Chapter 55

DOE

You know, I had let myself feel a tad bit lucky when two of my kidnappers ended up killing each other without me having to do a single thing.

But then the man who I’d just realized had tried to kill me as a child stepped out of the shadows, and that feeling quickly disappeared.

Mr. Stoll looked at the two bodies with raised eyebrows. “I was dreading having to kill those two morons. How convenient that they took care of each other.” His gaze slid to me. “Wouldn’t you say?”

I tried to sneer at him, to demand what he wanted to do with me, but all that came out of my mouth was a labored moan.

Mr. Stoll’s lips turned up. “Ah, yes. I forgot the nips prevented you from speaking. I’m sure you’re having a hard time moving as well. It had the same effect the last time I gave it to you.”

He strolled toward me until he was standing over my body. He looked different from the last time I’d seen him. His hair was longer and his beard had grown out.

What surprised me the most was how…in control he seemed. I wondered if it had something to do with the burden of alpha being lifted from him.

Perhaps it was because he was sober.

Or maybe he was so upset over the death of his mate, which I now knew had only happened a few months earlier, that he was laser-focused on his goals.

Whatever it was, the dark look in his eyes told me he was looking for one thing and would do whatever it took to get it.

Revenge.

Fear gripped my throat like a manacle, and I tried to wiggle my limp body away.

I found it a little easier than I had been expecting at first, but came to a stop when the sharp stick underneath caught on my back and became lodged deep in my flesh.

~Fuck, it’s really in there.~

The pain was unpleasant, but it also meant one thing: the drugs were wearing off.

Mr. Stoll crouched next to me, glaring at the loose chains at my side. “Cormac never was able to finish simple jobs.” He kicked one of the silver chains and sighed.

His eyes found mine once more. “No matter. Your glazed eyes and disgustingly heightened scent tell me that the nips are still in full effect. We’ll make this quick, yes?”

He kept asking me questions as if I were able to respond. Could I? I compelled my lips to move, to form the same word I had asked Mr. Callahan.

“W-why?”

His face fell. “I’ve never liked you, Dorothy. I don’t think that’s a secret. Even when you were a child, I could see you for what you are: a tumor, come to destroy my pack and eat away at my son.

“Your mother did the same to my beta. Joe used to be strong. But as soon as Susan sunk her claws into him, he turned into a useless man with no judgment, granting mercy that was not his to give.”

He shook his head and tightened his jaw. “I was going to get rid of you. It would have been for the good of the pack and given my son a fighting chance to be the strong alpha he was meant to be, but—”

“Esther,” I murmured.

Like pieces in a puzzle, my dreams were all suddenly coming together and making sense.

“You are my mate, Esther,” Mr. Stoll had said in my dream. “You will stand by me, as you vowed.”

“No,” Esther replied. “Not after this. I’ll never forgive you if you hurt her.”

The dream of Esther shifting into her wolf in front of me…

She went rabid to save me.

Esther cut off her bond with her mate because she knew it was the only way to stop him from hurting me.

She lived alone and wild in the woods for years because she knew Mr. Stoll would stay away from me if he still had hope of finding her one day and bringing her human side back.

“Don’t you dare say her name,” Mr. Stoll snarled. “You killed her. She rejected me because of ~you~.”

But I knew that wasn’t true. She rejected him because she knew what he was doing was wrong.

And because she loved me. Esther had always loved me, even if the time I knew her was short. She had treated me like her own daughter.

She wanted me and Ace to be together, to be Embermoon’s alpha and luna. She sacrificed herself…for us.

“I’m going to kill you now,” Mr. Stoll continued in a savage tone. “I’m going to finish the job I should have completed ten years ago, before you murdered my mate and made my son turn on me.”

He shook his head. “Ace will never be ready to lead a pack now, not after you’ve poisoned his mind and bound yourself to him.

“But when I end your pathetic life, it will likely kill my son as well, putting him out of his misery and reinstating me as the Embermoon Pack’s alpha at the same time.”

The air fled from my lungs. It was a horrible plan, but it was smart.

My bond with Ace was so much stronger than the average werewolf couple. If I died, it would surely kill Ace as well. At the very least, it’d drive him mad and make him useless as an alpha.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt Ace react to my panic and dread by sending soothing reassurance through the bond. I was still too weak to respond, but his reaction gave me hope.

Is he on his way? Did the tracker send him, anyone, my location?

“But before I take your life,” Mr. Stoll started, his eyes darkening, “I’m going to make sure Ace feels every ounce of pain that you’ve caused me over the years.”

He walked over to Josh’s body and picked up the pocket knife that Mr. Callahan had used to stab him. He returned to me with the weapon in his grasp.

After kneeling at my side, he used his new blade to push aside the hair draped over my shoulder. He glared down at Ace’s mark on my throat the same way Josh had, almost as if he was…jealous?

Whatever emotion Mr. Stoll was feeling, it was highly inappropriate and disturbed me even more.

Dread unfurled in my stomach as his intentions became clear. He was going to cut both Ace’s mark and my mating gland straight out of my neck, thereby severing the bond.

I recalled the day I found him drunk in his office. He had slammed me up against a wall, pulled my hair back to reveal my unpierced mating gland, and whispered, “My son is going to hate me for this.”

I’d assumed he was going to mark me. Claim me as his so my connection with Ace would be broken. But perhaps he’d meant to rip the gland out then as well.

Regardless, he was a sick, sick man.

“I see that you’ve finally fulfilled your biological destiny,” Mr. Stoll observed with a sneer. “Did you like it when my son dominated you? Did it feel good when he split you open with his huge knot?”

I studied the man who used to host me for sleepovers, push me on the swing in his backyard, and help me cook s’mores over a bonfire during campouts.

Had he been a creepy old man this whole time? Or had his descent into madness been slow and progressive?

Slowly and with great effort, I forced the corners of my lips up into a smirk. “W-wouldn’t…you like…to know…?”

~Yes! Look at me, speaking in full sentences!~

Mr. Stoll grabbed my jaw and squeezed. He snarled and flashed his teeth at me.

“Is that what you want, little girl? Hm? That’s what all omegas want, isn’t it? That’s the only reason your kind hasn’t disappeared into extinction.”

He shook me by my chin, making me gasp. “Because you just love begging for alpha cock, and alphas love giving it to you.

“Your only use is appealing to the lust of powerful werewolves and providing them with even more powerful children.”

I’m not sure where my next bit of courage came from. All I knew was that I was so unbelievably ~sick~ of loser men telling me what omegas were capable of.

I don’t know what weak-ass women Mr. Stoll had dealt with in the past, but I wasn’t one of them.

Not anymore, at least.

Using whatever bit of control I had over my face, I let the saliva pool up in my mouth, and then I spat a big wad of it right in Mr. Stoll’s face.

Somehow, I knew Esther would have been proud.

Mr. Stoll flinched and reared back in disgust. He looked at me and then reached up to wipe the saliva from his cheek. His irises turned pitch black.

He whipped his hand forward and struck me across the face with ferocious force. My head was thrown to the side, and the slap made my ears ring. The taste of iron filled my mouth.

I waited for the pain to come. Then the fear and tears that usually followed.

But I was so done with tears. I was done cowering and begging for mercy.

Instead, I felt nothing but rage.

Pure, blinding, white-hot rage.

“That was a mistake, little girl,” Mr. Stoll said. “I was going to make your death quick, but now I’m thinking I will drag this out and make sure my son feels every last second of your demise.”

He pressed his knife into my throat, getting ready to carve out my mark from my neck.

I struggled to push my hand under my back, my fingers finding the stick that was digging into me. If my pain was any indicator, the stick was sharp and pointed at the end—exactly what I needed.

I could have screamed when Mr. Stoll started to push the tip of his blade into my neck; the pain was so bad, but instead, I said the one thing that I knew would distract him.

“E-Esther.”

Mr. Stoll halted, his black eyes flashing up to mine as his lips pulled back.

“You k-killed her…,” I continued, my tongue swollen in my mouth. “She s-sacrificed herself for me…but ~you~ killed her…”

The roar that came from Mr. Stoll’s chest was horrifying, and my inner omega screamed at me to submit and stop enraging the powerful werewolf above me. ~Just give him what he wants!~

I ignored her.

Using every bit of strength I had, I yanked the stick out from beneath me, raised it high, and slammed the sharp end into the side of Mr. Stoll’s throat.

Right in the spot where he had just been digging his knife into me.

Mr. Stoll’s roar morphed into a gurgling choke, and his hands flew up to his neck.

The knife fell to the ground beside me as blood erupted from the wound I’d created and splattered onto my face and chest.

I wasn’t done.

With a ferocity I hadn’t known I possessed, I twisted the stick deeper into his throat, ensuring it pierced vital arteries.

His blackened eyes bulged with shock and fury, his lips mouthing silent curses that his ruined vocal cords couldn’t sound. He tried to lunge at me, but his strength was waning by the second.

Mr. Stoll started to stagger, his body swaying like a tree about to fall.

He clawed at the stick protruding from his neck, his movements becoming more erratic as his blood escaped from his wound and down his shirt.

For a moment, I thought he might manage one last attempt to end me. But then his knees buckled, and he collapsed with a heavy thud, his body landing in the dirt beside me.

His lifeless eyes stared into mine, wide with disbelief. The darkness that had consumed him for so long was gone, replaced with a dull emptiness that signaled the end.

Mr. Stoll, the man who had haunted my childhood and tried to destroy my future, was dead.

I lay there, panting, my body aching from the effort it had taken to survive. Blood seeped into the earth around me, the air thick with the metallic scent of death.

Somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard footsteps. Strong, sure strides heading toward me.

Ace.