AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A sob tore free from my chest as I leaned over her, my hair brushing her face. “Please…I can’t do this by myself,” I whispered as stinging tears slipped over my cheeks and dripped onto hers. Even then she didn’t stir.
I heard a door open above us. Footsteps descended the staircase, and then Troy and a few of his men approached.
“Stay back!” I shouted.
The men ignored me, making a beeline for Tavi. They unlocked her chain before dragging her through the door across from me. A glimpse through the doorway revealed a similarly darkened space, but no further details. I caught one last look of Tavi, her face contorting in pain, before the door slammed shut.
I shrieked after her, straining against my bonds. My wolf raged inside me, both of us keening and screaming after our friend.
“She’s hurt!” I looked at Troy. “She could die! Please don’t—”
Troy crossed to me and slapped my face hard. “Shut up.”
My mouth filled with blood. Desperate rage rose inside me, and I turned to Troy. Before I could think better of it, I spat the blood in his face, the crimson glob hitting his cheek. He grabbed me by my hair and lifted me to eye level. I hadn’t thought I’d be capable of feeling more pain, but here it was, electrifying across my scalp.
“If you want to live, you’ll learn to respect your Alpha and fall in line like a good whore!”
“You will never be my Alpha,” I snapped. “I’ll die before I accept you.”
He let me go and I thudded to the ground on my back. He backed away from me and began walking back and forth in front of the staircase. His restless pacing was happening more and more often. I wondered if he was closer to defeat than I thought.
“You’re just like my father,” he grumbled to himself. “No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I do, neither of you think I’m good enough. Nobody thinks I’m good enough. I am the one in control here. Why does no one respect that? My father ruled with control and fear, and people bowed to him. I do the same, but I get nothing. Why?”
"I’m nothing like your father, Troy.” I glared at him. “But you are no better than him. You’re a coward who cheats instead of fighting his own battles.”
I had no idea what was going on or if I would survive the day, so I just let him have it. What more could he do to me? What other pain could he inflict?
“Just because your father was fucked in the head doesn’t mean you have to be,” I said, glaring at him. “You could have been the better wolf, but you chose to be worse.”
“No! It was his fault.” He turned on me. “My father made me this way, and then he tried to rip everything away from me by reminding me about Night. The fucker got sick and then he started feeling guilty about all he’d done to his firstborn. Not to me. He didn’t apologize for any of the shit he put me through. Shepherd was the only one he could talk about. He told me he was going to announce it to everyone when he got better. That Night should always have been his heir, not me.”
I stared at him as he beat his fists against his chest. He was a child throwing a tantrum because his older brother got the toy that he wanted to play with, a poor sport who’d lost at some greater game.
Of course, I didn’t discount the fact that Troy was probably telling the truth about Gregor and how Gregor had treated him throughout his childhood. But nothing excused the way he was acting now. How was I so afraid of him before? How could I have thought he was anything other than a sniveling, pathetic child in a man’s body?
“You’re an idiot,” I said, calm stealing over me as he teetered on the edge of losing his mind. “You had the perfect opportunity to prove Gregor and everyone else wrong. You could have been a better man, but now you’re going down in history as the worst Alpha the Kings have ever had.”
“You know nothing,” he snapped. “I will go down as a legend. Once Night dies a public death, everyone will know that there is no one left to stop me from creating my own empire. I’ll fucking show everyone that I’m the rightful heir, and I’ll combine both packs just to prove it.”
“You’re delusional.” I shook my head. “Under you? Everyone will suffer. It’ll be chaos.”
There was a pause followed by an eerie quiet. “And so what?”
My eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean ‘so what?’”
His blank face suddenly parted into a manic grin that was somehow too wide and full of sharp wolf’s teeth. His dark brown hair was coming out of its usual, slick bun, falling around his shoulders in unkempt, unruly strands. “Why should I want the packs to succeed? One of them is loyal to my half-brother, and the other turned a blind eye to the way my father treated me. Maybe…maybe I’ll enjoy watching the packs tear each other apart.”
“You’re sick,” I hissed with dawning horror. “You’re disgusting. It’s only a matter of time before Night kills you. And if he doesn’t kill you, then someone else will. You can’t destroy these packs, you…you’ll—”
Troy threw back his head and laughed, drowning out the rest of my sentence.
I gritted my teeth and wished I had the power to make him collapse right here. I hated knowing that Night was likely at his weakest now, just like I was. I hated that I couldn’t do anything to help him or Tavi or even myself. The only thing I could do was try to survive, to be alive after Night killed Troy so I could hold him in my arms again. At this rate, I wasn’t sure I could do even that much.
Sudden movement from Troy caused my instincts to kick in. I jerked away from him as hard as I could despite the protesting aches in my body. In Troy’s hand was something black and small.
I screamed as I realized what it was—a muzzle that was used to prevent shifting. It kept the snout from growing, thus forcing the wolf to stay inside. These days, it was meant to be reserved for use in the most desperate of medical situations only, but it had been created hundreds of years ago. Its original purpose was to subdue and torture, not to heal.
“Get that away from me, you son of a bitch!” I screeched. But still, he drew nearer. “Don’t you fucking—don’t put it anywhere near me!”
