I rubbed my arms, and Ronnie ran his fingers through his hair. “Please don’t shift until your father has been fixed. I don’t think I could keep up with Nix, nor keep her in check.” Ronnie shook himself before heading back upstairs.
I could still make out Aurora’s screaming, but we headed all the way back upstairs. “What about the tools?”
“Beck will grab them.” I nodded and headed up the stairs while Ronnie closed the door behind us and he called back up to me. “Amy?”
“Yeah?”
“You, ugh, you have a knife in your back pocket.”
Confused, I patted my pocket, and sure enough, I had a small knife I had grabbed from the room with the tools. I pulled it out and flipped it over in my hand. It wasn’t silver, just a small switch blade that I could use to torture Aurora with no lasting damage. “Right.” I went to toss it back to Ronnie, but once he got a closer look at it, he waved his hand.
“I thought it was a silver knife. A regular knife is fine, keep it. Your dad would probably love for you to have that knife.” I flipped the knife in my hand and waited for Ronnie to join me. “That was the only thing your mother ever gave your father. He loved it for so long, and passing it down to you would probably be the best thing.” Ronnie closed my fingers around it then pulled me out of the pack house.
“Are you sure?”
“Nope, but we can just ask the man. It isn’t like he’s dead.” Ronnie chuckled as we walked past the backyard and into the forest. We walked for a while before something caught my attention. There was someone screaming from far away. Or so I thought. We walked a little farther and then Ronnie walked up to a thick tree, pushed his hand into a knot in the tree, and pulled it open, revealing stairs downward.
The screams were coming from down here. Ronnie looked at me and grimaced. “Is that?”
He nodded and headed down the stairs. “Seems like Loki gave control back to your father.”
We made our way to the bottom of the stairs and my father was pacing behind the bars of a cell. His snarl forced Ronnie tobear his neck, but I pushed past his power and aura. I walked up to the bars of the cell. “Dad?”
“What are you doing to her?” He snarled again, slamming his aura into me, but his power crashed over me like a wave against the rocks. It was powerful, but I held firm.
“Doing to whom?” I played dumb as I looked him over, trying to find something out of place. But he wasn’t wearing any necklace or jewelry.
“My Luna. Where is Aurora?” He charged the bars, reaching out to grab me, and I let him. He wrapped his hands around my throat again and squeezed.
Ronnie screamed and rushed over to me, grabbing my father’s hands and trying to pull him off, but being this close gave me a chance to see if there was anything that had a sigil on him. But yet again I came up empty.
I cut my eyes to Ronnie, who was begging my father to let go. “I can’t watch this. Gavin, you are my best friend, I can’t watch you kill your pup knowing how you will feel when you come back to yourself.” Tears sprang to his eyes as he begged, but my father was having none of it.
“Shut the fuck up Ronnie, I already told you she isn’t mine. Ainsley was a whore who was cheating on me. She still cheats on me. You lock me in here every fucking time like an animal. You have begged me for years to get a new mate and now that I have, you’re backtracking for this imposter.” My dad’s words cut deep, but I was distracted.
I tried not to flinch, but I caught the pink glowing from below my chin. I turned, and the glow was gone. So I turned back to Ronnie and looked from the corner of my eye, and I saw it again.
I put my hands up and I pulled myself out of his grasp. I kept his hand in mine as I turned my head to the side again, and there it was. A light pink sigil was burned into the back of my father’s hand. One he couldn’t see.
“Hold his hand out.” I pulled it out far enough, and Ronnie looked at me.
“What?”
“Hold his right hand out now.” My father was screaming.
“What the fuck are you doing? Ronnie, if you fucking listen to her I will kill you,” He snarled. His aura tried to come out, but it didn’t reach us.
“What the hell?”
“Your dad spelled this cell so that he couldn’t make us release him. He wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be a danger to the pack.”
I nodded and braced myself. I pulled his hand out as far as I could and nodded to Ronnie. He wrapped his hand around his arm. Once he was settled, and he gave me a nod, I let go. I wrestled his hand open, and I pulled the knife from my back pocket.
“Amy, what are you doing?” My father fought harder, slamming Ronnie’s back against the bars.
“Do you trust me?” I asked Ronnie as I fought to hold my dad’s hand straight as I brought the knife closer.
“Of course. But what are you doing?”
