Chapter 34

Zara

I was not going to wait around for the Alpha twins to decide what to do with me. I wasn't hanging around until the full moon, either. I knew better than to trust that they'd keep their new bargain, any more than they'd kept the original one.

Lucian and Kieran had no intention of ever letting me go free. Even if they found their fated mate, which they wouldn't, they wouldn't let me go. I knew that. I felt it deep in my bones. My wolf agreed. She just didn't mind as much as I did.

I paced around my cell before dropping to do some push ups, sit ups, and stretches. I needed to stay active. I had to keep focused. If I didn't, I'd just stare into the darkness.

I wasn't sure whether the twins were telling the truth about the power. Why bother to lie? They could lock me away in the dark if they wanted to. They didn't have to justify themselves or make up excuses.

I needed a plan. I had to get away. Because sooner or later, probably sooner, Lucian and Kieran would figure out that I was their fated mate. I'd taken too many risks already.

I had to escape before the full moon. If I hadn't lost count, I had two days. I could do it. I'd memorized the guards' schedules. I knew who'd be bringing my meals.

I'd have to convince one of them to open the door wider, just for a moment. Then I'd have to force my way past them.

It wouldn't be easy, but I was confident I could do it. Early in the morning, with my meal, would be the best time. Supposedly there'd be three meals but I wasn't counting on that.

I slept restlessly, my dreams full of howling wolves and blood. I wondered if that was what it felt like for Kieran. I didn't let myself care. He would use me to stop the screams, and it would kill me.

I would find a way to help them once I was free. There had to be a way to keep my life and their sanity. There had to be. But I wasn't finding it trapped in this tiny cell.

My first attempt was foiled the next morning, because my usual guard didn't bring my food alone. My sister was with him.

“Hello, Zara,” Chloe simpered. She placed my food tray down next to the door.

“Chloe?” I stared at her as she flounced into my cell. “What are you doing here?”

“I bribed the guard to let me visit you. We're sisters, after all. I'm sure you won't tell the Alphas. They'd punish the poor boy terribly if you did.”

I shrugged. I didn't really want to talk to Chloe, no, but I wasn't going to rat out the guard, either.

“As if they'd bother to talk to you anyway,” Chloe snorted.

The Alphas definitely talked to me more than they did to her. As far as I could tell they didn't even know her name. She was just another she-wolf who wasn't their fated mate.

I didn't bother informing her of that little fact. It would just start an argument and I was too groggy and hungry to bother with that.

“What do you want, Chloe?” I asked.

“Just to talk, Zara,” Chloe said. “Aren't you lonely in here all alone?”

I shrugged. “I'm kind of used to solitude,” I said. “It's restful.”

“You are such a freak,” Chloe said. “No wonder Adrian rejected you.”

I sighed. “Are you still rubbing my nose in that?” I asked.

“Don't pretend like you don't care,” Chloe said.

“I don't, not anymore,” I said. “Adrian made his choice. And that choice got him banished. And you didn't even care enough to go with him.”

“Like you would have gone!” Chloe scoffed.

“I would have,” I said. “I'd have been glad to go.”

“Right, you tried to leave the pack back then,” Chloe mused. “You really meant it? You weren't just, I don't know, upset?”

“I would love nothing more than to leave this place,” I said with brutal honesty.

“But we're pack. You'd be alone. You'd have no one. No mate, no Alpha, no one.”

“What kind of pack to I have now? My fated mate left me for my dear little sister. My father is dead and he stood by you when you stole my mate on my wedding day. Seriously, you had to do that then? You couldn't have convinced him to reject me, oh, I don't know, any time before then? You had to humiliate me in front of everyone?”

“Why not? You constantly humiliated me!” Chloe shouted.

“How did I do that?” I asked, honestly puzzled.

“You just had to be so good at everything! You showed me up every chance you got. Everyone looked at me and wondered why I lost to a damn hybrid!” Chloe shouted.

“I was never competing with you,” I protested.

That was the truth. I never thought about outdoing my sister. I was just trying to keep up with the pack. I had to prove myself constantly, or I'd be left even more of an outsider than I always was.

“Yes you were! And the one time I won, you stormed off like a toddler!”

I stared at her. “You had everything,” I said. “You were our father's darling. You had a mother. I don't even know my mother's name!”

“Oh, poor baby! It's not my fault some human abandoned you with my father. And he took you in and raised you like you were one of us! He should have thrown you to the Rogues.”

I sighed. “Maybe he should have.”

“Well, now you will be banished,” Chloe said smugly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You tried to poison the Alphas,” Chloe said. “Everyone knows it. If you're not executed, you'll be banished. You get your wish.”

I frowned. The Alpha Twins had told the pack what they thought I'd done? That didn't sound right. And if they really thought I'd tried to kill them, why had they made a new bargain with me?

No, banishing me was not a part of their plans. I was sure about that. Which meant Chloe was lying.

If she was lying about my banishment, was she lying about the whole pack knowing? Probably. But why?

“I didn't try to poison anyone,” I protested, just like she expected. I watched the triumphant gleam flare in her eyes, and I was sure.

“You'll never be able to prove it,” Chloe said. “Especially when they find that little vial in your belongings. Tucked into your sock drawer, of all places.”

I stared at her. She didn't know that Lucian had taken me straight from the bathroom to the healers, and then kept me under close supervision ever since. I hadn't been near my own sock drawer in days. If the vial was found there, the Alphas would know it was planted.

And I knew who planted it. Who actually tried to poison Kieran and Lucian.

My own sister.

I knew she hated me. She always had. She'd always been jealous, even though I didn't understand why. I was the hybrid no one cared about. She was basically the wolf princess, the Alpha's daughter who everyone loved and adored.

“What would you have done if it worked?” I asked. “If the poison killed them?”

“Oh, I didn't use enough on them to do any harm. I just had to make it look like you tried.” She smirked. “And it worked, didn't it? I wish I'd seen their faces.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because no one will believe you,” she said. “And I want you to know that I won. I finally beat you for good.”

She turned on her heel and left.

I didn't eat the food she left behind.