I will do whatever it takes to get her back,” I say, desperate to get her to care.

“You’re not capable of what it would take,” Sienna says, her cold, dark eyes meeting mine through the screen.

I growl, rising and slamming my hands down on the desk. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. ”

“Jasper,” Sienna says, her voice light and unconcerned. “Tell me about this pup.”

I bristle, but Jasper pats my hand. With a forceful exhale, I settle back into my seat.

“He’s the son of the pack’s Delta. He’s ranked as a Zeta and is responsible for all of our digital security. Onyx is also the closest childhood friend of our Alpha and has his support.”

Her gaze flicks back to me, contemplating my resume. It shouldn’t matter. She’s wasting time. What kind of mother wouldn’t want to help her child?

Flexing my hands, I lock eyes with her. Time to lay everything on the table. “I am in love with her, and I believe she is with me too.”

“It’s easy enough to say that, but much harder to prove it,” she quips. I want to throw the screen across the room.

“Give me a chance,” I growl.

“What would you do?” Sienna asks.

“We’d like to remove Ember from the situation, just like you originally intended,” Jasper explains.

“But what if she prefers to stay with Orion? That’s the quickest and perhaps only route to power available to her.”

“I was just informed she’s currently locked up in your basement, so I doubt she’s on board with Orion’s proposal,” Jasper says with clenched teeth.

My hands tighten on my chair so hard my knuckles pop. Jasper neglected to tell me that detail. No doubt feeling my anger through the pack bond, Jasper looks over at me with raised brows. With a slow exhale, I relax my posture, though my heart still pounds.

“Alright, what do you want to know?” Sienna finally says.

“What happened after Ember came home?” I ask.

“You came bursting in like a stalker and put everyone on the warpath,” Sienna says, crossing her arms gingerly, avoiding her broken wrist.

“I was talking with her and we would have left together quietly,” I say.

“Good job with that.” The disdain in her voice raises my hackles. This mother-in-law relationship isn’t off to a great start.

“You could have let us go. Those were your men.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” Sienna says.

“What do you mean?” I keep my tone civil, despite the venom I feel.

For a moment, Sienna purses her lips. I don’t expect an answer, but she surprises me.

“Orion has been waiting for any excuse to challenge me. If I did anything outside of the pack’s expectations, it was an opportunity for him.”

“You were his Alpha,” I say.

Sienna sniffs, picking at her manicure.

“After I left, what happened?”

“Ember hid in her room after Orion asked her to be his mate.”

“So why did he challenge you?” Jasper asks, gentler than I can manage .

She sits back, her lips in a thin line. We both stare at her, waiting it out. After a moment, she huffs. “I told him he couldn’t force her to be his mate.”

“And he challenged you.” Jasper fills in. “And now she’s locked in a basement.”

“We need to get her out of there,” I say.

“Okay, let’s talk strategy,” Jasper says, smiling when his mother sits forward attentively. Somehow, we won her over. If we are lucky, she’ll have the missing pieces we need to put together a rescue mission.