Lucy’s POV
I returned to my room with little effort, taking off my shoes even before crossing the doorway fully. So much rage bubbled deep in my chest that it took a lot of effort to breathe normally and without obstruction.
Damn them. Damn them all to hell. Bastards. My list of mental curses went far and wide to limits that even surprised me.
I took off my earrings and bracelets, and every other piece of jewellery that had been attached to my body. Everything seemed to overstimulate me, and made matters worse.
I walked across the room, trying to take off my gown when I noticed that I hadn’t heard or seen Tessa.
“Tessa?” I called out, in case she was simply in the bathroom. No one answered. “Tessa?” I called again.
No answer.
Apprehension started to grow within me like a wild plant. “Tessa, are you there?” I searched the bathroom, but no one was there. No one was in the room with me.
Where could she have gone? She wasn’t the type to wander off. She loved to sit on the bed going through one of my books or scribbling something in the drawing book I had given her.
After searching without any reward, I went to the large bed we shared, and found a folded piece of paper on the bed. It had the same handwriting as the one I had seen on the bed the last time.
I unfolded it and read it slowly, because the act was tasking since my hands kept shaking. I forced myself to digest every word right from the moment I saw Tessa’s name written in bold cursive letters.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No.”
The letter read: ‘Tessa is safe, but she won’t be for long if you don’t come to the training grounds by nightfall.’
I let the paper flutter from my hand down to the bed, as a mix of anger and apprehension rushed through me like a tsunami. Tessa didn’t deserve to be hurt because of me-or because of anyone. She was just an innocent child unlucky enough to have been born into a pack destined for doom right from the beginning.
Her cute face and wild curls crossed my mind, reminding me of her sheer innocence. She was like a flower forced to grow in-between the cracks of pavement, and I had been the one to transplant her. At least away from that evil mistress who had clearly been abusing her she could be free and happy for as long as the world would allow her to be. There was nothing more difficult than realising that there wasn’t much else I could have done in the situation except turning myself in to whomever was asking, so finished undressing and donned a new outfit-one that would give me more comfort and grant me the gift of unrestricted movement should I have needed to use it.
–
The path to the training grounds possessed lush greenery and trees of medium height that existed to just beautify, rather than actually contribute to the health of the world. Their green leaves were aesthetically pleasing, and their barks were smooth with very little ruggedness like the older trees that had been around for years. I ran my hand across one as I walked, drinking inthe nature, but still being alert enough to detect any danger if it appeared.
My feet crunched on dried grass and leaves as I moved, a pointer to the Fall season. In a few weeks, we would be greeted by cold, freezing snow and streets difficult to walk though because of how they would be covered with the white flakes of snow.
The training grounds soon entered my line of vision, and I steeled my body for whatever would have come next. I wasn’t dumb enough to not know the implications of my actions: I was likely going to get kidnapped, hurt, or even killed, but all of those things paled in comparison to the pain I would have felt if anything happened to Tessa on my account.
I stepped into the training ring, blowing out a breath. “I’m here,” I said calmly, looking around for any signs or clues that I wasn’t alone. “As you asked, now let her go!”
Someone chuckled, but it was more like a whisper. “She was never here to begin with. I was certain that using her was going to drop you right into my hands, and I was very correct, it turns out.”
“What have you been sending me those letters? What makes you think that I would have been comfortable with killing the triplets and helping you-is that why you’re even sending me those letters in the first place?”
The voice came again-raspy, like one in need of water. “Because I believed you would help me achieve my goals. After all, it’s quite obvious that you hate these men. They have done nothing but be rude and unkind towards you. Unless you have decided to go down the route of forgiveness . . .”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I know everything, child. I see more than you could ever know.”
So whoever this was, also had close access to me and probably my conversations too. If that was the case, did they also know about what had happened between the triplets and I? That by some inexplicable twist of fate, they were all bound to me, and I to them, no matter how deeply I wanted to deny it?
The bond had become real to me, and that was because back in that hallway where I was venting to Seth and Scott, I had felt how sorry they were, instead of just seeing it on their faces. That was the turning point when I knew that truly, I had been bound to three men by the Moon Goddess, and if I wanted to get out of it, I would probably have to end my own life or do something incredibly drastic.
I kept looking around to see if I would even catch a glimpse of the person speaking, but the more I tried, the less I could even make sense of. Everything else felt completely weird and strange. Cold. I wrapped my jacket tighter around me. I wondered what it took for someone to become so clearly motivated by the thought of ending the lives of others: even if they were as annoying as those triplets that kept trying to worm themselves into my life because they had seen the arrors of their ways and now pitied me. Even though I wanted nothing but for them to get off my back and just pretend like they didn’t know me or knew what was left of me.
For a split second, Shaun came to mind, but I blinked him out of existence before the image could fully settle. It didn’t matter whatever seemed to be trying to bud inside of me towards him, it wouldn’t survive because I didn’t need anyone else in my life to take care of. I was perfectly fine being alone and chasing my goals on my own.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, or what you need me for, but I can assure you that I’m the last person you need to join in on your plans-whatever they entail. The triplets have a mind of their own, and they’re unpredictable.”
“But I thought you wanted you to be the sole Luna of the pack? To have power unimaginable that would allow you to avenge the wrongs meted out to your people?”
“I know that you’re not trying to help me out. You have your own hidden agenda.”
“An agenda that will favor you.”
“It won’t.”
Silence came, leaving me a tad confused for a little while, but I tried to remain as calm as I could. I didn’t know what being here would lead to, and what would eventually happen if this person eventually didn’t happen to get what he was chasing after. It occurred to me that this was the very person who had killed Daven, now they were looking to finish the job by ending the triplets. In another world, maybe I would have been in on this person’s plan to end the triplets, but I wasn’t a murderer, and even if it meant that I was weak, I couldn’t accept a plan that involved killing.
I had seen too much bloodshed to voluntarily be a part of another massacre.
I looked up again, summing all the courage I had within me. Not being able to see an attacker was actually daunting, but I had seen worse so being cowardly wasn’t something that came easily to me anymore. “Come out of the shadows and stop hiding.”
“Who said I was?” someone whispered into my ear, fully startling me. Before I could move, a cloth was pressed over my nose and mouth, and no amount of squirming could get my attacker to budge.
My vision started to blur, and the world turned hazy.
“Either way, you’ll help me get what I want,” they said, tightly holding on to me from behind so that I couldn’t escape or fight back. “Lucy Harris.”
Soon, I couldn’t hear or see anything at all.