Chapter 48

Lucien

It had been a long time since the mighty Lucien had been brought down. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d lost a fight. Growing up fighting men that were physically bigger then I was, though at a loss, I’d always won.

But as I lay there on the ground, my bones too weak to even move and my eyes too heavy to open, shame filled me. I’d been reduced to nothing. Just like Mason had reminded me, I might’ve been Alpha, stronger than fifty men put together but I was still flesh and blood. And this flesh and blood had been brought down by his own pack.

Sure, they’d stuffed me with several shots of wolfsbane, so that I was puzzled as to how breath even still flowed through my being. When Penny had announced that I was to fight for my freedom while injecting another shot of wolfsbane into my arm, I knew it was over. There was no way I would get out of here alive. What annoyed me more, they were playing dirty and they didn’t even try to hide it.

Olivia had found me. I almost chuckled before I realized I was too weak to do anything. Of course she would. Why had I ever doubted it? Hadn’t she sniffed me out all the way across the country a couple of months ago? I heard her calm voice that always soothed me, only this time it was frenzied and panicky. Who could blame her? If she’d had been the one to be kidnapped, I would’ve gone to the ends of the earth to find her.

“Alright, who am I fighting?” she asked.

Penny had just announced that Olivia would be the one to fight instead of me. She had to have lost her marbles or else she would’ve noticed somewhere in between this entire fiasco that Olivia was pregnant.

Even Xavier had offered to fight instead and she’d turned him down. She must have really wanted to see her own daughter dead. Crazy bitch.

I wanted to turn, just to get a glimpse of my wife and child, even if it was for the last time because fuck it, if I was going to die, at least their faces should be the last thing I saw.

“Why, everybody, of course.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but my heart rate picked up. Penny had made me fight over fifty of her men. A small feat, had I been strong enough and without a stream of wolfsbane in my blood. But since I was weak and battered, I’d barely managed to throw a punch before I was pummeled to the ground.

How the fuck would Olivia fight all of them?

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Olivia said, her voice going up several notches. “What do you think I am, superwoman or something?”

“You want to your precious husband to live? Then I suggest you get those knuckles cracking and give me a good show.”

It must’ve been almost a minute—I wasn’t sure, my head was all over the place—before I felt smaller hands on my shoulders. I recognized those hands even without looking at them. They belonged to Olivia, my Olivia. Slowly and gently, she turned me around to face her and I saw that she was crouched beside me, her face a mixture of relief and apprehension.

“Hey,” she murmured, smiling softly. She looked so beautiful, a sight for very sore eyes.

“Hey.”

“You look like shit.” The sound she made was somewhere in between a laugh and a cry.

I tried my best to grin, hoping I didn’t look constipated. “I bet I do. You look amazing, as usual.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. What is this, 'The Notebook'?” Penny’s drawl was an annoyed one, and I even thought I heard Elena scoff somewhere in there. “I’d rather kill myself than listen to this shit. Are we doing this or not?”

Since I was too weak to do anything, the glare that Olivia threw at Penny made me satisfied. “Just give me a second. I’m talking to my husband whom I love, something you wouldn’t know anything about.”

“Oh, miss me with all that bullshit. Fuck love.”

Ignoring Penny’s jab, I grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to do to this.”

She nodded. “I do. For us and our baby.”

Our baby. The more I thought about it, the more horrible the idea seemed. What if she took a blow to the stomach? What if she fell on her stomach? So many what-if’s ran through my mind. But if she didn’t fight, a voice whispered, then we were all going to die anyway. So what if she actually had a chance to save us from her crazy mother?

“Alright.” I licked my lips. “Okay. Just… please take it easy, alright?”

Once she assured me everything would be fine, Xavier hurried over to lift me out of the ring. Although I was grateful for his help, I felt like weakling. Killing Penny was still at the top of my to-do list though; I was going to snap that bitch’s scrawny neck in two the first chance I got.

Olivia stood in the ring, looking quite uncertain. I vaguely wondered if she’d ever thrown a punch before. Perspiration gathered and dripped down my forehead. I could feel her angst and hated that my hands were tied. A few seconds later, one man get entered the ring and we all watched as she stared down her opponent. Then another man entered, and another. Before long, there were ten to one.

“Fuck. This is going to get pretty bad pretty fast,” Xavier muttered, next to me. Since I was leaning against him, his weight helped me stay somewhat vertical.

I didn’t say it aloud but I completely agreed.

And he was right. because the next sounds I heard were a smack and then Olivia hitting the ground with a thud.