Chapter 42

Chapter Forty-Two

Ada

L izbeth and I are taken to the Canis pack's den, though I am barely conscious for much of it, as we are bound and swinging from the jaws of a wolf shifter, journeying through forest pathways.

A narrow fissure in the side of a craggy outcrop gives way to a dark stone passage that soon opens into a cavern with a rocky ceiling crowded with clinging plants and vines. Sunlight spills down onto the stony floor, and onto the shifter male who awaits our arrival.

Rufus, the Canis pack leader.

The room is quiet except for the passage of the shifters who bring us to the towering alpha.

Dropped to the floor, I groggily rise while helping Lizbeth up, as her wrists are bound at her lower back—they are taking no chances with her, it would seem. I get the impression she would not hesitate to attack if she should get free.

I am new to this world and the relationships between the various factions and packs save the little I have gleaned from conversations. But one glance at Rufus—the man allegedly responsible for Gray's father's death—and I know that he is scum.

His smile has an oily quality that makes me shudder. As one might expect for a pack leader, he is a powerful male. Wearing only a pair of hide pants, there is no mistaking his musculature. Perhaps he is a little shorter than Gray but he is broader in the chest in his human form. He eyes me with the interest of one perusing a tasty snack. With golden blond hair and deep blue eyes, he is younger than I imagined a tyrant to be, and beautiful in a way that almost seems pretty.

Yet his lips are cruel and his gaze is cold. I can believe this man keeps women and children hostage so their mates will do his bidding, and that all the other terrible things I have heard about him are likewise true.

He steps right up to me. "Well, well. You're a pretty little thing, aren't you?" He dares to capture a lock of my dark hair, running it through his fingertips before I can snatch it away.

"Do not touch me," I hiss.

He smirks, and his hand falls to his side. "Come now. That is no way to speak to your future mate."

"You will never be my mate."

He only chuckles, amused. "So innocent," he muses. "You're not yet fully bonded, and when I kill your mates, it will sever any burgeoning tie. When you go into heat, you will demand the tending of an alpha—any alpha—and you will be begging me for my cock. Hate me. It will make no difference to the outcome." He shrugs. "I always did enjoy fire. I will bear your scratches and bites with pride."

His words sicken me. My lips tremble. "My mates will kill you. And after, I will spit on your broken remains."

The slap is unexpected and sends me tumbling to the stone floor. The pain explodes across my cheek and robs me of thought and breath.

"Monster," Lizbeth snarls.

I hear scuffling as one of my captors steps forward and drags me to my feet, where I sway, my bloody lip throbbing.

I won't take the words back. His actions only strengthen my resolve that he shall never have me. If my mates fall, I would sooner go to the Goddess with them than let this beast put his hands upon me.

"Put them with the others," Rufus orders.

His guards direct us deeper into the pack home, taking us through the cavern and into a warren of dark corridors. Faces peer at us from carved doorways, some curious, some cold.

As the light diminishes and darkness fills my senses, I stumble, and only the hand tugging my arm keeps me moving.

I lose all sense of direction and of time.

Weak light emerges from the void, solidifying into flickering sconces wedged high in the stone walls.

We are brought to a stop outside a sturdy wooden door. "Keep back, witch!" the guard holding me calls, peering through the small barred window in the door.

Seeming satisfied that the ‘witch' is obeying, he lifts a sturdy plank barring the door, takes a ring of keys from his belt, and unlocks the door. It swings wide; we are shoved inside and the door slams smartly shut.

Stumbling to right myself, I hear the wood drop back into place and the key rattle in the lock.

Before me is a large room with many frightened faces.

Women.

Children.

Babies.

As the footsteps of our jailers fade away, the enormity of my captivity sinks in. This is far too reminiscent of that fateful day in Bleakness when my father sold me for coin. It was Betsy back then who was with me. Today, it is Lizbeth.

How I wish for the door to swing open again, for Callum to stand in the light with a bloody hammer in his hand.

"Lizbeth!" a woman says, rising from the floor. "Is it true? Has Gray returned?"

They rise and crowd around us, clamoring for news.

It dawns upon me that these are the kidnapped mates and children that Rufus has been keeping as leverage.

As I stand a little to one side, another woman unfolds from where she has been sitting propped against one wall. She is tall and wearing clothing that appears rustic and out of place compared to that of the shifters.

Feeling my eyes on her, perhaps, she offers me a smile, grimacing when it cracks a dried cut on her lips. She shrugs and thumbs in the direction of the door. "Welcome to hell. I'm the witch."