Ch. 556..560: The Alpha Contract Chapter 556-560
Chapter 0556
He follows me in through the small gate. I lead him straight to Raven. "Your sister." I murmur. "My first mate as a Lycan." I gesture to the headstone next to hers. It had no name and was merely here because he was a Black." Jenson, your brother, Raven's twin."
He listens carefully as I tell him everything that happened to them. How she died for Jenson and how he took over her mind and killed her a second time.
"That's impossible."
"And yet we watched it happen. Then I watched her die." I stare at Raven's grave. "There are things that are happening and we have no control over it. Things that seem to exist outside of what we know. And when you see and deal with a lot of unexpected shit, it makes you look at the bigger picture, it makes you look deeper. If things don't add up, it's likely because there is something else going on."
"I couldn't save Raven and she was my mate. I knew she was struggling but I didn't know how bad it was. She kept that to herself, her Wolf blacked her off from me. She gave her life up for her brother. Her love for him was stronger than what it ever was for me."
"Are you trying to compare yourself and Raven to me and Thalia?" He splutters
"No of course not. I'm trying to help you understand Danes point."
He frowns and walks by me. Moving to the graves of his parents. "He called you his brother."
"I am by oath." I reply
"Why you?"
"You would have to ask him that. He asked, I accepted. Him and Neah are my family. Black Shadow is a family." don't mention that the weak were weeded out.
"He had another brother. He could have come to find me." He suggests
"He could have, yes." I agree. "But you have to remember that he didn't know where you were and he thought you had been given to a family member. Not to a Kitson."
*Technically it wasn't a Kitson but Serkan ended up raising me in the end. If I can even call it that."
*How did you learn of Dane?" I ask.
He still hadn't made it clear even when Dottie was pestering him. She hadn't given him a sticker yet, but she also hadn't stressed out about him. I think she was still trying to figure him out.
"I was told when I was younger. Not much, but when I saw Neah at the restaurant and who she was with and how much we looked alike, well, it wasn't hard to put it together."
'And you only introduced yourself to Neah?"
"Yes. She looked at him as though he was her saviour."
I knew the look well. I could count on one hand how many times she had been angry with him. Their
understanding of each other was on a different level.
*Thalia ever look at you like that?" I ask curiously.
"No."
"Okay, so I want you to really think about the next question I'm going to ask."
"She's not bad." He mutters. I wish that everyone would stop assuming she is."
I hold a finger up. "Just one question."
"Fine."
*You were certain that Thalia was going to be killed along with your son. Either if you returned or not, her fate was sealed. That's what you said. Serkan has made an appearance, they thought Dane was you and that he had managed to kidnap Neah."
"Yes."
"It's been a little over a week and Thalia is still alive, what does that tell you?"
"That he hasn't had her killed."
"Now what reason would he have to let her live?"
He frowns at me. "That is more than one question. But I expect it's to lure me back."
*Or?" I felt like I was trying to get a child to solve a problem. Even Dottie could figure this out. *She got away."
I was so close to smacking him across the head. "She's refusing to talk to you Silas."
"You sound just like Dane." He snaps
"Brax spoke to her." I tell him as he frowns at me. "I'm one of his Beta's, of course Dane told me. The woman you call mate, walked across water. She attacked Brax with fire balls. I don't know what else I can say to you to make you see the truth." I stare at him, "You don't want to believe that it's a possibility, do you?"
He lowers his gaze. "If I believe you and all the others, that means she killed my son and I can't... I won't accept that. She would never do that!"
*Jarret, was he like you or her? Was he a Witch, a Wolf or something in between?"
His shoulders drop "A Wolf and Quinn is like her." His eyes become glazed as they are coated in tears. "Even if I was to consider that what you are saying is true, how can anyone be so cruel?"
Chapter 0557
Brax
I watch all day. As expected, no one else goes in and not a single soul comes out. Music continues to play as the sun sets. Until about ten at night there is still noise, then silence sweeps the area, as if everyone had just suddenly dropped dead at the click of fingers. All that could be heard was the rushing water of the river crashing down over the cliff.
There was nowhere for me to hide here. Anyone could see me, I was an open target, yet no one had tried anything. I was a little disappointed. I didn't come here to sit on my ass all day.
Stepping up to the river, I strip off. My bones start to snap and change position as I drop down to all fours. It had been a while since I had shifted and it felt so fucking good. I was also a better swimmer as a Wolf and I do not intend on getting sent over the cliff.
The water is cold and much deeper than I expected. The river bed quickly falls away beneath my feet and it's a battle to keep my snout above the water as the under current pulls me.
Swimming is hard. Almost like the water is turning into thick sludge. Every drive forward does nothing and it easily carries me in the direction of the waterfall. I fought to swim against the flow, knowing that if I did nothing, my time was up and I would never see Dorothy or Madison ever again.
Halfway across I pick up a new scent.
A rope is thrown to me. And golden eyes flash from under a large hood. "Grab the rope, quick."
Biting on the rope, the woman starts to pull me in, dragging me through the water. The flow seems to be growing faster by the second. I finally manage to touch the river bank, dragging my wet ass out. The woman falls back on the ground. Her breath heavy, her chest overreacting to the work as she lets go of the rope. "What the hell were you doing?" She snaps
I shift back to my Human form, "Clearly I'm out for a late night swim!"
As she sits up, her hood falls back revealing a bob of whiter than white hair, but she looked no older than twenty. She hastily pulls the hood up, tucking in any loose strands and looks away.
"You must be mad to swim in that at any time. You could have died." She scratches her head. "I haven't seen you before. You are not from here, are you?"
"No. But I assume you are from White Cliffs?" I ask, trying hard to keep my sarcasm to a minimum.
She frantically nods but looks puzzled, "You can see the castle? The walls? The metal gate?" She sounds excited. *Like actually see it? With your eyes?"
"Yes, stupid white roofs and all. I've been watching all day, how did you get out?"
"I can't say." She tells me. Turning over onto her stomach, she crawls across the ground away from me.
"Where are you going?"
"I can't talk to you while your dick is hanging out." She moves towards the cliff and lies on her stomach as she reaches over the edge with both her arms and suddenly flips over, disappearing from sight.
My heart is in my throat. Did she just save me and then kill herself?
Her head pops up a few seconds later. "Are you coming?"
Every instinct told me not to follow her, but her soul was different, not a hint of a dark side. Bright, full of excitement.
I creep towards the cliff edge a few metres away from the river. For a moment I watch the water crash down below. It was mesmerising and I knew it would be something Maddie would like. She loved nature
"Hello?" I call out
"Put your arms out." She replies. I couldn't see her but I could scent her.
"Why?"
*Just do it. I swear, you will be fine."
This was fucking nuts.
I flatten myself to the ground, stretching my arms out above my head. Large hands wrap around my wrists, ripping me forward and around until I'm sitting on my ass in some sort of cave with a man staring at me as the woman throws me some shorts.
Being pulled over a cliff was not what I had in mind.
"Put them on." She demands
"Who are you?"
She glances at her male friend who nods.
"I'm Indy." She mutters
"Brax. You're a Witch?"
"Half. I prefer my Wolf half. I'm useless at most of the other stuff."
"Do you know Silas?" I ask
She pauses to stare at me. Her golden eyes like saucers. "Yes. You know Silas?"
"Yes. He is why I'm here."
A smile spreads across her face. "Is he okay? Is he safe? Has he got away from Thalia? He must have, she is here and he is..."
*Somewhere else." I mutter
"But he is okay?"
"You wanted him to get away?" I press
She bobs her head. "This place, it's cursed. Do you know how long I have been waiting for an outsider to see it for what it is? You are the first in a decade."
The guy nods in agreement
"You will have to excuse my friend. He had his tongue ripped out by Thalia a few years back. He goes by the name Orion but he can't speak. He links me" She gives him a smile and he smiles back.
"If you dislike it here. Why haven't you left?" I quiz
"The river. We can't get past it."
"What are you talking about? I was just in it."
Chapter 0558
"And you are lucky." She folds her arms up and sits on a rock. "Thalia comes and goes as she pleases, just like Serkan. They can cross it no problem, but anyone else." She shakes her head. "We will meet death unless we have permission. You are the first that has tried to get across and the only one that has been successful. I don't know how, but you are lucky and even luckier that I came out when I did. That river, it speeds up at night. The water becomes your enemy. Going faster and faste until it's a blur. Look if you don't believe me."
I nod my head glancing at the water, "I see that."
"Can you help us?" She asks. "Can you help us get away from this place?"
"If you tell me what this place is and how I can get in. I might consider it."
"Why would you want to get in?" She frowns in confusion. "I mean Thalia is why you are here, right? But you can just leave. Just walk away." She lowers her hood. "People don't get to leave here. Silas.... this was a chance for him, though he didn't know it and I am so happy he is alive."
"I came to get Silas's son."
Orion straightens his spine as Indy looks at him, her eyebrows knitting together. "It didn't break."
"Are you talking about her spell?" I ask
She nods her head at me. "There is no easy way to say this. Silas doesn't have a son. He never has."
I drop the shorts before I finish pulling them on. "What are you talking about?"
She closes her eyes as I roll mine and yank the shorts up.
*What do you mean Silas doesn't have a son? He has twins, one died."
"No. It's a spell. I've been trying to break it for a few years. To bring him back. She has made him see things that just aren't there."
"Scars?"
She bobs her head.
"A house fire, the death of a child?"
"Yes. All of it." She looks heartbroken and her soul flickers like mad as she talks about him.
*Shit. She's not his mate. You are."
A single tear trickles down her face as she nods and Orion pulls her in for a hug.
"If they were sleeping together, it would have killed you."
Indy shakes her head, "Serkan didn't like that Silas and I were fated and wanted it stopped. Everything about his life with her is in his head, none of it is real. She doesn't let him touch her. She just needs him for something. I don't know what. I do know that he didn't return after the latest run. I heard rumours that he was going after someone special, but I didn't know who. The delay in him returning has sent Thalia into overdrive. She is angry. More people are getting hurt each day. I thought if he was away, it would break the spell. He would remember his life with me."
"Has she hurt you?" I press
"Not yet, but I know it's coming. I just need to get across that river, find Silas and we can be free."
"What about Serkan?" Not a single word out of her mouth was a lie. She is the most truthful person that I have
ever come across.
"He is more of a nut job than Thalia. The two of them together. No one inside those gates can think for
themselves."
"Accept you and Orion?"
"I figured out how to put a protection spell on us when things started changing. It's about the only Witchy thing I have managed. We just have to play along when we are inside, that's all."
"When did things start changing?"
"Maybe three ish years ago. Everything has always been hidden for as long as I can remember, but things started going south in the last few years. Something changed and I don't know what it is."
I frown as I guess that it would have been around the time Neah got her abilities unbound. "Well you are here, so how did you get out?"
Orion points down to the back of the cave.
*There is a tunnel. Orion and I have been working on it for some time."
"And this takes you inside the walls?" I ask, looking down into the pitch blackness. Even with my heightened sight, not everything was clear
"Yes."
"Show me."
She nods and makes her way into the darkness. She pulls something from her back pocket. As the flame appears, I see that it's a cigarette lighter. She holds the flame over a torch. The ball of fire quickly igniting.
"I know you won't tell me anything, but please can you just tell me if he is okay." Her golden eyes plead with me.
"He is okay." I confirm and she lets out a sigh of relief. "Though I don't know how he is going to handle the news that his children never existed. But I will tell you this, he has mentioned you. Not by name, he referred to you as a teenager that won't accept their Witch side."
She gives me a small smile and her soul lights up again. "He never did like how I shut away one side of me. But I am not a teenager. I'm twenty five."
*Speaking of you means you are in his head somewhere even if you are buried deep below the surface."
"Do you really think so?"
I nod. "Now I need you to help me knock the wicked witch off of her perch."
Chapter 0559
Neah
It's always dark. No matter how much I try, there is not even a slither of light. I want to move, but I can't.
Everything hurts yet I can't complain to anyone but Nyx. She doesn't know what's wrong with us either, and apart from calling me an incubator, she is no help.
I hear the others as they come to visit me. Whispers rattling around the room. Some were scared about the state am in, others were hard to read.
Dane is and will always be my favourite. His voice is calming, his presence momentarily takes away my pain. He had only brought the boys to see me once. I didn't blame him, I probably looked like I was dead.
I knew it had to be something to do with my pregnancy. I heard what Mallory told Dane. I wondered if she was right. Maybe the years of abuse hadn't allowed me to develop properly. Or maybe it really was Hybrids that I was carrying.
Twin girls that hovered somewhere in between a Lycan and a Wolf, but then that were true, why were other half breeds not considered Hybrids?
Lying in the darkness had questions fading in and out of my mind. I was alive yet somehow I am trapped in my own body.
'It could be worse.' Nyx sighs. 'We could be dead."
'I just want my eyes to open.' I murmur back. I just want them to know that I can hear them.'
I keep trying to lift my eyelids, to just show a hint of my blue eyes to whoever was in the room. The pitch black doesn't change and I let out a sigh.
The door to my room opens and Damien's scent invades the space. His footsteps move towards me along with the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor. If I could move, I would be wincing at the sound. Maybe that's why he was doing it, because he knew it irritated me. He sits down next to me with a sigh.
"I need you to wake up Neah. I need some advice and Mallory still has her head up her butt."
I wanted to scream at him, to tell him that I could hear every word, that the only thing wrong with me was that I was trapped in some sort of paralysis.
"I've talked to Silas, he is confused. I don't know if it is a spell or just pure denial. I've tried to help him make sense. We've gone over it hypothetically but... I don't know if we will be able to help him."
Dane had spoken about Silas. About how Thalia was tricking him. That Brax had found out much more than we expected. We knew she was a Witch. Silas had already told us, and from what I understood, Thalia did the same thing to him as what Cooper did to everyone else. It made sense. Cooper was doing work for Serkan so why not Thalia.
"But that isn't why I am here." He mumbles. I didn't need to have my eyes open to know he was frowning. Mallory had called it his resting bitch face. "I have tried to mark Samara several times, each time, Dane interrupts and it pisses me off. Samara has been okay with it, to a point which I'm really surprised about. But is it divine intervention? Could the higher powers that Brax speaks of, be stopping me?"
He snorts. "Actually, I know what you would say. You would tell me to screw the higher powers and do what makes me happy."
He is right, I would. I had watched him fall for Samara, I was slowly getting used to her but it wouldn't stop me telling him who he should or shouldn't be with.
His warm hands wrap around mine. "Enough about me. You need to wake up. I don't know if anyone has told you, but you look like you are going to give birth any day now."
Mallory had told Dane the same. I had also heard the nurses mention it. Has my bump really grown that much?
'I'm sure he is exaggerating.' Nyx sighs
They all keep saying it."
"I do think the others might be onto something." Damien continues. "The extra scents that you carry flicker between Wolf and Lycan. Maybe you are carrying the unexpected. Something that is neither Dane or you. Something that combines both of you." He half laughs. "And it would be your children wouldn't it?"
'What is that supposed to mean?' Nyx scoffs
'I think it is his way of telling us that drama follows us everywhere."
A steady growing ache makes its way through my hips. I knew what was happening. I had felt it before with the boys. My waters break, but I couldn't speak to tell Damien.
'It's happening!' Nyx murmurs
*Something has changed." I hear Damien mutter as my insides contract. The chair legs scrape the floor as it's pushed back. I feel the blanket as it's dragged off of me. "Shit your waters have broken. This can't be happening now. BETH!" He yells out to the nurse.
Chapter 0560
Internally I scream, unlike with the boys, it felt as though these girls were trying to claw their way out of me.
Something inside me splits and a scream leaves my throat as my eyes fly open. Damien stares at me in shock, but he grabs my hand telling me Dane is coming.
"You are in labour." He tells me.
I didn't want to believe him but my bump was huge, it had easily doubled in size since I had blacked out.
Tears burn my face as I squeeze Damien's hand. I hear cracks, but Damien doesn't make a sound and when I glance at his hand, I see how crushed it is between my fingers, and also how my claws had pierced his hand.
"I'm sorry." I cry, I didn't mean for it to happen.
*Keep going!" He tells me as blood drips from his hand to the floor. "I can heal."
The girls come quickly, one after the other with no problems. Dane crashes in through the door, just as both girls are placed in my arms. His crimson eyes move between the girls and me, "You're awake? I missed it!"
"It seems like labour will bring anyone out of a deep sleep." Damien mutters, flexing his hand as his fingers realign and the wounds heal. "And now you are here, I will leave you to it."
He heads towards the door. "Damien, do it now." I tell him
He looks over his shoulder, then slowly turns to face me. "You heard what I said?"
"Everything." I offer him a smile. "You won't be interrupted. I promise"
He nods. "I will come back later to check on my nieces. Stay awake."
As Damien leaves, Dane leans over me and kisses me on the top of my head. "I'm sorry I wasn't here."
"I had the next best thing."
Looking down at the girls, they are just like Logan and Evrin. One has crimson eyes, the other has blue eyes. They had come along so quickly that we hadn't even discussed names.
"There's time for that." Dane tells me. "Are you okay? It's so good to be able to listen to your mind again."
"A little confused, but I'm okay." I stare at the girls, they were tiny, but I was certain they had been trying to dig their way out of me.
"Mallory said she thinks..."
"I know, I heard. And I think she is right. I'm done Dane. No more. I want to be here for the pups we have. Not die because my insides can't cope."
He presses his lips to mine. "I agree, I'm not willing to lose you for the sake of growing my family."
He takes the twins, cradling one in each arm as the nurse checks me over. Apart from a few questions, they give me the all clear, though they want me to stay in for the night just to be sure.
"I don't know what happened? I just remember going to bed." I whisper. I had tried to make sense of it. I was tired. I briefly remember Dane joining me in bed and then nothing but darkness.
"And you didn't wake up again." He sighs. "A little over a week you have been in the hospital."
"Oh." Time operates differently when all you see is darkness. I didn't sleep, I was just trapped by my own body. I had effectively shut down to allow the twins to develop through their final stage. "Are the boys okay?"
*Evrin has had a few bad days, but otherwise, they are both good. Shall I ask Damien to go get them." "No no, ask Eric."
He cocks an eyebrow at me as the girls start fussing.
"You keep interrupting Damien when he wants to mark Samara."
He shakes his head, "He hasn't said anything."
"He shouldn't have to."
"I will link Eric." He winks at me.
Ten minutes later, amid the discussion of names. Eric and Mallory appear with Luca, Evrin and Logan.
"Up up up!" Evrin demands while holding his arms up. Dane lifts him on the bed followed by Logan.
They sit quietly, staring at the girls, unsure of what to make of them. I was curious to know if there was a sibling bond in place between them already.
Eventually the boys crawl up next to me, trying to get on my lap with the girls.
*Boys, these are your sisters." Dane tells them. "You must always look after them."
Evrin lies down next to them, his head partially propped on my belly as he watches. Logan had already lost interest and was trying to fling himself off the bed at Eric. Again it was as if Evrin was far more aware of what we were saying. I couldn't put my finger on it, but he seemed to be more in tune with everything.
"Congratulations." Mallory smiles at us as she turns Luca around to see the twins. "Do you have names?"
"Aderyn has blue eyes." I smile, "And Willa has crimson eyes."