Chapter Thirty-Four
N I C C O L O
All at once, the arrows sail towards my chest and pierce my fur and my skin. Blood gushes out of the punctures and pain erupts through my whole body, but I keep running to the gate.
The guards prepare swords and shields to block me, but this time, I'm prepared. I don't slow down. Instead, I just run faster and faster until I ram into them, bringing all of them down in one go.
They collapse on the ground in a clatter of armor and metal, but I just step over them and break through the metal bonds of the gate.
The crash shakes the entire pack, but I find that I don’t care as much as I should have. My nerves and my fear at the only things that seem to matter in my head right now, and the only thing I care about is Florence. More warriors pour in from the houses in the distance, barricading my way and readying their weapons.
“It’s him!” one of them yells. “Kill him!”
“He’s invading the pack!”
“The Alpha was right, they can never be trusted.”
Upon hearing those things, I realize that the best approach to this is to just shift back to my human form and talk to them properly, but I admit that it seems that the monster in me just wants to fight its way through them.
I roar and scatter them, clawing at the ones that are close enough. A lot of them fall back unscathed, but some of them bleed and stumble away. Deep inside I feel bad, but when I think of the things they said, I just feel more and more enraged until it seems that I’m only seeing red.
I lunge toward them, hoping to incapacitate them enough not to attack me anymore and maybe release some of my pent-up anger—just intimidate them enough for them to finally show me Florence.
But before I can do much damage, someone comes through and steps in between us.
It’s Florence’s father, Alpha Amos.
“Stop!” he yells at me, holding out a silver sword. “Do not come any further or you will find this driven through your heart!”
The red haze of carnage vanishes from my eyes and, slowly, I shrink back to my human form before him. He grabs his own cape and tosses it toward me, but there is no warmth of welcome in his eyes.
“Where is Florence?” I demand, wrapping the cape around myself and advancing toward him. “Where is my Luna?”
A strange emotion crosses his features when I say that word. Still, he wipes his face free of emotion and just stares back at me. “Why do you ask? You agreed to let her stay here for as long as she wants and you have no right to just march in here, make a mess, and try to demand to see her like some kind of animal—”
“WHERE IS SHE?” I shout, my anger and worry reaching their peak. “I heard her voice and she was calling to me. Where did you take my Luna?”
Alpha Amos’s face darkens. His jaw clenches, and he doesn’t flinch even as I come up to him. He just motions the men standing behind him to step forward.
“Arrest this man,” he orders, not taking his eyes off me. “Do not let him out of prison.”
I scowl at him. “Prison won’t stop me.”
He sneers. “Try some tricks, I dare you. You will never see the light of day, or my daughter, for the rest of your life.”
The men flank me and grab me by the arms, wrapping silver chains around my wrists. I glower at him, but he doesn’t say anything more. He just turns around and leaves.
The last thing I see is a woman rushing toward him and whispering something to his ear, propping him to walk faster and eventually sprint out of sight.
* * *
F L O R E N C E
Out of nowhere, light flashes before my closed eyes and rouses me from this deep black slump that I don’t know how I got into.
I take a deep breath, feeling a strange dryness in my throat and my mouth that hits me like warm lava. I groan, forcing myself to open my eyes and try to remember what the hell happened and how I got into this situation.
I remember going to the packhouse, my old home, which is now the property of Alpha Isaac. I remember having what was supposed to be dinner with him, but he said something and irked me, so I went upstairs to cool myself down. But then I saw the office and snooped around, only to find a mysterious map that marked a lot of places and end up eavesdropping on a strange conversation between Dad and Alpha Isaac.
And I got caught. Then I started to choke blood out of the blue.
After that... there’s nothing.
I finally open my eyes, my face immediately folding into a frown.The mystery of the whole thing is starting to bother me even more, but then I see that I’m in the infirmary with my dad sitting on a chair by my side.
“Dad?” I croak, my voice sounding so raspy it feels like I’ve been yelling all night. “What... what happened?”
He flinches and looks at me, his face breaking into a smile. But then his expression changes just as quickly. “You’re finally awake. Alpha Isaac has been waiting to see you.”
That sends a wave of resentment through my chest. Why does he seem so nonchalant about the whole thing? Does he even know?
I want to ask him, but he just stands up and starts to fix things on my bed, getting a robe from the side of the room and wagging it in front of me. He doesn’t even help me up; he just watches me struggle to sit up and doesn’t say anything to me anymore.
Walking slowly because my head still hurts, I get out of the infirmary room. There I find the same female assistant that took me to the packhouse.
She smiles at me and offers an arm as a guide, and with that, she takes me up to the office to talk to Alpha Isaac.
He smiles at me from behind the desk, looking like he’s pleased to see me up and doing well. But I still feel like shit, and I’m especially uncomfortable with the way everything happened. I feel like I can’t trust him, even though he hasn’t done anything outright.
“Florence.” He grins and gets up, opening his arms as though asking for a hug. “It’s good to see you well and I hope—”
“What happened to me?” I ask, jumping straight into the issue.
“Well, you’ve been poisoned,” he says. “By something that you ingested. We still don’t know what from, but I guarantee that our doctors will take care of that. You caused quite a scare. So much so that your... mate showed up here and hurt a group of soldiers who were trying to reason with him.
“Niccolo is here?” My heart flares with joy. “Where is he? I want to talk to him.”
“Well, he’s in prison for his crimes.”
There’s a pause, then all my joy gets replaced by anger. I cross the distance between us and make a move to slap him, but he catches my wrist calmly and pushes me against the chair.
“Calm down now,” Alpha Isaac says. “I will free Alpha Niccolo on one condition.”
“What is it? What do you want?”
“I want your full cooperation. I need you to tell me everything you know about Ombra Nera.”