Page 44 of Rome's Mate: Hunted Omegas

“What goddess?” Amelia asked.

Leif’s eyes widened to the point they could have fallen out before he shrugged his shoulders.

“At first, we thought it was Goddess Luna. Who else could it be?”

“At first?” Rome said.

“Then two days ago, she thought I was asleep, and she was mumbling to herself as she slipped out of the bed. She was talking about meetings and then said something about the goddess of the Black Night. You don’t think she’s an oracle for her, do you?” His eyes were filled with fear, the pupils becominga deeper blue color as they tried to shift into brown, the color of his wolf.

“Why are you sleeping with her?” Amelia growled. She knew it was pertinent to the conversation, but something wasn’t sitting well with her. Brittany seduced the head enforcer. How? Was he that desperate to get laid? Did he see her as an uncommon beauty?

Leif gawked but said nothing. “I’ll take you love her, or it’s a case of lust where you tear each other’s clothes off. Give me something.”

“I don’t think I like her, alpha-mate.” The room was silent; she couldn’t hear anyone breathing.

“Explain yourself. You allowed a teen wolf to stay in a cabin that we condemned and was scheduled for demolition. Then you took up with a woman who was poisoning you against the pack. You condoned the pack treating this young wolf as if he were worthless. Something on the bottom of their paws to be scraped off. Why didn’t you come to me?” Rome asked. His voice was steady as he stared at his enforcer. The feeling of being betrayed was stark, but he didn’t believe his enforcer was the cause.

Leif’s shoulders shook as his throat worked to get air; the palms of his hands were bloody from his nails digging into them. “Because I couldn’t,” he screamed before he fell from the chair. His body shook and a white foam came from his lips.

“Compulsion,” Amelia said. She jumped across the table and slid next to him. “Move back against the windows.” Her order came out with a scream, there wasn’t time to explain.

“Leif on a tree strong and proud, Leif gliding on the wind as is your right. Listen to me now and follow me to the light. The compulsion placed on you has no hold on a majestic Leif swirling in the wind giving the goddess Luna homage, bathed in her light.” She placed her hand on his chest. “Feel the grace of the goddess racing through your chest, chasing the compulsionuntil it’s no longer there. Breathe easily and think for yourself. The nightmare you’ve lived is over, breathe for me, Leif.” The last words were soft, but there was a thread of steel entwined with them. Leif sat up and took a deep breath before he started throwing up a black foul substance.

Amelia fell to the floor. Rome was there to pick her up. He cradled her in his arms, trying to understand what had just happened.

She raised a trembling hand to his cheek as she nuzzled into his warm embrace. “This isn’t my talent, it belongs to my cousin, but she would teach me when we were bored. It’s draining, but I’ll be fine.” She closed her eyes and went to sleep in his arms.

Rome took her to the couch and grabbed a throw he kept there for decoration.

“What is happening with my pack, our pack?” Rome had moments when he thought of this as his pack. One big happy family, but the pack belonged to his brothers as much as it did to him.

“I’ve been waiting for this and if you’re honest with yourself, Alpha, you’ve been waiting for it too. The goddess of the Dark Night hasn’t shown up in one hundred or maybe seventy-five years. I never trusted that goddess,” Saul said.

“What are we going to do?” Theron asked.

“Can we throw Brittany out of the pack?”

“No,” Rome said. “We have nothing concrete to go on. When we break the tie with her, it will have to be with solid proof. We need to keep our pack whole and sending her out on her own won’t do it.”

“How do you think she put a compulsion on him?” Saul asked.

“I don’t think she’s the oracle for Black Night. I do think she entered into a deal with her. Dark Night enhanced her with different abilities to do her dirty work,” Rome said.

“How do you get to be a goddess if your heart is evil? I don’t get it,” Theron said.

“The humans have their angels and demons. I suspect each culture has a good and a bad goddess. We just happen to know both of them, and they both play a part in our lives.”

Saul cleaned up the mess Lief made and when he was ready, Saul helped him to his feet.

Leif’s legs trembled, making him fall into the chair. “Right after…” he stopped talking; his throat was dry, and it still burned. Theron got him a bottle of water.

Leif had been duped by Brittany, but so had the brothers. They approved her becoming part of the pack. She did her dirty work where they couldn’t see her, and then acted like an angel in front of them. Leif gave Saul a look of appreciation and then slowly drank the water.

“The day Randy came to me, your small pack had gone for a run in the woods. Brittany came by wanting to talk about the abomination and what he would do to the pack if you found out about him. I told her to leave. I didn’t have time for conspiracy theories; she sounded like she was human. She begged for a cup of tea first. I would have given anyone in the pack something to drink. I made two cups and then my phone rang. It was in the bedroom, and I excused myself. It was a dropped call. When I came back, she was contentedly drinking her tea, so I sipped from mine. I remember her telling me to drink it all. After that, things get kind of foggy. We were in bed, and I couldn’t remember who Malcolm was.”

“She added something to the tea that helped the compulsion to stick. Whatever it was, she fed you more than one dose; you almost died,” Saul said.

“I will kill her!” Leif tried to scream, but his throat was too damaged.

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