Chapter 42 A dangerous trip
The moon was moving away from the clouds, my window fast closing.
“Lys,” Finn called beside me, shaking my shoulders. “Lys. I’ll help.”
And the world came into focus again. My eyes lit up.
“Only if you tell me where you’re sneaking off so late at night.”
I pulled away from him, frustration beginning to chafe at my nerves. “Do I have to?”
He stared at me, wordless.
I winced, and then told him.
The more I spoke, the darker his face got. And when I was done, he closed the distance between us and placed the back of his hand against my forehead as if to feel for a fever.
“Don’t be dramatic.” I took a step back.
“You say that when you act like a spineless heroine in a movie made for the male gaze.”
“That’s very specific. Are those your kind of movies?” I snapped my mouth shut immediately. There was a mix of surprise and new curiosity in his eyes.
“I don’t get it. Why would you wanna save the people who did this to you? Who pushed you into a place where you’re about to die?”
His voice had gone hard. With the darkest expression I had ever seen on him. That temper was returning.
“Finn,” I moved closer. “This isn’t really helping. Gianna simply has me cornered.”
“You only had to say that. I’ll get rid of her.”
I grabbed his hand before he could take another step. “You can’t! She is my sister.”
Again, he gave me that look as if I was insane.
Maybe I was. But no matter how cruel Gianna had gotten, I still saw the little girl who followed me around when I was four.
And I could not have my own sibling’s blood on my hands.
“Finn.” I clutched his hand tighter. He was completely quiet now. Dangerously so.
He radiated a heady energy that was quite similar to the dragon’s. A dense smell of heat and melting iron. Nymphaea had been a dragon after all.
“I’m Ok. I’ll be fine as long as I never put myself in a position where she can physically hurt me.”
Silence. Those aqua-colored eyes burned into my head.
I let him go and turned to leave. Unlike the belief of everyone around me, I was no damsel in distress, and Rhea was the strongest wolf of any man or woman my age in Silvertooth pack.
If only she wasn't so suspiciously nonchalant lately.
“You’re more headstrong than you appear.” Finn caught up with me, wrapped an arm around my waist and hopped.
I gasped as the wind caught my hair.
My eyes were wet when he dropped. We were on the street outside the mansion.
“We have less than one hour, baby. The dragon hates losing sight of his property.”
We got in a cab and were at my parents' mansion in under forty minutes.
“You’re rich-girl, rich-girl.” Finn froze beside me as we stared up at the pale-stoned mansion that could have been an old world castle.
I winced shyly.
The surrounding garden was hush, and even from here, I could see the lights were off, blinds drawn on all the front rooms.
The house was asleep.
I abandoned the front drive for the side path and walked along the fence of boxwood flowers till I arrived at the side gate where fresh produce and groceries were brought in every quarter.
Finn was silent the whole time behind me.
The scent of honey musk with a bitter edge lingered in the air as I unlocked the gate.
Were Mom and Dad in bed, or up watching movies and whispering between themselves, oblivious to the fact they had children, except when it was time to show them off to their fancy friends?
“Now I wonder what the Puppet Alpha’s house would look like if this was the Beta's house.” Finn whispered finally when we were inside the grounds of the mansion.
I lead the way, avoiding the security cameras, and keeping to the shadows of hydrangeas and lilacs.
“Money does not influence rank in our pack. Not saying it does in other packs, just saying it matters even less here.” I smiled back at him, and nearly tripped.
He caught me immediately, and kept his hand wound around my waist as if he could not trust me to walk on my own anymore.
“Alpha Rosamund is by no means poor,” I continued. “But then Dad has had wealth in his family from around the time America was probably founded.”
We came to a spot without flowers, floodlights shining down brightly.
Finn moved like the literal wind past the spot, and we continued on towards the mansion.
We got to the first gate and I pulled the charm out of my pocket. The rock shone out a neon green light, activated by the half moon.
It was warm on my palm as we walked past the first gate without needing a key.
“How can your Dad be his beta when they are rivals?” Finn asked, confused.
I pushed the smaller gate open that stopped at our waist level while Finn hopped over it.
“It’s not bad enough where they want to kill each other. Dad just wants to maintain the Grunders' importance, and Alpha Rosamund feels quite insecure about the importance, although he hides it well.
I told Finn all about their rivalry that first night.
How Dad would always refer to me as a special gift directly delivered by the moon goddess.
After the "disappointment" that was Arthur, who did not pull off the rare occurrence of being an Alpha when his father, and the father before were Betas, he had me.
A girl child who was perfect, unreal with her beauty but also sharp as a twig and could read perfectly by the age of three. He knew then that I was the future of the Grunders.
The daughter he could marry to anyone, human or supernatural, for even more power and glory.
The daughter he signed up for ballet alongside the Alpha’s daughter, and she quickly started to collect medals like stickers.
It gave him and Mom endless pleasure to point out that their princess was the shining star in the same academy the Alpha’s daughter belonged to.
And the day he made that marriage agreement with President Miller, who favored our family for having both wealth and power, that was the highlight of his life.
The puppet-alpha would remain a puppet, and Grunders would become the most important werewolf family, not just in Silvertooth pack or Silver Summit district, but in the entire country.
“I expected this place to be better guarded,” Finn said when we walked into the silver cage that was not really a cage.
It was a separate building, large, a cross between a museum and a science lab.
“It is. We just managed not to trigger any alarms.”
I rolled the rock around in my palm. It was getting hotter.
“Please do not maintain eye contact with any of them,” I said as we walked past the glass cells on either side of us.
At the moment, there are about a dozen people in the cages.
My heart was pounding now.
It was a mistake to have come here. Come here with a vampire.
I could feel the strong magic from the walls. Heating up my skin, hardening my nipples as intense arousal pooled between my legs.
The whole time, the caged paranormals snarled at us from behind the glass, hissed, spat.
Finn was suddenly too quiet. I glanced at him, and it dawned on me that we should have never come here.
He was breaking.