CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 32

Cynthia

Adam had told me that Watson wouldn’t be able to stop himself from confronting him. Since the evidence they had against him was too weak for a pack trial to happen, they needed his confession on tape.

I expected many things, but Norman killing Watson wasn’t one of them. My body tightens in fear and anger.

He looks different, more mature, more confident. He doesn’t have his usual cocky air about him.

"I couldn’t let him keep yapping," Norman says in a bored voice. "He was giving away everything. And look at you, Cynthia. Still clinging on to my brother. Don’t worry. This time I’ll take you with me. I’ll even let you keep his rotting head as a keepsake. Which reminds me, how did you like your gift? Dad was a right fucker. Thought you’d get a laugh out of it. I was going to send you Mom’s head as well, but I got rid of her earlier, and the animals had gotten to her before I could pluck off that old bat’s head."

I want to throw up. "You killed your parents?"

"Well, I had to." Norman grins. "You exposed me, and Dad began getting a little too suspicious. I didn’t know he had a moral line, but apparently dealing with those bloodsuckers was something he didn’t like. And he was actually starting to catch on to how smart I was. He didn’t like that either. Spewed some nonsense about me wasting his life by pretending to be a stupid moron. I couldn’t let him affect my business dealings. Don’t worry, though." He smiles at me. "I got revenge for what he put you through, all those beatings. He was a bloody mess by the time I was done with him. Kept him alive in his own basement for months. By the end of it, he was just babbling nonsensical words. Even your parents, they paid for selling you like they did. They paid in blood. I made sure of it. Aren’t you happy?"

My hand tightens around Adam as bile rises to my throat.

"Don’t talk to my mate," Adam snarls, pushing me behind him.

My parents? I haven’t thought about them in a very long time. They’re dead?

"She won’t be yours for much longer." Norman looks amused. "Since the moment I met her, I always knew she was mine. She would be mine one day. And as for you, brother, you really have been a pain in the ass for me. Nobody ever thinks about the people in the slums, but you suddenly had to care. You cost me a fucking fortune. I needed them to make the damn drugs."

"So, all this time," Adam begins, his voice harsh, "you’ve just been putting on an act?"

"Of course," Norman beams. "I knew I would have to protect Cynthia when you left home. And I couldn’t protect her if I didn’t have power. The vampires were willing to give me power. All I had to do was set up a distribution chain for them and provide them with the source material for their drugs, which were people from the slums. Those losers were willing to do anything for a few dollars. Wasn’t that hard to lure them away to deserted areas."

"So, all this time that you’ve been beating Cynthia, and you set her up to be taken advantage of by your friends––"

Norman chuckles. "She needed to be put in her place once or twice. But you did betray me, Cynthia. So we’re even with that hotel incident now."

"You’s disgusting," I breathe, unsheathing my claws.

"Perhaps." Norman shrugs. "But I have power, and that’s what matters." He lifts his arms in the air. "This is getting boring. Kill them."

He snaps his fingers, and suddenly masked men appear. I don’t recognize them, but Adam does.

"Leave my brother and Cynthia alive. I want her to watch me kill him, slowly." Norman smiles.

Shouts and screams fill the room, and I can hear them coming from the ballroom as well.

Tina and I exchange a look as Adam lunges at Norman. Shifting in here is not going to work since there are too many of the enemy and they will have more access to vulnerable parts of our bodies.

Norman is good at deflecting blows, but he can’t keep up with Adam’s speed. Two of his henchmen jump in. I unsheathe my claws and go after them. I know that I’m not good at hand-to-hand combat, but I can be sneaky, and I use that to my advantage. As Tony has been teaching me, I need to go for the most vulnerable areas. I use my claws to slash the stomach of one of my opponents.

He stumbles back, clutching his stomach, but two more take his place. Sweat beads on my forehead, but I’m not going to be pushed back. Adam is fighting against Norman and Tina, and I take on the increasing number of the enemy who are trying to protect Norman. One of them stabs Tina in the shoulder, and a large wolf jumps into the fray, tearing off his head.

It must be Reynold because Tina doesn’t seem worried.

We are able to drive back some of the enemy, but the screams from the ballroom have Tina looking at me. "You stay with Adam!"

She rushes off to help the shifters in the ballroom, and as the fighting intensifies in the room, the bodies drop around me.

Then Norman darts toward me. I don’t hesitate, ducking and kicking him in the knees. As he stumbles, Adam grabs him by the neck and slams him into the floor.

Instead of panicking, Norman just laughs. "Go ahead! Kill me! You’ll find your precious daughter. My people have her. You should never have left her with such a poor excuse for a guard. My men swooped in the minute you left and––"

I sneer. "Riya isn’t with your people. She’s stashed somewhere very safe where even you wouldn’t dream of looking. You think I would leave my daughter unprotected?"

"I have her––"

"You don’t have her," I respond. "Only a nuclear explosion could open the safe room Adam stashed her in. I don’t know who you think you have, but it’s not our child."

Just then, one of the enemy rushes toward Adam, and his hold on Norman slips. Norman darts toward me, his hand lifted. Before he can pierce my chest with his claw, Adam is in the way. Norman’s eyes widen in delight, and I hear the sound of flesh tearing. I don’t think. I just act, shifting.

Using my full strength, I grab Norman’s arm and tear it out from its socket. His glee morphs into shock, and then he lets out the most horrifying sound. I ignore him as he falls back. Shifting back into my human form, I crouch by Adam’s side. Norman’s hand is still in his chest, and he’s breathing with great difficulty.

"Adam! Adam, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get help!"

Footsteps sound, and I look up, my heart pounding in sick fear only to see Robert rush in. The alpha is in quite a state, his clothes tattered. He tosses off his coat and throws it on me. "I’ve got healers on their way. We need one in here right now!"

He bellows the last part, and moments later, Lydia runs inside.

I can’t speak.

The bond between Adam and me is turning incredibly fragile, and it’s like the walls are closing in.

"S-Save him," I gasp out.

"Don’t let go of his hand," Lydia orders. "Keep holding him. You’re keeping him tethered here. Robert, when I say, remove the arm from his chest."

And so begins a healing session, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

I feel faint at times because a lot of power and energy is being dragged out from the mating bond.

"Hold her," Lydia instructs, and it’s Tina who holds me up. I don’t even know when she arrived.

"Take it out!"

My own vision is blurring.

"Cynthia, hold yourself steady."

I feel weak. Something is being pushed out of me, some energy.

But the bond that had been fading is growing stronger, so I let it happen.

I can’t let anything happen to Adam.

Adam has to live!

Tina is holding me up and whispering something to me as my wolf keeps pushing more and more energy into our mating bond. My head is drooping to the side, limp.

"She’s barely holding on," I hear Tina say angrily to someone.

"She’ll be fine."

Will I?

Riya needs us.

I need Adam.

I don’t want to lose him again.

The voices are growing dim, and my body feels heavy as I’m finally surrounded by silence.

*****

Adam’s scent surrounds me when I come to.

It’s crisp and sharp, and I hum, happily, taking it in.

His chest is also hard but comfortable.

"If you keep rubbing yourself against me like that," he purrs, "you’re going to give me the wrong idea."

My eyes fly open, and I see Adam looking down at me, smiling.

"W-What?"

I try to sit up, but he pulls me back down. "I’m still healing. I need the skin-to-skin contact."

Confused, I remain still.

It’s not easy to gather my thoughts. My body feels tired.

"What happened?"

"Norman escaped." Adam’s hand is rubbing over my back. My very naked back.

"Adam," I breathe, "why are we naked?"

"Doctor’s orders," my mate tells me happily.

"Are you lying?"

"Do you want me to call her?"

I shake my head, resting my head on his chest and choosing to enjoy the pleasant sensation of him soothing me.

"You were impaled," I finally recall.

"You saved me."

"Lydia saved you," I correct him, yawning and snuggling into his chest. I feel so exhausted.

"Norman had his hand around my heart," Adam tells me softly. "I was dying, and you held me to you. You shared your life force, something only deeply bound mates can do."

My eyes open and I blink. "Oh. Okay then."

"So, we’re not talking about our deep mate bond then?" Adam sounds amused. "Got it."

"Let’s be glad that you’re alive and leave it at that."

He laughs. "Are we shy?" He pokes me in the cheek. "You’re shy, aren’t you?"

I sink my teeth into his pectoral muscle in retaliation, and he groans. "We’re already naked, Cynthia. You’re not helping."

When I feel his hardness against my leg, I blush. "G-Get your thing under control!"

"Stop teasing me then," he retorts.

I bury my face in his chest. "I’m sorry! Will you just…"

He gathers me in his arms, chuckling. "Ignore it. Being around you is enough for ’my thing’ to lose control. How are you feeling?"

"Tired."

He strokes my hair lovingly. "Yeah. It’ll be like that for a couple of days."

"Is Riya okay?" I look up at him.

"Safe and sound." His fingers comb my hair, and it makes me both drowsy and happy. "Norman’s a real piece of work. I didn’t know he was that obsessed with you."

"If he’s alive, then––"

"He lost an arm," Adam tells me. "There’s no coming back from that. Either he’s dead or the vampires will kill him. I doubt the vampires have any more use for him now. They don’t associate with those they consider weak."

"I hope so," I murmur. "I didn’t know he killed my parents."

"I’m sorry," Adam says softly.

My shoulders move in a shrug. "They sold me off, so I don’t care."

"If it makes you feel better, my sister and your brother, who were the reason behind your slave contract, are now destitute and struggling to survive. I cut off all funding to them. My grandfather had set up some investments in my sister’s name and the account had been accumulating. She was getting money from it every month. I cut her off from it."

"I don’t feel sorry about that," I declare after thinking it over. "Is Tina okay?"

"Few bruises here and there, but she’s okay."

"I didn’t know that about her family. I thought Watson was a good person."

"So did I," Adam confesses. "It was around the time when you left that Tina told me of the kind of man he was. He wanted a son, and he took mate after mate, trying to conceive a boy. Aside from Tina, he killed all the women he marked and mated when they bore him girls. The children were not spared either. It was a traumatizing childhood for her. She saw her mother die before her eyes. She never forgave him. He colluded with the vampires because he intended to use me as a puppet for a while and then get rid of me and take over once he had accumulated enough power."

"What about the pack now?" I ask, slowly.

"Well, I’ll be fixing up the slums first and bringing back some of the social policies my grandfather had implemented to decrease unemployment. Everybody deserves a good standard of living, and we’ll start there. I know you don’t want to leave Detroit so––"

"I’ll go wherever you’re going." I close my eyes. "Riya and I will stay with you. I don’t mind."

Adam lets out a shaky breath before pressing his lips to the top of my head. "Thank you, sweetheart."

"Please don’t go around getting stabbed again." I kiss his chest. "It’s a lot of work running around saving you."

His chest rumbles with laughter. "Very cute."

"I thought so." I grin, eyes still closed.

After a moment, I say, "Adam?"

"Yeah?"

"I don’t want to be Cynthia Rose either."

He smiles deeply. "Then, I guess you’ll have to be Cynthia Moore."

"No. I don’t want that surname."

"Then how about Cynthia Adam?" Adam kisses my nose.

"I can live with that."

My heart is bursting with happiness. We still have a long journey before us, but we’ll face it together.