Page 59 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

His hand clamps tighter around my mouth as he draws me further back. “Kill him.”

I scream and fight, but Aron’s hold is absolute. He isn’t letting me go.

A hard blow on the back of my head makes my head ring before my world turns black.

16

Asharp stone pokes me in the middle of the back.

It’s as I reach under myself to dislodge it that everything comes back.

Mine and Shay’s argument. Him leaving to investigate a sound. A whistle. The ambush. And then the blow to the back of the head.

I wrench my eyes open and sit up. Between then and now, night has fallen, and a few feet away, a fire burns. Roasting meat sears on the open flame.

My head screams in pain, but I ignore it. “Shay?” I scan the men sitting around the fire.

Faces turn toward me, but none of them are familiar. None of them are Shay.

“So our songbird has woken,” Aron murmurs as he rises from his crouch beside the fire.

The hated voice I spent months trying to forget burrows into my head.

“Where is Shay? Did you kill him?”

He doesn’t respond. I feel eyes pierce me, making me aware of how alone I am, and that the only thing covering me is my hair. I shift it around me so it covers even more of my skin, and hunch into myself.

Aron plucks a long wood skewer from the fire and stalks over to me, making no attempt to cover his naked body.

When he offers it to me, I don’t move. “Did you kill him?”

“Take it.”

There’s as much of an order in his eyes as there is in his voice.

“I don’t want it. I just want—”

“To know if that mate of yours is dead or alive.” He waves the stick of charred meat in my face. What he doesn’t say is that his answering the question is dependent on me taking it from him, but I see it.

So I take the skewer, even though I have no intention of eating it. My stomach feels hollow and empty, but I would rather starve.

His lips curve into a pleased smile. “Good. Now, come with me,” he says, holding his hand out.

I don’t want to touch him if I can help it. His hands are covered with the blood of my family.

“Lexa. My patience isn’t endless.”

Swallowing my revulsion, I put my hand in his, and he pulls me to my feet.

He doesn’t speak as he leads us away from the fire—just wanders at an easy pace as I trail him, the untouched skewer in my other hand.

The ground is still wet from the storm before and my toes sink into the earth, making a sucking noise each time. It’s not unpleasant. Just something to distract me from the men.

They sit in the forest clearing, eating, talking, sleeping. Their eyes follow me as Aron moves around them. I’m not looking at a hundred men, but more like fifty or even less than that.

I don’t know where we are now, but I doubt we’ve left Clayfell land. Which means there’s still a chance that Shay could save me.

If he’s still alive.

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