Chapter 54

Helen POV

“You missed a spot,” Scott purred, kissing my bare, bruised back as I hunched over to scrub the tile floors. He stepped over me like I’m a bug he would prefer to squish. “If you behave tonight, maybe I’ll let you sleep in bed with me.”

“Never,” I hissed, throwing the sopping wet sponge at his back.

He stopped walking away and turned with a raised brow. “Oh, so you want to keep being punished?”

“It’s better than being with you,” I barked. “You cannot keep me here forever, Scott. I will make it back to my mate.”

“I am your mate!”

“You will never be my mate again!”

I stood, fighting the chains on my wrists and my legs, hating how Scott treats me like my Lycan mate is being treated by his father. He wants to humiliate me into submission. It will never work.

“You want some perfect coated white wolf but you will never really be my mate! I will never be your Luna and I will never submit to you!” I lock my jaw, speaking with so much hate I don’t recognize my own voice. “I am glad you rejected me before. It was the best thing you ever did for me!”

Scott glowered at my claim. He chose my sister for her perfect coat but now that I’m more pure than her, and she is now mysteriously dead, he wants to pretend none of that ever happened.

I know it happened. I know my mate is Justin, I just hope he can hold out until we are back together again.

“You’re mad, so I will let your disobedience slide for now,” he snarled.

“You’re a coward,” I snapped back, pulling for his anger. If he takes these chains from me, it’s going to be over with. I will kill Scott. “You won’t even face Justin like an Alpha would. You’re weak!”

“Why you little—”

A knock on the door stopped Scott from charging forward, and I sulked at the interruption. For once, I want to fight this monster. I want to make him bleed. I want Justin.

Scott let the Alpha King into the room at my parent’s home, Juden looking at the pathetic sight of me naked, in chains, baring marks here and there from Scott’s attempt to make me submit to him.

“It’s the full moon tonight,” Juden tells Scott, both of them looking to me. “I have everything set up for the event tonight. All packs will be in attendance.”

“He isn’t going to mate with her,” Scott burned in warning. “How can you be sure of that?”

“We will make sure he is focused on his rage, on his Lycan’s lose of control, so everyone will see just how terrible he is,” Juden said, as though not even speaking like Justin’s father. “Then I will swoop in and save the day, restoring power to my title.”

I scoffed at their pathetic plan. “I hope he kills you both!”

I spit at Scott as he charged froward, Juden stopping my first fated mate in his tracks.

“Easy, Scott. We will have plenty of time to discipline her for those words,” Juden said. He looked at me with a hint of hierarchy. He truly does think he is the most powerful wolf in the world.

“Justin is the most powerful creature in the world. His Lycan has fulfilled his pique of strength, and that means he will always be better than your silly, false title as Alpha King.” I stood with my words.

Juden chuckled aimlessly. “Is that so? Tonight I will live stream a tirade of my son on the mortal world. He will kill, he will destroy, and he will do what he does best on a full moon.”

I swallowed with his claim. Justin could very well do that.

“But they will also see me, singlehandedly, defeat his Lycan. So every wolf out there can see that even the most powerful of our kind fall at my will. You’re going to help me do that, too.”

Scott grinned with pride. “He will break tonight. Just like how he crumbled on the wizards territory, watching you and I make love in the woods.”

My throat caught with his words but I still squeaked out, “we never did anything like that.”

“That’s not what he saw,” Juden said with a shrug. “He watched a pretty little scene of his fated mate betraying him with her first mate. It was easy to tackle him for the moment and sedate him long enough to return to Lone Wolf Estate.”

I growled, wanting to charge them both but the chains yanked against the wall where they were bolted. I fought them until my wrists and ankles bled in new blisters but I didn’t care.

“How could you do this to your own son?! You’re a greedy pig!”

Juden took a lengthy step forward, just out of reach of my nails that turned into claws. “He will live a miserable life in my dungeon, only useful as a pawn to let every single wolf in the world know I am the most powerful creature alive.”

I begged to bite at him, to get one good mark in, but he and Scott only laughed at my attempts.

“Cut her loose, Scott. We need to get her ready for the event tonight.”

“What are you going to use me for?”

“You will fuel his rage, of course.”

“He knows I would never betray him; he knows that I don’t want Scott and that what you showed him before wasn’t real,” I said, sure of that above all else.

Juden grinned wide. “Yeah, I’m sure he realizes all of that, little wolf, but when he sees you in the street, your body covered in blood and drenched in Scott’s scent—it will be just enough to push his Lycan into a typical full moon frenzy.”

For the first time in this conversation, I backed up in concern.

“Bl—blood? So you’re going to—”

Scott cut in before I could say much else, his fist finding my temple and sending me to the floor. I passed out before I felt the impact of my body hitting the floor.

Peace, no matter the cruelty of it, had come at last.

I only woke up when the claws had been halfway dragging down my bare back. I screamed alive, flailing around the small, confined space where hands roamed all over my naked body.

Joy had wanted to take over and fight, but I couldn’t even determine where I was at, let alone how I got here and where I’m going.

Everything was too jumbled in the moment to catch my breath, my body thrown from a moving car and left in the dark, streetlamp light of the street. I watched the dark car speed off into the night, leaving me bloody and half-dead on the warm concrete.

Looking around a little, I can only see a few business closed and some homes in the distance with unlit porches. The mortal world is in a steady slumber, everything so still and silent and calm.

“Justin,” I breathed, my wrists and ankles free of chains but I was too battered to sit up. I may as well have been left in chains. “Justin!”

A small red light caught my attention, beeping on and off on a nearby electric pole. Squinting at the flickering red light, I can make out a curved top of a camera, pointed at the far end of the street.

I followed its direction, a tall beast of a silhouette on the horizon.

“Oh, no. It’s too late.”