Chapter 46: Sacrifice

CONNOR

Engines roared to life. Commands echoed through the air. Everyone was armed and ready for a showdown. My people looked to me for reassurance, but I had none to offer.

I couldn’t promise that everything would be okay, that we’d rescue Elaine. We couldn’t be certain, not when Sorin’s plans were unknown.

How far would he go? What was he willing to risk? I didn’t have the answers.

I stared out at the surrounding greenery, my hands clenched together.

The air felt heavy, like a pressure cooker about to explode, making it harder to breathe with each passing minute.

I wasn’t sure if we’d reach Elaine in time, but I had to try.

Just a few hours ago, we’d lost Elaine’s signal. It had stopped beeping out of the blue.

My heart seemed to stop with it, and fear took over.

I’d broken down in front of everyone, feeling so weak that I felt defeated. But then, my mother had stepped in, shaking me out of my despair.

In the past few hours, even though she’d told me not to assume the worst, something inside me was screaming that things were far from okay.

Maybe I was just being paranoid. Fear was definitely playing a part, making everything seem worse. But how could I not be scared when the person I loved was in danger?

Pushing those thoughts aside, I felt a hand squeeze my thigh. I glanced to the side and saw my mother giving me a firm nod.

Her confident gaze reminded me of Elaine, always so independent and self-assured.

And now, I understood her even more.

She gave me an awkward smile, patted my thigh, and let out a sigh.

“Promise me, that no matter what happens, you won’t let ~Khan~ control you,” she said, watching me closely. “You ~can’t~ let your lycan take over your mind, because you will surely lose.”

I frowned, thinking about something that had been bothering me since my conversation with the Goddess and Jyn.

“Why am I a lycan?” I asked, causing her eyes to widen in surprise. “Neither you nor dad are lycans. Sorin isn’t either. You’re all alphas, but not lycans like me. Why?”

The car fell silent as she bit her lip. My mother sighed.

“A blessing,” she mumbled. I furrowed my brow as more questions flooded my mind.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “A blessing?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“Before you were born, a lycan blessed you.” She smiled, as if lost in a memory. “That person was Elaine’s mother.”

I tensed up next to my mother.

“What—”

I was cut off as the car came to a sudden stop, causing us all to lurch forward.

“Damn it!” Regulus groaned.

“What’s going on?” my mother asked as I rolled down the window and looked outside.

A group of hunters, at least a dozen of them, were standing guard outside a massive black fence.

One of them, a familiar face, stood in the center.

“I’m going to kill him!” Regulus snarled, but I grabbed his shoulder, pushing him back into his seat.

Khan was itching to shift and tear that traitor apart.

“Do you see this?” Jyn asked over the radio.

I reached for it and responded, my eyes still not believing what they were seeing. I’d considered him a friend, a partner, ~my beta~.

But he wasn’t any of those things. He was a traitor who had hurt me and betrayed our trust.

“Let me handle this,” my mother said calmly. I turned to look at her.

She was resting her hand on her cheek, a wicked smile playing on her lips as she looked at the group of hunters.

“Mom, this isn’t the time for games,” I hissed, but she dismissed me with a wave of her hand.

“My people will take care of it,” she said, turning to look at me. She asked the silent question that was on everyone’s mind.

“Capture him,” I ordered, looking away.

My mother nodded with a smile, and within seconds her people were out of the car, attacking the hunters who were defending themselves.

I watched from inside the car as two of them shifted.

“Rogues…,” I hissed.

My hands dug into my pants. I was feeling impatient and betrayed by someone I’d trusted with my life.

With a snarl, a door of our car opened, and I looked up. Regulus was stepping out, his eyes fixed on my beta.

“Don’t, Regulus. It’s not your place,” Jyn warned from a screen in the car. “Don’t interfere.”

“I will,” he replied coldly. “He might be your friend, Connor, but as a beta, loyal to the pack, I can’t let someone like him get away.”

He turned to me.

“I’ll capture him and make him pay.”

I nodded, giving him the answer he was looking for, and Regulus shifted at the same time that my beta, my old friend, shifted to attack.

I watched as they fought, a bloodthirsty look in his eyes.

Suddenly, a pain shot through my chest, making me double over.

My mother watched me with concern. I didn’t know what was happening, but I felt sick. Really sick.

“We should split into groups and get inside before they decide to move Elaine somewhere else as a precaution,” Jyn suggested.

I looked outside—it was chaos.

“Take some of my men and go,” my mother ordered, causing me to turn to her.

“What about you?” I asked, worried. “I can’t let anything happen to you.”

“Nothing will.” My mother smiled. “I’m well prepared.”

Her confident smile made me smile back. She was as stubborn as Elaine.

Shaking my head, I grabbed my weapons and opened the door. Jyn was waiting outside with a few of my mother’s men and some of our pack members who had joined us. They were all armed and ready to shift.

As I was about to get out, I stopped. I turned and kissed my mother’s cheek.

Embarrassed, I turned away, but not before catching the bright smile on her face.

I brushed off my embarrassment and joined the group.

“Should we sneak in from the back?” Jyn asked, watching me secure the gun to my waist.

“Don’t be a party pooper,” a pack member teased.

“Then what’s your brilliant plan?” Jyn shot back. “March right through the front door?”

I grinned, loading another gun.

“Exactly. We’re going through the front door.” I confirmed, my smile unwavering.

***

“Son of a bitch!” Jyn spat as we exchanged gunfire.

I quickly assessed the situation. Five hunters blocked our way at the front door, while three more kept watch from the second-floor balcony.

“Still keen on the front door?” Jyn hissed, returning fire.

“Absolutely,” I replied, taking down a hunter with a clean headshot.

“We can handle the three up there,” one of my mom’s guys suggested. “Then you can shift and leap straight up.”

“Not a bad idea,” I agreed, letting them take point.

I hung back with Jyn and a couple of our pack, a familiar scent filling my nostrils and making my heart pound against my ribcage.

“Connor?” Jyn's voice trailed off as I bolted through the underbrush and burst through the front door.

My body acted on instinct, leading me to the one I’d been searching for, the one we both longed for, needed, and yearned to hold again.

The shouts of my men and Jyn, the echoing gunfire, the lifeless bodies littering what could have been a sanctuary, all faded into the background. My sole focus was reaching her.

As I sprinted through the foyer, I was tackled hard. I grunted as we tumbled down a flight of stairs and into a room.

Crashing into a bookshelf, I heard a familiar chuckle from a few feet away.

“You really should watch where you’re going,” my beta and former friend smirked.

“Leo,” I groaned, pushing myself up from the wreckage of the bookshelf.

What the hell happened to Regulus?

“Couldn’t you just let Elaine die?” he spat, his eyes seething with hatred. “If you’d just let her go, you’d be free.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I growled.

Leo stopped a few feet away, one hand on his hip, the other casually inspecting his nails.

“You’ve always been obsessed with her,” Leo observed. “Always trailing after her like a loyal puppy.”

I stood, gripping the half-demolished shelf with one hand. Kicking aside the debris, I advanced on him.

“You just had to stick your nose in where it didn’t belong,” Leo complained.

I watched him, my anger flaring as I absorbed his words.

“And yet she won’t come to you. She won’t love you!”

My hand smashed the wooden shelf, and Leo abruptly fell silent.

“Say one more word, and I swear, I will fucking kill you!” I threatened, my nails digging into the splintered wood.

Leo watched, a smile playing on his lips as if daring me to try.

“Let’s see who dies first,” Leo chuckled, shifting into his wolf form.

I shifted too, launching myself at him. My teeth sank into his neck, and I shook him violently.

Leo yelped as I tightened my grip on his flesh. Blood pooled around us.

I didn’t care that he was once my friend. I didn’t care that he was once my beta. His betrayal was what stung the most.

I had given him my trust, my love, the power to stand beside me like a brother. And he had lied to me all along, played me for a fool.

How naive of me to think that a friend would never stab me in the back.

He raked his claws across my face, and I jerked my head, blood splattering the pristine walls.

Leo stumbled to the side, his body lurching awkwardly. There was enough blood to sate at least six vampires.

~“Traitors like you don’t deserve to live!”~ I snarled in his mind. ~“I expected better of you, but here you are, playing the fool, ready to die by my hand?”~

Leo didn’t respond, so I lunged to attack, but another wolf intercepted him.

I watched as Regulus sank his teeth into Leo’s artery. His long canines tore the flesh from his neck.

Leo quickly shifted back into his human form. Stunned by the sudden attack, he looked from Regulus to me.

I watched him. There was nothing we could do but watch as he died before our eyes. I should have felt sadness, grief, but all I felt was a hollow emptiness.

Turning away from him, I left. If he thought for a second I would save him, he was sorely mistaken. There were no words for his betrayal. I’d had enough of people’s treachery.

All I cared about now was finding Elaine and getting out of this hellhole.

“Connor!” Jyn’s voice echoed as I stepped into an open area where two shattered doors lay in ruins. “Connor, over there!”

I followed Jyn’s gaze. The moment I did, my body froze.

There, right in front of us, was Sorin, a gun pointed at Elaine’s face.

She looked injured, frail, ~alone.~

I knew I had to act. I had to save her. But I couldn’t. I tried to command my body, but fear had me in its grip, rooting me to the spot.

“Connor!” Jyn yelled as two hunters closed in on him with knives. “DO SOMETHING!”

I looked at him, then at Sorin, and finally at Elaine.

The moment I looked at her, our eyes met. But she didn’t seem to see me.

I could feel her life slipping away right in front of me, and Sorin was about to end her life while I stood there, paralyzed.

Jyn’s and Regulus’s voices echoed around me. Their desperate pleas should have spurred me into action, but I couldn’t move.

~I was terrified.~

“Please, Connor!” Jyn pleaded as a hunter stabbed him near his stomach.

A shove finally jolted me into action. I turned, surprised to find my mother, her face smeared with blood and her body nearly bare.

“Save her!” she commanded, her words igniting a spark of courage within me.

I didn’t dare to glance back. I didn’t halt.

I was near, so near that I could sense her warmth, the warmth I had been yearning for.

A numbness washed over my mind, and I finally allowed the shift, letting Khan take the reins. But it was too late. Our combined strength, our powerful paws, they weren’t enough to get us to her in time.

It was too late. Sorin had already squeezed the trigger.