Page 65 of Forever My Siren Luna (The Hidden Cove #2)

I have seen that sick look in his eyes plenty of times since coming here. Every night, as he did with me what he wanted, demanding I fulfill my duty and provide him with a powerful heir. The way he is watching Elelira brings horrid recollections to the forefront of my mind.

He is impressed by her. By everything he sees. He is salivating just watching her defiance.

Defiant she is. She isn’t bending to anyone’s will any longer.

When she reveals why it is that she came, all on her own free will, I look towards the castle’s doors where the Lycan hides, fearful of what is about to ensue.

~

Elelira

“Oh, really? Then what, pray tell, have you come here for?”

The dark fairy was gazing down at me with sinister superiority. He did have the upper hand, but I had a plan. Val and I were discussing how to get Nilo and Beretta out of here, speaking about how we could use the magic still inside us to win this, even though the situation was not in our favor.

We came up with one way, and it was something we never could have considered in the past. Something so grotesque and shameless that even suggesting it would have sent me into a panic before.

I just need him to take the bait. If I can get him alone after I guarantee my loved ones’ safe passage to the south, I could finish this, and there will be no need for endless bloodshed.

“I have come to trade myself for the prisoners you took from my pack,” I stated boldly. “I wish to give you my life for theirs, as long as you allow them to return home unharmed.”

A vicious snarl ripped through a mind link that I recognized coming from Nilo immediately.

He must be near. He must have heard. Maybe they are out here, somewhere in this crowd, imprisoned to be escorted to the border to use as leverage against my mate, as my uncle said they would be if he did not show up with me.

I can not see him, but I can feel Nilo’s intentions. He was not happy with what he had just heard and was ready to show it.

“ Stand down,” I commanded him. “ Do not interfere.”

“ Luna,” his voice was strained as he fought the command, “ please.”

No words can describe the anguish I felt in him. I heard a deep growl somewhere behind me, but didn’t risk turning around to find it. Not when Lord Tenebris is still watching me with the vulgar look in his onyx eyes. His eyes narrowed, thinking the sound came from me.

“You think that you, a misborn daughter of a whore, are a worthy trade for a notoriously powerful Beta Lycanthrope and my newest pet?” He tilted his head in a mocking gesture, his sharpened smile stretched wider on his cruel face.

“Perhaps I could trade a whore for a whore, but the Beta will remain unless you can provide me with a reason you hold more value than he.”

He’s challenging me. I could see the intrigue in his eyes, and I could see that he already thought I was caught in his snares. Why wouldn’t he believe that when he has such a massive army of monsters all around me, ready to close me in at any moment?

“That Beta is not your target’s mate,” I said, pulling the fabric from my throat and moving my hair, displaying my mark for him to see.

“I am the Luna, the rightful fate Luna to Hidden Cove Pack and the fated mate to Alpha Lachlan Stiles. I hold far more value for your intended purposes than our Beta.”

The perverse gleam in his eyes told me that he wanted me.

My cousin, still on the ground after buckling to her knees, was gawking at me, her eyes moving to something behind me and back to the mark on my neck several times, very noticeably. I wondered what it was that she could be looking at.

“ Look at his eyes,” Val hissed at me. “ They’re changing.”

They were glowing. Their centers were burning a crimson red. A low rumble could be heard among the monsters standing around me, and I realized he was communicating with them the way we mind link.

After they faded to a dull glow, he said, “I must ask, after hearing from your dear uncle,” he waved to the broken man kneeling on the ground in front of me, repressed with some sort of dark magic, “that you were some weak mutt with no power or influence, how did he come to be in such a state?” He made a point of scratching his chin.

“Did you perhaps have help from another?”

I’m sure he had just ordered his men to scour the area for signs of anyone else. He probably thinks this is a trap. How else could I, a meek daughter of a woman labeled as a whore, cause an alpha to be in such a sorry state?

I eyed the crowd around me, “I’m here alone.” If I told him I had defeated my uncle and his men myself, he would ask how. I should be as vague as possible.

Val was pressed forward, anticipating a reaction from the monsters at my vague admission.

“So you are saying that you did this to Alpha Wayne?” I remained silent, just staring up at him without answering his question.

Amusement was showing in his smile. “How do you feel about that, my pet?” He looked down at my cousin.

“Do you believe the impure mutt could do something so degrading to her own blood?”

Angelina’s eyes flashed at mine, then moved to stare at something behind me before looking back up at him.

“She….she was….I mean…”

The amusement died from his face, indignation now showing instead.

His smile turned to a sneer, his defined jaw tensing.

Suddenly, he whipped his hand backward, hitting Angelina, sending her backward a few feet.

She almost fell from the podium. Her wails and tears made the monsters guffaw and sneer.

“If the adulterated whore can answer my questions without sputtering like an imbecile, I expect the pureblood I was given with a higher pedigree to be able to do the same!”

“I’m sorry,” she crawled to his feet, crying as she bowed before him. “I-I’m sorry, Lo-lord Tenebris.”

He kicked his foot, sending her backward with a grotesque cracking sound when his foot met her skull.

“Kill him,” he ordered her.

She was trying to recover, weakly pushing her body up into a sitting position. “W-what?”

Lord Tenebris let out a thunderous gnarring sound. Angelina whimpered, crouching down like she was anticipating another blow.

“You will kill your father, finishing the work that your cousin could not. Prove to me that you are the stronger Lycan female here and are worthy of being by my side, because I have to say, I am feeling rather cheated right now.” He crouched down, his face just inches from her.

I could see her body trembling from where I stood. “Kill him.”

He is telling her to commit parricide. There is no choice for her in his words. He may not have said it out loud, but his intentions were clear.

Kill him, or he kills her.

Angelina and I were never close. My uncle sheltered her and she grew up privileged among the pack. Her father always said he was saving her for a mate worthy of her. If this was his idea of someone worthy of his daughter, then he deserved to die by her hand.

But….he was still her father. I remember countless times that I saw him truly doting on her and showering her with affection.

It gave the impression that he loved her my entire childhood.

I’m sure she felt that way too. For someone who has received so much love from her father, even if it was false, her feelings in return could still be genuine.

With the way she was trembling, staring down at her father who was shaking violently from the dark magic oppressing him, I could see killing him would be impossible for her.

Still, on wobbling legs, she slowly rose from the platform, then made her way down the wrapping stairway. When she got to the ground, Lord Tenebris said something in a devilish tongue, and a goblin standing close by tossed a knife at her feet.

She gasped, jumping back. She stared down at it like it was a venomous snake.

“Pick it up,” Lord Tenebris commanded, his onyx eyes domineering, peering down from his elevated perch.

She mewled, then slowly bent to lift the crude, stained knife in her hand. I could tell she had no idea what to do with it, or even how to hold it.

She slowly made her way towards me, her bottom lip bleeding and a bruise forming on her chin. She looked so scared, so unwilling, my heart was breaking for her; the girl I always thought had it all.

Her eyes moved from her father to me. Her back was now turned to the dark fairy and he could not see her face.

Her trembling eyes moved from me, to something behind me again, and then back to me.

Her lips moved, but her shaking made it hard for me to tell what she was trying to say. It made reading her lips impossible.

As she neared her father, her shaking got worse.

I was still trying to figure out what it was she was telling me, but then she stopped just a few feet from my uncle.

The little color she had left drained from her face and her lips stopped moving.

She was pressing them together, trying to hold in a wail.

Tears began to stream down her cheeks. Alpha Waynes groaned, pressing against the magic to look up at her.

His face was anything but loving. He looked livid and terrorized.

Even oppressed as he was, he was trying to send more fear into his daughter for complying with the lord he gave her to.

I couldn’t just watch. He was not hers to kill.

"His death is mine," Val snarled, pressing forward, and together, we moved so fast no one had time to react. I snatched the knife from my cousin’s hands, then spun around and dragged it across his throat right above the heavy metal collar.

Angelina let out a horrified scream, falling to the ground and covering her eyes.

I grabbed a chunk of my Uncle Wayne’s hair, angling his face up so his blood spurted out all over the dusty ground.

He was gargling and fighting for a drowning breath, and I was reveling in his death, however short it would be.

I had hoped for something longer and more drawn out.

I wanted to cause him as much anguish as I could, for as long as I could, but this small victory will have to do.

The monsters around us are shouting and cheering, devouring the scene, fueling their depravity.

Uncle Wayne shifted his bulging eyes to look at me, the hate resting there as he fought death reflecting my own.

A sinister smirk shaped my lips. I took the bloody knife and gouged out those eyes, elated that my smiling face would be the last thing that he ever saw in this life.

As the last flickers of life faded from his body, and the flow of blood stopped, I let go of his head and let his lifeless body fall to the ground.

When I looked back up at Lord Tenebris, that hungry smile was back on his face and a chill raced down my back.

He wasn’t testing Angelina. He was testing me.

I bent to help my cousin to stand on her feet. She was crying and limp, but I managed to prop her up and angle her body behind mine to act as a barrier between her and him.

“How magnificent,” he said. “A bastard you may be, but I see your value.” He clapped his hands together, rubbing them like one might do before a long anticipated meal.

“As I’m feeling favorable at this moment, I will meet your demands.

I will set free the whore and the Beta in exchange for you.

You, my lovely, will keep me quite entertained, I’m sure.

In fact,” his sinister smile stretched. “I think I could use a little quality entertainment after the disappointment I have been suffering,” he sneered at my cousin.

She cringed against my back, hiding her face on my shoulders.

“As a mated Luna of the pack I most desire to eliminate, it might encourage your beloved as I demand his surrender for you.”

Val growled menacingly, even though this is just what we wanted. I heard a baffled growl from behind me far off in the distance again, and felt Nilo fighting to break through the block I put up.

Feeling Angelina trembling behind me, I said, “I want her freedom as well.”

Lord Tenebris clicked his tongue. “You are getting greedy now, young Elelira. She is my bride. I can not so easily give her up like I could some regular whore.” His lips curled, “no matter how worthless she may appear.”

Angelina pushed her face into my shoulder, clinging to the torn fabric of my dress. “Y-your friends,” Angelina whispered in a broken tone, so low I could barely hear. “They’re free, t-t-trying to escape. You don’t ha-have to do this.”

I breathed a sigh of relief to hear that. But even if they were free, this was something I had to do. These wars can not keep plaguing our pack. While I have the opportunity to stop them, I’m going to take it. For my pack and for my mate.

“I do,” I whispered. I reached back and placed my hand on her head. Using my father’s magic, I told her in her mind, “ It will all be over soon.”

She gasped at the sound of my voice.

I stared up at the fairy demon with contempt. He watched our exchange, but with the tilt in his head and the way he was pressed forward, I could see that he was struggling to hear, and our words missed his ears.

“Let her prove her competence by being the one to escort my friends from where you are keeping them. At least until they are out of harm's way. That way I know you are keeping your promise.”

“Untrusting, are we?” He smiled. “So be it. Go along and free the prisoners, my bride , and escort them here.” His eyes glowed that crimson red, and two beastly demonic creatures stepped forward, peeling Angelina away from me.

She struggled to hang on, but they weren’t allowing it.

Lord Tenebris had a gleeful glint in his eyes, staring straight at me.

“We have matters to discuss, in private, before you set out to the border with me to see your mate.”