Ch. 171..175: The Alpha Contract Chapter 171-175

Chapter 0171

"What do you need?" Damien and Dane ask in unison.

Raven starts making a list as I watch Mallory drift into unconsciousness.

"Hurry. But be careful, we don't know where Salem is." She mutters as the men disappear out the back door.

Raven works to clean Mallory's stomach, prepping it for whatever she needs to do. I find myself unable to move. I was inches away from getting my revenge for what she had down to me and yet6 I couldn't say the words.

"Damien will never forgive me if she dies." Raven mutters, pushing intestines back in the gaping wound

My eyes flicker up to her, but she isn't looking at me, instead, she is too focussed on saving Mallory.

If I stop her from helping Mallory, it would put her matebond with Damien at risk. She will hate me for taking away her chance at happiness. I couldn't lose the one friend I have.

"Can you save her?" I ask quietly

"I think so." she gives me a tight lipped smile. "The wound higher up has already healed which is a good sign. But I think her stomach is a bit like my leg. I won't be able to tell until I can get in there properly."

She sighs. "I know you have issues with her, Neah. I know a million ideas are probably running through your head right now, but this is what I signed up for. Saving people and helping them has always been my dream. Please don't let me leave her to die." 'It's your choice. I will stand by you no matter what you decide.' Nyx murmurs.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" It was so hard forcing the words from my mouth.

Raven gives me a small smile. "Give me your hand."

She takes my hand and places it on Mallory's neck. "Normally, I would listen to her pulse, but it's not clear. Her body is going through mass amounts of trauma so you have to trust what you feel. Do you feel it?"

I nod.

"Tell me if anything changes, even the slightest little jump."

The men return after what felt like forever. Accompanied by Eric, Klaus and Eric's boys. The boy's eyes are wide as they see Mallory but Eric guides them straight past and into another part of the house as I hear one of the boys asking if the woman on the table is dead I watch Raven work. She's patient and calm, and completely in her element. The only sounds that could be heard is from the work she is doing.

"Now it's up to her." She steps back, admiring her work. Mallory was lucky. There was enough flesh that once everything was back in its right place it had begun to knit itself together.

I stumble from the kitchen, not quite believing that I had let her live.

Dane's hand catches mine, stopping me from going any further. "Talk to me Neah."

"There is nothing to say."

"You were going to let her die."

"I didn't though, did I?" The words sound so spiteful. "I... I helped."

His hands move to my shoulders. "I wish you would talk to me more."

"I do talk to you."

"Not recently. You are so short tempered all the time and if you are not, it lasts for all of five minutes before you lose your temper. And no matter how many times I have asked you not to do it, Nyx keeps blocking me from reading your mind. I can't help if you keep blocking me out." His crimson eyes bore into my own, making me feel small and seen

I open my mouth to speak, but the words disappear into thin air like they were never supposed to be heard.

Chapter 0172

Dane

"Neah?"

She falls into silence. Staring back at me with her mouth partly open. "Can we please find Jess and Jenson. I know she is dead. I just... I need to say goodbye." "You're deflecting." I mutter.

"I just need to deal with one thing at a time." She mumbles with a frown. "Please?" she adds, practically choking on the word as tears fill her blue eyes.

I link my brother, he doesn't answer immediately. Though I feel his pain through our link.

'Jenson, where are you?' I ask again

'Leave me alone!'

'Jenson!' I snap through the link

'Fuck off!'

'Don't you dare speak to me like that! Where are you?'

'You let them come here. You let them invade our home.' His anger through the link was rising to levels I had never felt before.

'Jenson, where are you?'

'Far away from you.' He snaps, 'You put her in danger and I can never forgive you for that!" He takes a deep breath. "I, Jenson Black, former Gamma of the Black Shadow pack, reject all ties to Black Shadow from this moment onwards." 'FUCKER!' Aero roars

I feel the breaking of our connection, just as Raven lets out a scream. She would feel it too, because he would be rejecting her as his twin too.

Neah's eyes are wide as she stares at me, waiting for me to speak.

"He has rejected the pack. He has left. He left and he has taken Jess's body with him." I mutter in annoyance

She blinks back the tears. "What does that mean? Why would he reject the pack?"

"He blames me for Jess's death."

"Where will he go?"

"I don't know." My face hardens. "But he has made his choice and he can live with it."

"You are giving up on him, just like that?" She asks in shock.

"He doesn't want my help, Neah. He doesn't want his sister's help."

Neah looks back to the kitchen door where we could both hear Raven sobbing. Tears that she hadn't shed in years are probably drowning her face.

"Go to her." Neah whispers softly. "She is your sister."

I hold my hand out to her, "Are you coming?"

She looks up at me, a small smile, creasing her lips. "Maybe it doesn't have to be a completely bad day." She takes my hand and places it on her small bump. I could feel the movement underneath. Only slight, and more like fluterrings, but still movement. It was enough to keep me focussed and deal with Raven.

Raven, as expected, is in floods of tears. She is on the floor, gripping on to Damien like her life counted on it. He is talking to her but even I knew it was falling on deaf ears.

"Will someone tell me what has happened?!" Klaus asks

"Jenson has rejected the pack. He has broken all ties with us." I tell him.

"Are you serious?"

"He blames me." I mutter

"He should blame himself." Klaus retorts. "He was the one who insisted you bring in other Alphas. If Roan had never come here, Jess wouldn't have been kidnapped. You guys would never have had to go after her. You would never have met...." He gestures to Damien and an unconscious Mallory.

It wasn't like Klaus to sound so irritated.

"I'm just saying, we are all in this together. It's not his battle alone."

"Did he say something to you?" I ask, narrowing my eyes

He looks away

"Klaus?!"

"He has been making his annoyance clear from the moment the Rogue first presented itself."

""To who?"

"Mostly me." He folds his arms across his chest. "I tried, Dane. I tried to make him see that he started this. That if he really looked into it, he could find blame anywhere."

"Why didn't you come to me?"

"I honestly thought I had it handled. He stopped bringing it up. I thought, maybe, he was finally starting to understand that it is out of our control. Then Jess.... I'm sorry. I screwed up."

I hold a hand up to stop him talking, focussing my attention on my sobbing sister. "Has she spoken?"

Damien shakes his head.

"Raven, I know you are hurting. Jenson has made his choice. You wouldn't have been able to change his mind. No one could have." I glance back at Klaus who sighs.

She doesn't speak. Her eyes are glazed and she stares at a spot on Damien's shirt, unblinking, unmoving while great big fat tears roll down her cheeks. Maybe Midnight was trying to offer some comfort, but then again, Midnight had lost her twin too. "I will take her upstairs." Damien mutters, rising to his feet with Raven cradled in his arms.

"I think I will rest too." Neah murmurs, her eyes shift to Mallory though her mouth remains closed.

I stop her before she leaves. "Tell Nyx to drop the block."

She nods and her eyes briefly darken. I could feel all her emotions come flooding in. I never thought the day would come where I wouldn't feel normal because I didn't feel my mate. Somehow, after all these years searching, she was the only one who made me feel complete.

In that second, I understood Jenson's reaction. He had gone from woman to woman until he had a mate who made him rethink everything because she was too young for him to act on it. Grief had hit him like a brick wall.

"Is she okay?" I ask Klaus about Mallory as Neah leaves.

"It was close according to Raven. He sliced her stomach up pretty well but somehow, she didn't lose much flesh. Raven was able to put it all back together. It might just take a while for her to wake up." He pauses, "I am sorry, Dane. If I had known it would come to this, I would have told you."

"I know. It's in the past. What we have now is a Rogue on the loose. And I have no idea who its next target is. Did Roan say anything about the Rogues' plans?"

He shakes his head at me. "I would say Lycans, but it went after Raven first." He shrugs his shoulders. "Maybe it is whoever is fair game because it doesn't seem like it's here just to piss off Damien not anymore."

"No, but what else do the first two victims have in common?"

"Neah, but that doesn't explain Mallory." He gestures to the unconscious woman on the kitchen table.

"Death." Mallory mutters huskily, her eyes still closed. "He wants to bring death to everyone."

Chapter 0173

Damien

Her fingers remain tightly coiled around mine as I lay her on her bed. Raven doesn't speak a single word as tears continue to roll down her face in uncontrollable sobs. The pain she is feeling is unforgiving and until now, I never knew that losing a twin was almost the equivalent of losing a mate. It didn't matter that he was still alive. He had rejected the pack and that included his own siblings. And it had broken her.

Did he feel the pain, or was he caught up in the loss of his unclaimed mate? Either way I don't think I will ever be able to forgive him for what he has done to my mate.

Raven cries herself to sleep. Blood from helping Mallory, still stained on her skin. She lets out little whimpers in her sleep, eventually falling quiet as she slips into a deep slumber.

Cleaning up the blood, she doesn't move and I hope that my touch is somehow bringing her some comfort in her sleep. She had been to hell and back in recent days, she didn't need this too.

Slipping out of her bedroom. I make my way towards the stairs, stopping outside the Alpha's room when I pick up her scent. I could hear the gentle shuffling of her feet as she paced back and forth behind the door.

"I know you are standing out there." She calls out. "You can come in."

She continues to pace after I have entered. Her hands are on her hips as she moves, a deep frown etched into her face.

"Alpha Neah, you should be resting. Especially given what has happened tonight." I murmur, my eyes moving down to her rounding belly. It was crucial that her twins survived. They were the future of Lycan kind. "Damien, please don't keep referring to me as Alpha and I'm fine. Is Raven okay?"

"Sleeping."

"You marked her, so how is she really feeling?" She presses

"Like her heart has been ripped from her chest. She's in pain."

She nods as she continues to pace. "I will kill him Damien."

"Jenson?"

"You know that I'm not talking about Jenson." She stops and stares at me. "Are you going to try and stop me?"

"No." I might have done it if it were another time. When the idea of an Alpha or being in a pack was of no interest to me.

"Good." She starts moving again and pulls a jacket from the closet "Let's go."

"Right now? Even I know that's a bad idea."

"You said you wouldn't stop me."

"I'm not trying to stop you. I just think we could choose a better time. When emotions are not so amped up. I've seen people make massive fucking mistakes because their emotions got the better of them." She rolls her eyes and drops onto the bed.

"He is causing havoc. You nearly lost your friend and your mate because of him. How are you so calm?"

"Practice. You wouldn't believe it if you knew what I used to be like, before I became a Lycan." I add.

She smirks, and mutters lightheartedly "What were you, some kind of mass murderer?"

"To those that deserved it."

I watch the colour drain from her face, yet her blue eyes round in curiosity. "That's why she turned you."

I nod. "She thought I would be a good asset to her little club."

"Humans, I assume, if it was before you were turned?"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"I stopped counting." I shrug my shoulders. The number of bastards I had killed didn't mean a thing compared to those who I saved.

"Fifty?"

"No."

"A hundred?"

"That's when I stopped counting."

"What do you mean by those that deserved it?"

"Those that hurt children and young women. If I had known what Cassandra and Trey were doing to you. I would have ripped them apart."

"That's why you are loyal to me now, because you feel you owe me something?"

"Yes."

"Have you told Raven about your past?"

"No. No one likes to hear that news."

"You should tell her. You have claimed her, how do you think she will feel if you keep a secret like that from her? Because trust me, I know what it's like to have secrets kept from you your whole life."

Chapter 0174

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes narrow. "You could have easily killed him. But you didn't, you even purposely missed his heart after he had hurt Raven." "And that was an emotional mistake."

"Because a part of you hoped that your old brother was still in there?"

I don't answer because I don't need to. There was nothing more for me to say on the matter. I decide to change the topic. "Why don't you want me to call you Alpha?" "It's not just you, I don't like anyone calling me it."

"But you use the term when needed, like when you were squaring up to Salem. And I heard that you used it to get the other Lycans to stop attacking Black Shadow."

A small crease appears on her brow. "I was made to call people by their status my whole life. If I didn't, I got punished. Even with Dane I still said it for a long time. It's not something that I want to force people to call me. It makes me sound...." "More powerful than the rest of us? Because we all know you are."

Her eyes flicker up to me. "It makes me sound like a power pissed asshole."

Her comment makes me laugh.

"Dane did tell me that you took some time to accept your Alpha position. Maybe it's time for you to take back everything that was taken from you."

She lets out an involuntary snort

"Is that it, Damien? Is that why you are really here? To try and convince me to be something I'm not."

"No. I can't convince you of something you have already been questioning. And I don't need to convince you that you are powerful. You already know that."

"I haven't been questioning it."

"Right." I mutter, knowing full well that she had. I saw it in the way she acted. Her desire to correct what is wrong.

"Let's test this theory of yours." she mutters. "How exactly am I supposed to be an Alpha of two bitten Lycans and a Rogue?"

""You don't see it."

"What?"

"Those are a sign that the breed will thrive once more." I point to her stomach. "What if there are more? What if they are all in hiding?"

She laughs and shakes her head. "That is a crazy theory."

"You didn't know we existed until Dane and Jenson met us. You didn't know that you were a Lycan. What if there is more? What if there are some that broke away from Cassandra and Trey?"

"Just stop." Neah snaps at me. Holding her hand up and closing her eyes. When she opens them again, the blue is long gone and they are almost black. Raven had mentioned something about it being a sign that Neah was talking to her inner Lycan. "You want to find more?" She asks after some time.

"Wouldn't it be better for the twins if there were more of their kind to help raise them?"

"You need to leave." She mutters.

I don't try to say anything else. Turning and leaving the moment she asked.

Downstairs I hear Mallory telling the others about what happened to her. Her eyes flash up to mine when I walk in and she gives me a massive smile. "I'm alive."

"Why did the fucker come after you?"

"I was telling them that he turned up at my house. I was so surprised to see him in human form that I was too slow in acting. He shifted and...." she gestures to the thick red weeping wound on her stomach. "Did he say anything?"

"That he wants to kill us all. I know I have already said he is nuts. But the idiot is in full on demon mode. Talking about how he will make everything his. That we will bow down to him."

Dane laughs. "If he wants to bring death to us all, how are we going to bow down to him?!"

"It's a choice." Klaus mutters with a frown. "He is saying it's either we bow down, or we die." "Then he chose the wrong pack to attack." Dane snarls.

Chapter 0175

Raven

It took me less than a second to realise I was alone. Damien had brought me upstairs but he hadn't stayed. Maybe he was regretting claiming me after he watched me sob my heart out like a child.

My chest felt broken. Every breath seemed harder and harder to take, like my lungs were shrinking and at the same time a heavy weight slowly crushed them.

'It's the breaking of our twin bond.' Midnight murmurs. She was in just as much pain as I was.

Being a twin really did suck at times. It hurt more than my leg. It hurt more than being rejected. 'He's really gone.' I mumble back to Midnight

'Yes.' she whimpers as another tear leaks from my eye. I'm quick to wipe it away. He had made his decision. He hadn't even had a second thought about me.

Damien had left my crutches by the bed. Picking them up, I make my way to the windows and drag back the curtain to see daylight.

Freezing, the curtain falls from my hand, hiding the blood I had just seen. Slowly, I pull the curtain back. A bloody handprint painted the outside of the glass. How? I didn't even have a balcony and it was a sheer drop to the ground.

My eyes roamed the grounds, but there was nothing and it was quiet. I assume Dane has told everyone to stay inside. But the hand print looked fresh.

'Don't open the window.' Midnight mutters

'I wasn't planning too."

'Really? You are not exactly one for leaving things alone!' She snaps. She was angry, we both were but there was no need to take it out on me.

"Aspen should have tried talking him out of it! I am hurt too! You lost your twin, I lost mine. We can't change that. Now can we deal with this, please." I was trying so hard to bury the pain. Maybe if one of us does, it would help us to feel a little more normal. 'Check the other window.' she mutters reluctantly.

There is only half a print on the other window. "Do you think he was trying to break in?"

'If he was trying to break in, he would have done so, like at the hospital. Call Dane.'

I nod but sit back on the bed. 'Why does he keep coming for me?'

'I don't know. But sitting here, waiting like an idiot isn't going to help either of us.'

I'm grateful when Damien's sweet vanilla scent seeps in. It meant he was close. He doesn't even knock. Pushing the door open his dark eyes meet mine before drifting to the handprints on the windows.

He frowns and moves over to them. His brow crinkles up into a scowl. Ripping open one window, he leans out, looking at the wall between the windows. "Bastard!"

Damien slams the windows shut so hard that I thought the glass was going to break. He turns to me. "Have you seen him?"

"No, I opened the curtains just now and they were there. Why me?"

"Mallory shared some information with us last night. I thought you would be safe. You don't have a fire escape or a balcony. I wouldn't have left you alone last night if I thought he would be able to get to you." "He hasn't," I murmur. "But I wish you hadn't left."

He steps towards me, his lips hit mine with force as his hand locks against the back of my head. His tongue begins exploring my mouth as his weight forces me backwards on the bed until he is pressed flush against me.

He forces himself in between my thighs, ignoring my little whimper of pain. The more urgent his kiss becomes, the more I feel him swelling against my pussy. He rocks his hips against me, ensuring that his demanding cock was pressing up against me.

His lips move to my jaw and to my neck. His teeth scratch along my skin, pulling soft moans from me as my underwear dampens from my own arousal

Lifting my top, he circles the tip of his tongue around each of my nipples, nipping them as they harden.

A heat begins to burn inside of me, creeping from the inside out. I try to ignore it as Damien's bites along my skin drive my insides wild, but it continues to grow, like an itch that needs to be scratched.

"I think...." I mutter as he pulls my sweatpants down along with my underwear

"I know. It's a good job I'm here then, isn't it." He leans down and runs a tongue along my pussy.

I see stars as his tongue deepens and everytime he flicks it along my clit, I find myself thrusting in his face, begging for more.

He takes my hand, guiding it down to my own throbbing pussy. "Make yourself cum. I want to see."

With two fingers, I start with small but firm circles, pressing my thumb against my clit as I imagine his tongue lapping up my juices. As I moan, he pulls out his own very large hardened cock. His hand glides up and down over the thickness as he watches me masterbate. "I need you." I mutter through my moans as the heat takes over my body completely. Masterbating was not enough. I wanted him to fill me with his cock. I wanted him to fuck me as though his life depended on it.

Damien leans against me, his lips pressing hard against mine as the tip of his cock rubs against my entrance.

He pushes himself into me, filling the space or so I thought, until he pushes in further, letting his balls slam against me. He isn't gentle when he starts thrusting. Hard and deep thrusts have me screaming his name as my body spasms against him.

He fucks me for what feels like hours. Mind blowing orgasms one after the other, but it still wasn't enough. Within minutes of orgasming, I wanted more and I couldn't stop it, not even if I wanted to. I was so hot and horny. Thankfully Damien never stops either, pleasing me in any way he could.

When the heat finally breaks, he lays next to me, watching me with his dark eyes, like nothing else mattered. The funny thing was, I was grateful I wasn't a Lycan. Neah's heat had lasted four days and I had seen how she walked afterwards. There was no way on this planet I would last four days.

"It's subsiding." He presses his lips against mine.

"Do we have to get out of bed?" I mutter. Leaving the bed means having to deal with all the problems outside and I wasn't quite ready to deal with that yet. "We could just stay here, in our own little bubble."

"As much as I enjoy listening to you moan my name over and over, we still have a Rogue on the loose. Hiding somewhere and who apparently has also learned to scale the walls."

I nod and sigh, sinking back into the comfort of my pillows as I look at the bloody handprints. "And what about when I'm alone in here again?"

"Do you really think I will let you sleep alone again?"