Natalia’s P. O. V

The burns turned out to be permanent.

After a night of my consciousness resting in the back while Candy pranced about the forest, I’d woken bright and early to check on Brittany. I’d found her on the ground, her clothes littered around her in tatters. She’d slinked into a corner when I walked in, every muscle in her body quivering in fear.

I smiled.

Quicker than she could process, I’d moved to her and injected her with a combination of Wolfsbane and anaesthetics. Her body hadn’t even put up a fight and her eyes had fluttered closed almost instantaneously.

I swung the van doors shut with, Brittany, Hannah and James’ chained, unconscious forms inside, and walked around to the passenger seat window, “You know, you don’t have to do this.”

Hailey offered a smile, “I know, but I want to. I want to be there for you after everything’s over, plus I want to make sure Tim doesn’t crash.”

At that, he shot her a look and she just smiled at him in response.

Tim had finally learnt how to drive over the last year, which turned out to be useful, seeing as dragging two unconscious people through airport security would raise more than just eyebrows. I was still going to take a flight, then wait a few hours before they arrived so I could make my entrance first. I’d been surprised to find Hailey waiting for me with Timothy in the truck, given her aversion to my methods. But her decision to stick it out with me gave me a comfort that I didn’t know I’d wanted.

“If you’re sure then I’ll see you at the rental.”

They were off.

The drive would take them about eight hours, and the flight would take me under two. I’d been tempted to use Brittany’s phone to set the stage for my arrival. The idea of them assuming that she was bringing me back to them only to be met with an entirely different scenario was enticing, but I took the safer route and instead told them that she and her co-saboteurs were returning after a successfully executed plan. From what I knew, they hadn’t brought any of their targets back except to kill them on the way, so news of my visit wouldn’t be easily justified.

On my way out of my wing of the house, Kaesha was waiting for me.

“Are you really going to do this?” She asked, her arms folded across her chest as she leaned on a wall.

“Yes.”

She said nothing, looking at me with those pitying eyes again. Then she sighed and opened her arms for a hug.

I regarded her for a second, before letting myself be embraced. Her arms wrapped around me as she whispered into my hair, “I know you feel like you need to do this right now, but I just don’t want you to feel regret when it’s all over. These things… they eat away at your soul.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I’d be more than fine.

“I hope so. But I care about you and I couldn’t live with myself if I never said a thing.”

“I know… I’m sorry for how I acted yesterday.” I mumbled.

She released the embrace, holding my arms as she looked at me with a pained smile, “I know you were just being testy about us getting in your way, so I understand.”

“Thank you, Kaesha.”

She nodded and stepped aside, letting me go on my path.

“Also, you’re in charge while we’re gone.” I told her as I passed, to which she chuckled after me.

The tension I felt emanated off of me the whole way, which probably didn’t help the humans around me in the summer heat. By the time I reached the rental just an hour away from the Lightwood territory, I’d heard from at least three concerned grandmas about how I should stay out of the sun and five guys about how I should join them in their pools.

Kirstin arrived an hour after I did, her face drawn as she walked inside.

“I’m sorry for yesterday.” I told her abruptly before my hatred for them could prevent me from making my apology.

She peered at me, shocked.

“I won’t go easy on any of them, but I should have been kinder to you. You’ve already been through enough.”

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She eyed me like she suspected my words were a trap, before her expression eased a little, “Thank you, Alpha.”

I nodded and opened my bag to retrieve the necklaces Kaesha had made years ago when we’d gone to visit the first pack. Its magic, which had cloaked us in invisibility and let us move through Werewolf territories undetected, was still effective since she hadn’t dispelled it.

She said she wouldn’t continue to use her magic to help, but she said nothing of her magic from the past.

I handed one to Kirstin, “This will make us invisible and let us get into the territory without them knowing. It won’t cancel any sounds we make or mask our scents, so we’ll have to move quickly and silently.”

It had been my plan to ask Kaesha to make something that would at least make us totally undetectable, but that was rendered untenable once she’d rescinded her help. Still, these would do.

“Where did you get these?” She looked at the necklace curiously.

I still hadn’t told her about Kaesha, and didn’t intend to till everything was over, “I bought them from an Enchantress.”

“I didn’t even know that was possible…” She trailed off, turning it over in her hands.

I didn’t respond to her musing, moving on, “At this time of the day, Harry and Callum should be in the work house, right?”

She nodded, “They usually end work around the hours of six to eight, but Callum always stays till well after dark.”

That gave us a few hours.

I spent the next half hour going over our plan of action and possible backups for if the plan went askew. Once we were on the same page, we changed into clothes that were silent and easy to move around in, then headed out.

Callum’s P. O. V

Every day was bad.

Today was worse.

I’d walked into the work house to hear members poorly hushed whispering of Brittany and James’ expected return tomorrow. And from the tone of the whispers, they’d finished whatever awful thing they’d set out to do. I’d been kept out of the loop of this particular mission, per Brittany’s fuming insistence, but her absence had given me respite from the problems that her very presence seemed to cause for me.

I just felt bad for the Alpha of whichever pack they’d visited.

As if news of Brittany’s return wasn’t enough, Harry somehow remembered my existence a couple of hours ago, storming into my office in a flurry of frustrated grunts and groans.

“She’s pregnant! Fucking pregnant!” He’d repeated some variation of this over and over again as he’d paced my office, till he collapsed into a chair with his head in his hands.

This was the first time he’d interacted with me with anything other than mild annoyance.

Now he was mute, staring blankly at a wall.

I would have suggested that he go be with her, but that seemed to be the last thing he wanted.

“I don’t get it… Why’s this such a bad thing?”

He dragged his gaze to me, his eyes gaining focus as he explained, “How the hell am I supposed to be taken seriously when there’s a baby babbling around me? And what if the kid turns out to be fucking gifted cause of Kylie’s family tree? I’m not. What if the kid’s a power-hungry little shit? My rule’s gonna be over before I know it.”

Disgust bloomed in my gut but my mouth only twitched downwards in what I hoped looked like confusion, “Is that really all?”

He stared at me, the silence growing more uncomfortable with every blink and shift in my seat.

“She’s not my real mate.” He whispered, his voice low to keep his words out of the ears of anyone close enough to hear.

My eyebrows shot up. The revelation shouldn’t have surprised me. Mates were handpicked by La Luna, the divine ordination giving the pairings a supposed synergy and a sense of peace between them. Harry and Kylie only had rampant lust and frequent fallouts.

After years of dating, everyone had simply expected them to turn out to be mates. Just as they’d expected of me and Brittany.

In that, we were the same.

But over time, the turbulence of their relationship had led everyone, both members of the pack and outsiders, to question the legitimacy of their bond, leading to rumours of them just mating. His rampant skirt chasing didn’t help matters either. But this was him admitting the truth out loud.

“Brittany isn’t mine either.” I whispered back.

His eyes widened, but he said nothing. Neither of us did, letting the unasked question sit between us.

Who were our original mates?

Had he not been in the same spot, I knew he would have asked me. Forced the information out of me if need be. But he was in the same boat, and I knew the one thing stopping him from asking was the fear that whoever his original mate was turned out to be less ‘appropriate’ than mine.

That was impossible, seeing as mine had been the omega. But if Kylie hadn’t already spilled the beans then he had no way of knowing that.

Eventually, he found his way out of my office, mumbling about finding something to clear his head on his way out. He was probably going to his own office to get his fix of aconine.

‘You’re all messed up.’ Cade snorted at me when he was out.

I couldn’t disagree.

Since having that epiphany of my role as a powerless marionette whose strings were in the twisted hands of my pack, my already mate-less life here had turned darker. Everywhere I looked only served to prove my cynicism right.

This pack was soulless.

I returned to my work, my mind briefly considering who could have possibly been Harry’s mate. Harry and Kylie weren’t shy about their bedroom activities, with every breakup, make-up and other event in between marked by wild, loud sex. So, whoever she was had endured listening to it all.

My thoughts went to Kirstin, living somewhere away from here. Her room still hadn’t been cleared out. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but whenever someone had tried to, Harry had barked at them, asking if he’d given any such order. On the outside, she’d been flourishing but I’d known her dissatisfaction and I was secretly envious of her disappearance. Her leaving took courage.

Courage that I didn’t have.