Page 39 of Bound to the Dragon
She peers behind me suspiciously, her eyes opening when she recognizes I’m telling the truth.
“Well, that’s pretty ballsy,Luna,” she mocks me. “Are you here to try to talk some sense into me?” Sarcasm drips from her words. “Are you hoping that I’ll run to your Alpha and beg him for mercy?”
I clear my throat and hope my expression doesn’t give me away. “No. I’m here to join the cause. I just wish you’d told me sooner. I shouldn’t have been blindsided like that. I could have been hurt, too, you know? What the hell, Virginia?”
Shock colors my friend’s face. “What? B-but the Alpha, he’s your mate!”
I raise my shoulders indifferently. “So what? Just because the fates have a plan doesn’t mean that’s what I want. I was always against what my father did. You know that. If I’d known you were with the rogues, I would have joined your cause a long time ago. How can I help?”
Our eyes meet, and I muster every ounce of sincerity I can to show her I’m with her, but I can still read the hesitation as she looks behind me.
“Did you really come alone?” she asks finally. “Or is this some kind of trap?”
“Blaze is trying to keep me trapped in the estate. He doesn’t trust me anymore.”
The confession relaxes my friend’s disposition if only slightly, and she steps back to let me into the house. It’s not a big step, but it’s enough to show me a sense of acceptance. This might take some time, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get me back in Blaze’s good graces and find Vigo—assuming he’s still alive. I have to handle this carefully. One wrong move, and I’ll be as dead as half the bodies lying back in the estate.
CHAPTER 14
BLAZE
There’s no doubt the rogue group took Vigo, and I’m incensed. This attack was much better orchestrated than the last one, for certain. Three vans waited outside for prisoners; they managed to kidnap several guests while we were distracted by the fighting. We’d severely underestimated their numbers, but how could we have known when they had been lying in wait for years?
How could Madison have kept this from me for so long? Was she hoping that it just would never come up? She should have let me know after the first attack!
“I want to talk to the ones in the cells.” I pivot and storm out of the security office, my enforcers behind me.
I have half a mind to collect Madison from the suite and force her to come down with me, but I don’t. I have enforcers at her door to ensure she doesn’t go anywhere. I will have to figure out a way to deal with her later. I don’t even want to see her right now.
We head into the prison cells, where we’re keeping even more rogue shifters than we had captured before. This group is also more defiant than the last. They gather at the bars, claws curled, not a single one in their human forms. They’re still readyto fight, and I keep back, eying them as I try to determine how to handle this situation.
“Who is your leader?” My deadpan question doesn’t faze any of them.
Several of them hiss. One spits.
“I know why you’re doing this, but it has nothing to do with Shadow Pine. Your fight isn’t with us.”
Finally, one of them shifts into her human body to address my statement with a hysterical laugh. “You mated the Beta’s daughter, didn’t you?”
“Not just mated—he’s her fated mate!” someone from the back pipes in after shifting back to his human form. “You’re just as tainted as she is.”
“I have no control over the fates.” I glower at them all. “Nor do I have any control over the history between Granger, the late Beta, and what they concocted between the packs. This has nothing to do with Shadow Pine. You need to leave us in peace.”
“We would have if you hadn’t aligned yourselves with a treacherous pack. Now, everyone who deals with Silver Glade becomes our problem.”
“Some of you are part of the Silver Glade pack!” I accuse, curling my own hands around the cell bars to confront the shifters face-to-face. I recognize some of Madison’s packmates among them. “Why aren’t you being dealt with in the same way?”
The original speaker scoffs. “Because they knew the betrayal when it happened and immediately decided to do something about it. This has been in the works for years. You just haven’t been tangled up in it until now because you haven’t been stupid enough to couple yourself with Silver Glade. Now you’ve made it your problem.”
“To what end?” I snap, my patience wearing thin. “Ultimately, we all do business together. Are you going torun around for the rest of your lives, attacking every mating ceremony connected to Silver Glade?”
“If need be, yes.” The original female grins cruelly, and I believe her.
They’re so driven by spite and hate that they aren’t thinking clearly. I can’t reason with them when no one is thinking rationally.
I grit my teeth. “Where is my Beta?”
They morph back into their shifter forms, refusing to discuss any more with me.
