closet, blindly grabbing a t-shirt and shoving it on. I spent the morning training with my Elites and making them squirm with just my presence. Then I made sure the men that came back from taking care of some rogures had been assigned to another mission after they rested. It never ends, a constant circle of sleep, go out and fight, come back and sleep. Again and again. The Higher’s witches are sending over information of more power bursts daily.
It just keeps getting worse.
I head to my office and throw the last stack of papers onto the large table. My brothers are seated around the table here, going through what we brought back from my father’s house. I take a seat and scan through the notes on what he recorded in his hidden basement.
It’s a shit show, one I never saw coming. My father kept females and rogures in the basement below my feet and I never knew. Just like I never knew Rhea was caged in her basement when I visited her pack. I knew her scent was familiar and now I know why. I scented her in her house when I visited with my father. I realized it when we got Sarah.
Was she bleeding below my feet as I listened to my father speak to Alpha Paul? Was she starving whilst her Aunt Selena made us a meal? Was she about to be abused as my father sent me away to talk with the pack?
I growl at that thought, my insides violent as Drax peels his lips back and snarls, snapping my brother’s heads in my direction.
“You good, brother?” Leo asks, his eyes cautious when I look up at him.
I grind my teeth. “This has been happening for who knows how long and we didn’t get a sniff of it. How is it possible? And how the fuck did I not know about my own father?”
It disgusts me to know my father did nothing to help Rhea, to know that I come from a man like that. When we went down into that hidden room, it just cemented it for me, and I couldn’t control my reaction. The rage I felt in that moment was nothing like I have ever felt in my entire life, my control was at a tipping point, and I didn’t care what felt my wrath until pretty, blue eyes looked into mine.
If it wasn’t for my brave little wolf coming to me, calming me in a way I’m sure only she could have, we would be buried beneath rubble.
Though we both didn’t expect her to end up on my cock, she ended up there nonetheless, just like I said she would. I couldn’t control it, couldn’t think of anything other than being buried inside of her in that moment as soon as she uttered that word.
A word we both know what it means, yet she pretends otherwise.
My little liar.
“None of us knew,” Damian says, flipping through the pages of the journal, bringing me out of the memory of her heat wrapping around me. His words crush the thought. “We all feel guilty for that.” His jaw ticks. “Rhea was right.”
Jerrod leans back in his seat. “Right about what?”
“There is no honor in being an Elite.” Silence follows after that statement.
There is nothing we can say, it’s the truth.
“I’m the Alpha of the fucking Elites, why wasn’t I approached by the Highers to be a part of this?” I wonder.
“No idea, maybe you had to become a Higher first. Charles has been pushing you to do it,” Jerrod says, moving his braid over his shoulder as he grabs another journal to go through.
“He’s been on everyone’s ass, asking me constantly through letters if we have found Rhea and also stretching his own guards thin to look for her.” He’s obsessed with finding her, but he won’t have her. “He also hasn’t addressed the people about the rogures, and he still hasn’t let anyone into Wolvorn, uncaring about everyone suffering.”
“Piece of shit,” Damian says. “I have been looking into a place where we can send some people, there is an old farmstead in Colhelm. It needs some fixing up, but it’s large enough to house some that desperately need it. It has woods surrounding it, and we can place traps within them and a barrier around the homestead. It should keep them safe enough until we get there should the rogures try to attack.”
“I’ll send some Elites ahead and get them started,” I tell him.
“While going through the lists that were taken from Zakith, we found some things out.” My eyes swing to Leo. “Some Elites with close connections to the Highers, or those of a poor background have been selected by the Highers to take others from their homes,” Leo tells us, and my hands ball into fists. “The problem now is that we have a list of names that are within the Elites that are potentially a threat to us. What do you want to do about it?”
“Get rid of them.” I don’t want them in my keep, living and breathing after what they have done. The Highers and those involved would never expect me to know all this information, they wouldn’t expect us to begin to uncover just how poisonous they are. And they wouldn’t expect the Highers’ weapons to be their biggest threat. We have the advantage, for now.
So many packs are involved in this, including Aragnis, Nightshade, some from Aliseon and Karion. So are many families that have been in the Elites for generations.
“People will notice those that are missing.” Leo shakes his head. “Especially their families and the Highers.”
I fist my hands. “I don’t give a fuck. They are part of this disgusting experiment, taking children.” I shove the notes my father scribbled down. Just seeing how he observed a female getting raped by this new rogures again and again makes me want to tear out of my skin. I sit back roughly in my chair and my eyes connect with Leo. He knows what I want without having to ask. I look away when his eyes turn concerned, not in the mood to deal with his shit about it. “It’s right there, the names of Elites who had taken them to another location. There is no getting out of what they have done.”
“Send them away on a mission.”
My head swivels to the doorway, and I see Rhea step into the room. She’s wearing shorts and a loose-fitting t-shirt. My t-shirt as I still haven’t given her the clothes she brought from the witch’s home. Her hair in a nest atop her head, thrown up with zero fucks to give and it’s one of the things I admire about her. She doesn’t care for her looks, she cares about her people. But as I take in her face, noting the dark circles beneath her eyes and the subtle slump in her shoulders, I know she’s exhausted, Which is no doubt also due to her power fighting within her.
Since we came from my father’s last night, she’s been restless, staring off into the distance and it has to be something to do with that book she refused to let me see. Though I will read its contents soon enough.
Even in her exhausted state, and the glare set on her face, my cock still thickens in my pants. I see the bite mark I gave her, and the possessive rumble that builds up within me, is out before I can stop it. Her eyes meet mine, and they fill with heat for a moment before she shuts it down. Does she even know the way she looks at me sometimes?
She looks at me like she hates me, rightly so, but when she drops her guard without knowing, I see what’s really there.
Lust, longing…and pain.
The reminder makes me continue.
“What good will sending them away on a mission do?” I ask her.
She moves to the end of the table, scanning the contents with a hard glare. “Send them on a mission and then kill them,” she says bluntly as her eyes flash up to mine. My bloodthirsty little wolf. I smirk. “But not before we get information from them. We need locations of where they took whoever was selected. We know of one location mentioned, but we don’t know where that is, or if there are others.”
“That’s a given,” Leo grunts, and her eyes move off of me to him. She shouldn’t be looking at him, she should only have her eyes on me. “But others will still have questions about where they are.”
She shrugs. “I’m sure they will, but if the mission would take a long time, then it gives us time to figure shit out. Go to locations they can tell us, and if anyone is there, we have time to get them out.” She swallows and looks down. “We need to get them out.”
The look of guilt on her face is obvious, but we are just as guilty. Of a lot of things.
“It would work,” Damian agrees. “For a time.”
“Time that we don’t have, but it’s the only option now. To clean house and see if the remaining Elites are loyal to me.”
We need as many people as we can to eventually get rid of Charles. He doesn’t suspect we know anything right now, and we need to get those who have been taken to another location safely. If we can successfully start emptying these places where they are keeping people. He will get nervous, sloppy and eventually mess up. That’s when we need to strike.
I would copy these notes and put them out into the world to show the people just what kind of authority they are living under, but that would be a mistake to do it too soon. The rogures are already causing chaos, we can’t have any more right now. Then Charles will definitely know someone is on to him. He will be more cautious and we can’t have that in his unstable state. We can’t fuck up with so much on the line.
Then there is Kaden, still at Wolvorn with all the Highers. He could easily be used against Rhea and she won’t put him in harm’s way. She would rather hand herself over than that.
But with us not knowing what Charles and the other Highers are actually doing, we were in the dark about their goals. And being in the dark can lead you to blindly walk into a blade.
“We organize the Elites and get rid of those involved. Then we find where those that have been taken are being kept, and move them to safety. Then we cause an uproar in Vrohkaria and release the copies of records we have here to every town. Then we get Kaden and strike,” I tell the room.
Rhea lifts her head, biting her lip. I get lost in her ice-blue eyes and the connection that flows between us. Drax growls lightly inside of me with her attention on us, and I echo the sound. She tilts her head curiously, eyes roaming over my body and I let her. Let her see my strength and power. Let her see that I’m built to protect her.
“I’ll be out back and waiting at the willow trees,” she informs me and heads out the room, knowing we are going to try and get Runa out again. I watch the sway of her ass and lick my bottom lip, wanting to bite it, mark it, fuck it.
She has me turned inside out. I can’t think properly around her, fighting the instinct to grab her and take her to the floor. Rip her clothes from her body and put my scent all over her, letting her and every other fucker know that it’s mine. She’s mine.
And when I fuck her again, she will feel it with every step she takes, even the slightest bit of movement will remind her what I did to her. How I owned her and how she let me and enjoyed it.
My cum will stay inside her, I will fuck her enough that it’s always there, dripping from her body and rubbed into her skin. I’ll make her walk around with the taste of me on her tongue and—
“The fuck, Darius.” I blink, and look toward Leo. “Brother, keep your misty shit to yourself,” he smirks and leans back, shaking his head.
I look down and realize tendrils of my power are coming out of me, flowing in the direction Rhea went. I breathe deep and call it back to me, shrugging at my brother’s amusement.
“Good luck with that one,” Damian chimes in. “After whipping her, I doubt she will let you touch her.”
“She let me have breakfast the other morning,“ I tell them, my own smirk appearing on my face. “And dinner.” But then it falls at his reminder of what I did to her. My eyes darken at the thought and my jaw ticks at being manipulated into thinking she was the cause of the rogures. “I didn’t know she was innocent when I did that,” I say aloud, reminding myself of that fact. Still unable to say the words.
“We know,” Leo says solemnly. My brothers quiet down, going back over the papers as I try to banish the memory of her blood on my hands.
Footsteps sound to my right and Josh pokes his head into my office. He looks us all over before asking. “Have you seen Rhea?”
“No,” I tell him, glaring. I’m still pissed at him for making Rhea bare herself in front of everyone, and so is Rhea. The tension between them is easily noticeable. I’m glad for it, I don’t want him near her at all. He’s been inside of her, took what should have been mine to begin with and every time I see him, I want to rearrange his face against a wall.
Even though what Josh made Rhea do, made us all take a step back and think things through, she shouldn’t have had to show us what she had been through. He betrayed her trust and forced her hand to save Sarah, but I don’t give a fuck. The look on Rhea’s face and the dead tone of her voice when she revealed herself is enough for me to want to stab him in his eyes, peel them out and crush them beneath my boot.
Josh’s gray eyes narrow on mine, knowing I’m bullshitting. “Well if you see her, tell her I’m looking for her.”
Again. “No.” He can stay the fuck away from her and he may keep his head.
He growls, stepping into the room. “Stop being a prick, Darius, I need to speak to her.”
“I doubt she wants to speak with you.”
“She doesn’t really want to speak to you either so we’re both fucked, aren’t we?” he snarls before walking out the room.
He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. She may talk to me about certain topics or anything regarding the Highers and rogures, but other than that, emotionally she is a fucking wall.
Unfortunately for her, I’m the Heir of Cazier, and destruction is in my blood.
Her walls won’t last long as I plan to destroy them one by one.
