Chapter 112: Chapter 112

Aly’s voice echoed in my head strongly, or was it Gea? For a moment, I managed to identify her. I so desperately wanted to regain my she-wolf, or at least communication with her. Or did her silence mean that, by some strange twist of nature, I had lost her? How many years had passed without hearing her? Just under seventeen? And now, that was the only thing I desired the most.

But the voice calling me insistently was Aly’s.

“Sussan!” she growled with more force.

“Gea,” I called her, with an uncontrollable desire to speak with my wolf.

“Gea? No, it’s Aly, Sussan. How do you feel? Can you identify how many fingers I have raised?” Aly persisted while showing me her open hand, and for a moment, I struggled to focus the image against the night sky.

“Two,” I said, touching my head. I hoped I was right because the last thing I needed was to doubt my sanity again.

“Okay, Aly, you don’t need to do that,” Ethan snorted, and immediately, I felt Liam was by his side. At least, I still had that, the most sacred and important thing to me. The memories of recent events quickly flooded my mind like a torrent of icy water. I rubbed my eyes and breathed in the night air around us. I immediately recalled the last words I had heard from David’s followers.

‘Rumors have it that a nanny spoke the truth last month. She said there were rooms full of crying babies, and some didn’t even seem human.’

I felt the sharp pain in my neck again, and this time, I noticed that the twins felt the same pain, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come.

“You’re still in pain, dear,” Liam growled, approaching my side. “‘But I sense something more,'” he continued, using the link. “‘What’s going on?'”

First, I wanted to know what had happened after I had passed out, but with a quick glance at Tony, who was keeping a watchful eye on the impenetrable darkness of the forest, Mel lying beside Aly with fresh bandages on her leg, I easily deduced what had happened.

“The little ones, the babies…” The words choked in my throat. “Is it possible? Did we hear correctly? Is he experimenting with…?” I couldn’t finish the question, and this time, it wasn’t just words that choked me. Just imagining what might be happening at that moment in David Zoe’s territory turned my stomach.

The warmth of Liam and the presence of Ethan were the only things that comforted me. For now.

“It’s almost dawn,” Tony said, approaching, and as if he had sensed what I didn’t need to hear, he added, “Now that you’re conscious again, we’ll resume our journey.”

“No,” the word escaped my mouth forcefully. Ethan and Liam turned their gaze toward me, and although their eyes looked at me with determination and firmness, dark orbs that seemed to scrutinize the depths of my soul, I knew that regardless of what I said next, they would support me. “That’s what they’re waiting for, for us to keep running, to flee, to head toward some secondary road where they will undoubtedly be waiting for us.”

I watched Tony’s reaction, and then I realized that he hesitated, enough for his emotions to be an open book for my readings. I was surprised to learn that the first thing that crossed his mind wasn’t Mel, not even a glimpse of his feelings went toward her. No, the first thing that crossed his heart was… me. His duty to me, whatever he had promised or sworn to Sven, shook him in that moment of doubt, which lasted no more than two heartbeats, but it was enough for me to know where to direct my arguments if I wanted to convince him of an idea that echoed in my head, in my chest, and for a brief moment, I felt a different tug, one I recognized immediately.

‘Gea.’

“No, that’s impossible,” Tony declared firmly. Only then did I realize, through my reading of his feelings, that they were strongly focused on Mel, not to leave her. “I have a mission to fulfill, and there’s a group waiting for us further ahead. When we reach them…”

“She has a point I’d like to hear,” Ethan growled, just a tone below Tony’s determination, but I knew he would be willing to fight, to do whatever it took to buy me the time I needed to develop my idea.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Tony said with a loud sigh. Then my attention shifted, and I knew that I not only had the twins as allies for my idea -I would always have them, it shouldn’t surprise me- but there was a third person.

“I want to hear her too,” Aly joined in after getting up and exchanging a quick glance with Mel, seeming to convey that her wounds were healing as they should. “Sussan is right. They’ll be waiting for us wherever we’re thinking of heading.”

“Forget that they can’t…”

“Track us,” Liam finished Tony’s sentence. “Do they even need to? I don’t know exactly where we are, but from the way we were attacked and the tension in the air, I know we can’t be far from David’s territory.”

“Or one of his allies,” I concluded after making sure that Ethan and Liam weren’t just acting alongside me due to our link but, more importantly, because they understood my idea and now shared it. I knew where I was heading.

“Wherever we go,” Ethan picked up on his brother’s words, “they are already waiting for us, and I don’t know how large the patrol you say is waiting for us might be. If you have the option to communicate with them, it would be best to warn them to withdraw. They’re about to walk into an ambush.”

“I didn’t come all the way here, risking everything and after giving my word to Mr. Ross, for a group of teenagers to tell me what to do,” Tony regained some of that attitude I feared so much, the one I didn’t want to deal with. But the pull I had felt from Gea, whom I knew something was happening to, even if I didn’t know exactly what, pulled me with greater force. I knew I had to fight for her, even if it meant going up against the gruff Tony and his formidable physique. “We’ll follow the plan we’ve laid out for this eventuality and meet up with that patrol waiting for us. Now, get ready; we’re going right now.”

Aly stood with her arms crossed against her chest and that look of not giving up without a fight. She not only knew what she had heard but could also feel it in a hurricane of emotions struggling to break free and charge against the tall man who was keeping her away from what interested and concerned her the most at that moment. Nicolas had already reached his father’s territory; at that moment, he could be being tortured or subjected to some interrogation with his father’s white wolves’ caresses.

“They don’t expect us to attack,” Aly snorted, her fiery gaze fixed on Tony, whom she seemed not to fear even though he was twice her size. “And apparently, they have information we need.”

I had to make a great effort not to smile and maintain the expression required for the situation, but Aly had taken the words right out of my mouth. Although I knew she was driven by her feelings for Nicolas, her support at that moment was crucial for what I intended.

“No, no, no, this is going off plan, and Mr. Ross won’t be pleased with this. I gave him my word that I would bring you,” Tony insisted, pointing at me. “You’re too valuable to risk like this.”

I noticed suspicion and anger beginning to swirl in the hearts of the twins when Tony’s words implied that he was willing to do whatever was necessary to keep me, even if it went against my will. His statements couldn’t have been more dangerous, and I had to rely on our mental link to try to calm the twins, who, I knew, would pounce on Tony if necessary to ensure my will prevailed. But the last thing we needed at that moment was a deadly fight among ourselves.

‘Please, calm down, understand. This man has given his word to Sven Ross, and he’s such a powerful ally that he’s willing to give his life for us. The last thing we need is to lose him. It’s best to dissuade him, not kill him.’

The twins didn’t respond to me immediately, but I could feel that Liam’s mood was calming down somewhat. However, I was more concerned about Ethan. I knew about his emotional tendencies and that if, in the next few minutes or seconds, we didn’t manage to convince Tony of what we intended, Ethan would pounce on him regardless of the consequences.

“You’d better make up your mind,” Ethan roared. “Forget that we’ll part with Sussan once more, so don’t delude yourself into thinking you can keep her above us.”

Although Ethan’s words were harsh and contained all the challenge necessary for Tony to understand that the twins would fight to the death for me, I was reassured that he had resorted to words rather than lunging for the man who had escorted and guided us so far. But my hope that everything could be resolved with words faded the moment I sensed Tony’s feelings. They were a wave of anger and a response to the challenge presented. This wasn’t going to end well; there was no way it could. Perhaps in the human world, words were starting to prevail, but this was the wild world of werewolves, and here, when Alphas challenged each other in this way, disputes were only resolved with b***d, and not only were the twins Alphas, but Tony was too.

I prepared for a bloodbath and to be splattered in the process.

Gea, where are you?

What is weighing on you?

Why aren’t you present when I need you the most?