Chapter 125

Terry had his arms around my sister. His lips were against her lips. Her hands were on his shoulders.

Holding him close? Pushing him away?

I didn’t know, but I couldn’t chance it. If he had been willing to drug and assault me, then who knew what atrocities could be happening here?

My mind went black. My vision burned at the edges. I barreled forward, grabbed Terry around his waist and ripped him away from sister.

Jane gasped.

Terry, surprised and off-guard, stumbled. I let him go and he dropped to the ground.

Then I grabbed Jane’s wrist and dragged her toward the tunnel. “Now’s our chance! We have to go!” I shouted to her.

But then she started laughing and my whole world stopped.

“Piper, you’ve always been the most gullible idiot,” Jane said. Her lips were twisted in a cruel smile. Her eyes gleamed with vicious humor. Venom dripped from her words. “Did you really think I needed a rescue? From Terry?”

She laughed again, hard and loud. Terry chuckled as he rose from the ground behind us.

“Terry is my lover, Piper,” Jane said.

“No. That can’t be true.” I shook my head again and again. “You’re just drugged or, or –”

“Or what? Is it so hard to believe I would be here of my own free will?”

It was.

I had always suspected she might enjoy being tangled in the web, but deep down I’d hoped she would return to me and tell me this was all just a tragic mistake. I watched now as that dream crumbled before my eyes.

I was afraid to ask more questions. I knew the knife in my heart would only dig deeper.

But if I was going to know some of her treachery, then should know all.

“Why do you have my wolf?”

She shrugged like it was no big deal. Like she hadn’t stolen such a big part of my life away.

“I wanted it,” she said. Simple as that.

No great plan. No big deal. She wanted it, so she got it. Even if that meant she had to rip that power out of her sister. Me.

Jane wasn’t the victim here. Or, if she was, she was totally brainwashed, maybe beyond the point of being saved.

I had just one more question. “Why would get involved with the underground organization again? After everything they did? After everything I went through to get you out of it?”

Jane’s laugh turned bitter. “Oh, great hero. Give me a break. You think you did so much to save me? You served your purpose, Piper. You gave up your power, and got that brat out of my hair.”

Brat? Surely she couldn’t mean Elva!

“And why would I go back?” Jane clucked her tongue. “Dear, sweet sister. I never left.”

Suddenly, that was it. My whole perception of her shifted. The person I wanted her to be and the person she was were irrevocably different. And there was no going back.

When we were kids, we had been attached at the hip. We did everything together. We knew each other so well, we could finish each other’s sentences.

Now when I looked at her, I saw a stranger.

The shadows seemed to move around me. I didn’t notice, I’d been so locked on my sister. But now as I glanced around, I saw that more members of the underground had entered the room. A half-dozen at least, for what I could tell.

Terry walked around me, returning to Jane’s side.

Nicholas and Julian must have still been in the tunnel, watching and waiting for an opening. I would never believe they would abandon me here.

But to reveal themselves too soon would eliminate all opportunities for surprise. In training, Nicholas had taught me how vital that was.

“I wasn’t expecting you tonight, Piper,” Terry said. “But I will never turn down a gift when it arrives so prettily on my doorstep. Or in my dungeon, as this case seems to be.”

Terry motioned to the men around him, and they began to come closer.

With a growl, Nicholas, in full wolf form, pounced from the dark of the tunnel and tackled two of the men closest to me at once.

I had never seen him in his wolf form before, but I knew at once it was him. The dark brown fur was the same color as his hair, and those golden eyes flecked with green were unmistakable. As was his fierce protection of me.

With two men out, that still left four on their feet, as well as Terry and Jane. In the distance, I spotted Julian, sneaking behind every one. Footsteps were coming closer through the hallways. Backup, maybe. Julian closed and locked the door with a deft and silent hand.

No one noticed at all until some of the men outside began pounding on the door to get in.

“Julian!” Terry snapped.

Julian shrugged. “You didn’t think we’d let her come alone, did you?”

“Then this must be Nicholas,” Terry said, gesturing wildly at Nicholas’s wolf form.

Nicholas moved directly in front of me, growling lowly.

“Don’t just stand there, get them!” Terry urged the four men still standing. “Isn’t that what you are here for? To do as I command?”

The men seemed uncertain for a moment, glancing at each other. But then, they all nodded, one after the next.

One unsheathed a knife, and lunged for Nicholas. Nicholas pounced, meeting him halfway. He closed his jaws around the man’s wrist and wrenched the knife away. It clattered across the ground near Jane’s feet.

Jane leaned down and scooped it up. Then she darted forward at a fast pace. I was worried that she was going for Nicholas, so I moved as well, to intercept. I realized too late, she was actually coming for me.

She slammed me up against the barred walls of one of the cages and held the knife to my throat.

I could have fought against her. Nicholas and I hadn’t trained for this exact situation, but some of the moves he showed me would have surely helped. If my life was at stake, he wanted me to play dirty.

Yet, even as angry and heartbroken as I was over my sister’s betrayal, when I looked at her, I saw that pig-tailed girl with the gap between her teeth from my youth.

She was an enemy. She wanted to hurt me.

But I couldn’t raise my hand against my twin sister.

“You are weak, Piper. You’ve always been weak. Undeserving of the strong wolf you carried,” Jane said with a snarl.

Behind her, Nicholas fought off two more men. Julian knocked out a third, with a swift unsuspecting strike to the back of his head.

“Do you have any idea what it felt like, to constantly be in your shadow? To watch you receive opportunity after opportunity simply because your wolf was stronger?” Jane’s voice was tightening, raising. Her hand holding the knife trembled. “You didn’t deserve it! None of it!”

I watched her in shock. All those years, she’d only ever seemed happy for me. “You can’t mean this…”

“Can’t I? I got my vengeance. I destroyed your life once. I’ll be damned before I let you crawl your way back to the top.”

Jane pressed the knife to my throat. I pressed as far back against the cell as I could.

“You are nothing,” Jane said. “I will take everything from you once again.”

“W-why?” I asked, barely able to find my voice.

She dipped her face down, and peered up at me from under her brow. Like this, she looked menacing and evil. Nothing like the girl I knew and loved.

Coldly, she said, “Because I want to.”