Ch. 461..465: The Alpha Contract Chapter 461-465
Chapter 0461
Neah
"You will figure it out." Mallory offers me a smile. "You have always figured shit out." She cradles Luca and rocks side to side as Luca makes little noises. She had settled into motherhood like it was where she was always supposed to be. Yet, a part of me was nervous to tell her I was pregnant again. How do you tell that to a woman who will never carry her own children?
Being here has given me some time to calm down, to come to my senses. And I felt more than stupid. For a brief moment, I could see why Kade had called everyone stupid.
"No one is perfect." Mallory mutters. "You can't keep beating yourself up over it. If Dane suspected anything, there is no way he would have let you wander off with Kade. No one would have expected a kid to do something like that. You did what most sane people would do. Think about it, by the time you could have ordered him to give you the watch, he still could have pressed it."
"It still shouldn't have happened."
"Eric said that if the house was the target, it still would have happened anyway."
I nod as I look over to my boys who are playing in the corner. Half wondering how they would react to another sibling. And half wondering whether this pregnancy was making me miss things. Last time it made me miss important things, I had been so tired with the twins. "I'm sure they will find something." She smiles at me.
"Even if they do, what good is it? The house is gone. The only place I've ever truly known as home, has gone."
"Dane will have it rebuilt."
I nod. Knowing Dane, he was already planning a rebuild as soon as possible.
"What are you going to do with Kade?" Mallory asks curiously as she sits down next to me.
"Truthfully, I want to kill him. But I know that is wrong. At the end of the day, he is a child that has ultimately been groomed. To kill him for that, would be wrong." I shake my head. "But he still needs a reasonable punishment for what he did." "Cooper did it in the same way as Cassandra did with me." She murmurs.
I dip my chin in agreement. "I know they will find him. There is only so far he can run, even if Cooper is waiting for him."
"And Cooper? The asshole seems to be prepared."
I run my thumb over the tips of my fingers, I could feel the very tips of my claws hiding beneath the surface. "If he wants to play games, then let's play a game."
She cocks a brow at me.
"I need to work out the finer details before I share." I kneel on the floor next to my boys, kissing the top of their heads. "Could you watch the boys a little longer? I just need to do something." "Sure. I will set up the spare room for you and Dane."
Leaving their house, I hurry over to the dungeons, keeping my eyes off the mess that was my home. The guard dips his head at me and tells me that Samara seems to be more frantic than normal. "Frantic?"
"She's pacing alot. Muttering to herself." He shrugs his shoulders and rolls his eyes. "Lycans."
'Talking to her Lycan.' Nyx mumbles.
'Maybe, but he doesn't know that.'
The guard opens the door for me. Immediately, I hear Samara arguing with no one. She stops when she sees me. "What was that noise?"
"The packhouse."
"Cooper?" She asks quietly
"It seems that he had something to do with it, yes."
A frown appears on her face. It slowly softens. "I'm sorry."
""You're sorry? For what?"
"Dakota wants me to tell you that it is all my fault. That if I hadn't been stupid, we could have gone about this differently."
Her words throw me off, "Why would she want me to know that?"
"She says that we are supposed to be your Beta."
"What?" I scoff, trying to bury the laughter that is determined to break out of me. "You think that you of all people, are supposed to be my Beta?"
"Dakota thinks so." she mutters, dropping her gaze. "I've been telling her she is wrong. But she is one hundred percent certain and I can't change her mind. I told her you would probably kill us." Nyx snorts. 'Never have I heard so much crap.'
Samara runs her hands over her head and drops to the floor. "I'm not expecting you to believe her or anything I say."
Chapter 0462
I stand there, staring at her in some kind of disbelief. "We are cousins." I mutter
""Cousins?"
"That is how we are related. Your mother was my mother's sister. That's how you have Alpha genetics." She creeps forwards, her fingers winding around the bars as she focuses on me. "Did you know her?"
"No." "Oh."
"She wasn't spoken about, but my parents died when I was a kid, so maybe I just don't remember. Her name was Amelia."
"Thank you....hold on, you keep saying 'was'. She was your mother's sister. Her name was Amelia."
"She's dead."
Her hands drop from the cell bars. "Sounds about right. I assume you don't know how?"
"No. The book just had her birth and death date."
A small frown appears and her tongue glides along her bottom lip. "There is a reason you are telling me all of this, isn't there?"
"I want you to help me kill your brother."
"What?" she squeaks
"Do I need to repeat myself?" I mutter
"No...I just don't understand. Why do you need my help? You are the Alpha."
"So he doesn't see it coming."
'Are you seriously trusting this bitch?' Nyx asks me
'No, but I want to see where she stands.'
Samara turns around in her cell, facing the back wall, likely talking to Dakota. Her hands come up to her temples, rubbing them. She slowly turns back to me, "If I do this...."
"I might give you a chance to live." I mutter
She mulls over my words, "Cooper is smart. He always has been. He just seems to be prepared for anything. Or maybe he designed it so that everything works in his favour. I don't know anymore. It seems like I was blind to everything." "You say that he is prepared, but will he be prepared for his sister to set him up?"
Her grey eyes hover on mine. "I don't know. He has always been in charge. But that was before and now I don't hear him."
"How long?"
"Since Dakota made an appearance." She pauses. "She says she is blocking him."
"Good."
'At least she has some sense.' Nyx mutters
"Can I ask you something?" Samara whispers. "Do you ever get used to hearing the voice in your head? Like the random sarcastic comments? Or the huffs they make when they don't like something." "No, never. Wait until Dakota starts humming, it's enough to drive anyone around the bend. I will be back later."
"Everything alright?" The guard asks me as he slams the door shut behind me.
"It will be."
"It's a shame about the packhouse." He mutters as I start walking away.
"At least no one was hurt." I smile at him and he just stares at me. Emerson was usually on guard duty at the gates, not here at the dungeons. "It's unusual to see you working here."
"I guess they felt like I needed a change." He shrugs his shoulders at me, but I could see flickers of annoyance. "I quite like keeping an eye on the bitch down there." He taps the dungeon door
'He gives me a bad feeling." Nyx mutters
'This is the one who has issues with Lycans.' I reply
"Do you ever go down there?" I ask Emerson
""Why would I?"
I shrug my shoulders. "Curiosity?"
"I'm not curious about those assholes." His eyes widen as he realises what he has just said. "I didn't mean you...I just, they... she is taking up space and resources."
'Digging his own grave, isn't he?' Nyx smirks as he stumbles over his words.
"Are we?" I ask. "Are we taking up your home? Are we letting you starve? Are we killing you off?"
"That's not what I was saying." He protests
"Then what is your problem?" I demand, stepping towards him. "Because this isn't the first time you have shared your dislike of my kind."
His hand moves to the blade in his belt, but I was quicker. My claws pierce his chest as a loud bang almost deafens me. A small hole appears to the side of Emerson's forehead followed by a trickle of blood. As he stumbles back, my claws retract from his chest and he falls to the ground.
I turn to see Klaus, his hand firmly gripped around Kades wrist. "Can't let the prick kill a pregnant woman, can I!
Chapter 0463
Just a little heads up. The previous chapter was supposed to end with Brax holding on to Kade. Not Klaus. My mistake and although I have corrected it. It will not reflect until my editor approves it.
Brax
Her blue eyes flicker from me to Kade and back.
"I saw the house." I gesture over my shoulder. "This little shit have something to do with it?"
She nods at me as Kade tries to peel my fingers from his boney wrist. "Let go!" He screeches at me, I just roll my eyes.
"You know I'm pregnant?" Neah asks with a frown.
I nod, "I can see your soul properly again." Kade tries to kick me in the balls. He had a nasty habit of doing that so I rip him off his feet. Letting him dangle in the air. His body swaying as he tries to escape. "That's why I left." I tell her. "I needed to find out what was happening to me. And now, the issue has been resolved."
She turns back to the dead Wolf. "I could have killed him."
"You could have, but that blade was a little too close to your belly for my liking."
She looks down at her top and frowns as she fingers the hole in the fabric.
"What do you want me to do with this one?" I purposely swing Kade through the air and he lets out a whimper instead of protesting.
Her eyes hover on the boy. She knew she had to punish him and yet, somehow, she felt sorry for him. Not something I was expecting to see.
"Dane is with Ryken." She murmurs. "Letting him know what his son did."
"Then we will go there." I point to the dead body. "I will deal with him after."
Dane answers the door to us. A deep growl rumbles through him as he locks eyes on Kade. "Bring him in."
"Where's my Dad?" Kade begs
"I'm right here." Ryken replies, as we move through the house to the kitchen. I spot Blair, peeping through a door that is barely open. It quietly closes the moment she spots me.
Dropping the little brat into a chair, his gaze immediately lowers as his eyes harden and he requests his mum.
"She isn't here right now, but she wants you to know that she is disgusted with your behaviour." Ryken tells him, though he refuses to look directly at his son. "You blew up the packhouse. You blew up the home of the pack that we were welcomed into. What the hell were you thinking?"
"He wasn't." Neah mutters. I glance over to her and she is rubbing dried blood off of her fingers.
"I'm sorry." Kade whispers. He wasn't, not a single ounce of him was sorry for what he had done. "Are you, Kade?" Dane asks
"Yes," Kade whimpers
"You can't stop lying, can you?" I ask as I sit up on the kitchen counter. "When I look at you, I see no truth. Just a ball of lies, where does it end and where does it begin? Because it's almost impossible to tell." There's a flash of anger in his brown eyes. He had his head lowered, but I still see it. "I suggest you start speaking the truth."
"Asshole." He mutters under his breath. His cockiness for his age was on another level
"KADE!" Ryken bellows at him
Kade folds his arms across his chest and huffs, slumping in the chair.
"What did Cooper want you to do?" I ask curiously.
He stares at me.
"Were you supposed to blow up the house with no one in it? Or was that a mistake that you made?"
He screws his face up, still refusing to look at me.
"Answer the question." Neah snaps. She was ordering him to talk
"He just said when the time was right, I would know."
"Was it the right time, or did you panic because you had been caught?" I press. My guess was he panicked. What would be the point of setting off a bomb or whatever it was if there was no one inside? "I....." His eyes move to Neah. "I'm not meant to say."
"Look around you, you little shit." I snarl. "Do you think you are leaving here without telling us?"
"To teach you a lesson." He blurts out and shakes his head making his blonde ringlets bounce. "He said to teach you a lesson. To show you that you don't have all the power." He starts crying. Finally, the fear was kicking in and all it had taken was a tiny little threat. I should have done it the day he upset my baby girl.
"Where were you going?" Neah asks him
"He said he would wait for me." Kade mutters through sniffles. "He wasn't there."
Chapter 0464
"You were going to run away from your family?" Ryken demands. "Did you even think about us? Did you even care what me and your mother would think?" "You said I'm just like Blair!" Kade snaps. I heard you and mum."
"You are wrong. We said we didn't want you to end up like your sister."
Kade shakes his head as Dane moves over to a very pale Neah. She looks close to throwing up, but I keep my mouth shut.
"Dane, Neah," Ryken mutters. "How do you wish to punish my son?"
"I have one more question." Neah frowns, bringing her hand to her mouth as she pauses to breathe deeply. "How was Cooper talking to you?"
"He came to my room." Kade whispers
"He was in my house?!" Ryken snaps
"Likely projection." Dane replies. "Not physically here."
"Only here?" Neah asks and Kade nods
"How many other kids has he been talking to, without anyone knowing?" Dane mutters in frustration.
"None." Kade pipes up. "He told me they weren't good enough."
"Kade, that is what bastards like him say." Ryken tells his son.
"He promised."
"People like that, make promises that don't mean anything." Dane tells the little shit. "He only wants you to do his dirty work for him. He doesn't care that you get in trouble."
"No. No. He said I was strong. That I was good. That I could do this. I'm his favourite."
"He doesn't see it." I tell the adults. "He doesn't see what was being done to him as wrong. You are not going to get through to him."
"Then what do you suggest?" Dane asks
"A few nights in the dungeon might do him some good."
"You want to put my kid in the dungeons?" Ryken scoffs
"It worked for your other kid."
"She is an adult. He is not."
"Let me guess, your idea is to bind him. Something that won't really affect him until he is actually old enough to gain his Lycan abilities? So by your thinking, we should punish him later for something he did now?" Ryken stares at me, his brows slowly knitting together in anger. "You can't put him in the dungeon. He is eight."
"Brax is right." Neah tells Ryken. "I know what it's like to be bound and honestly, I would rather have died. He will spend a few days in the dungeon and we will re-evaluate." She looks at Ryken. "No visitors."
He looks at his son, like properly looks at him for the first time since we walked in the house.
"Don't say it." Blair creeps out through the door that she had been peeking out of when we first arrived. "Don't say it Ryken, because he will never be the same."
"Go back to your room!" Ryken snaps.
"I'm just trying...."
"Room, this isn't your business." Blair retreats to her room as Ryken accepts Kade's punishment.
Dane pulls a protesting Kade to his feet and with a hand on his shoulder, directs him to the front door. Ryken doesn't say anything else, in fact he walks out of the room as Kade calls for him.
I follow Dane and Neah to the dungeons. The moment Samara catches sight of me, she takes a few steps back until she is pressed against the rear wall. Her eyes hover on me. Not out of fear, but anger. "Who is that?" She asks quietly. "Cooper got to him." Neah tells her as Dane locks Kade in a cell
"He's a kid." She mutters in disgust
"Not his style?" I ask
She steps forwards, her fingers curling around the bars as she frowns and shakes her head. "He doesn't like children."
I was almost surprised at how forward she is with her answer, but I see that she is telling the truth.
"Is this what he is doing now? Screwing up children?" She asks
"He did it to you." Neah comes to a stop next to me as she looks in at Samara. "And just like him, you couldn't see what he was doing was wrong."
"A part of me did. And I...I just let it happen. Maybe," she drops to a whisper. "I can help. I can talk to him. Am I allowed to tell him who I am?"
She glances over to where Dane is talking to Kade.
"Within reason." Neah mutters
"I understand."
Chapter 0465
Neah
"You left with Maddie and all that you left was a note." I stare at him. "You come back and you say that you have figured out what was wrong with you, but you haven't said what that is. Are you fixed Brax? Or are you going to deny it like everything else?" "Okay, I get it, you are pissed!"
'Understatement of the year!' Nyx rolls her eyes
"I went home. That's it. I went home hoping to find something and that brother of her's" He points at the dungeon door, "Projected himself into my home and held a fucking kitchen knife to Madison's throat. He somehow convinced her to inject something into me." "Maddie injected you?"
"At some point, yes. She doesn't know when. She doesn't even remember doing it." He pulls a tiny black ball from his pocket and holds it up to the light for me to see, "Like I said, it has been dealt with." ""What is it?"
"That is something I haven't figured out yet. There's nothing to it. It doesn't do anything as I hold it. Yet when it hit the tray, it sounded like metal. But when it was inside of me, it was draining me. It was making me weaker and weaker."
"Has she been forced to do that to others? What about her? Is that how she lost her abilities?"
He shakes his head at me. "I scanned her, there was nothing. Cooper is methodical."
'There has to be something.' Nyx murmurs. 'No one is perfect. Everyone slips at some point.'
"Are you sure Maddie is clean?" I ask
He nods at me. "He scares her. He makes her fidgety, nervous. She couldn't even hold a conversation with me without her eyes scanning the room. It has unsettled her of how easily he has manipulated her."
He looks me up and down. "Now are you going to tell me what you are planning?"
"I haven't figured it all out yet."
"Right." I could hear the scepticism in his tone. "But it has something to do with Samara, doesn't it?"
I don't respond.
"I will take that as a clear sign that you don't want to say anymore." I watch him strut away just as Dane appears next to me.
He doesn't speak, but his hand slips into mine and he tugs me in the direction of the forest.
"What happened with Emerson?" He asks when we are far enough in the trees that no one could see us. "I know you would have had a good reason."
"Where is the body?"
"Damien dealt with it. I saw the blood on your fingers and asked him to find out who it was and to clear it up before anyone notices."
"Emerson didn't want me here or any of the Lycans. He made it very clear."
"The hole in the tee is from him, right?" Dane queries
I glance down at my top. "His blade. Brax shot him."
"Okay." He sits on a fallen tree and reaches out for my hand. His brows dip as a small frown appears.
"Why did you bring me into the forest?"
"You need a moment. A moment you are not going to get while surrounded by other people."
"I'm fine...."
"I didn't say you're not. Sometimes, the peace and quiet is exactly what is needed for everything to make sense."
I sit on the tree next to him and feel my body relax. The last couple of days had just been filled with constant news and before there was really time to process one thing, something else was happening. I hadn't really had time to think about the new pregnancy either. "I need him dead." I mutter quietly. "I can't keep living like this."
"We will find a way." Dane replies. "There is always a way to take someone down."
"I want to try something," He waits for me to expand. "He has lost Samara. I see it when I look at her. She was slow to see it, but now she does. She was disgusted that Cooper went after Kade."
"You truly believe her?"
"Frustratingly, yes." I sigh, I wasn't sure how he was going to take it. "I want Klaus to take Samara to him. I think both of them are the key to helping me kill him."