Chapter 55
My head pointed in the direction of his voice. My hair clung to my face with moisture.
Every hair on my body stood on end. Birds chirped overhead and bugs buzzed in the distance as the midday sun radiated from above.
"What did you do to him?" I asked in a low, dangerous tone.
Even though I couldn’t see Dominic with my eyes, in my mind he was clear. His presence was solid and all-consuming in the darkness.
"Nothing he doesn’t deserve," he spat.
His voice was so close, it vibrated against my chest. His touch had fell from my body but every time he spoke I flinched with expectation.
"Why?" I asked, pleading for answers.
I reached inside the deepest parts of my mind, searching for Grayson but he was hidden behind a wall and I couldn’t find the door. If he were in pain, he wasn’t sharing it.
"We have a history," Dominic said plainly.
My mind buzzed, a history? Did he mean because of me or something ...before?
"I don’t understand," my voice coming out in a wispy way.
"You wouldn’t. It’s werewolf business and you are no werewolf. You shouldn’t even be on this island."
That I agreed with.
"Your Grayson was supposed to come alone and pay for his crimes."
I tilted my head, eyebrows creasing against the material that blurred my eyes. Grayspn had said the rogues had brought down the plane but I assumed it was accidental.
"You knew Grayson, before you arrived on the island?"
His voice moved as his body left from where it had sat in front of me.
"Every werewolf knows of him. After the Traitor’s Revolution no one could forget his name."
He was behind me now and fingers swept across the back of my head. My shoulders tensed as his hands untied and pulled the blindfold off. I squinted into the daylight, eyes leaking from the burn.
"But if you mean met him, I never had the pleasure. I only dealt with his aftermath, along with hundreds of others after what he did."
They had mentioned this revolution before. I remembered the first day I had met them they had wanted to kill Grayson for something he had done. For his crimes, they had said. When I had defended Grayson and demanded they save his life, Marek had been the one to say that it wasn’t right like Grayson was some tyrant needing to be put down.
Grayson was a pompous jerk, but what could he have done to make a pack of wild rogues, who had never met him, hate him so much?
I meant to ask but was caught off guard by my surroundings. My eyes adjusted but continued to burn as they filled with smoke from the small fires that surrounded me. We sat in the middle of our base, huts torn to the ground and every flammable object had been set ablaze.
Charred remains of the place I had called home surrounded me in every direction. From the furniture and crafts that had been handmade down to the food storage and the methods that cured them, everything was destroyed. The only exception, that stood cleary around the smoke, was Dominic’s hut.
"Dominic, what did you do?" I gasped out loud.
He came into view, offended anger showing blatantly on his face. The faint reddish line of a scar stretching down the side of his jaw like lightning.
"What did I do? This is all your fault, Rebel." He gestured around to the graveyard of ash and embers.
"I never asked for any of this, I never wanted to bond to you. You made me do it," I accused and he scoffed.
"You really don’t understand the power you have over people, do you?" His voice turned so deep that a growl was lying under it.
"You are a curse. Men turn into monsters in your presence."
I shuttered at his words and curled inwards. I had always felt wrong with my place in this world but I’d never thought of myself as a curse.
"Look at Julien, sweet Julien." His voice was beginning to rise. "He was a decent man until he met you, people looked up to him for his wisdom and advice. Then you happened. Now look at the way he acts, confused and wounded like a sick dog."
My lip quivered as he continued. "Marek attacking his friends. And Jax? Constantly challenging his own kind and abandoning us completely, for what? Your escape from our protection?"
"You weren’t protecting me!" I shouted.
"You don’t want to help me, you don’t care about me. You only want what I can do for you."
My tears fell freely down my cheeks, hot with my sorrow and fury.
"Because of what you are!" He roared. His hands clenched and he leaned forward from where he stood in front of me.
"You do this to me."
He reached down and pulled me to my feet from under my arms. I could feel the heat of him burning into my skin even as he stood inches away. He leaned his mouth down until it was painstakingly close to mine as he hissed.
"Every man who breathes your air forgets his own name. You strip us bare, then blame us for having nothing left to lose."
He gripped into my arms, the flesh already bruising beneath the depressed skin. His stare flared, bloodshot eyes catching a golden hue.
"You take everything and leave nothing but broken men. Look at the one they call the Alpha King, you tamed him so easily with your virtue being his only prize. And now he won’t even survive the night."
A million emotions flew through me like bats in the night sky. His words were so hurtful yet they felt so true. Julien had changed, the entire pack separated and me at the center of everyone’s attention.
I squirmed at his mention of my virginity. Dominic was right that I had given up my virtue. Grayson taken me with such hunger that his control was at the mercy of my command.
Had Dominic smelled it on me? He had said virginity was a unique smell. Or had he felt it? Had he bore witness as Grayson claimed me and felt the way he deflowered me, driving him mad?
He looked wild. Out of control. The light in his eye dying and sparking again, his talons poking out and drawing blood from where he grasped my arms. His wolf was becoming stronger then he was. I thought of Marek and the way he acted the last full moon.
I was bonded to Dominic for now and until he fully turned then he wouldn’t be able to kill me, according to their Lunar Laws, which made me worry about what other depraved things he may do instead. I needed a saviour, I needed Grayson.
"What did you do to him?" I asked again. My breathing was turning to short gulps as I held back everything his words were doing to me.
"Where is Jax?"
His grip softened slightly and his eyes seemed to look back as though he were recalling a memory.
"I knew you had enchanted the Alpha King. I also knew how you felt about Jax. So I used one to lure out the other."
He spoke over extended teeth, the sharp fangs looking odd around his human molars.
"It was easier than I thought it would be. They both fell right into my trap. Jax literally, I took all night digging that hole."
I furrowed my brows, imagining a giant pit with spears and Jax’s dead body.
"He’s alive." He rolled his eyes, sensing my unease. "I forced him into his wolf form and lured him to the hole then trapped him inside. His howls are what brought out your Grayson."
He kept calling him my Grayson like I owned him in some way. His claim that I was some temptress that tamed him still pulling at my chest with shame.
"And Grayson?" I asked so quietly I wasn’t sure he had heard.
"He was more difficult to subdue but in the end, well I guess I was more determined than him."
The end? My heart began skipping in panic.
"He’s not dead. Not yet."
He let go of his grip and moved back. I struggled in my restraints before falling to the ground, unable to balance with my feet tied together.
I glared up at him and he gave me a sneering smile. He like seeing me bound, I could feel the rise it gave him to have me in submission.
"Where is he," I demanded, stretching each word.
"He’s trapped and broken, just the way you like him."
I wanted to spit at him from where I sat. How could he be so hateful?
"When he wakes and calls for you, Marek will be the only one who hears him. And with the state I last saw him in, I don’t think he’ll be very merciful towards your Grayson."
My mind reeled with every different way Marek would kill a tied up Grayson, in both human and werewolf forms.
"But you can save him." His lip twitched with his scheming. He was proud of his dubious plan.
"Give yourself freely to me and I will let you go before the night begins."
My blood curdled as I knew I couldn’t say no.