Page 103 of Capturing Sin

More nodding.

I followed my uncle to a subtly armoured SUV, parked right out front across two accessible parking spaces.

Leo opened the door for me like a gentleman and invaded my personal space like a creep.

“Where’s your beast now, slut?” he whispered so only I could hear.

I stiffened but refused to bite, sliding into the back seat of the car. My ex-fiancé slammed the door shut, sealing me inside. Considering the last I’d seen of him was the back of his sandy-blond head as he left Arsen and me to a demon’s clutches, he was being awfully superior.

My uncle twisted in the front passenger seat, colourless eyes boring into me. The silence thickened with unspoken accusation, but I refused to buckle under the strain.

Leo hopped into the driver’s seat, breaking the stare-off, and peeled away from my building with a revved engine and the squeal of tyres.

My thoughts blanked as he sped through the streets, empty at this time of night.

Minutes ticked by, agonisingly slow and yet somehow too fast. We pulled off the main roads, winding through the countryside in the darkness. The headlights illuminated fields of wheat and rapeseed as we left the city behind.

After twenty minutes of tense silence, we arrived outside a familiar cabin. My father had bought this section of woodland before I was born. He’d built a quaint cabin on the land, and my uncle had been expanding it ever since.

He’d brought me here countless times, testing my survival skills and using the privacy it offered to teach me strength and discipline. I’d learned how to hunt, how to use weapons, and how to suffer.

My stomach churned at the sight of the wooden monstrosity.

Leo parked next to a suite of other vehicles in the mud. We exited, walking towards the raised entryway in silence.

Leo stepped into the cabin, spilling warm lighting and the sounds of muted chatter.

My uncle stopped me outside with a raised palm.

Flinty eyes tried to stab through my mask, but I waited him out. We lurked on the front porch, staring each other down.

Finally, he nodded, seeming to decide something. “We can address your failures later, Liliana. For now, we have work to do.”

With that ominous statement, he strode inside the building that featured in too many of my nightmares.

I steeled my spine and plunged into hell after him.

Four alpha team hunters lounged in the main living area, a sprawling open-plan space complete with a fireplace and a set of horns on the wall, as if this really were the luxury hunting lodge the outside promised.

I didn’t look too closely at the branching antlers mounted on the wall. They weren’t from deer.

Jayce caught sight of me and spat out a mouthful of his drink. “Dozer survived?!” He slammed his tumbler onto the side table as every hunter turned to give me a once-over.

I huffed at his dramatics. “I was alpha squad long before I chose omega. Long before you.”

My uncle glanced at me as he strode past, disapproval furrowing his brows at the emotion-driven outburst, but said nothing, jerking his chin towards the back.

“Pfft, barely,” Jayce muttered under his breath.

I ignored him and trailed behind the man still holding my leash after all these years.

A pained groan rumbled from somewhere along the sparse corridor, and I stomped down the urge to see what was behind door number two. Instead, I followed my uncle into his study, once my father’s favourite room in the cabin. I wondered what he would have thought of the bloodstains that painted it now, little flecks of my pain left behind on the floorboards.

To my annoyance, Leo hovered inside the spacious office, leaning casually against the bookshelf. He took the seat beside me as we faced my uncle across a polished desk.

The monster cleared his throat, devouring my attention. “Leo reported a demon kidnapped you.” There was zero inflection in his tone. Anyone else might have been concerned about the abduction of their niece, but not the mighty hunter prime. “Not everyone was so lucky. Your omega colleagues didn’t make it out. Congratulations, Liliana. You’re now head of our research division.”

My nape prickled at his declaration. Sin had snapped Martin’s neck right in front of me, but I hadn’t realised Cara and the others were also dead. I had mixed emotions on the subject.

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