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Chapter Twenty-Four

L ILA WINTER

The air is thick and metallic.

It smells like rust, reeks of blood, and the stench of something foul—something dead—chokes my nostrils like smog.

Water drips from the rusty ceiling. The drip, drip, drip noise matching the clattering of my teeth and shaking of my knees. The green moss on the walls indicates how damp this place is, taunting me like the guards standing at the doorway, rifles in their hands and with orders to shoot if we move.

My hands are bound behind my back with silver-threaded cuffs, the kind that burn just enough to keep my wolf dulled and my hope low.

My ankles are tied too, tight enough to make running impossible, and Lina, my sweet baby, is curled on my lap, her own tiny wrists bound, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy.

I lean against the iron bars behind me that are the only support keeping me from falling into an abyss of self-loathing and self-guilt.

Tears well in my eyes and burn my eyelids, but I don't cry, because Lina is curled on my lap and has finally stopped crying herself.

If I cry, I'm assuring her that Julian has won. That there’s no out for us because for one weak moment, I decided to trust a madman.

I was stupid. I was naive and I…I put us in danger. I put my baby in danger.

Goddess, what do I do? What do I…

Lina shakes in my arms, and I wrap my hands around her to keep her warm. She’s silent and pale, her forehead hot against my arm, and since we arrived here, she hasn’t cried once.

Part of me is grateful, because that means the guards manning the doorway won’t shout at us.

The other part? It recognizes what’s going on with Lina.

My baby is scared. The kind of scared that has you withdrawing into your mind like a caged, hunted animal. She feels the kind of fear that takes away your voice and sinks its teeth inside your veins till you are nothing but a wreck.

“I-it’s going to be okay, baby. Mommy’s here.” My voice breaks, my emotions echoing through the room we are in with the same pain that is cutting through my chest.

The room we’re in is cavernous and cracked open by years of neglect. I can see broken chains still nailed to some of the walls. I can see the crimson blood on those chains as well as on the walls.

This place isn’t just an abandoned factory. It used to be something worse.

Maybe a holding cell.

Maybe something meant to break people.

Maybe the last place I’ll ever get to see.

And yet, even as the shadows close in, even with the scent of death in the air, all I can think about is Alaric. His hands, his voice, the way he held me like I was more than just a broken woman the last time we were together, and one question rings in my mind.

Will he come for us?

Goddess, please let him find us. Let him hold me again, just once more, before it’s too late.

I’m caught up in my mind, reminiscing about what Alaric’s scent is like, but it’s not enough to dull the sound of Julian’s footsteps echoing inside the room before I see him.

He stands in the doorway and mutters something to the guards, who nod and obey before leaving. His eyes land on me, and for some reason, I hold my girl close to my body.

Each step he takes toward us makes my heart leap and pulse in my mouth.

That sadistic gleam in his eyes, like someone who’s just snapped, tells me he’s not above doing anything to us to get his point across.

I can’t let him touch Lina.

I can’t let his guards take my daughter again.

She won’t survive.

I won’t survive.

And he knows that.

That’s the reason why he crouches where I'm seated on the cold and dirty concrete.

That’s the reason why he stretches his filthy hand toward my cheek, trying to give me false hope that everything is all right.

“J-Julian, please don’t do this. Please don’t–”

“Shh.” His voice is lax. I pull away from his touch like it scathes me. “Everything will be all right now that you are mine.”

“I’m not yours…Julian this is…insanity! Please let us go. I won’t ask you to help Lina. I won’t force you to help me heal her. If you release us, then I’ll…”

My words are cut off mid-sentence when he grabs me by my chin, his fingertips sinking into my skin painfully. My little girl clenches the fabric of my dress in her tiny fists firmly before her shrieks fill the room.

“Then you’ll go back to him? You think I’m that fucking stupid? Baby, I found you. You were mine first! That Alpha position? It was always mine because I found you!”

“Ju…lian.” I choke on tears, my entire jaw in pain.

“Shh, it’ll be over soon. Alaric knows I have you, he’ll come for you, peaches, and you know what you’ll say to him?”

He chuckles, his eyes turning stormy.

“You’ll tell him to give the Alpha position to me.

You’ll convince him you want to be with me, because let’s be honest here, the pack will never allow me to be Alpha without you by my side.

Otherwise, if you don’t…baby, I don’t want to hurt you or the kid, but desperate times call for desperate measures. ”

Pain and confusion eat me alive, and at the end of the day, all I can think about is Lina.

“D-Don’t do this. Our d-daughter is…scared, Julian.”

For a minute, those stormy eyes of his pay attention to Lina’s screams, and for a foolish moment in time, I think he’ll be considerate just because Lina is his daughter. Instead, Julian’s words come like a punch to the stomach that I never saw coming.

“You really think that this annoying little brat is my daughter? Come on, peaches. Think for a minute. How could I have convinced you to come to me alone without having to force you? How could I have convinced you that I’m the only one able to save the kid? I’ll give you a clue…the paternity test.”

The paternity test? The one he knew about, even though I hadn’t told him about it. The one that convinced me that Julian was the only man who could save my daughter.

Before I can even ask what he means, the answer stares at me right in my face.

Alaric is Lina’s real father, not Julian. How could I…how could I have been so stupid and trusted a simple piece of paper, when the truth was right there in Alaric’s house? The way Alaric and Lina played together, the way they laughed together like they’d known each other their entire lives.

Goddess, Lina bonded with Alaric the first time they met at the hospital. That should have been the first sign he was her father! And I was blind to it all.

“You…”

“I tweaked the test. Two days ago, I found out you were Irene, the lost daughter of Alpha Chris, and you were already with my uncle. You know how that felt, Lila? That he had you and the Alpha position when you were mine first? I found out from a doctor friend that you carried out a paternity test, and I thought to myself, this is my chance! This is my chance to get back what was taken from me.”

I feel sick, like my insides are rotting. With the bile coiled so tightly at the back of my throat, I can taste it in my mouth.

The room spins. My jaw locks. My heart? It thunders with a fury I’ve never known before.

I want to spit on his face.

I want to claw his skin open until it matches the ruin he’s made of my life.

I want him to bleed the way I’ve bled.

But I can’t do any of that, not yet. Not while Lina is watching. Not while her life is in the hands of a monster who wears a smile like a mask.

“Alaric will never…agree to this.”

I know him, and the last thing Alaric would do is agree to hand over his Alpha position, even though Lina is his daughter.

I saw the documents. I love the man, but Aisha was right. Power comes first for the Hells. Being Alpha is all that matters to them.

“Yeah? Because this is a pretty sweet deal that I’m giving him.

He relinquishes the Alpha position to me, lets me marry you, and in turn, he can get his daughter back alive.

If he refuses, if you fail to convince him, then I’m not the only one who'll be at a loss, peaches. Little Lina will die before the disease takes her, because I swear to you, I will kill her. Think long and hard about what you want to do.”

He lets go of my chin.

Lina stops crying.

I can almost taste my own blood in my mouth, and it doesn’t compare to the fear, the betrayal, and the anger thrumming in my veins.

I watch as Julian stands up and looks at my daughter with ire before he turns around to leave.

Call it adrenaline, call it my maternal instincts kicking in, but I realize two things.

One, my daughter needs me, and I'm her only savior.

Two, and the most important, the only way to get through to Julian is to be him.

To manipulate. To scheme. To get in his head.

“D-did you ever look for me after you left?” I ask.

Julian pauses in the middle of the room, his back to me and his hands in his pockets.

Swallowing the knot of bitterness in my throat, I continue with the lies that slip out of my mouth so easily they almost convince me too, “Because I saw you everywhere I looked. I missed you. Every time I looked in the mirror, I remembered how you used to hug me and tell me I was the most beautiful woman in the world. I cried for you for so many years. I still do, sometimes.”

He doesn’t look at me, but his shoulders turn rigid.

“What game are you playing, peaches?”

“Tell me if you ever missed me.”

“I’ve missed you every single second of my life, Lila. I love you. Still do. Always will.”

“But you cheated on me, and it hurt, and because of that, I slept with your uncle just to spite you. But Alaric…he was never you. I’ve tried to convince myself he’s you, but I’ve been lying to myself, Julian.

I–I convinced myself that if I tried to love him, maybe I would move on from you. Maybe I would…”

“Did you? Move on from me, I mean?”

Yes! As soon as you cheated on me! As soon as you called our relationship a game, you fucking monster!