Chapter 60 - Lost II - The Royal Hybrid

Tatiana’s POV

My body was so cold from lying on the bare concrete floor with nothing but my pajamas on. I was confused and quite frankly couldn’t think straight which only made everything so much harder. One moment we had been in my bedroom and the next I woke up here.

My body was feeling exceptionally numb, and I had a hard time to even open my eyes as they felt so unbelievably heavy. I just wanted to sleep but I knew I couldn’t. I knew I wasn’t safe.

Not here.

I had to remember what happened before but as I tried to force myself to remember, my mind kept jumping between a few images and that was it.

I remembered Chad being there. I remembered that he had somehow escaped, but how did he manage to do that and how did he manage to take me with him without getting caught?

I tried to stretch my arm and when I finally managed to move it just a little, the sound of chains jiggling met my ears.

My eyes that were slowly adjusting to the dark room followed the sound and it was then it became clear to me why I was feeling so weak. Silver chains… He had used silver chains to keep me tied down like a dog.

“I see you are awake,” he said, his voice echoing around a bit, making it hard for me to determine where his voice was coming from. “You shouldn’t try to move too much, the chains will only weaken you every time they get to clench down on your skin,” he warned.

“Why do you care?” I asked in a voice so low that I wasn’t sure if he had even heard me.

“I care because there is so much you do not know,” he chuckled dryly. “You think I am the bad guy, don’t you? You always have. I mean, not that I blame you one bit. After all, I did spend most years tormenting you in every way I possibly could.”

“If you aren’t the bad guy,” I paused trying to gather the strength I needed to speak. “Then what are you exactly?”

“I am here to help you. To make sure that you survive what is about to happen,” he muttered and stepped out of the darkness so I could finally see him. “It is essential that you survive, otherwise we won’t just have your pack suffering, but mine as well.”

He looked me up and down before he crouched down in front of me wriggling a key in the air.

“If I remove the cuffs from you, will you then stay down as a good girl until I have told you what I need to tell, or do I need to wait with removing them until after my story?” he asked and looked into my eyes.

They showed nothing but serenity and the feeling I got in the pit of my stomach was the pure intentions that radiated from him which confused me even further but it wasn't a feeling that I had any intentions of following. His suspicions were right. I would run for the door the second he'd cut me loose.

“What a dumb question to ask,” he sighed. “Of course, you won’t stay. The minute you get your strength back, you will bolt out of here. I guess we ought to do it the hard way then.”

He leaned back until he was now sitting on his ass, crossing his legs in front of him, his eyes never leaving mine as he did so.

“I am not who you think I am. I had to make you believe that I was the bad guy, that I was working with Killian and doing his bidding to get you back, but in reality…” he paused and looked down, his fingers suddenly fiddling with the key. “I had to make it believable Tatiana,” he sighed. “Otherwise, he would have seen right through me.”

“I don’t understand…”

“You were never an only child Tatiana,” he said slowly.

“I know that, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“I am not talking about your actual family,” he said as he shook his head, while I let the words, he had just said sink in. “I’m Killian’s son and rightful heir to the pack and if he gets his way now, there won’t be a pack for me to take over.”

“You’re lying,” I huffed as I stared at him in disbelief.

“Why would I lie? Think about it! How else have I been able to get away with so much shit, how else could I outrank you? Me? A beta's son against an alpha's daughter?”

“Because I was a freak? You said so yourself and you made damn sure that everyone else also thought so,” I pointed out. “You seriously expect me to believe that you are Killian’s son? Then what about Kathleen? You mean to tell me that she is not your sister then?”

“No, she is not. She is the betas daughter as she has always been,” he shook his head and scooted a bit closer to me.

“I need something else in order to believe you,” I sighed. “This sounds so surreal.”

“When you got to the pack, you needed to believe that you were the one who could take over from Killian when he got too old to be an Alpha and that that was the reason to why you had to train all the time so my dad made an offer to a lower standing wolf, promising him that if he took me in and pretended to be my dad, then he would become the bate and so he accepted.”

“And Kathleen? Does she know?”

“As far as I know, no. She is clueless about this but there are so many other things she isn’t clueless about,” he said slowly. “Things we need to talk about that you probably won’t believe.”

“Such as?”

“She is not who you think she is… She works for Killian and has been all this time. She didn’t come here just for your sake, hell I’m pretty sure she never even once really cared about you. She knew that you were her mission. This, your friendship, was nothing but a backup plan.”

“A backup plan for what exactly?”

“For if you ever escaped or found out the truth. That way you wouldn’t question if she came with you and that way Killian would still know your every move.”

What the hell? Did he really expect me to believe that the one friend, my best friend, I had had through most of my life, really wasn’t a friend? No, this was Chad. I needed to remind myself that he would say anything to save his own ass. Even throw his sister under the bus if it meant safe passage for himself. He was selfish and a liar… Wasn’t he?

“I don’t believe you,” I whispered.

“I know you don’t, and I don’t blame you for that, but you need to. You really need to start believing me Tatiana because of the things Killian has planned… It will wipe out not only your entire pack, but I am also very certain that it will end up being the destruction of mine too.”

He looked sincere… The same look in his eyes, the pleading look that begged me to believe him, and even though a small part of me wanted to believe him, my other part, the part that hated Chad more than anything, wanted to tell him to go to hell.

“Why did you take me then?”

“Because the message that I came to deliver to her, was to kill you. That was the only reason to why I came. I know I said stuff before, but I had to play along for as long as I could otherwise, she would rush with the plan and just take you out the second she had the chance to, and I simply couldn’t let that happen.”

“But everything you said in the barn…”

“Everything I said was to trigger you and for you to know the truth. In order to defeat Killian, I needed you to have both of your wolves and the only way to do so was to tell you that you had two mates and let the rest play out and just hope it would play out right, which it did.”

“So, you knew all along? You knew that my brother would die?”

“I did,” he admitted. “Who do you think led Zaya to the place that held the information about the hybrid curse and the double hybrid?”

I never got the story of how she knew, she had only said that she had gone out on a search and that was it, so I really could know whether or not he was telling the truth.

“Did she know? That you were the one helping her I mean?”

“No, of course not,” he chuckled. “If she had known that the tip was coming from me, she wouldn’t have followed it and you know that just as well as I do.”

I was conflicted and the feelings inside of me that were still torn didn’t exactly help nor did it help that I couldn’t ask Amara or Rama for guidance.

“I know that you may find it hard to believe me and I know that I am the reason for that mistrust and for that I apologize, but I can’t undo what has been done. I can only now fight for what is right and do my part in making sure that was is about to happen, won't. But I need your help.”

“What is your plan?” I asked.

I needed to buy myself some time to think and the only way I could do that right now was to keep him talking. If he was lying, he would at some point further into his story slip up, right?

“I managed to steal the dagger from Kathleen while she was sleeping. She had taken it the last time she was in the tower with you. Also, the reason why she volunteered to help interrogate me, was so she could give me intel. She gave me some for when I had to escape for when the big battle would happen, but I used that intel to escape now. Her plan was to kill you with that dagger, then while your mates were weakening from your death, she would kill them too, and then, Killian and his warriors would do the rest,” he explained. “They won’t come, until you are dead because you, now that you have both of your wolves, are the only one who stands in his way. You are the only one who can stop everything, but we need to play this smart.”

“And I am guessing you already have a way to go on about that?”

"I do, but it requires your trust, something I know I don't own or have the right to even ask of you," he said as he bend over and flipped the key into the lock of the chains and with one swift movement he unlocked it, and I felt the relief on my skin when the chains fell to the ground. "But I'm asking you anyway. You can choose now if you want to believe me. If you do, I will tell you my plan, and if you don't, you can kill me right here on the spot."

He then did the one thing I had not expected from him. He bend down, all the way down, so his head was touching the concrete floor, and as he did that he stretched out his arms in front of me and opened his hand revealing a silk scarf.

"I can't do much to prove my loyalty to you, but I can do this," he mumbled.

"What is it?"

"Take it, and you will see," he said as he continued to stay in his bend-over position.

I grabbed a hold of the silky scarf and let the end of it run through my fingers, and even before I had opened it to see what was hidden in it, I knew what it was. As I unfolded it and let the scarf fall to the ground I saw that I was right. He was giving me Zaya's dagger.

"Why are you giving me this?" I asked shocked.

"You are the future queen, Tatiana," he said as he got up. "I want to rule my pack with dignity and pride. I want to show my pack how a leader should be, and I would love to do that as your future ally. This is the only thing that can truly kill you and it can easily kill me, so by giving you this I give you the power over my life and I hope that you will help me to make our future and everyone else's future better than what it looks like now."

I looked at him and studied his facial features to try and see any form of deception, or manipulation but despite my efforts, I didn't see any. All I saw was the same as before and it annoyed me to a point where I did the one thing I had never expected myself to do. I made a deal with the devil.

"Fine, I am in. Now, what is your plan?"

He looked at me, shocked at first but as his shock wore off, he began explaining his plan to me. I didn't like it one bit but deep down when I was looking at it logically and rationally, I knew this would work and I knew that by the end of this conversation, I would have agreed to it.

"I don't like the idea of hurting them," I sighed and shook my head. "Not like this at least. It will kill them Chad. You know that right?"

"We don't have another choice, Tatiana. I know that it is rough and that it will be tormenting not only them but also you, but you need to remember why we are doing this. We are doing this because it in the end will save them and that is what matters. This is the only way."

I knew he was right, but the thought of hurting my mates like that... To hurt them to such a degree... It broke me from the inside out and I could almost feel my heart break as I pictured their faces in my head.

But... A little pain for a little while in order to be able to save them so that they can live the rest of their lives in peace, wasn't it worth it?

"Okay, I am in," I nodded slowly and watched as a genuine smile, maybe even the first genuine smile I had ever seen on his face, appear. "When do we begin?"