Chapter 47

"Darren, no!" I yelled, but I knew that this was it for him. What Yul did to him was fatal. Darren was still looking at me with a weak smile as he dropped to the ground. I wanted to heal him that very second, but Yul came for me next. He managed to bite me in my left shoulder. "Argh!" I winced in pain as he tried to take a big chunk out of my shoulder.

But Marcus came to my rescue just in time. He attacked Yul, freeing me from the old man. Marcus punched the wolf in its eyes and then wrestled it to the ground. The other guy with the weird eyes looked at me as if he wanted to finish me off too, but then he saw that Yul and Marcus seemed to be equally matched even if Marcus didn't wolf out. The guy chose to help Yul so it became two versus one.

My upper body was now drenched in my own blood, but it didn't even bother me despite the pain. I moved towards Darren to tend to him, but he was now catching his breath and I could tell that he was already... dying. Tears swelled from my eyes as I tried to talk to him for the last time. "Darren... Thank you for saving me."

He slowly tilted his head towards me and still managed to respond even if his head was already mangled, covered in dark blood. "M-Milena... Please be h-happy..." he said in the softest voice, and that was it. He closed his eyes and Darren was gone. I cried heavily, my chest heaving as the reality of his death finally registered into my system. I know I hated him and never wanted anything to do with him anymore but I never wanted him to die. I even stopped Marcus from killing him even if Darren started to become unruly and desperate because I believed that like me, Darren was a victim too, thus, he also deserved a happy ending. I wanted him to find someone who would love him too, the way Marcus loves me. But now he's gone and the last thing he did was to protect me.

I was so overwhelmed by my grief that I didn't quickly notice the person coming from the bank. I just cried beside Darren because that was the only thing I could do. I wanted to help Marcus too but I was heavily injured. I was bleeding out and I could sense my wolf growling mad inside of me. I bet it was grieving too at the loss of the mate that it never became one with. I could still smell Darren's scent, though, and that made my wolf feel a lot more threatening— as if it badly wanted to wolf out and just hurt everyone in here as its way of grieving.

"There you are. Oh no, but you’re already half-dead," said a woman's voice. I turned around and saw a masked woman walking towards me. She was wet, an indication that she swam the lake to get here. "Oh my. Isn't that Exodus? That mercenary? He's dead?" The woman let out a cackle that made me angrier than I already was. "And look at what we have there. It's Yul and his apprentice versus the Purple-Eyed Wolf's husband. Kill him already!" she shouted at her allies.

I glared at her. "You! Where is my son?" I asked Nightshade for she was the one who just arrived.

"Your son? He's with Malcolm. Don't worry, we didn't lay a finger on your adopted child, Milena."

That surprised me. "You knew?"

"Of course we knew everything about you. You were our latest target, Milena. We wanted to catch you even before we accidentally caught you back at St. Pio with Exodus. You are extremely rare, so we wanted to catch you so that we could sell you to one of our patrons who collects rare werewolf eyes. Yul wants to eat you, so that’s a problem. Maybe I’ll have to kill him later too."

"Who told you about everything? Was it Ava? Hugo?"

"Oh no, not them," said Nightshade who started removing her mask. I was half-expecting that I would see a familiar face behind the mask, but the beautiful woman behind it was unfamiliar to me. "Those two were after our tails too and even managed to corner me back at Gloverstone."

"You're lying. They were the spies that fed you information on us!" I insisted.

But Nightshade shook her head. "It wasn't them, but your husband's second-in-command, Gil."

"What?"

Nightshade cackled at my surprise. "Gil is loyal to your husband, but he can't say no to anything I ask of him. You want to know why? It's because I'm his mate!"

"No," I said, goosebumps spreading again all over me.

"Yes, I am, Milena. We just found that out recently. Just like me, he never found his mate all these years, so imagine the shock when he found out that a Blackhole was his mate. Since then, he tried to cover up for me, and gave me pieces of information on you. He couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to, you know. Our mating bond formed so late that it's so abnormally strong, I have full control over Gil when I want to. He told me all about you and your son's secret identity. He passed on the information to Darren's mother upon my order, in the hopes that Darren will be able to take you back. Because once you're out of Marcus' protection, you're a much easier prey to catch."

"That's not true," I replied. I was still in denial that Gil was the spy. "Gil will never betray Marcus!"

"Oh yes, he didn't want to do it. He even tried to kill himself to stop me," said Nightshade proudly. "But he can't disobey my orders. Crazy how our mating bonds get unhinged, right? You should know what I'm saying as your wolf also wanted to mate with Darren so badly. If his wolf was just healthy he could've overpowered you too and you would have done everything that Darren ordered you to do too. That’s what happens when the mating bond is suppressed for a long period of time."

"But Gil got injured by you Blackholes..." I said.

"Yes, because Ava and Hugo found out Gil's secret. They confronted and fought him, but ran away when I came in to save my mate from them."

"No way… So Ava and Hugo are not your allies?”

Nightshade shook her head. “Not in the slightest.”

The truth was hard to digest. “And my son? What are you going to do with my son?"

"Don't worry, we're not going to kill him. We can sell him though. He has gray eyes, an alpha-in-the-making. Childless couples would definitely bid for him."

"You monster!" That was enough for me to finally lose control. As Darren's scent engulfed me, I gave in to my wolf and just like Yul, I was able to transform into my wolf form. Nightshade was surprised. She clearly didn't expect that I could do this without the full moon. And once I became the Purple-Eyed Wolf, it was all easy. It didn't even take five minutes to defeat Nightshade, who in her panic spread out her sleeping gas all around us.

But it was too late for her. I was quicker and managed to slit her throat before I could even take a whiff of her gas into my lungs. She dropped to the ground and I howled in victory. I then went to Yul and his apprentice. Marcus managed to fatally injure both of them. But Yul was half-witch, so I knew I had to step in before he could harm Marcus. He did wound Marcus on his left arm, but I was able to get hold of Yul and bite him by the neck, almost decapitating him. Yul keeled over, dead, but Marcus fell to the ground too. He was severely wounded again, but I could always heal him back.

And now, all that was left was to rescue our son.