Chapter 71

Helen POV

Scott was wildly outnumbered, but that didn’t stop him. He shifted through the clearing and sprinted toward the pack. Some of them met Scott in wolfen form while others hung back, Marth moving to my side as she watched on in horror.

I stayed behind my mate’s back. Justin wouldn’t let Scott near me again. I wanted to fight him but after the curse he stabbed into my spine, I was too afraid of going through anything like that again.

The wolves of True Mates had stopped him before he made it into town square, biting and nipping at his extended throat. Justin ordered for them to take Scott to the barracks under our new home.

While they did that, Justin cleared his throat and tried to salvage the night.

“We will not be intimidated by false Alphas,” Justin roared.

Martha left to take her seat and I took mine, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder to my Lycan mate. I leaned into his side and tried to focus on the festivity of this evening but Scott nagged through my mind.

Without a mating mark from him, I thought I was safe from being in his head.

So why was he so deep into mine?

“Relax, Helen,” Justin purred, kissing my cheek. “He won’t get to us anymore.”

I shivered but nodded at last. “If you promise me that, then okay.”

“I promise, mate. He isn’t going to hurt us anymore.”

Something about that claim was colder than usual.

“How are you going to stop him, then?”

Justin sipped his wine and shrugged. “I’m going to kill him.”

I pondered that thought. Scott was finally in our barracks, locked up and stowed away. He would die in there slowly but it sounded like Justin would make it a bit quicker.

Would he shoot Scott with a silver bullet? Would he unleash his Lycan onto him?

I tried to eat my fish, Justin working at a steak set in front of him, but my stomach was turning.

The tension ate away at me so much that I jumped from my seat, running back into our new home and to the first bathroom I could find. I threw up everything I had, if only just a few bites of dinner, but it burned like fire in my throat.

“What’s wrong, dear?”

Justin rushed in behind me, pulling my hair back as I knelt on the floor. I wavered in his arms, so overwhelmed with grief and concern that I couldn’t keep my food down.

“Come here, it’s okay,” he purred. I laid into his chest, blinking back spots. “You’re warm, Helen. You have a fever.”

The thought of that made me sicker. What if the curse wasn’t done with me? What if Scott has triggered something new, something worse, to happen to me?

I couldn’t survive another second with that much anxiety built in my chest.

“Alpha,” a new voice piqued into the small bathroom. “The prisoner is requesting to speak with you and the Luna.”

“Fuck him,” Justin snapped. “Let him rot.”

“He said he has information about the Alpha King’s attack, he wants to offer to you,” the wolf groaned.

Justin kissed my cheek and finally nodded. “Let me put my mate to bed and I’ll go speak with the traitor.”

“No,” I chirped. “I want to go too.”

I don’t know why, but a flicker of frustration crossed Justin’s otherwise calm face. He didn’t like me going to speak to Scott, or even being near him, and that made sense. I just wanted him to trust that I needed this closure.

Even if I wasn’t sure how I would handle his death.

Justin helped me downstairs, each step harder than the last. The sickness that built in my stomach was hard enough to manage without the overwhelming weight of Scott’s beady eyes on my frame.

We stopped in front of his cell, my legs limp and my body wavering.

Scott sighed, his face and naked body covered in bloody marks and bruises.

“What do you want, mutt?” Justin snarled. He held onto me tight, but my knees gave out. I hit the floor at his feet, keeping upright only by resting my shoulder onto his leg. “Helen, rest, please.”

I nodded, my eyes heavy as I danced on the line of consciousness like a taunt.

“She’s already feeling the effects,” Scott snipped, his smile wickedly sharp. “You better act quickly, Lycan. Your precious little fated mate is going to die.”

Justin barked a noise, slamming his fist against the cell bars. “What are you saying? What have you done to her now, mutt?”

Scott rolled his eyes, looking down on me with an emotionless gaze. “Your father, the true Alpha King, isn’t happy that you’re an Alpha now despite his wishes. You weren’t ever going to ascend Lone Wolf, and having you here, it puts a stop to his plans.”

“Is that so?” Justin snarled, uninterested in this banter. He petted my head, my forehead damp with a new sheen of sweat. “Well, my father can forget about coming after me. I am the Last Lycan. I am the Devil, and if he wants to challenge me, he can come and fight me directly.”

“He’s not stupid enough to do something like that,” Scott bit. “He thought that mating with the virgin would take away your Lycan, but it made you stronger. So he wanted to use her against you, show your true colors, but that was thwarted as well.”

Justin waved away his words, his teeth showing and bared, ready to bite into his throat through the bars. “Get to the point, mutt. I don’t need a history lesson.”

“Her!” Scott snapped, pointing in my direction. I winced under his overwhelming focus. “He’s going to kill her to make your Lycan suffer. He wants you out of the way, Devil! The only way to protect her is to give her up.”

“I won’t,” Justin snapped, furious. “She is my only true mate. She was made for me!”

“She was technically made for me,” Scott taunted.

“You blew your shot with that the first time, mutt,” Justin filtered through a locked jaw. “You are putting so much focus on trying to come for my mate, why don’t you and my father just fight me? Is it because you know you would lose?”

“There’s more than one way to take down a tree,” Scott mumbled. “You can fight the tree and cut it down or poison the roots.”

Justin looked thoughtfully down at me, curled on the floor at his feet, clinging to his knee just to stay upright. Whether they poisoned me or are just trying to scare us with the thought, it’s hard to miss their logic.

They hated Justin too much to let us run away. They wanted to slander his name, outcast him and exile his very existence, and now they wanted his once virgin mate to die so his Lycan would suffer forever.

It was cruel and complicated, but they wouldn’t stop until me and my mate were dead.

“So, why would you tell me all of this?” Justin said, a hint of final understanding in his tone. He saw the writing on the wall, same as I had. Scott, for once, was probably telling the truth. “Why not let her die and let my father’s plan go to waste?”

“She’s my mate,” Scott bit. “I need her to be my Luna. I may not have Fiery Cross, but I will have a pack one day. My coat is pure and it needs a pure coat to ascend with me.”

I couldn’t help but notice them both staring at me, my hands shivering in my lap and a lethargic wave hitting at me over and over again.

“What’s the antidote?” Justin exhaled. “She has to survive.”

“Reject her first. Then I’ll save Helen.”