Filed to story: The Alphas Contract Novel by Taylor West
There’s silence
“Someone say something!” Neah snaps
“I will watch her.” Brax offers
“Fine, go. Don’t fucking kill her.” Dane wams him
“Is that wise?” I ask as Brax leaves the house.
“I imagine he is trying to figure out how and why he managed to miss so many signs.” He takes Neah’s hand in his. “For now, we need to work out if Sarmara is definitely connected to my mate and how.”
“She doesn’t know, I don’t know.” Neah mutters. “Like I said, Nyx is certain we are not siblings and Klaus said my mother never had another child.”
“I think that it’s time to return to where all this started.” Dane tells her.
I watch fear fill her blue eyes and she tugs her hand from Dane. “Moon…. Moonshine?” she whispers
Dane nods. “Maybe we can get more answers there.”
“We haven’t been back there since…” Neah trails off. I watch her try to process what Dane suggested. I hadn’t seen this much fear since she learned she might become Rogue. The confidence she normally has just vanished.
I knew the circumstances of how Dane had met her, I knew what Mallory had done to her in that house, but I had always kept myself away from knowing the finer details.
Dane cups Neah’s face. “Technically, it is your land now.”
Neah’s eyes drop to the ground. “No one is there anymore.” She mutters to herself and I
watch her take a deep breath. “Okay, but I’m not taking the boys.”
“Fine. Damien, Klaus. You two are both coming too. Pack some things, we leave in an hour.”
“An hour? Not in the morning?” Klaus asks
“It’s a few hours away. Might aswell get a headstart.”
Dane disappears into his office to make some arrangements as Klaus heads for the door. Nesh doesn’t move, almost like she is glued to the spot.
“Are you okay?”
“I haven’t…um… I haven’t been there since they tried to kill me.” She folds her arms across her chest and sighs. “Did Cassandra ever take you there?”
“No. I was not that privileged. But Dane is right, no one is there anymore.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“Dark memories?”
She nods her head. “If Dane had never come to that house, I could be in a whole different situation right now. Or maybe even dead. I would never have gained my Lycan. I probably would have died never knowing who I really was. And it’s not just Trey, Cassandra or even Kyle or the others. It’s where I watched my parents die. Something I was framed for.”
Her blue eyes lock on to mine. “How is it that one word can take you right back there?”
“It’s the way our brains are wired. But you survived, Neah. You became something that they never got a chance to see. You have several hundred Lycans here that will follow you into battle if needed and you wouldn’t even need to order them. They would do it freely.”
“Thanks Damien.” She gives me a small smile.
“You don’t have to fear the past, Neah. Everyone from that time is dead. You won. This trip is purely about getting answers.”
She nods her head. “Then I better go and pack a few things and make sure the boys are ready for Mallory.”
“Not Athena and Sebastian?”
“No. They haven’t had to deal with Evrin shifting yet. And I’m not sure they are ready for that.”
Dane drives while Klaus sits in the passenger seat telling Dane about how and why Brax thinks he is a Witch Hunter. I roll my eyes because Brax seems to be getting more and more things wrong lately and I wouldn’t trust a single word that comes out of his mouth.
“That doesn’t make sense.” Dane mutters
I glance over at Neat while listening to the conversation. She’s asleep with her arm tucked up behind her head to create a makeshift pillow.
“She’s nervous.” Dane mutters. “Sleeping will give her a break.”
“She told me it was the memories.” I reply
“You knew what Cassandra was like. If I had it my way, I would have seen her head on a spike for the life she forced my mate to live.”
“You think this will give her closure of the past?” Klaus asks
“We will find out soon enough.”
At the fuel station, we switch over so I can drive. The moment Dane gets in the back, he pulls a sleepy Nesh towards him. She curls up next to him, her head on his lap and his hand protectively on her stomach. I wondered if either of them knew yet.
Following Dane’s directions, we turn off into a narrow road. But the trees and bushes have become so overgrown that we have to abandon the car and walk the remainder of the way.
The packhouse is much smaller than the one at Black Shadow. Covered in a jungle of Ivy, it was almost impossible to find the door.
“Where are the other houses?” Klaus asks
“Around back. It’s backwards here. The main house isn’t protected by the others.” Dane replies
Ripping the Ivy from the door, I push it open. The musty scents of dust, death and decay fill the air. Klaus gags as he enters and I try not to laugh. “Are you sure you are a Wolf?” I muse “It was unexpected.” He mutters back
“No one has been here for a long time. How could it be unexpected?”
Neah doesn’t move from the porch. Her eyes are wide as she stares up at the front of the house. Dane moves back to her, holding out his hand without saying a single word. She sighs, but she takes it and follows him inside.
“Split up?” I suggest and Dane agrees
Upstairs, aside from the smell and dust, everything appears immaculate. One by one, I search the bedrooms, not finding anything of importance.
There’s a tiny bedroom at the end of the hallway, not even big enough to swing a cat. I knew it was Neah’s bedroom the moment I pushed open the door. Her scent still lingered but there was nothing here other than a small bed and an old rotting wooden dresser. No photos, no toys or artwork.
“She arrived with just a carrier bag of clothes,” Klaus mutters as he steps in behind me. “The first time I met her, she was so afraid. She probably thought she was leaving one hell for another.”
“Back when I was Human. I killed other Humans that were like Trey and Cassandra. Ones that hurt children and took thern away from their parents. Sometimes it was even the parents that needed punishing. If I had known….”
‘That was how Cassandra was. Even Mallory said she didn’t see it and she spent a lot of time here. We never even knew of Moonshine’s existence. Not until the leader asked Dane for help. It was a bit of a surprise that there was a pack living so close and yet it wasn’t on our radar. That was the mistake Trey made. That’s when everything went downhill for him.”
“Yet it was Neah that suffered.”
Neah
‘It’s just like Damien said. They are all dead. We killed them. They can’t hurt you anymore.” Nyx whispers as we follow Dane through the house.
We stop outside the office door. My heart hammers in my chest and Dane squeezes my hand as he leads me inside. “Not all memories are bad. I met you here.”
My eyes flicker around the room, settling on the bloodstain on the carpet. It was where Kyle had fallen. In typical Cassandra style, it was never cleaned up. That would have been my job.
“Why did you lie?” I whisper
“Lie?”
“You told them that I put you in the office. You lied.”
“I had a suspicion that they were hurting you. Trey proved my point when he went to hit you and then again when they tried putting you in the basement”
“It seems so long ago and yet….” I had spent ages in this office, scrubbing it from top to bottom with a toothbrush while Cassandra stood over me, barking orders or yelling at how I had missed a spot. There were so many times that I wished I had the courage to shove the toothbrush through her eye.
Well, you went a step further than that.’ Nyx muses
I smile to myself and Dane presses his lips to my cheek.
“You have come a long way since then.” He drops my hand and begins rummaging in the desk. I move to the bookcase. Several dozen large books lined the shelves. Books that I had always longed to read but never could.
Pulling out the one closest to me. I run my fingers over the gold lettering. Just one simple word ‘KITSON’
I shift my eyes to Dane, but he was now busy rummaging through a cabinet, pulling out large amounts of paperwork.
As I sit on one of the chairs, a cloud of dust is thrown up around me. Spluttering, Dane asks me if I’m okay. Nodding, I open the book.
Pages and pages of fancy handwriting in a language that I didn’t understand. What is this? I ask Nyx.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?