Chapter 96

Helen POV

My body was stiff when I woke out, laid out on the floor of a dark, unfamiliar room. Joy was still aching from our treatment under my father’s rule, but the scent in the room wasn’t anywhere near that of Fiery Cross pack.

I could pick up Justin’s scent in the mix of heavy, lapping smells in the space. I shot forward, needing to find my mate, but in the dark my head met the bars of a rusted cell door.

I fell back with a cry, my entire exterior marked and throbbing and pulsing.

“Justin,” I panted, speaking through a locked, pained jaw. “Dammit! Justin!”

Little steps came down the barrack steps and I finally could take in that I had been thrown into a cell at my mate’s own pack house! The Alpha, The Last Lycan, came down to face me through the bars.

I tried to stand but melted to my weary, weak knees moments later. The world pressed into my shoulders, pinning me down at the aura that was leaking from my mate. His thick and hot anger was slapping me into silence, and he didn’t even have to say a single word.

“Ju—Justin,” I panted, begging that he pull in his aura a little.

He finally stepped back, giving me just enough room to breathe fully. I inhaled sharp, clinging to my throat that was already lined with bruises scratch marks.

“I will have the healer come back,” Justin said, his voice cold and distant. “How much pain are you in right now, Helen?”

I shook my head, my palms trembling against the cold, unkept floors of this cell. “Justin, why—why am I—I in here?”

Justin paced back and forth like a shark waiting for blood. “You betrayed me, Helen.”

“I would never—”

“You did!” he screamed, his voice biting through the air and nipping at my ears. I cowered on the floor, letting his Alpha aura lap over me like a tsunami. “You stabbed me! My own fucking mate stabbed me! How dare you?!”

I covered my head, his voice ringing harshly through my ears. “I was forced—”

“Enough excuses,” he purred. “The Fae and my own damn Beta sent after you. This wasn’t my idea at all but now that you’re here, and you’re alive, we will have to move forward with our new terms.”

My brow furrowed. “What terms?”

“You’re my mate still,” he groaned. “Rejecting you is pointless. I can’t have another mate and you’re my only shot at having Lycan pups one day.”

I tried to sit up, failing again as I rested my cheek on the floor. My hand fell through the bars and I almost reached his boot, but he stepped back cautiously.

I anticipated anger but I never could have imagined he would be this frustrated by me.

He won’t even let me explain what happened!

“Justin,” I panted. “Listen to me, please! It wasn’t my—”

He turned his back on me, heading for the stairs. “When you calm down I’ll have Randy come down to help you get settled in and cleaned up.”

He ascended the stairs and I whimpered my cries, needing him to just listen to me for five minute, maybe less, and understand that I never meant to hurt him. My body was under the influence of a spell I’ve never known before.

Just because he doesn’t understand it too, doesn’t mean I wanted him to get hurt.

I watched my Lycan mate disappear and wallow on the cold floor for what feels like forever. My stomach was growling and my eyes were frozen with old tears. I just wanted some water… some anything, but mercy doesn’t seem to have touched my mate.

Randy sprinted through the basement at once, unlicking the door and coming down to my side. I’ve never been happier to see my mate’s beta before.

He pulled me off the floor and the sight of Fae wings brushed into view. They had brought down little bits of furniture and bedding and soaps.

Randy made a bed for me in the corner of my large cell and I aimed to crawl under the blankets at once but Russo stopped me, pulling my wrist so I could stand but I only ended up on the floor again.

“She’s so depleted,” Randy growled, leaning forward to pick me up but Russo stopped him and took my body into his arms. “Take her to the spare bathroom upstairs. Not the master.”

My heart fell as Russo aimed to walk up the stairs with me in arms but he stopped.

“I’m sorry, little wolf, I have to do this. I don’t want to…” he pulled a set of chains off the wall and loosely hooked them around my wrists. The chains sat on my stomach as we continued upstairs and I fiddled with the cuffs. “His pain is still fresh, little wolf.”

“So is mine,” I groaned, pulling at the cuffs that hung loosely around my wrists. I could easily pull out of them, so I knew that proved Russo at least believed I wasn’t a back stabber. “Why is he keeping me in the barracks, Russo?”

The Fae turned into the bathroom, setting me on the bench next to the bathtub. He turned it on at once and steam filled the entire room, the sounds of the water peaking in the bathtub covering his low, gravely voice.

“He thinks of you as a traitor, Helen. You attacked him. He can’t trust you not to hurt him in his sleep. He wants you in the barracks.”

“I didn’t mean to!” I barked, biting back hot, painful tears. “It’s not my fault! I was forced! I was forced! I was forced!”

I screamed continuously, my head spinning. I wanted to scream until I would pass out but I knew it wouldn’t happen. The door practically came off the hinges when my scorned Lycan mate kicked through the bathroom door.

I flinched, ducking behind Russo who stood before me, aiming to calm me down. Now it’s as if he’s trying to shield me from my own mate!

Justin wouldn’t hurt me, I know he wouldn’t.

He stomped over anyways with dark, hazy irises. He became unrecognizable to me.

“If you insist on being a nuisance, then I will treat you as such!”

I dodged his hand as it came for the chains on my wrists, and inched back further, mistakenly falling right into the tub of hot water. I struggled to keep my head up, blood draining into the clean water and turning it black in an instant.

Russo stood before me, in the way of Justin and his furious Lycan. I pulled my head above the water, gasping and burning and my wounds stinging.

“It wasn’t my fault!” I screamed through heavy tears. “I love you, Justin! Why won’t you believe that! I would never hurt you!”

He growled a noise, his claws and fangs extended, but thankfully with all the yelling, Randy had the sense to come running into the already crowded bathroom. He peeled his Alpha from the room.

I fell sideways into the water, too weak to pull the chains from the bottom of the tub. My strength had grown so weary after the abuse at my father’s pack.

“Ru—Russo,” I said, my teeth chattering. “He’s wrong! I didn’t do—didn’t do—”

My eyes grew weary. I had exerted myself too much. Although I’m naked already, the caked blood on my body had hardened. Russo grabbed a soapy rag and tried to clean me off accordingly, but my heartache was clear already.

I whimpered with every touch, the soap exposing every single bruise and cut and possible broken bone. Joy whined endlessly in my head, upset with our throbbing aches and pains.

“I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it,” I panted, repeating it over and over until Russo groaned in exhaustion and sat back on the floor by the bathtub.

“Enough, please, Helen. I know you are harmless, okay? It’s not me that you have convinced,” he groaned, holding a hand to his head. “You saved my people. I saved you. We’re even, okay?”

My lip quivered and the bruising split on them only ached further when I trembled. “You can’t let him throw me in cell and walk away, Russo. I have proven myself enough to this pack, to my mate… I don’t want him to hate me.”

Randy busted into the bathroom, snatching a towel and wrapping me inside of it promptly. “We have to take you back downstairs, Luna.”

I stammered to stand, daring to fall but Randy caught me. “Why?”

“Because the Last Lycan is furious,” Randy muttered. “It’s not safe for you out here.”