Chapter 18

Sophia

My eyes widen partially, but before I can react or even register his words completely, he lets out a choking sound, and his body jerks. Slowly, I lower my eyes to his chest and see something protruding from right where his heart is located.

A dagger.

"What a pity," I hear Lily sigh regretfully. "You just had to go and ruin it."

"Drew!" The scream is torn from my lips, and as he falls to the ground, I catch him. There is blood bubbling from the corner of his mouth.

My first instinct is to heal him, but Lily scoffs. "Don't bother. You can't bring somebody back from the dead, no matter how powerful you are. He's dying. You can't reverse that."

I don't know what to say to her. I don't know how to react. Drew is going to die?

His hand comes to clutch my arm. He's trying to speak. Struggling, he stammers, "T-Tell my son…I love him. Sophia…tell Tim. Please."

"I will." I'm trying to send out healing magic, but it's not working.

"Sophia…" Drew splutters out more blood. "I'm sorry. For everything."

Tears stream from my eyes. I have never felt so helpless in my life. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I'm trying to help you. I'm going to fix this. You're not going to die. I won't let you!"

He shakes his head, attempting to smile at me. His hand lifts weakly and touches my cheek, warm love in his eyes. "Thank you…for your offer. I-I would have loved to live in your pack. Thank you for being my family till the very end."

The light is going out of his eyes, and despite all my efforts, I can't stop it. "Drew!" My lips lower to his forehead. "Don't. Don't go."

This is how Rita left me, gasping in my arms. I couldn't save her, either.

When I feel his body go limp, my heart shatters. He's gone. Drew is gone.

"Oh, stop your crying," Lily says in disgust. "You get emotionally attached to everything that moves, Sophia. Get a grip."

I raise my head, trying to breathe past this thick ball of grief in my throat. "Why would you do that? He wasn't going to hurt you!"

"Do I need a reason to do anything?" She smiles at me. "This is how life is. Get used to it."

I suddenly realize that my mother is two feet away from me. I quickly scramble to get to her, but Lily steps in my way, tutting and waggling a finger at me. "I don't think so. You've saved Noah and me a lot of trouble. We've been looking for your mother. Robert had to go and hide her, of course."

"Get out of my way!" I stand up and try to shove her aside, but I'm so weak that I can barely move her. What happens instead is that she gives me a backhanded slap across the face, making me stumble backward.

"Look at you. You're as weak as a newborn." Her tone is scathing. "You know, this problem you have of trying to save the world and every other person you meet, that's going to be your downfall."

She crouches next to my mother's unconscious form and grabs her by the jaw, inspecting her face. "She doesn't look dead. Good enough for us. You can come out now, Noah!"

I look in the direction she's shouting, and a tall man with golden hair and blue eyes emerges. Noah looks like a surfer heartthrob, but behind his good looks lurks a vicious beast.

It's been weeks since I last saw Noah. I watch him walk over to where Lily is standing. He puts his arm around her waist as he says, "I really should have brought you in from the beginning. You made this far too easy, sweetheart."

Lily turns her head to kiss him, and I look down at their feet, disgusted. I notice my mother's eyes fluttering open, and I hurry over to her, letting the two lovebirds make out with each other.

"Mom?" I whisper. The eyes that look toward me are gray in color, but they're not focused on anything. "You're going to be alright, Mom. I've got you." I clutch her to me, glaring up at both Noah and Lily.

Noah raises a brow. "Don't look at me like that. I was never going to hurt you, Sophia. If anything, I would have given you the status of my mate. You're the one who had to keep whoring herself around."

"Your mate?" I spit at him. "Your mate is standing right next to you, Noah! Do I look like an idiot to you?"

Noah smirks. "Lily was on board with letting me give you my mating mark."

"She's a witch," I suddenly remember, looking between the two of them. "How is it even possible that you two are fated mates?"

Lily sneers. "My father was a shifter. I have shifter blood in me even if I cannot shift. That's all that matters. Ultimately, I am an asset to my mate. I always have been."

"It wouldn't have mattered if Lily wore my mating mark or not," Noah informs me. "She would have always been by my side. Your job would have been to produce heirs and give me the power that is rightfully mine. I would've treated you nicely, Sophia. But you just had to go and fuck it up."

"I never would have let you mark me!" I hiss. "I have a fated mate, and he is leaps and bounds better than you!"

"You mean Alex Stone?" Noah looks amused. "The Alpha of a dying pack? You certainly have some standards."

"Alex's pack is not dying!" I growl fiercely. "He's an excellent Alpha—"

"He's an Alpha who's about to get his entire pack executed."

I stare at Noah. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Lily gives me a sweet smile. "You don't know? Alex sat me down and gave me a whole sob story about how he was planning to attack Karina during the banquet, and that if he didn't make it, I was supposed to deliver you, his grieving widow, to the Central Alliance. I have to say, your fated mate has a terrible sense of judgement. The one person he trusted above all others is the one who betrayed him."

Confused, all I can do is say, "What?"

Lily snickers. "That obsessed little freak of a girl, Hilda, opened the communication channels and contacted Karina, telling her about both Julia and you. As we speak, Alex is taking his entire army, whatever little he's gathered of it, to its death. And as a gesture of goodwill, Noah and I will be making sure to reveal the locations of the remaining pack members to Karina."

Horror fills me. "You can't do that! There are children—"

"And I should care because…?" Lily looks intrigued by my outburst. "Haven't you heard the saying that when you kill a snake, you should also kill its babies, lest they come back and bite you?"

"I won't let you do it!"

"Won't let us?" Lily chuckles. "Sophia, there's nothing you can do. In fact, we will be bringing you to witness Alex's execution. Isn't that right, Noah?"

I narrow my eyes at the two of them. "And what makes you think I'm just going to sit there and watch? Or that you two have the ability to force me to do anything? I am no longer the weak Sophia that you remember, Noah."

"Oh, I know," Noah says cheerfully. "After all, I'm the one who sent Lily to you. If I had imprisoned you and then tried to have Lily teach you magic by force, you would not have learned willingly. Now, we all know you have the ability to practice magic. And if you don't do as I say, you're going to find yourself in the same position as your mother, chained like a dog, losing the people you love. Lily?"

Smiling at Noah first, Lily crouches down by my mother, and before I can so much as blink, she pulls a long, thin, metal band from her pocket and wraps it around my mother's neck.

"What are you doing?!" I grab the band, and as soon as I do, it gives me such a massive electric shock that I'm thrown two feet away.

"Teaching you your new place," Noah says calmly. "Any other objections?"

"Take that thing off of her!" I struggle to sit up, cursing myself for using up all my power and leaving myself so weak and helpless. Lily walks over to me and presses her shoe down on my chest, forcing me back down. "You're forgetting the magic word."

"Take that thing off her neck, you bitch!"

I grab her ankle and dig my claws into her skin, making her expression contort. She reaches down and grabs a fistful of my hair before slamming my head into the ground. Her tone is pleasant and I barely recognize her as she says, "Language."

In this moment, she reminds me of Noah as a child when he would bully me, with that impassive expression and the delighted reaction to my pain. No wonder these two are fated mates; they are one and the same.

Lily is an incredible actor. All those weeks we spent together, she had me completely fooled.

The hatred in my expression must be unmistakable, and she looks pleased about it. "What is it? Are you hurt? Are you upset? Do you want to kill me?"

I glare at her, and then my eyes dart toward my mother, who is slumped on the ground, her body twitching. I wasn't the only one impacted by that electric shock.

Lily leans closer to me, taking my hands and putting them around her neck. "Do it. I dare you."

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I squeeze her neck as hard as I can. Suddenly, I hear my mother gasping for breath.

Lily lets out a strangled guffaw. "Go ahead. Let's all watch your mother get choked to death. Go on! Why are you stopping?"

I immediately let go of Lily's neck, and she rubs it, laughing all the while. "Get it? Whatever you do to me is going to happen to her. That little piece of metal is linking our lives. I got the idea from Queen Karina. Her way was interesting, but not very innovative."

My goal is now to get rid of whatever that band is around my mother's neck without touching it. I focus all my remaining energy, but once again, I get thrown back by an electric shock. I can't see any magic on the band, but I can feel it.

"What have you done to her? What is that?!"

"Unfortunately for you," Lily folds her arms over her chest, "it's not something you can remove. That collar is built from my magic. I brought it into existence. You can't use your magic to undo it. You're not that strong of a witch, yet. Although, to be fair, even if you were the most powerful witch in the world, you still wouldn't be able to undo it."

I stare at her, trying to understand what she's saying. She brought it into existence?

She must have seen the confusion in my eyes because she smiles broadly. "Do you remember all the times I told you to meditate with me to reach your core and all that other garbage? Well, that's what it was: garbage. I was merely learning the patterns of your magic pathways so that I could create something you couldn't destroy. And here it is. You will never be able to remove that collar. The only person who can remove it is me."

My chest tightens in frustration and fear, and Lily claps her hands before looking at Noah. "See that look on her face? She understands. She's not as dumb as she appears."

I see Noah's hands stroke Lily's hair, and I want to throw up.

"What do you want from me?"

"Initially," Noah says, walking over to me and squatting by my side. "I simply wanted to use your powers. But now? After you humiliated me in front of the entire pack by running away with another man, I want you to suffer. You're going to attend the Winter Banquet with me and my fated mate here, and you're going to watch as your fated mate gets executed. And then, you're in for a lifetime of what your mother endured. Perhaps even worse. We'll see."

Dread fills me as Lily points at my mother. "That collar is controlled by me. One wrong move during the banquet, any attempt to draw attention to yourself or to let anybody know that you are the Silver Wolf, and I will blow off that old hag's head. After all the effort you put in trying to save mommy dearest, I'm sure you don't want her to die. And I can promise you that it will be a painful death."

My body goes limp. What am I supposed to do now?

There is no way I'm going to let Alex die. What if I wait to find an opportunity and kill Lily? Once she's dead, the collar should stop working. But then, my mother will share the same fate.

There has to be something. I'm the Silver Freaking Wolf! Everybody else thinks that's a big deal; maybe I should start thinking along those lines, too. Lily is just a witch. I already know that there is a vast difference in our magical abilities. I'm not going to take Lily at her word that I can't get rid of her collar. I'll just have to come up with a way.

But for that, I need to have strength. I'm far too weak right now. And these two are not going to let me recover my strength.

There has to be something I can do! I'm not going to give up so easily. Not when I finally have my mate and my mother. I didn't come this far to throw in the towel.

I glance toward Drew's body, and anger burns my heart.

He didn't deserve to die, despite what he did in his past. He was dealt a shitty hand. He had to hurt people he loved simply to protect his son, and he lost his entire family. Maybe he's at peace now, but Tim is an orphan. No matter the situation, I believe that given time, Tim would have forgiven his father, and Drew would have had some of his family back. But Lily and Noah took that opportunity away from him. Noah's father took away Drew's family, and Noah took away Drew's life, along with any chance of reconciliation with his son.

My hands tingle with my magic as my wolf snarls inside me. I want their blood. I want both Noah and Lily to suffer.

But for now, I have to keep my mouth shut. I need to recover my strength.

They haven't won yet.

***

Noah and Lily have attempted to goad me several times, but I spent my entire childhood surrounded by bullies. I know how to shut down and not retaliate. It's a survival skill I learned far too young.

It takes us a couple of days to reach the territory of the Cross River Wolf Pack. Just stepping foot in it gives me an idea of how much luxury Queen Karina has bestowed upon her own pack. The town closest to the territory line looks like a well-developed city with skyscrapers and fancy houses like I've never seen before. There are landscaped parks on every corner, the whole town looking like something out of a luxury resort magazine. There is somebody waiting to greet Noah and his party. Nobody gives us a second look since my mother and I are with Noah.

I don't see any sign of Alex, and I'm beginning to feel anxious. Is he really planning to show up here to attack Karina? Why is he taking such a risk? Why didn't he tell me so I could help?

I don't even know if he is unharmed after the attack on the village. I haven't felt anything from him aside from his anguish when we entered the tunnels. I still don't know what that was about, and I can't help but worry about him. I never realized how much I'd begun to depend on Alex before now, when I'm alone with my mother, captives of two psychopaths. If Alex were here, he would know what to do. Even if he didn't, his presence alone would be reassuring.

My mother is able to walk now, but she's not altogether there in the head. She doesn't look at anyone, her eyes remaining unfocused. She doesn't seem to be listening to anything I try to say to her, almost as if she can't comprehend the words. It's as if she's in a waking yet comatose state, unable to communicate, unable to think or feel. It doesn't help that Lily has been setting off her collar at random intervals just to entertain herself. I can't imagine torturing another living being as a form of amusement. It's frightening, and it makes me sick to my stomach, that I ever thought Lily was someone I could call a friend.

I've been trying to feed my mother my energy slowly and steadily, but I have to be careful. I cannot deplete myself. I need my strength to fight when the time comes. I've also been trying to figure out the collar around my mother's neck. There has to be a way to release her. But no matter how hard I look, I can't see any trace of dark magic or the like that I can remove. But is it truly impossible? After all, I am the Silver Wolf. Nobody really knows the true depth of my powers. I even took Lily by surprise when I began using magic. Maybe there is a way…

We are taken straight to Karina's home. It doesn't look like a normal house but a palace of massive proportions. I have never seen something so large and majestic in my life, and yet each time I feel even a flicker of awe at the marbled floors and high ceilings, I remember that all this is built on the blood and bones of other shifters.

We've been provided clothes for tomorrow's banquet and are waiting for Noah in our suite. Lily is standing in front of a full-length mirror and adjusting her forest green dress. She does clean up well, with dark curls flowing down her back and light makeup that makes her features stand out. In this moment, she reminds me of someone, but I can't put my finger on who.

She catches me looking at her and frowns. "What?"

"Why are you doing this?" I continue to stare at her. "Shouldn't you be glad that I didn't mate Noah?"

Lily holds my gaze in the mirror for a couple of long seconds and then turns around to face me. She covers the distance between us and there is hatred in her eyes.

"Do you think I was happy with the idea of my mate marking another female?"

"But I never—"

"But he wanted to!" she hisses, enraged. Her hand grabs my throat; I want to push her off me, but I haven't revealed that my strength is back.

Lily isn't aware that ever since Alex and I started sleeping together, moving one step further in our courtship, my healing and recovery time have gotten much faster. I've been dragging myself along in front of her and Noah to hide this fact.

This is the perfect opportunity to kill her.

One hand in her chest, and I can rip her heart out.

My arm begins moving slowly, but when I look in the direction of my mother, who is sitting in a corner of the room, a hint of doubt stops me. What if it doesn't work? What if Lily's death doesn't remove the collar? What if her death triggers the collar to explode or something?

I lower my hand to my side in frustration.

"How is it my fault that he wanted to mate me because of what I am?!" I shoot back. "I have a fated mate. I want him, not Noah!"

But Lily doesn't seem to want to see reason. She digs her nails into my neck, drawing blood. "I don't care what you want. You thought you could take my mate away from me? All the years I spent with my Noah, and he wanted to give some bitch what was rightfully mine? I hoped that once you fucked your own mate, you'd get out of our hair, but no. You're too stupid and useless to get him to give you his mating mark!"

"Why does it matter to you if Alex gave me his mark?!" I try to push her off me now, that deranged look in her eyes worrying me.

"Because if he had marked you, you would die with him tonight!" Lily spits at me. "But instead, I'm going to make you suffer. I'm going to make you beg for death. You think what Robert did to your whore of a mother was bad? What I'm going to put you through is going to make her past twenty-odd years look like a fucking ride in the park!"

She shoves me away, and I let myself fall to the ground.

Not yet.

"Those wolves…" I breathe. "The ones that were attacking Alex and me when we first met you. You sent them."

"Yeah. So?" Lily sneers. "I was planning to kill you, but you were close to figuring out to how to drop them, so I had to step in."

"And the second time?"

"The second time, I wanted to isolate the two of us, but those damned soldiers wouldn't let me out of the jeep."

"That was dark magic," I say slowly. "You used dark magic."

Lily meets my gaze before a slow smile blooms on her face. "You haven't figured it out yet, have you?"

"Figured what out?"

"I practice both forms of magic. Witches can only practice one form: either normal magic or dark magic. I can do both."