Page 44 of The Wolf and the Chimera (The Witch and the Cowboy #3)

Ryder

With enough force to draw blood, clawed hands grasped my arms and hauled me forward.

The coppery scent of my blood rivaled the lingering stench of wolfsbane.

Pain laced down my neck and into my back from how my head sagged out of my control.

With herculean effort, I caught glimpses of white tiles, but nothing else. Nothing useful.

I needed to act—I needed to get to Elle—but whatever drugs those wolves had given me rendered me useless. Even my thoughts were sluggish.

“Stop,” a feminine voice ordered. A familiar scent filled my nostrils, but its identity floated just beyond my grasp. “You are to follow me.”

“Lady Kalli,” one of the wolves holding me murmured, “I thought he was to be placed in a holding room.”

Mom.

For a heartbeat, I thought everything might be okay.

“No.” Mom’s voice shook. “No, after what his mate did, I am ready to carry out the procedure. Kieran is waiting in the operating room.”

Slower than I could stand, reality set back in, and I cursed my drug-addled, foolish thoughts. The woman whose scent I recognized was not my mom.

She was Lyall’s puppet .

“Of course,” the guard to my left said. “Of course, Lady.”

As the wolves dragged me onward, I tried to speak. I tried to beg her to change her mind, to curse her for her cruelty, to damn her for stealing my power for her favorite son.

And Kieran…had he agreed to this too?

Had every moment between me and my brother been a lie?

I told myself it didn’t matter. I told myself I didn’t need any of them anyway, that I only needed to find Elle, but something in my chest was cracking. Through the fog of drugs and wolfsbane, my heart splintered.

A door whooshed opened, and the wolves holding me lurched.

Without their support, I tumbled backward, into a solid wall. As wolves grunted and snarled, I landed in a heap on my side.

“Quick,” Kalli instructed, “inject them with this.”

“What the hell is this stuff?” a familiar male voice asked.

Kieran.

Was I hallucinating?

“Among other things,” Kalli explained, “liquid silver.”

Something slid across the floor, and breaths mingled. I tried and failed to open my eyes. My fall had zapped me of my remaining strength.

“He hit his head pretty hard,” Kieran said.

“He’ll be fine,” Kalli promised.

Something small and sharp jabbed into my thigh, and Kieran cursed.

“Good gods, Mom,” Kieran exclaimed. “That’s one hell of a needle.”

Fast as a lightning strike, energy coursed through me. Gasping, I jolted upright.

Wide-eyed, Kieran and Kalli stared at me.

Though my brother appeared healthy, Kalli sported a gnarly bruise and three scabbed gashes on her cheek.

Behind them were two metal tables, both covered in intricate runes.

The two wolves who had led me here—both male and muscular—were unconscious and laid in a heap beside me.

Otherwise, the room was bare and unnervingly cold.

As energy coursed through me, I struggled to contain the need to shift that chafed my skin and grinded my bones.

“What in the gods’ name is going on?” I asked and gritted my teeth. My gaze caught on Kalli’s brutal wound, and my confusion only worsened.

How had the sorceress made my mate do such a thing?

“It wasn’t Elle,” Kalli said quietly.

Rage brimmed in Kieran’s green eyes.

“Then who…” I balked.

Impossible...but who else?

My voice was hoarse. "How long?"

Kalli swallowed, and her gaze drifted to the floor.

"How long has Lyall been hurting you?" I demanded.

All the comments I had made about my mother's leash echoes in my mind.

I fought the urge to puke.

"I should've known," Kieran whispered. Anguish twisted his face. "How did I not know?"

Kalli rubbed his back.

"Is that why you never visited?" I asked.

Kalli chuckled bitterly.

"My sweet boy." She gestured toward her ruined face. "This wouldn't have kept me from you."

She looked at Kieran, who shook with emotion.

"Lyall threatened that if I left," she explained, "even to visit my own son, he would hurt Kieran."

Kalli squeezed my hand. Tears swam in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ryder." Her voice was raw. "I should've tried harder. I should've found a way out."

I shook my head and tried to speak, but guilt and sorrow tied my tongue.

"Gods, Mom," Kieran said, "how did I not know?"

"All those stupid things I said," I whispered .

"No," Kalli snapped. "Neither of you get to harbor guilt for his mistakes."

She hugged us, and I clutched my family like they were lifelines. When Kalli pulled away, her expression was resolute.

“This wound is nothing more than a ruse,” Kalli said, “for Lyall to convince our pack that what he’s doingto Elle is okay.”

My mate's name pulled me back into the present.

“What exactly is he doing?” I asked. Neither Kieran nor Kalli spoke. “ What is he doing to her?”

“He made a deal with the High Witch,” Kalli explained in a rush, “to keep you and Elle under his watch until Cordelia secured the warlock and was ready to entomb Elle.”

Panic rose in me like a tidal wave, but with the strength of my wolf, I shoved it down and called on the cool, careful instincts of a predator.

“How long do we have?” I asked.

“The Handmaidens are coming tonight,” Kieran said and took a steadying breath. “We’re not sure what time, but we know they’ll be here tonight.”

When everything had gone to shit, dusk had been approaching.

The Handmaidens would be here any moment.

I leaped to my feet and shook off the lingering dizziness. When I turned toward the door, Kieran clasped my arm, and I couldn’t stop the snarl that tumbled from my lips.

“Let go,” I ordered.

Gulping, my brother did as I told, but Kalli spoke in a rush.

“Every hall has cameras,” she explained. “If you charge for Elle, they will incapacitate you before you’re within twenty feet of her.”

My wolf had little care for cameras or threats. He welcomed any challengers who would dare cross his path. As I stared at Kalli, my dominance rose to the surface. Kieran sucked in a breath, but my mother didn’t balk .

“That won’t free her,” she reminded me. “Your power will not free her from the slumber Lyall has forced her into or the bed she’s currently restrained in. You lack the control to target individuals with your dominance or to complete other actions while enforcing your will.”

As I recognized the truth in her words, my rage turned inward. I had wasted so much time—so much precious time—in Circe’s realm. Elle had used every moment she’d had, but I…

Gentle hands grasped mine. As I realized my claws had descended, I went still under my mother’s touch.

“You can still save her,” she whispered. “ We can still save her.”

I let my dominance fade back into me, and Kieran cleared his throat. I couldn’t stop staring at my mother. The iron in her gaze and the steel in her spine were so familiar. It was like glimpsing a ghost.

“Okay,” I relented. “What’s your plan?”

???

Elle

Death howled in the wind. I crouched beside Anassa behind a thick shrub and grappled with my surroundings.

Half the sky was a blanket of darkness, interrupted only by distant, twinkling stars, and the dim glow of a crescent moon.

To the east, the sun crested the mountainous skyline.

Its rays stretched and blended with the vastness of the night.

Beside me, the warrior queen squatted with a predator’s stillness. Dressed in a creamy tunic and wearing her simple, golden crown, her bright gaze was fixed on the temple before us.

The building sprawled across the mountaintop like a lazy beast. Its white pillars were pearlescent, and its marble floors gleamed, but the beings who stood inside it were what made my breath catch.

Power like nothing I had ever tasted emanated from their lovely forms.

Seven of them were gathered, though one gripped my attention. His curly hair cascaded down his umber back in golden, orange, and red waves. His eyes blazed red with power.

Anassa swallowed and muttered to herself, “Even you, Helios?”

A woman with inky black sheets of hair and brilliant, hazel eyes stood behind him.

Though I had never seen her lovely face, her cunning expression was familiar.

She stood with her chin dipped in deference, but she moved with an innate swagger that failed to sell her demure act.

A man with chestnut hair and a heroic smile stood at her side, close enough that their hands brushed.

“Where is Hermod?” the red-eyed god, Helios, demanded. “I am eager for this to be done.”

Hermod, I recalled. The messenger-god.

“Patience,” a goddess with iris-less, opal eyes and a buttery smooth voice replied. “He will come.”

Aset, I recognized.

Even the Queen of the Gods had been involved in this attempt to bind shifters?

Though her dark waves of hair and tawny skin were beautiful, her involvement in this coup for power chipped away at her loveliness.

Another goddess sighed and threw herself into one of the gathered plush thrones.

Her golden hair trailed down her lush form and framed her pale, ethereal face like a halo.

Venus .

“Must we wait on him?” the goddess of love and beauty whined. “I’m ready to receive my new form—don’t forget I’ve already claimed the tigers as mine.”

A goddess with blue-black hair and shining gray eyes scoffed. “We haven’t even acquired them, and you’re already becoming possessive of the doppelg?ngers. ”

“Hush, Selene,” Venus rebuked the moon goddess. “Don’t pretend you don’t have your eye on the wolves.”

Anger heated my veins. They spoke about shifters like we were toys to be traded.

“I’m still not sure we should do this,” Aset murmured and eyed the dark-haired woman behind Helios. “Perhaps we should try again to persuade Hecate to our cause, so she could perform the binding spell.”

“You worry too much,” a white-haired man grumbled.

His eyes were sea green, and his beard was full. He carried a golden triton that radiated its own unique magic. Its power roiled like never-ceasing waves.

Neptune.