Chapter 149

Dominic

The woman I used to love sat in a chair in front of me. The room was otherwise completely bare. Her wrists were bound to the armrests.

Celeste’s confession didn’t take long to spill out of her.

“I had no choice!”

She had been repeating those words, thinking that eventually I would believe them.

“I had no choice! He made me, he made me!”

She was becoming hysterical, and I watched.

“Dominic, D, please,” Celeste said, her voice raw. “You don’t know what he can do, what he can make other people do. I had no choice!”

“Enough!”

The edges of my vision were going red, and I had to keep my breathing steady to hold myself in control. I wanted to give in to the berserker inside me, but an Alpha must restrain himself.

“How do I find him?”

Celeste stopped whimpering at my question. Her pale face was blotchy, her long dark hair matted with sweat and tangled over her shoulders. She looked pitiful.

I tried to find the girl I’d known before, the young woman I had grown to love after many years of knowing one another.

But that girl was gone, whether she was changed by her own devices or the stronger forces she was blaming. I did not know this woman.

“You can’t… I don’t know–”

“Celeste!”

Her whole body shook as my voice echoed off the bare walls.

“He finds you!” Her voice was a desperate squeak. “It’s like he always knows where I am, or like he’s in my head, listening…”

Celeste’s eyes went dark, full of fear and awe.

“Tell him,” I said evenly, “that I want to meet him.”

I turned to leave, but she stopped me.

“I did love you, I do,” she mewled, “always.”

I stared at her, searching for words.

“And yet,” I said, tapping deep into my Alpha Wolf power, “you chose betrayal.”

Celeste’s eyes went wide as she understood.

I stripped her of her rights, her membership in our Pack.

“See you in hell,” I told her as I walked away.

– – –

A week later, I received an email. It came from an unknown and untraceable account, and I could not respond to it.

There was no greeting, only coordinates and a date and two words at the bottom.

“Looking forward.”

There was no question in my mind that it was him. The man behind all of this, shrouded in a mystery of his own making, was coming out of the shadows.

Maybe Celeste had gone crawling back to him, maybe he had been waiting for my invitation. Either way, I was reaching the end of this, and I would see it through even if it killed me.

“You can’t go alone,” Wyatt said. “There is no guarantee that he won’t bring along a band of Rogues– more of those giants they’ve been creating.”

I frowned as I thought. “I don’t think he will,” I said, believing it. “I have to presume that he’s aware of me, I am not hard to find. If he wanted to attack me, he could find occasion.”

That did not satisfy my Beta.

“Dominic, don’t be stupid,” Wyatt said, earning a raised eyebrow from me. “I know you well enough to know you want to be a martyr in this mess, but your Pack needs you. Alive.”

“I can handle him,” I said, not fully believing it.

“And what if you can’t?” Wyatt looked to his partner. “Lucas, say something for once, would you?”

Lucas kept his stoic expression as he met Wyatt’s eyes. Something passed between them and Wyatt growled low in his throat. Then they both looked back at me.

“The Alpha must do this alone,” Lucas said, slow and steady, “but he cannot keep us from standing by.”

I knew I would not win this argument.

“Standing by,” I said.

I thought of Mira the whole drive. I thought of her child, our child, and the fact that I was running the risk of never meeting him. Some time ago I had decided the baby would be a boy, based only on instinct.

Before I left on this final mission, I made sure that Mira would be protected and looked after. If I didn’t come back, I would die with the hope that I had done all I could for the child I would never meet.

Of course he had chosen a New Moon.

The woods were dark, but I found the location easily. The trees opened up into a large clearing, stars peaking through the gaps in the canopy above.

He was waiting for me.

He was dressed all in black, but his skin was bright as if it provided its own illumination. I felt his power the minute I entered the circle. Discreetly, I brushed my pocket where a few vials of tinctures were stashed— some to keep me calm, some to call forth the fury of my wolf.

I would take no chances.

“Good evening, Alpha Dominic,” he said in a voice that sounded one thousand years old. “I’m glad we could finally meet.”

“You’ve been the one hiding,” I said back to him coldly. “Too cowardly to do your own dirty work.”

I could see his lips part in the dark in a sinister smile.

“Oh my boy, I have done my share of dirty work,” he said ominously.

He raised his hands and looked them over, seeming sad.

“Do you even know who I am?”

I blinked, wondering if he was trying to mess with me.

“Why would I know someone like you?”

He grinned even wider, taking steps towards me.

“Your father wouldn’t have told you, of course,” he said. “Or was it that I erased myself from the narrative? Who can say?”

My skin started to prickle, and my wolf was rising.

“He has known me for a long time, just as I’ve known you for a long time,” his voice took a tenderer tone as he stopped a few feet from me.

I finally got a good look at his features: the shape of the eyes, the slightly turned up mouth, almost feline. He saw the recognition on my face.

“You’re— but no…”

“I’m supposed to be dead, aren’t I? Or maybe I ran off and abandoned my family?”

I was finding it hard to breath. My wolf wanted to get out.

“I did feel bad about that,” he said, hand to heart. “Tessa and Lucian deserved better. But after what I had become…”

“And what is that?”

“A marvel, perhaps,” he offered, “or— an undesirable enemy.”

Before I knew what happened, I was thrown through the air. My back hit a tree and I heard a crack that I did not want to hear.

“That was a warning, son.”

His hands returned to his sides in truce.

I shook my head to reset my brain, then found the appropriate vial from my pocket. I went full throttle.

Later I would be proud of taking him to the ground before he knew I was coming. I transformed so quickly and with such rage that I barely felt the impact.

My claws sank into his chest and my jaw was at his throat when I felt a surge in my chest and I was once again thrown back. My fur was singed where he had touched me with his magic.

He stood up slowly, and I’d drawn a bit of blood from my opponent.

“You will not match me!”

His voice was rattling with power as he stalked toward me, reaching out a hand. My head began to pulse with pressure, then the pain set in. It was like he held my skull in a vise and was tightening it around my brain.

It felt like soon it would snap.

“You have one more chance, lest you make the foolish decision to die for nothing!”

My vision was blackening, I felt like I might vomit. A hallucination of Mira appeared before me, her lovely golden eyes and honey-colored hair.

“Goodbye, my mate.”

Mira’s mouth opened wide in a shout, then she transformed into her golden wolf. The vision of Mira leaped towards the sorcerer in the circle. I saw a flash of lightning and heard an unnatural shriek rip through the night air.

And then the world went dark.