“I…”
I tried to say, but he gripped my hair even tighter and yanked my head again. Pain shot through my spine at the quick motion.
“I don’t need your excuses,”
he hissed. “You’re a little shit who will get yourself killed by being so stupid. You had no idea I was even behind you, and it’s shit like that that’ll be the death of you. Have I taught you nothing?”
I tried to speak but the way he was gripping my hair made it impossible for me to think of much of anything else.
“You need to learn your lesson,”
he hissed. “You need to learn what’ll happen to a little shit that doesn’t pay attention to surrounding areas and gets caught red-handed.”
He finally released me, and I found myself falling backward on the ground. My breathing was shaky to match my rapid heartbeat and all I could think was, “What’s he going to do to me?”
I hated how trembly my body had become; I hated how weak I appeared.
Tears prickled the corners of my eyes; I wished Enzo was in range so I could mindlink him. I had a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach that something terrible was about to happen.
He was rummaging in his bag until he came across what he was looking for and then he turned back to me. He gave me a humorless smile as he knelt in front of me; he was inches from my face, and I could smell his disgusting breath hitting my features. Despite his breath being hot, it sent a cold chill down my spine and my body trembled once again.
“You need to learn how to escape the impossible once you get caught, because with your stupidity… you will get caught,”
he seethed.
Before I could ask what, he meant by that, I felt a sharp pain in my neck and soon it was like my entire body had gone on fire. I screamed out in agony, feeling the fiery embers coursing through my veins.
He clamped a hand over my mouth, muffling my screams and holding me in place as I squirmed in pure agony. Tears ran down my face and my vision started to become blurry.
Specks of darkness clouded my eyes as I struggled to figure out what was going on and what he shot me with.
“Fighting it will only make it worse,”
he hissed in my ear, though he sounded so distant. “Take it in… embrace it… own it.”
Take it in. Embrace it. Own it.
His final words and the only thing stuck in my mind as everything finally went black.
…..
Enzo’s POV
“Are you out of your mind?! You’re holding a dark witch in contempt??”
Alpha Joseph sneered, slamming his hands on the table.
We sat in the meeting house in Elysium with the other members of the committee around a long table. Alpha Bastien, of course, sat at the head, and I sat beside him.
We had just finished explaining what had happened in the Calypso pack containing Paul and about my mother’s village. Needless to say, they are reacting how I expected them to react.
“We have safety measures in place,”
Bastien explained. “Nobody is in danger.”
“As long as that witch is in the wolf territory, we are all in danger,”
Alpha Joseph said through his teeth. “Bringing her anywhere near our kind was a mistake.”
“Witches are not our enemy,”
Bastien said to him, narrowing his eyes.
“She’s a dark witch!”
“He’s right; dark witches are no friend of ours,”
Alpha Henry said, shaking his head. “Having her in your pack is a mistake, Alpha Enzo.”
“We have guards keeping watch over her 24/7,”
Bastien explained before I could say anything. “Nobody is in danger.”
“Jasmine is the most powerful dark witch to ever exist. Do you think some magic cuffs and a cage is going to keep her locked away?”
Alpha Henry asked, folding his arms across his chest. “She’s a ticking time bomb.”
“She probably already has a plan of escape,”
Alpha Kevin chimed in from the far side of the table.
Kevin was the quieter one, so it surprised me when he spoke.
“If she didn’t struggle when she was captured, then she has a plan of escape,”
Joseph retorted.
“May I ask a question?”
A deep voice from the doorway said, drawing all of our attention to that direction.
When I saw him, I had to stifle a groan. He rarely showed up to our Alpha Committee meetings and when he did, he was always fashionably late because he liked making an entrance. I’m not sure how long he was standing there, but it seemed he was there long enough to hear the gist of the conversation.
“Alpha Jonathan, great of you to join us,”
Bastien said, leaning back in his seat. “Go right ahead; ask away.”
Alpha Jonathan, who was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed against his chest, stood straight and walked toward his waiting seat.
“What exactly is your plan with this witch?”
Jonathan went on to ask. “You aren’t powerful enough to kill a dark witch. As far as I’m concerned, the wolf causing the issues and using this witch is already dead. Why exactly do you have a witch, who was only doing what was asked of her, in contempt?”
“She kidnapped a witch from my mother’s village,”
I heard myself saying before Bastien could answer the question himself. “If left my mother’s village unprotected and because of that many of her people died. We can’t let that go unpunished no matter who was pulling the strings.”
“Right… but how exactly are you going to punish a dark witch? You realize her entire coven is probably watching out for her. Not that they need to… she’s powerful and can probably escape at any moment. When she does, it’ll be the wolves that’ll pay. Up until this point we’ve lived in peace with all sorts of witches, including the dark ones. If we don’t mess with them, then they won’t mess with us. Now we are open to attacks, and we are no match against witches of that status.”
“They threw the first move when they—”
“Kidnapped one of their own,”
Jonathan said, stopping my words short. “They didn’t kidnap a wolf… they kidnapped a witch. A witch they believed to be a traitor to them. If was an affair, we should have gotten involved in it.”
“That witch was protecting my mother’s village,”
I said through my teeth; I seriously couldn’t stand this guy.
“And that’s her problem, not ours,”
Jonathan said in return with agreeing murmurs from the others. “But you have made it our problem and now we need to prepare for a war.”
“A war we can’t win,”
Alpha Joseph growled. “A war will die in.”
“There will be no war,”
Bastien said, standing to his feet so he could tower over everybody seated at the table. “We only want to know what exactly they were planning on doing with Hazel and why they wanted her in the first place. There are questions that Jazzy won’t answer and until we get some kind of answers from her—”
“You’ll what? Keep her in contempt?”
Jonathan asked with a mocking laugh. “No offense, Alpha, but you sound ridiculous.”
I could feel anger bubbling inside of me; though, part of me knew they were right. I didn’t think Jazzy was going to give us any answers and now that Paul was dead, the issues should be resolved. But I still had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Just because Paul was dead didn’t mean there weren’t any others. He still had a bunch of rogues on his side and most of them fled when they realized they couldn’t win the fight against a Volana wolf.
Before anyone said anything else, I heard the familiar sounds of my phone ringing from inside my pocket. When I looked at the caller ID, my entire body froze.
“I have to take this,”
I said quickly, looking at Bastien.
“In the middle of a meeting?”
Jonathan asked humor in his tone.