Page 34 of The Warrior's Captive

“Whatever you do, just make sure you go and see Brooke Wind soon. Even if you do it in secret. I could go with you. Take Waverly one day. Kieran doesn’t have to know. Your decision on that isn’t negotiable. Your health comes first, no matter what other decisions you might make.”

Rome was a last word type of guy and he always had been, but there was nothing biting or sneaky about the care and concern he let her see.

Her throat swelled shut again and tears ran down her cheeks before she even realized she was crying. She wasn’t going to hug her brother. She was surprised he’d even touched her hand earlier. Physical contact was something he didn’t engage in with their family. With anyone that she’d ever seen. She’d never met his beloved. She’d very carefully noticed that Rome never touched Waverly. It was almost like he was scared to transmit the poison inside him to her. He tucked her in at night and helped her out the door in the morning. He walked her to daycare even though it wasn’t a short distance. He cooked and cleaned and in general shocked the hell out of Briar May, but he did it all without physical contact.

She wasn’t going to lecture him on that. It had been a month. His whole life was shattered and warped, twisted around, and it was far too soon to recover from that. She was certain he’d find his way in time.

Rome walked out the door and she heard the growl of his bike start up a few minutes later. The thing puttered away slowly, then roared when he opened up the throttle.

She stared down at the cold toast, at the smattering of crumbs on the plate. They looked like constellations strewn across the white surface.

Her hand flew out and grasped the counter so she wouldn’t double over. Stars.

One was already extinguished. The other was out there and maybe he needed her help. She didn’t know if that was true, and maybe she’d be rejected in the cruelest of ways, but Rome was right about time and about regret.

She’d never forgive herself if Castor wasn’t okay, and she hadn’t done a thing to help him because she was nursing her own wounded pride.

Even if telling Kieran the full truthwas the hardest thing she’d ever do, it needed to be done. Whether she chose her own fate, or it was already inscribed in history, there was no stopping what had already been set well into motion when her body had recognized her fated mate that day in the Jeep.

Chapter 13

Castor

“You betrayed your pack. You betrayed your alpha. Confess and I’ll see to it that you have an easy death, as my son.”

It wouldn’t happen. Worse than any real betrayal, Castor knew he’d embarrassed his father. He’d cast that pale, flickering shadow of doubt over him, their alpha’s right hand, the man feared by all for his ruthlessness.

Alexander Phaethon needed to prove he was in control, and he was going to do it by making an example of his son.

He, Jax, and Ireland—code names dropped now the mission was over—had been returned to his pack as promised. Castor had been expecting the worst from his alpha, but it was clear that Jax and Ireland hadn’t wanted to reveal that they had been bested and beaten—it was bad enough they’d failed in their mission and been captured. So instead, they’d concocted some story, without revealing too many details about what actually went down in Wyoming.

Indeed, Agnor had seemed quite pleased they had avoided a pack war. Castor’s relief was short lived, leaving his pack alpha’s residence without reprimand, only to face the wrath of his father—he had been sent on a mission to avenge his slain brother, and had failed and returned disgraced.

His father circled him, pacing around the hard packed red sand floor of the cave. It wasn’t a popular location for torture, but then, they liked to change it up. A few of the houses on pack lands had basements, but the basest shit was always done out in the middle of nowhere. The only people who would ever hear the cries and screams were the very people who’d given the order for it to happen in the first place.

Castor knew that the Nightfall Pack alpha had released him to his pack on the understanding that he was not to be harmed. What his father was doing was directly disobeying his alpha, though it was clear that his father felt he was untouchable.

He wasn’t going to make a sound. He hadn’t said a word throughout the three days of torture and beatings he’d already endured. At first, he’d been taken and chained in his father’s cellar. He was given the most rudimentary rations—enough water and just enough food to keep him alive. Three days ago, he was walked in chains out to the barren desert lands that surrounded the lands they used for habitation, where they had drilled wells and made their homes. Briar May’s pack had their forests for their wild runs, celebrations, ceremonies, and protection. His pack had the desert. Those who thought the desert was just an endless stretch of sand hadn’t been to Arizona. Their land was full of caves and mesas, hard rocky bluffs painted in bands of striated red dirt.

Alexander marched him straight to a cave that was already chosen.

It would be Castor’s place of death.

Ever inventive, his father had secured a rope to the cave’s rocky ceiling. It was enough to hold his weight and had been for the past day. There was no light that reached them back here other than the lantern Alexander brought with him every time he appeared, and took every time he left, but Castor figured it had been at least that long. His internal clock was a finely honed device.

If he had a reputation as a stone-cold killer, his father had one for being heartless. He’d never truly believed it, but now as his sire stalked around him on silent footfalls, dressed in his usual black garb and combat boots, he could see the murderous intent gleaming in his eyes.

Castor’s arms had long ago ceased aching. His body was a mess of bruises and cuts. His sire carved his face not more than twelve hours ago, while he hung from the cave’s roof, his hands bound, helpless to resist.

He hadn’t resisted a single thing. It angered his father, he knew. It only made it harder on himself that he didn’t flinch from the blows or make a sound when the knife pricked his skin, when hot pokers branded him, when flesh was carved from his body.

Betraying the pack was a grave matter and they were all raised in fear of it. No one wanted to be tortured for days and killed in some brutal, medieval style execution, so pack members generally strayed from mutiny, disobedience, switching sides, or other acts of cowardice. They toed the line, or they ended up like him. He’d seen what they’d done to their enemies in the past. He knew what his father was capable of.

He’d proved it last night, carving BETRAYER into Castor’s chest with a penknife. The marks were healing now already, despite the lack of food or water his shifter physiology still held up. But for how long he didn’t know. At least he hadn’t tied him in the hecolite stone mesh.

Not that he could shift when immobilized like this, but at least he could still feel his wolf.

Castor’s body screamed with the stretching, all his muscles turning to fire for the first few hours, but now he felt nothing. He would continue to feel nothing. He knew how to go so far inside himself that he couldn’t be pulled back out. He’d started the process the second he’d realized what his father had planned for him. He’d failed to realize just how bitter, prideful, and power hungry his father had grown over the years.

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