Page 43 of Bound By My Alpha Mate

A growl rumbled out of Gavin. “Well, that proves the lack of decency of the dragons right there. They aren’t doing this for some honorable reason, for freedom. They just want carnage!”

“My dragons do want freedom!” Lothair bit back. “They’ll serve whoever will give them what they desire.”

“Sure. And that’s why it was so easy for you and your dragons to slaughter my parents, right?”

Lothair narrowed his eyes. His lip curled, exposing a sliver of his fangs. “Our priorities never changed. David promised us he could achieve freedom. We do what we have to do.”

In a swell of anger, Gavin charged toward Lothair, tearing the baby out of his arms and roughly handing her to me. Then he grabbed Lothair’s shirt collar and punched him, knocking the dragon onto his back. “I should just beat you to death right here,” snarled Gavin.

Coughing, Lothair leered up at all of us. His eyes briefly went to his daughter in my arms, then detached from her for good, fixing back on Gavin. “I am the only one who sees that David is leading my dragons astray. I’ve realized that we will never achieve the freedom we want. Dragons will never be free to embrace their true forms; that day will never belong to us. David is using the Inkscales for strength in numbers,” he said hoarsely. “I was always prepared to turn my back on David. Why do you think I suggested he and his pack hide here in the silver mine?”

Everett grabbed Gavin’s arm and pulled him back, his curiosity piqued. “What are you talking about?”

“My dragons used this place as a hideout long before Dalesbloom ever occupied it. I’ve had nitroglycerine dynamite hidden throughout the tunnels, ready to be triggered at a moment’s notice. I was never going to allow David to become Lycan with me. If he had chosen to stay here, then tonight, as he and his pack prepared for the ritual, I was going to collapse the silver mine on them. If the cave-in didn’t kill them, the silver poisoning would have. They had no idea there was nitroglycerine here. The silver prevented them from smelling it.”

My eyes widened. All this time, Lothair had planned to kill my father for us. And if I hadn’t broken away from David, I would have been one of the casualties along with him. This entire tunnel had been rigged to collapse on Dalesbloom. I didn’t know whether I wanted to praise Lothair’s ingenuity or attack him. After all, Dalesbloom was still my pack—I wouldn’t stand for any more needless deaths, even of my callous packmates. “Do the other dragons know about it?” I asked.

“No. It was Sibyelle’s and my little secret,” said Lothair. “I’m sure they smelled it, but they wouldn’t have known what it was. Unfortunate that my trap has been rendered useless.”

“Where is everyone now?” demanded Gavin.

“I don’t know,” said Lothair. “Wherever they are, I can guarantee they will perform the Lycan ritual tonight. There is but one reason David may return to the mine: he will want to kill me before the Inkscales do, to assert his dominance as their Alpha. He left me alive so that he could do so as Lycan, to demonstrate his ability to keep his wits about him.”

“Where’s the trigger for the dynamite?” asked Everett.

The stoicism on Lothair’s face was replaced by a thin, conniving smile. “Undo my chains, and I will see to it that the mine collapses when David comes for me.”

Leaving Lothair chained where he was, Gavin, Everett, and I reconvened with Billie and Aislin to share with them what we had learned. Nobody trusted the dragon, but we knew he wasn’t about to give up the trigger for free. When we returned to him, Everett stepped forward with a large rock in his hands and smashed the padlock on Lothair’s chain.

“This the wisest decision you have made yet,” said Lothair, slowly standing up. His attention turned to me; I was still holding the infant on my hip. “Keep her safe. I have no reason to pursue you or her anymore. My clan is gone, and my mate is dead. Anywhere I go, I will be a wanted man. So, I will keep my word as long as you promise to protect my daughter.”

Lothair could just as easily deceive us, but what choice did we have? Crushing David in the mine was just one solution of many, but we weren’t going to give up this chance. There wasn’t really anything Lothair could do to screw us over besides not trigger the dynamite; David would be cornered in the mine once he inevitably turned up to kill Lothair, anyway. After exchanging glances with Everett and Gavin, I nodded.

Lothair’s expression softened. “I have decided on her name,” he said. “It’s Nefrit.”

The baby girl stirred and yawned as though the announcement of her name had woken her from a dream.

“You better keep your word,” warned Gavin. “I won’t hold back next time.”

Lothair said nothing. He merely watched as we retreated down the tunnel with his daughter, leaving him to await his destiny.

Chapter 27

Kiara

Hours in the refrigerator had left me approaching hypothermia. My teeth were chattering, and my muscles shivered nonstop. Pain from exposure to all the meat in the room radiated through me. All I could think about was how to get warm, but with the way my body was strung up, I couldn’t move my hands or feet to generate heat or even cover my bare skin. A few times, I thought David had made a mistake in leaving me here to freeze to death, and I found some small satisfaction in the idea of him coming to retrieve me only to find a corpse. But as the hours dragged on, I continued to live. Through sheer force of will or simple misfortune, I didn’t know.

When my body became numb to the cold and I stopped shivering, I knew my condition was deteriorating to the point of no return. Once hypothermia set in, your body stopped feeling cold—in fact, your blood vessels dilated, and you felt warm instead. As my thoughts deviated away from my situation and toward fanciful reveries, I realized that I didn’t have much time left. I had to focus. With a sharp inhale, I peeled open my eyes and looked around the room. What could I do?

Jerking my body only resulted in me swaying helplessly where I hung. They had left my legs unbound, though, which meant maybe I could reach something. With my bare feet, I stretched toward the nearest carcass, swinging my body until I made contact. The ice-cold meat stung my toes, and I lost my grip the first time. The second time, I endured the pain, angling my body laterally until miraculously, the hooks around my bound wrists came loose and clattered away. Without the chains suspending me, I instantly dropped to the ground, landing hard on my shoulder with an “oof.”

The excitement of freedom brought me back to life. I shivered again, rolling onto my knees and taking stock of my physical situation. While most of my skin had darkened from the cold, the bottoms of my feet were red, almost as if they’d been burned by the meat. Next, I had to find a way to undo the rope around my arms and neck.

Several fans were fitted against the wall, blowing cold air into the room. Their spinning blades were the only objects sharp enough that I could see. My stomach curdled with uncertainty at the likelihood of slicing myself open, but I had no other option. I staggered toward a fan at chest height in the wall but realized I wouldn’t be able to kick off the protective grate, not with my bare feet. Instead, I contorted myself to try to slip the rope between my wrists and neck into the metal bars of the grate, careful not to let my hair fall in with it. There was a hard jerk as the fan blades caught the rope, severing it halfway. I strained, pressing my skin against the grate, trying to cut the rest of the rope until, finally, my efforts paid off. The nylon broke apart, and I stumbled forward, tipping my head down with relief. Carefully, I brought my bound wrists under my feet until my hands were in front of me. The rope was too tight for me to free them, but at least I could use my hands now. I turned my eyes to the pig carcass where my mother’s horn was hidden.

“Fuck you, David,” I mumbled between my teeth. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for the pain and plunged my hands into the carcass, biting back a groan as I searched the viscera for the horn. It wasn’t hard to find, but the process was agonizing, searing my skin with poisonous flesh and blood. I clasped the horn between my palms and wrenched it out, bright red blood smeared up my arms. The pain was so intense it made me tremble.

But I was almost free. Lurching toward the door, I clutched the horn in one hand and pulled the handle with the other. The door unsealed and swung open, and I was greeted with a cloud of slightly warmer air. My blue lips gaped at the warmth as I stumbled into the bright lights of the basement hallway, only to realize this entire time, I hadn’t been alone.

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