Page 32 of The Alpha's Warlock
And now Ian was going to pay the price for it.
Chapter 19
Blood Will Out
“You know that would never work,” I said dully. “We both know it. But there’s an alternative.”
My father frowned down at me. “This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t. And I had to choose my words incredibly carefully, because the faintest hint that I was getting what I wanted, rather than giving in to what he wanted, and he’d say no on general principle. “But you think I’m going to try to escape, somehow. I won’t. Break the bond between me and Ian. The ritual can work if I help, and I will. Let him live, let him go, and I’ll mate with any other alpha you pick.” His brows drew together, thunderclouds on the horizon, and I hurried on. “I would anyway, because I don’t have a choice. But I won’t fight it. Not ever again. You’ll get more out of me if it’s voluntary. And you’ll maybe be able to mend fences with Matthew, and not have the Armitage pack as enemies.”
My father snorted and shook his head. “You think you’re so clever, boy. Always have. You think I give a fuck about the Armitages? Sam Kimball’s got Matthew by the balls, and that pack’s worthless anyway. It’d be cleaner to kill both of the brothers, just like I killed their moron cousin.” The look on my face made him laugh, deep and long. “Oh, you didn’t know I’d killed him? Then you’re a moron too. He wasn’t an alpha. He could never have led the Armitage pack, and he kept whining about how I’d promised to help him take over. I killed him simply to shut him up.”
Gods, it was too much, too much to take in all at once. My father had been plotting with Jared — what, to kill Matthew and Ian? Betray them, at least? Had Jared’s seduction been a ploy all along? That was so much worse than what I’d assumed, that it was boredom and idle lust. At least that way he would’ve wanted me for my body, if not for the rest of me. One more little piece of myself, dusted and gone.
But I had to focus. Jared was dead, and he’d been a douchebag anyway. Ian was still alive, and he was worth ten of his cousin. A hundred. He was worth whatever I had to give, because how many truly honorable men had I met in my life? With Matthew apparently Kimball’s bitch, somehow, that brought the number down to one.
Just Ian. Loyal, brave, reckless Ian, who’d mated with me to save my life even though he’d always known I was poison, tainted, more trouble than I was worth.
And I could use that to save his life, even though it hurt like hell to say it aloud. “Ian hates me,” I whispered. “He didn’t want to mate with me in the first place. Didn’t want his cousin’s leftovers.”
“Can’t say I blame him,” my father said with a chuckle. His opinion shouldn’t have mattered, but some little flicker of hope inside me, a whisper of a prayer that maybe Ian didn’t really feel that way, faded and died in the face of my father’s contempt. “But that’s hardly a reason for me to keep him alive.”
“He’ll be glad to be free of the mate bond,” I pressed, starting to panic. Fuck, this had to work. It had to. What happened to me didn’t matter anymore. Maybe it never had. But I could make my fate mean something if Ian survived. I could do one worthwhile thing for someone else, and fade away. The ritual to break the bond might do something horrible to Ian anyway, but at least he’d have a chance. “He’ll be grateful to you for breaking it.” That was stretching a point — the day Ian was grateful to my father for anything would be the day he redecorated the shack of solitude with Swedish modern furniture and bought a set of matching tasseled throw pillows. But my father thrived on people owing him favors. His particular toxic blend of ego and power-grubbing was something I could exploit. “Anyway, if you get him out of it, he and Matthew will walk away. Kimball might be your ally right now, but he’s as stupid as the rest of them. If the Armitages are still in play, he’ll be distracted, and you’ll have one less idiot to worry about.”
The frown faded into an expression that scared me a lot more: contemplation. My father tipped his head to the side, considering me at his leisure. It felt like being violently X-rayed, stripped of my skin and flesh until he could see all the way down to my cringing, terrified bones.
“You know, I always thought you were useless,” he mused. “Except for all that raw power, boiling away in you and completely wasted.” He shrugged and sighed. “Nothing wrong with your mind, apparently — except that you’re weak, of course.”
Of course. I curled in on myself as much as I could with my hands bound above me. Fuck, but my wrists were really starting to hurt, not to mention all the bruises inflicted in my capture. Deep inside, some part of me protested — I wasn’t weak, I wasn’t useless, I wasn’t a waste. I wanted to scream it at him, fling defiance in his face.
But I couldn’t, if I wanted Ian to live, and I wouldn’t, because although I might’ve been able to goad my father into killing me and setting me free of this, I was enough of a coward to want to live, too. Or maybe that just made me human.
“Blood will out,” I said, the words burning my throat like acid.
My father smiled sourly. “It seems it will. All right. But I’m telling you right now: if you ever, for a single moment, make me regret indulging your whim in this matter? I’ll put your werewolf down like a dog, without hesitation. Do you understand me?”
He sounded like he was looking forward to it. I knew damn well he’d use any excuse I gave him to kill Ian, whether I really defied him or not. I could only nod, and pray that when the time came Ian would be on his guard.
An answering nod acknowledged our bargain, and then my father strolled to the large double door across from me and slid one side open a few feet.
“Come,” he said tersely, and stepped back.
The shaman stepped through first, looking around him warily as if searching for a trap, even in his own territory. If he knew my father, I couldn’t blame him in the slightest. Disappointment surged when nothing happened. Watching him and my father rip each other to shreds with magic would’ve been the most satisfying moment of my life. The shaman had a huge, curved knife hanging from his belt, and wore a stained leather vest that showed off the intricate tattoos covering his hairy arms from wrist to shoulder. Overall, not a pleasant addition to the tableau.
Matthew followed him in, with Sam Kimball right on his heels. When Matthew saw Ian, he went white, and he stopped dead, Kimball having to stagger a step not to run into him.
“What the fuck have you done with my brother?” Matthew demanded, his head whipping back and forth from my father to Kimball, his whole body rigid with tension. “He wasn’t supposed to be hurt.”
The little hope I’d had that Matthew wasn’t in this up to his neck withered and died. “What the fuck did you expect?” I choked out. “You traitorous son of a bitch, did you really think —” And then I screamed, long and high, my back arching and every limb seizing as my father waved his hand casually and sent endless washes of pain cascading through my nerves. My vision sizzled with streaks of white against red-tinged black.
It ended, after a few endless moments, and I slumped down again, aching and trembling, sweat pouring off me in rivers. My skin chilled instantly, and I shivered and shook, damp and freezing and wretched.
“Mind your tongue and your place,” my father said, sounding nothing but mildly amused. “Not that I disagree, of course.”
Kimball’s low, rough laughter rolled through the room. “Don’t worry, Armitage,” he said. “You’ll get your brother and your bitch when all’s said and done.”
Hisbitch? Who? What the ever-loving fuck?
