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He paced around the room, trying to smooth back the hair from his face. “She has tempted, teased, and denied me for too long. I wanted to let her know that her games would no longer work on me, and that if she wanted my attention, she would need to submit to my advances.”

I choked back a scoff. What kind of fucked up, childish manipulation was he playing at, trying to make Marlowe jealous by screwing someone else? If he had asked me, he would have known that there was nothing that turned her off towards a male faster than cheating.

I knew she hadn’t been interested in Alaroth anyway, but any hope he might have had that one day she’d return even an ounce of his affections was now permanently dead. Like stick-a-fork-in-it dead.

I continued to block the king’s view of Canna as I thought about where my sister could have disappeared to. The walls around the keep were well over thirty feet high, and there was no way she could have climbed it with her puny human arms. And even if she’d managed to get the silver cuff off her wrist and shift, she still wouldn’t have been able to leap over. The only way in or out was through the front gate, but no one would have let her through.

“I will find her, Your Majesty. She couldn’t have gotten far with this many alphas around.”

Terror took hold of his expression. “Moons… they’d tear her apart if she was caught.”

Canna whimpered, taking a step towards me before putting her small hand on my shoulder. “Ezra, you must hurry!”

I’d seen the scars on her body—she knew firsthand what these alphas, deprived of the kind of love and pack bonds that were necessary to keep us sane, were capable of.

I didn’t have any reason to believe they’d gotten a hold of her yet, though. With her scent, she would have caused a riot, and it was still quiet outside.

But that didn’t mean she wasn’t hiding from them somewhere, scared of what they’d do if they caught her.

Even if she hated my guts, even if she wanted me dead, I still needed to protect her. And my own omega, as well. “Canna, go stay with Nivardi’s daughters, I’ll…”

“Not so fast,” Alaroth interrupted. He stepped up to me, sneering over my shoulder at Canna. “She needs to be contained somewhere more secure. If my beloved has been hurt, whatever injury she’s suffered due to your negligence will be done unto your omega ten-fold. Do you understand?”

I bared my teeth in a growl, rolling my shoulders back and widening my stance. Did he really think he could just take her away and hurt her? “Absolutely no—”

Pain.

My blood turned into acid in my veins, eating me from the inside out. I bellowed and collapsed on the floor, barely cognizant of Canna screaming over me, of guards being called to take her away.

My body convulsed uncontrollably yet each movement caused even greater agony, and I just wanted it to stop.

With a snap of his fingers, the pain receded. “I will finish correcting your insubordination later, alpha. Right now, you need to find your sister.”

My vision blurred, the king’s bare feet beneath his pants the only thing I could see.

The urge to lash out was met with another sharp, knife-like piercing inside my skull, and I howled as I held onto my head, trying to ease the sensation of my mind fracturing into a million pieces.

The king crouched down and grabbed my hair, forcing my head back and hissing. “You are really testing me today, aren’t you? You bonded to an omega without asking my permission, you let your sister escape, and now you continue to disobey me? To think of doing me harm?”

How could he have known what I’d been thinking? Could he really see in my own head?

He lowered his lips to my ear. “You and your sister are mine to control, mine to command. You may feel safe in the fact that I cannot kill you, but believe me—there are worse fates than death.Do. Not. Tempt. Me.”

He punctuated each word before slamming my head back on the ground. “Gonow!”

The king stormed out of the room and I took a moment to catch my breath, getting up on four shaky limbs before shifting to my wolf.

68

THE BLACK WOLF

My omega…

That fae had taken her, and I needed to find my litter mate to get her back.

My thoughts first went to ripping out the fae’s throat, but I worried he could still harm my omega before I’d reach her. Her wolf was trapped, the cursed metal around her wrist keeping it inside.

All the wolves around me were trapped. I hated this place