Chapter 8
Jade
The room I was returned to wasn’t the one I had been in before. When we stopped at the black door I looked at the guard beside me. Could I trust him? Did I acknowledge the lie that he had spoken in my favor? There was a slight twitch to his head and it took me a minute to realize he was shaking it. He was telling me to be quiet.
“Where is Lucas? Why am I being put here?” I was going to be difficult. I could already feel it in my bones.
“The commander wants to ask you a few questions.” Disgust coated his whispered words. “You aren’t to ask any more questions.”
He unshackled me and threw me into the darkened room. My legs buckled beneath me as I scrambled across the floor. The room was no bigger than a supply closet and it was completely empty. There was a dim light on the ceiling but that was it. The floors were concrete. It took a few minutes before the door opened again and the man that had been called the big boss entered. The woman that had kneeled at his feet wasn’t with him. The metal gleamed on the knife in his hand. I swallowed as I took a step away from him. All he did was lean against the door as he looked me over again.
“Do you know why you’re here?” His voice was soft. Deceiving.
I shook my head. I didn’t trust my voice. After Nalia had taken over my speech, I had been cast from the room. He had nothing else to say to me and I knew that a storm would be coming. The storm was here now.
“Do you know who your mate is?” Through some fogginess in my brain, I recalled something. There was that feeling inside of me at the word like I knew. Like someone had told me but I couldn’t remember.
I shook my head.
“What is your rank within the pack?”
I blinked at him. His voice was void of all emotion as he watched me. I grasped my hands in front of me and wondered why I hadn’t been chained down. Was this man that confident or was I that weak? I shrugged my shoulders.
He narrowed his green eyes and leaned forward. The slight movement made me flinch. What were his plans for me? Was the knife simply for self-defense or something more? “I would like to get to know you better, Jade Rivers. I would like to know who you are behind the mask you wear currently. I want to know your hopes and your dreams. I would like to think that we could be more to each other. We could help each other. We could befriends.”
“How would we do that?” My voice trembled and I hated myself for it.
“I hear that you have wanted revenge against Rafe Crimson.” There it was. That was why I was here. Was this Pack Law? Had they heard I wanted to hurt an Alpha? An Alpha that was worth more than my life was?
His lips twitched before they transformed into a smile and my blood ran cold. The smile was radiant but calculating. Terrifying. “I have wanted revenge against Rafe Crimson for a long time.”
I nodded my head and eased forward like I could participate in what he was offering but I didn’t trust him. This wasn’t Pack Law. They wouldn’t want revenge against the man that had turned me against my will, would they? Pack Law wouldn’t hold hundreds of wolves prisoner in their own bodies, right? He reached forward and ran a finger down my bare arm.
“Yes,” he breathed. “I do believe we can come to a partnership between us. Possibly even more down the road.”
I swallowed hard and hoped that all it did was solidify how afraid I was. I didn’t want him to know that I was nervous. I knew he could scent my emotions in the air.
I paused. Or could he? I hadn’t seen any proof that he was an actual wolf himself. His eyes didn’t glow yellow and he seemed rather normal. But didn’t all the true monsters?
“I heard down the grapevine that you love a bad boy?” The blade replaced his fingers and I shivered against the cool touch of the knife. “What if I’m bad?”
I couldn’t have fought the next shiver even if I wanted to. His words were like a balm to the fear inside of me. I pressed my lips together before I cocked my head at him.
Then we will become worse.Nalia’s whisper in my mind was weak but full of determination. My eyes met his and I smiled. A partnership wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
