Page 25

TWENTY-FOUR

Alexia

Hours or maybe days pass as I sit strapped to a chair in the dark. I’ve tried everything to wiggle out of the restraints. My wrists are rubbed raw, and my thighs burn from trying to move the chair across the room. I even tried to shift until I realized it was impossible. There is some sort of metal infused into the rope tying me down. Silver or iron—either would hamper the moon goddess’s magic running through my veins, stopping me from shifting and shredding my way through this room. It burns through the delicate skin it touches, leaving me in agonizing pain.

During the moments that I haven’t been struggling, I’ve been praying to the goddess for help. I’m on the verge of giving up and believing I’m destined to die here when the door opens.

The sense of relief I feel doesn’t have time to take root. It is snatched away, and pure dread consumes me as Clayton walks in. He says nothing as he goes to the blinds over the window and pulls the string. The sunset light is a shock to my eyes, leaving me flinching as I try to focus again.

“You have put me in quite the predicament, Alexia,” he says, pacing with his hands clasped behind his back. “I was hoping this would all go over with no problems. You were always so compliant with your parents’ wishes. I was hoping you would continue to do the same for me.”

I try to hold my tongue. I really, really do. But I can’t.

“Compliant to what wishes, Clayton? That I would just lay there and let your son have sex with me when neither of us wanted to? That’s just a little messed up, don’t you think?”

He shakes his head, and I can’t help but feel like the gesture is meant to make me feel extremely small. “The arrangement I came up with benefited everyone. Kai would have taken his place on the throne, and you would have been queen.”

“Kind of you to think of us,” I say with a scoff. “But what was in it for you?”

His beady eyes bore into me and the murderous intent behind them burns straight through me. “Let’s be honest. Kai isn’t ready to rule. He still needs time to grow and understand the politics behind running a kingdom.”

“You get to remain in power—the shifter behind the curtain. Sorry to ruin your grand plans.”

He steps forward and grabs my jaw. “A tiny hiccup. Nothing I can’t maneuver around. Nothing better than a tragic love story to tug on heartstrings and make people bendable. The future queen found dead before she and the king could take their thrones. Kai in a deep depression over the loss of his mate. Love has a way of making people do unthinkable things. How could he live without you?” he says in an overdramatic tone.

I shake my head, disgusted by everything he has set in motion. “You wouldn’t... Kai is your son!”

“I would if it meant continuing to build what I’ve started and maintaining the traditions of shifters.”

I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. “Why would you do this? He could have still found someone. I’m not Kai’s mate, and I think you knew that before I did.”

He snorts and pushes my chin up, exposing the X on my neck, covered with clear cellophane but still visible.

He rips it off and I yelp, tears springing to my eyes. “Yeah, I can see who your ‘mate’ is. What a whore. To sleep with your betrothed’s brother. You make me sick. You’re lucky I haven’t already ridded the world of your useless ass. I should’ve just done it when I had the chance that night at the house.”

My mind reels with the new information. “It was you who was stalking me.”

He grabs my cheeks and squeezes, hard. I try and jerk my face away from him, but he just steps even closer to me. “Yeah, it was, and you were too wrapped up in messing around with Xander to figure it out. At first, I needed to stop you from telling your family about Kai leaving. That was a last-minute decision. But that day, I so enjoyed seeing the fear in your eyes. It was like a drug, rushing through my veins, and I couldn’t stop—following you around, watching you in that dressing room, sneaking up on you in the kitchen and spilling your blood, seeing you act like a slut with my stepson’s cock down your throat. My first plan was simply to expose you both to the Shifter Assembly, but then I realized I could have the ultimate rush and kill you myself. There is just something about the thought of your blood on my hands, Alexia.”

My stomach churns and I feel like I’m going to be sick. “Please, Clayton, stop. Just leave me alone. I can’t help who my mate is. I don’t know what you did to mess with the cleansing, but Kai didn’t mate first. Xander did, and?—”

Clayton rears back and his hand cracks across my face before I realize what’s even happening. “Do not ever say that again. Do you understand?”

I know why he reacts the way he does. Just like being intimate with someone else’s mate, tampering with a cleansing is punishable by death. The mating ritual is sacred. That’s someone’s heart you’re screwing with. Shifters don’t play when it comes to forever.

My cheek stings and tears spill down my face as the pain hits. I hate that I have no choice but to let him win. That I have to take it as he hurts me, insults me. But what can I do? I’m completely at his mercy.

“You are going to fix it, Alexia. You are going to make this right. Your deaths won’t be in vain.” He leans in closer, and I recoil from his hot, foul breath. “And just so you know, princess; I didn’t act alone. I’m not the one who tampered with the cleansing. There is another who wanted you mated to Malakai.”

The handle on the door shakes. I squirm in my chair, pounding the metal legs against the floor. I need whoever is behind the door to know that we’re in here. A sob rattles through me as Carrington enters. She looks like absolute shit, like she has gone through hell and back to get here. But she has never looked more beautiful to me.

“You’re here,” I say.

"About time,” Clayton hisses.

“It wasn’t easy finding what you asked for.” She looks at me for less than a second, darting her gaze away and focusing on her father.

“But you got it?” he asks.

“Yeah, I got it.” Her hand jets out and she unfurls her fingers from around a vial.

Her father backs up and throws his hands in the air. “You’re the one who fucked this up. You said you could keep her under control, that she would be compliant with what I needed. When have I ever allowed you not to take responsibility for your actions? This is your mess to clean up, daughter.”

My attention is divided between the two, bouncing back and forth as I try to make sense of it all. “Carrington,” I weakly say.

She finally takes me in, studying me head to toe. “All you had to do was to stay away from Xander and go along with the rest. We all would have been in the clear. Kai would have come around.”

I shake my head and look at her with pleading eyes. “Carrington, you don’t get it. I didn’t want Kai to come around. He didn’t want to come around.”

“I do get it!” she shrieks so suddenly and shrilly that even Clayton jumps. Her green eyes are wild as she keeps talking, and I realize I have never seen her like this before. It’s like she’s not even in control of her body anymore. “I get that you couldn’t just go along with the plan. I put Kai’s blood in my perfume the night of the cleansing. When I came to see you beforehand, you’d been so sense-deprived that it made you go right into his arms. It was perfect. You’d found your mate, you’d be queen, and we’d be sisters. My dad would finally approve of something I’d done.” Her voice cracks on her last words, but I don’t have it in me to feel sorry for her. I’m too appalled by her confession.

“You did what ? You sprayed your body with your brother’s blood?” My head is spinning, and I am certain I am going to pass out. Carrington did all of this. My best friend ruined my mating ceremony by doing her father’s bidding and is now going to... what? Murder me on his behalf? Finish the job?

“Yeah, and it would have worked if the two of you could have just stopped being so damn picky !” she exclaims, pulling at her hair by the roots, the vial of whatever she brought for her father still tight in her grip.

I’m so stunned that I almost want to laugh at the absurdity of this situation, that Carrington would ever do something so sick and twisted to me, but I'm too brokenhearted. “What the hell did you think was going to happen? We’d have sex to complete the ‘bond’ and then try to shift without the full moon... if we wouldn’t have been able to, we would’ve had an idea that something might be wrong!”

She laughs, a condescending, bitter chuckle. “Of course you’d forget that not every mated couple can complete the anti-lunar shift. It can still be a real bond without it. I would’ve been there to comfort you and remind you of that, Alexia.”

I do laugh then; the idea of Carrington ever comforting me is a damn joke. “ Real? You’ve always been too self-absorbed to see what is real,” I say, no longer caring what it will cost me. If this is the end, I might as well take whatever peace I can find in the moment. Goddess knows that I won’t get to say all the things I want to the person who matters the most. “I’m glad I screwed it up. I’m elated that neither of you got what you wanted. In the end, someone will figure out what you did, and I hope you both rot for it.” I wonder if she knows that Clayton was going to kill Kai. I somehow doubt it. I open my mouth to tell her, but before I can, Clayton grips my hair and yanks my head back.

“Get it over with, Carrington. I’m tired of listening to her.”

Her hands tremble as she unscrews the cap on the vial she brought in the room, and Clayton tugs hard on my hair, ripping strands out by the root. When I still don’t open my mouth, he pinches my nose. The silver liquid sloshes around, threatening to spill over the side of the glass container.

She stands over me with the vial ready to tip. “I’m sorry, Lex. So sorry.” Her words mean nothing. After what she’s done, what she’s helped her father to do, my best friend is dead to me.

My lungs burn as I fight to keep my mouth closed. The edges of my vision blur. If I pass out, they have control and I’m dead. I refuse to give up the fight, so I thrash as I inhale through my teeth. Clayton presses his fingers into my jaw, pushing my cheeks inward. I struggle against his hold, but he reins me in by my hair. Carrington tips the vial, the poison gathering at the edge.

A thunderous roar has us all jumping as the door crashes to the floor. A long-haired, gray wolf leaps into the air.

My mate.

He and Clayton collide and tumble to the floor. Fur and skin. Fists and teeth. They fight for dominance, but it’s a losing battle. Clayton cannot shift, so the odds are heavily in favor of Xander.

Carrington screams and rushes to throw herself in the mix, but she is stopped short. Kai runs up behind her and detains her with his arms wrapped around her torso. She kicks and scratches at him, but her twin doesn’t let go.

Xander growls in Clayton’s face as his large paws pin him to the ground.

“Don’t do this, Xander. What would your mother say?” Clayton says, pleading for his life in the most desperate and manipulative way.

Xander tilts his head to the side, like he’s considering letting his stepfather go. I wouldn’t want him to take a life if it meant it would lead to regret. Nothing is worth carrying that feeling for the rest of his life. He’s done that for too many years already.

But after what Carrington just said, and the way Clayton reacted...

You think this is sick and twisted? I’m guessing you don’t know what the king regent over here did to Xander’s da ? —

His paw slips from Clayton’s shoulder, and I blow out a puff of air. Xander’s electric blue gaze locks with mine, and he bows his head.

“It’s okay,” I softly say. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

When he lifts his snout, a new resolve glows in his eyes. He plunges forward and sinks his teeth into Clayton’s neck. Everything mixes in a horrific cacophony of sound—screaming, growling, gurgled breath, and the wet splattering of Clayton’s throat hitting the ground. Kai lets Carrington go and she rushes to her father’s side. There is nothing to salvage of him. He was dead the moment Xander’s lethal teeth bit down. Kai doesn’t even bother to join her; he just lets her cry alone. I can’t say I blame him for all he’s put him through.

Especially when the rest of Clayton’s plan included killing him too. Not that he knows that yet. But when the time is right, I’ll have to tell him. He deserves to know the truth about his father.

My wolf moves to my side, gliding his silky fur covered in blood against my leg. I sob in relief, wanting nothing more than to touch him, but I’m still tied up. Xander huffs and lifts his chin to Kai, who comes right over and stoops down, pulling a small knife out of his pocket.

Kai touches the ropes and pulls away with a hiss. “Shit.”

He rips the bottom of his shirt and wraps it around his hand. It takes what feels like forever for him to saw through the ropes. When I’m free, my wrists are red and blistered, but I am so glad to be free, I barely notice. When he gets to his feet, he rests his forehead against mine and whispers, “Alexia, I am so, so sorry for leaving you the way I did. I promise I will explain everything.”

I reach up and place my palms on his cheeks. “I forgive you. And thank you for bringing him to me.”

“Of course.” He stands and backs up, giving us space.

I drop to my knees and pull Xander close to me, wrapping my arms around his neck, savoring the feeling of his fur against me. He sighs, and I feel every bit of his relief sinking into my own skin. “Xander, I love you,” I whisper in his ear. “I was so worried. I thought I was never going to see you again.”

“I’m taking her out of here,” Kai says in a low voice, and I realize he’s speaking to Xander before I answer. “There’s a spot downstairs where I can keep her until y’all are ready and we can get rid of his body.”

Xander dips his head but doesn’t take his eyes off me.

Everything else around me fades out as Kai struggles to get a hysterical Carrington out of the room, and I tangle my fingers in the fur around Xander’s muzzle. “Shift back, please,” I breathe. “I need to feel your skin.”

There is no hesitation. He grants my request as if I rule his being.

Xander’s bones crack and re-form until he has returned to his human form. There isn’t so much as a scratch on him. But of course there wouldn’t be. The power of the shift would return him in perfect condition.

He pulls me to his naked body and rocks me back and forth. Brushing my hair from my face, he says, “I love you. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Alexia. Nothing.”

“I love you, and I’m sorry you had to?—”

He places a finger against my lips. “No, do not apologize. That was no one’s fault but his own. He started this; I finished it.”

I press my forehead against his and let my tears fall without shame, wrapping my legs around his waist before adjusting and burying my face in the crook of his neck. “They were going to kill me, Xander. My best friend. She was going to pour poison down my throat.”

He holds me tighter. “And she will pay for what she’s done.”

“You’re not going to...”

Lifting an eyebrow, he asks, “Do you want me to kill her?”

“No! No more death. Let the Shifter Assembly deal with her, please.”

“If you change your mind, I will.”

I look at his face and there’s not an ounce of sarcasm or humor to be found. He means it. There is nothing he wouldn’t do for me, even kill his own half-sister if it’s what I needed him to do in order to find peace. “I won’t. I want her punished, but not dead.”

“I can agree to that if it means we can put this twisted mess behind us and start our life together.”

“That’s a plan I can get behind.”

“Good, because my plans with you start now.”

He brings his lips down on mine, and I lose myself in the feel and taste of him. The carnage around us no longer matters, nor does anyone beyond these walls. He is here and we have a future. I’m not letting a second of it go to waste.