Page 61 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

If I were, I don’t even want to imagine what he would do to me, or our baby.

I keep silent as he leads me back to the ring of fire, except this time it’s not to sit. He marches me right to the front, to where most of the men are sitting, and he stops.

After dropping my hand, he turns to me, a faint smile on his face. His touch is light as he brushes my hair behind my shoulder, so the men can see me. All of me.

Closing my eyes as tremors shake my body, I feel their attention like prickles of ants running all over me. I want nothing more than to brush them away, to crush them beneath my feet.

“Now,” Aron breathes, as he takes his hands from my shoulder. “The song. You know the one.”

The one that killed my pack. And the song that the man I once thought was handsome asked me to sing one night for my family.

Right before he had his men slaughter them.

The song that I locked in my heart along with my voice.

“Lexa.” Aron’s bark makes me flinch.

I open my eyes and fix my gaze over the heads of the men sprawled out in front of me, at a point in the distance. Some of these men were there. They have just as much blood on their hands as Aron.

After a long moment, I open my mouth and sing the song I swore I would take to my grave.

A tear slips down my cheek and falls. Then another. And another.

They never stop.

17

“Alpha, we’ve got another body.”

Aron jerks at my arm, forcing me to stop, before swinging around to face the shout from behind us. “Where?” he calls back.

“East this time.”

Briefly, I close my eyes.

Good.

Throughout the night, and all morning as we trekked down through the forest, away from Wolfkeep land, men keep disappearing.

Sometimes bodies reappear a few miles away, their throats ripped out, but mostly they just disappear.

Shay. It has to be Shay.

“Tell ten men to shift and track. They don’t come back until he’s dead.”

I jerk my head to Aron to find that his gaze isn’t behind us anymore. It’s on me. After a pause, he smiles grimly. “Make it twenty. That’ll soon put a stop to things.”

No.

Alarm spikes through me, and my heart lurches in my chest. I turn to face the front again before Aron can see how badly his order has terrified me.

Shay doesn’t stand a chance of killing the twenty wolves that Aron sends after him. Even if he somehow managed it, he would still have to get through the circle of twenty or more men guarding me.

Please don’t let him be alone.

If he had help from his pack, maybe he could, but it was just us at the treehouse. Daniel said Ewan and the others were still fighting at the courtyard, so I just have to hope he sees the wolves and won’t risk his life trying to fight them.

Don’t come after me, Shay. Just go back to the courtyard and live.

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