Page 10

Chapter ten

Dirus Morales

“Two celestial witches. We hit the fucking jackpot, didn’t we?” one of my men, Robert Pierce, whistled with the binoculars in his hands. “Do you see her face? It means something different here.”

“It means the exact same thing.” Powerful and rare. Men loved powerful and rare things. Back home, they were treasured and clutched close so no one could hurt our rare queens. In a place where they bid on wives, that prospect would be terrifying. The wolves back home would lose their fucking gourd if they knew this was happening to their deities.

“They’re so casual about everything,” Pierce noted.

I remembered her words from the prison the night before. “It’s just Wednesday for them. They’ve become numb to it. ”

“So they aren’t so different from us. Walking around pretending we don’t see garbage we hate and trekking through it.”

“At least we get a day off,” I said. Pierce’s blue eyes slid to me with irritation creasing around his eyes, making him appear somewhat closer to his real age. I shrugged. “Every once in a while.”

She put her baby on her hip and headed down the street. We followed along, as I listened to the headphone in my ear projecting the mic I’d tagged her with.

“Hey, Astria,” a man called out to her.

“Fuck off,” she snarled at him like she was rabid.

The woman was smart. Don’t touch, she’s crazy. Definitely don’t touch crazy’s baby. Another man tried to walk up to her, and she barked at him. A laugh built deep in my belly.

“Are you smiling, boss?” Pierce asked. He’d been working with me for thirty years. “Someone pinch me.”

“The nutsack on this woman.”

He chuckled along with me. She disappeared into the shadows, but I still had sound on her. From what I could tell, she lived in the cul-de-sac on the opposite street.

“I’ve lost visual,” Pierce told me.

“Wait.” Sure enough, shadows moved down the street five minutes later and darted into another house. “She’s keeping people off her trail.”

“Who?”

“Take your pick. The weirdo watching her kid. Her husband. Anyone her father might have following her.” She went around in the seemingly sloppiest way, but I knew there was a method to her madness.

“Do we follow?”

“Let the rats run through her maze. We’re gonna meet her at the cheese.”

We went to the giant willow tree we agreed to meet at. She came from behind us a few minutes later, coming from the opposite direction.

Her eyes landed on Pierce first, and her hands went into her pockets. No doubt palming a blade.

“He’s one of mine.” I spoke up, getting her attention. But the words didn’t matter so much. She was willing to do what I wanted to get out of here. That didn’t mean she trusted anyone here.

Smart girl.

And yet it infuriated me that she didn’t.

“I like this one. She’s smart.”

I’d been thinking the same thing, but it annoyed me that he said it out loud. Because if I was her, all I would hear is there was a reason to question us. I glared at him until he gave a nervous chuckle.

“If he touches you without permission, I’ll shoot him in the temple,” I promised her.

Sweat gathered at his hairline, and every muscle in his body tensed, ready for me to attack. “Sorry, boss.”

I’d promised her that no one would touch her. So far I’d failed twice. Failure didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t think I needed to follow them in the prison or her into the house.

Listening to her piece of shit husband beat on her was hard to stomach. I held my place by pure force of will, knowing that attacking their captain wouldn’t end well.

Leave her alone for five fucking minutes and another monster descended. No wonder she didn’t trust us.

“Please follow us. My team has set up a base in my absence. It’s away from prying eyes.”

“Please? I don’t think I’ve ever heard a man utter that word.”

And I hated that. Every instinct inside me wanted to hunt the men on this island until they were extinct. Then all the women could cohabit in peace for the rest of their days.

This woman was fucking with my head.

Women were treated poorly all over the world. And while I never approved, I didn’t believe they deserved blanket permission and forgiveness like my people did. This woman just crawled under my skin and wouldn’t get out.

She followed us deep into the forest, but she kept to the shadows. Her footsteps were almost silent. I didn’t think she even realized she was doing it.

“So, it’s the cave underneath the waterfall? The women know where you are.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Naw. No one tells the men anything. They don’t even know that cave exists.”

“But all the women do?”

“Yeah,” she answered lamely.

“What happened?”

“About ten years ago, there was a… cleansing.” She said cleansing with enough venom to put a grown man down. “They took all the older women and killed everyone off. Our mothers sent us to hide there.”

“Why?”

“The men said the breeding stock was of poor quality. But that doesn’t make sense. They didn’t go out and get new women, it’s just the next generation.” Her voice came from the trees.

“But I looked up the statistics for my mother’s generation wondering that same thing. The vitality of my mother’s generation was unmatched. The survival rate for our women had never been higher, and I’m certain that is a factor. Women don’t see thirty often. My mother was thirty-two. And the several years before that had the lowest birth rate.”

“That’s why the male to female ratio is so unbalanced?” Pierce asked.

“It’s a huge factor. Fifty percent of us were killed in one swoop. We haven’t recovered yet.”

Unwise move to kill all your child bearing age women. Something drastic must have happened.

We held open the foliage hiding the cave. She entered when I gestured for her too, but she took a handful of steps in and the easy relaxation she had outside was gone.

She back peddled in seconds, running right into me.

She whirled around, and her blade went through the air with a whistle. I blocked with my arm, forcing her dagger to stop inches away from my chest. I grabbed her neck, and her heartbeat pounded the blood through her veins like a hummingbird.

“Sheath your blade.”

My eyes darted around the little base camp we built, trying to see from her perspective. Lots of equipment. A couple of canvas tents. Nine perfectly trained soldiers waited with wide, eager eyes, ready for the omega I found.

With Pierce and me coming up behind her and trapping her in.

I tightened my hand on the sides of her throat, keeping the pressure off her windpipe, and guided her back out of the cave. Her heart slowed as we entered the green foliage of the forest.

“Take a deep breath.” I released her and put my hands up in the air. “No one is going to attack you.”

For a long moment, she stared at me with eyes that were ready to run. But when she finally took that deep breath, they settled into resignation. Ready to do what it takes.

“I didn’t think that through.” It was pure instinct. Keep the celestial between the wolves, and the alpha takes the back.

“The next time you or your men surround me like that–” There wasn’t a point in letting her finish that threat. If she wanted things a certain way, that’s how she would have it.

“Done.”

She flinched like I slapped her. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I know.” I was keenly aware of how little faith she had in me. “I should have calculated for that.”

Her gold eyes glowed as if her magic was trying to activate, but that collar around her throat sparked, tampering it down.

“I have a guy that can remove that.”

“If it wasn’t on, I would have caused a lot of damage a few moments ago.”

“I’m probably more knowledgeable about what you are capable of than you are.”

“I doubt that,” she disagreed solemnly. Maybe she was right. I’d seen it in the books, but our celestial was guarded so closely and she never wielded their magic like the books said they could. This unprotected witch most certainly used her magic more than ours did.

“I’ll have it taken off, so that you are capable of functioning to your highest capacity,” I told her again.

“Why?”

What a sad question. It was normal to see in my men. Trust no one.

Everyone wants to kill you.

But her. Fuck, it hurt. Why did it hurt?

I wanted to go back in time and protect her the way she was meant to be. What the fuck was wrong with me?

“Because you’re useless to me fighting with your nuts chopped off.” And there would be a fight at some point. No doubt about that.

She nodded and sat on a tree stump nearby. I should’ve gone to comfort her, but I had no idea how to do that. I wasn’t even sure why I wanted to.

“What the fuck was that, Morales?” Pierce whispered, following me back into the cave.

“I don’t know.”

“Since when are you so… gentle?” That was a good question.

I wasn’t a gentle person. I didn’t spend my life clawing and fighting for respect to give anyone that illusion. The fact that it was so obvious would only put her in more danger.

I snarled at him, pressing my dominance over him, until he was kneeling on the ground. “Am I being clear?”

“Crystal.”

I gave one last snarl before walking deeper in. “Pup, go get her magic absorber off.”

“Yes, sir.” Rios eyed Pierce on the ground, but didn’t say anything.

“If you make her run off, I’m holding you personally accountable.”

He walked past Pierce without sparing him another glance. “Yes, Sir”

Pierce sneered, but Rios kept walking, unbothered.

“Do we have any information about this missing ‘engineer’?” I asked.

“Not yet, boss,” Nowak answered. “He’s vanished.”

“We’re in a pocket full of people who know nothing about the outside world. How is that possible?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, boss.”

“I assume he is in charge of infrastructure here.”

“Not at all.” Nowak’s shoulders tensed up. “When you were in their prison, Wallace had me breaking in. I found the engineer’s old office.”

I walked up behind him and he pulled out the pictures of all the engineering this man had done. He built the collar Astria was wearing and countless torture devices.

Rage clawed out my chest, threatening to burst and explode in the whole room. If she was marked as feral, it was fair that she was forced to endure a majority, if not every single one of these devices. These were used to break their women of any identity or will, and since they hadn’t managed to come up with something to do that for her, I could do nothing but visualize her in these devices.

Some of these were older. I’d seen them used before. But others were downright diabolical. She should be dead. No wonder the men here thought her magic was making her invincible.

“Boss,” Wallace called out to me.

All my men were on their hands and knees, but him. I’d send out waves of dominance without realizing.

Wallace stood too close to me to be strictly respectful. Lucky for him, we’d been friends since we were kids at the pack orphanage. Otherwise, I might have killed him.

Nowak kneeled in front of me, leaving his neck exposed in submission. His dominance was strong enough to at least keep him upright, but he didn’t dare give the illusion that anyone other than me was the head alpha.

“She’s your omega. You’ve chosen her,” Wallace whispered.

The words were annoying, but I’d already been suspicious.

I pressed my lips together, still glaring at the photos. Every moment that passed, I became more reactive to her. That was a problem, considering I was supposed to be the rock that held everyone in place.

“I haven’t chosen anything,” I admitted softly to him. Only him. The only person I truly trusted. The only person who wouldn’t use my wavering loyalties against me.

“Yes you have. Your stubborn fat head just hasn’t caught up yet.” He narrowed his brown eyes at me. “Release them.”

I popped my neck and swallowed the hot ball lodged in my throat, along with the urge to shift and violently protect the one I was meant to keep safe.

No. She’s not your omega.

The oppressive energy I released into the room must have lessened, because my men hopped up to their feet like a bunch of helium-filled balloons.

“What about Captain Zielle?” I asked.

“Astria Zielle is Captain Nikolai Zielle’s current wife. She is wife number five. He was a part of a very competitive bid for Astria due to ‘the unique’ onset of magic that was expected to provide the husband with control over inconceivable amounts of power. She was sold to him for a fortune at the age of eleven.”

“They were so excited they didn’t even wait until she was of… ‘age’.” Wallace’s mouth twisted up until his fangs were bared. He used air quotes.

“No. And they wanted to do biddings well before,” Nowak noted. “He is the right-hand man for the governor and does all his dirty work. There was a scandal that it was believed that Captain Zielle didn’t actually win the bid, but that it was rigged.”

I knew there was more to it, based on Nowak’s grin. “Out with it.”

“The supposed snubbed winner was none other than the engineer.”