Page 44 of Bullied Wolf Mate

“I told you. After you’ve opened The Trove.”

“Then no dice. The deal’s off.” I spun on my heels and started marching through the clearing. I barely got five feet away when I heard Inara utter an incantation behind me. Too late, I realized just how big of a mistake I had made. My feet froze, refusing to move and locking me in place.

“You can’t have truly expected me to let you go after you came here so willingly,” Inara laughed. She came around to stand in front of me, her fingers gripping my chin and forcing it upward. “Sweetheart, let me make this perfectly clear, because I don’t think you fully understand. I hold all the cards now. You’re not going anywhere. So you can either cooperate, or you can watch your friends die one by one.”

My stomach sank, and I realized just how much I had been played. I should have known she wouldn’t let the captives go. I’d walked right into her hands for nothing.

“Fine,” I relented.

“Good girl.” She released my jaw. “I knew you’d see sense eventually. Now, come along. We’re wasting time. Where is the door?”

“It’s near my house,” I said. “I can conjure up a portal.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you know how to create a portal?” she asked, with more than a little derision in her tone.

I nodded.

She considered me, her head tilting. Then her smile grew sly.

“Even if you do, I’m not sure I trust you enough to let you,” she said. “For all I know, you could be planning to open a portal into a trap where all your wolfy friends are waiting. Not to worry, though. I’m sure Orin remembers your house well enough to conjure up another portal there. Don’t you, Orin?”

She glanced at him, and he nodded. “Easy enough,” he grunted.

“Brilliant,” she purred. “In that case, no sense waiting around, now is there?”

Orin nodded, stepping forward and waving his hand. A shimmer rippled through the air, and, like someone had just dragged a knife through fabric, a gash materialized before us. It widened into a large doorway, and familiar trees from a forest I never thought I would see again came into view on the other side, along with an old, recognizable house in the corner. My cottage.

“Orin first, then you, dear,” Inara commanded. She uttered another incantation, and my feet could finally move again. “And don’t worry. I’ll be right behind you.”

The threat in the words couldn’t have been more plain had she written them in blood. I was stuck. I’d walked right into a trap I should have seen, but in my panic and guilt, I had looked right past it. There was nothing I could do about it now, though. My only chance of getting myself and the other girls out of this alive was to keep going forward.

With a deep breath, I followed Orin and put my foot through the portal.

Chapter 19 - Mark

I came back from the mansion in even worse spirits than when I had walked into it a couple of hours earlier. Several of the wolves from both sides had gone to the designated clearing to see if they could ambush Lorelei. But by the time they’d arrived, some sort of barrier prevented them from getting any closer. Declan had described it as trying to force two repelling magnets together.

The situation didn’t sit right with me, though. Why would we have been blocked if Inara had labeled that area as the meeting place? Jameson’s suggestion was that she had created something that only Lorelei could go through to prevent exactly what we had been trying to do.

Well, if Inara had been expecting Lorelei, she had another thing coming.

I hadn’t told the others what I had done, only that Lorelei was safe. A small twinge of guilt had lodged inside me, but I kept telling myself it was for the best. I couldn’t let her go out and hurt herself like that. Just the thought of her getting injured made my wolf snarl and bristle. He had no issue with what I had done. It meant she was safe. I had done the right thing. Or at least, that was what I had to keep telling myself.

Lorelei would understand. She had to. In the meantime, we’d figure out a plan to get everyone’s mates. There had to be some way of doing so. The twelve-hour meeting time had come and gone, and we’d received no word that the girls had been injured. I was certain Inara would have shown us if she had carried out her threat. That meant she was keeping the girls alive for the time being. I didn’t want to think about why that might be, but it gave us more time at least.

As I walked back to check on Lorelei, all of this information swam through my head. I didn’t know how she was going to react to my locking her up, but she had to be relieved the girls were still safe.

I knew something was wrong the instant I got to the front door.

It was too quiet. My wolf snarled, his hackles raising. He also sensed something was off. My fingers lengthened to claws as I pushed open the door. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but that didn’t stop all my senses from screaming at me that something was off.

I ran down the steps, relaxing when I saw the door was still locked.

“Lorelei?” I asked, unlocking the door. “I’ve got news—”

I cut myself off as I pushed open the door and found nothing beyond it.

I tore through the living room, sprinting for the bedroom, praying that she was just sleeping and this had all been a huge misunderstanding.

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