Page 102 of Moon Cursed

Paxton lay still and handsome, so angelic he could be sleeping... forever.

“Hhmmmmm!” Miriam wailed behind her gag.

Breaking free, I threw myself on him, sobbing on his chest.

“Damn it!” Cygnus dented the throne arm smashing his fist down. “That’s it. No more mistakes! Darius, Kellan, Raza, recapture the prisoners. You five, take her and chain her back up. Now!”

It was chaos.

I only had time to free Nia, who tried to use her forest power to assault the officers with a barrage of broken hardwood. Six officers raced into the kitchen after Ash. I heard her furious roars, and then cries of sorrow as she was defeated and her children retaken.

Nia ran for the door and found it blocked by two burly officers. Her wolf tranquilizer hadn’t failed her. They couldn’t hurt her, and no one tried to, but they weren’t letting her past either.

She raised her hands, then threw them forward—raining planks down on them.

Metal chains appeared in the air and swamped her, dragging her screaming to the floor.

The planksplonk, plonk, plonkedall around her, falling very short of their goal.

Ash was hauled out of the kitchen kicking and screaming. All pretense gone, Jabari stopped pretending she was anything other than a hostage, and chained her up too.

I watched all of this as I was yanked away from Paxton, and dragged across the floor to my awaiting manacles.

“Let me be clear.” Cygnus’s raspy, ruined throat made him sound even more sinister. “If there is one more interruption—if any one of you even twitches your finger—I’ll start with that bowtied brat in there!”

Bowtied brat.Cygnus was speaking about Ash’s son. Her youngest son.

“Am I clear!”

He was clear. No one moved. No one did anything, but cry.

I thought a broken bond was the worst pain I’d ever felt. That pain was a papercut compared to the agony of a dying one.

Paxton’s life. His hopes, his dreams, his mistakes, his regrets, his love and obsession with me... and his vision for our future. All of it flooded my mind, traveling down the new and strengthened bond—bringing my wolf back to life—and then it vanished. Blown out like a candlelight, the last traces of him I could’ve held on to faded away.

“Son, go on.” Cygnus nodded to his second-born. “Make me proud. Do your duty.”

Even though an alpha’s compulsion didn’t work on another alpha, he could’ve pretended and spun Badr some bullshit about taking me “gently” and “lovingly.” But with him, he didn’t pretend that’s what this was about.

A silent Badr crossed to me—as silent as he was when a man he once called a friend died. As silent as he was as he watched my friends be executed. Quick and efficiently, he peeled off his clothing and dropped down between my legs.

“Badr, please, don’t do this,” I rasped.

“Do not speak to him,” Cygnus ordered.

Badr didn’t even look me in the eye.

“Everything I told you was true,” I burst out. “You have to believe—”

“You will not be told again!”

“This isn’t you,” I cried. “You’re not like that monster in a suit. You believe in right and wrong. You—”

“Bring the boy,” Cygnus bellowed.

“No!” Ash and I screamed at once.

“Stop! I’ll do it, okay! I’ll do what you want, just leave them alone!”

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