Ian’s POV:
I was breathing heavily, and my whole body was covered in blood. Aurora and Roxanne were standing next to me with bloody hands and claw marks on their backs, while the rest were in their wolf form behind us.
The shield created between us and the coven elders by their witch was too strong to penetrate, at least for us. But for Roman, it was something else.
He easily walked past it and attacked the elders who fought him with everything they had.
Something that shocked us even more was what we were noticing. The elders were getting weak one by one each time they sunk their fangs into his skin; it’s as if his blood was poisoned. Their movement was getting slower, and a dark trail of blood was coming from their nose.
As for the witch, she stood doing nothing.
Something was terribly wrong.
I looked at my left side and noticed how Chase was still trying to heal Lee, who was badly injured and knocked out on the ground. His hands were pressed on each side of his head as waves of energy were being emitted.
Felix’s gaze was focused on a certain coven elder who had attempted to rip out her heart. She had a murderous gaze, and her mouth was covered with blood. Her clothes were slightly torn, and her chest was slowly healing from the injury.
“What do we do now?” I asked through our mind-link.
“Should we mind-link August and tell him to ask Lexi to try and break the shield?” The twins asked together, their tone filled with anger and impatience.
“No,” I responded.
How could they say that when they knew Lexi’s life was once put in danger because of me?
“Roman needs our help,” Leo whispered softly.
“He will be fine,” I answered, then frowned when Roxanne rushed ahead, turning into her wolf and slamming against the shield.
As a mate, she was very worried, but deep down, I was sure she knew he was capable of fighting them all by himself.
His lycan’s build was above an Alpha queen, and his aura was very intimidating. The white, silky fur was smeared with blood, and so was his mouth, which had blood dripping from it.
Roxanne took a step back and slammed into the shield, making it shake as a small crack appeared.
“It’s like glass,” Whitney whispered, then looked at me with a smirk.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Alpha?” she asked.
“Of course,” I answered and then ran ahead with her. We shifted into our wolves, slamming into the shield as it completely vanished.
Roxanne ran ahead, jumping on one of the elders as I allowed Axel to take over and she did the same.
He bit down on the elder’s neck and pushed him down to finish him off. The witch instantly vanished when Aurora was about to pounce on her.
The rest of the elders took a few steps back, carefully looking at us as we killed the others.
Axel stood still with his front paw pressed against the dead, headless elder, growling. When another shield appeared in front of us, separating us from them yet again, he gave me back control.
“Cowards,” the twins yelled through our mind link as I looked at Roman, who was standing next to Aurora.
He faced us as he shifted into his human form.
“Stay back!” came his command, and then he turned and pressed his hand against the shield as it instantly went down.
The witch appeared in front of him with a staff in her hand and removed her hood. For the first time, we could see her face. She was young, younger than what we had imagined her to be. A huge scar covered the top of her nose, and one of her eyes was white, as if she was blind in one eye.
“I understand that you were following orders, but did you have to let my mate suffer this much?” he asked angrily as the witch lowered her gaze to the ground without a word.
The elders hissed, and they were about to move when the witch turned in an instant and hit her staff to the ground as black waves of magic went straight at them like arrows, hitting them hard and instantly making them freeze. We were all in shock and trying hard to understand what was happening.
She turned and faced Roman, then went down on one knee.
“Master, I await your command,” she said, then lowered her gaze to the floor.
“What the fuck,” Ryan whispered in disbelief.
“Cloak,” Roman demanded.
The witch took it off and handed it to him without hesitation.
He grabbed it from her hand and then put it on.
We watched as he walked past the angry-looking frozen elders and went to the seats ahead which were surrounding a very big table. He trailed his hand slowly on each silver chair until he reached the golden one which was in the middle.
He slowly sat down and looked at us.
“Jersey, for now stand down, Ian is Garren’s family,” he said lazily as the witch stood up and took a few steps backward with her gaze still lowered.
“Alpha, is the bastard part of the coven! Did he betray us?” Evan asked through our mind link.
“Shut up,” I spat, then swallowed hard.
So far, all I could understand was that the witch was working for him and all this time he watched us suffer for his own amusement. I was beyond angry, but I knew attacking him would be a disadvantage to us.
“I know you want answers,” he whispered, then looked seriously at Roxanne who looked shattered.
Her eyes were blurry with tears, and her fingers were linked together. She was trying so hard to keep herself together and understand what was happening with her mate.
“Answers? You must be fucking insane! We need much more than that! Are you working with these snakes?” Ryan asked furiously.
“If I was, I wouldn’t have had Jersey freeze them in one place, would I?” he asked.
“Was this your plan all along to lead us to our doom?” Aurora asked loudly.
In the past weeks, we talked, and stupidly, I thought of him as family, not knowing he was one of my enemies.
“You see, the council had no weapon against me because they were under me,” he said as I frowned deeply.
I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“How do I put this? There has never been a day when the council was above my control. All these years, they were under mine,” he said, then crossed his legs.
“You see, although they were like my puppets, their will was too strong to break, so I couldn’t find out what I really wanted to know,” he said.
“Do you mean to say…” Aurora trailed off.
“He was using all of us to find out the truth about his parents’ deaths,” Felix hissed as he smiled.
“Bingo. I knew all those years that my parents were murdered, but as for Garren, he was too dumb to realize. Every time he asked the council about our parents’ death, they played it off as your own accident, and I knew that they were lying to us. Despite Jersey being strong, she couldn’t find out the needed information or see past their little consciousness, which held all the secrets. I wanted to hear the killer of my parents confess with his own lips to their death, that’s why I played along in this story. Ian, you wouldn’t believe how shocked I was when you told me it was them,” he said, then stood up.
“I wanted to eliminate them all, but you got in Garren’s way, and that somehow changed the story a little bit. When you were willing to risk your lives for the truth to come to light, I began looking at you differently. You see, Garren was always my substitute, and he had no idea about everything that was going on. If I had let him in, he would have betrayed me by telling everything to our lovely mate. That’s why I had to keep him in the dark. When you came here to ambush the elders, I waited for you and the rest to confront them on my behalf over my parents’ death. The reason? I wanted to see what I had heard when I was young. I admit it was fascinating watching you all fight in a legendary lane, just beautiful. You sure stood your ground much more than I had heard in stories. That’s why I deliberately held Garren back while you fought,” he said, then moved.
I was about to do the same when Aurora grabbed my hand and shook her head.
We all could see that the motherfucker was beyond insane.
“So, in short, you wanted to study our fighting skills in war?” I asked.
“No and yes,” he answered and then stood between two elders who looked terrified.
He slowly put each hand on their necks.
“I know you can still speak, dear elders. That’s why I’m going to ask you this question. Did you truly kill them or not?” He asked playfully.
When they couldn’t answer, he forcefully sunk his claws into their scalps.
“We did it for your own good! If they were still alive, they could have taken over the coven and continued to birth a tainted bloodline! They deserved to be kill…,”
“Bianca!” One of the elders warned her, cutting her short.
“Tainted blood,” Roman whispered in a low rumble.
Roxanne gasped and moved her hand to her mouth when Roman slowly ripped off their heads with a glint of enjoyment in his eyes.
In front of us wasn’t a monster but a devil, and we were all victims to his game.
We watched in horror as he walked happily while whistling, ripping off each of the elders’ heads as blood splattered all over him.
“Should we make a move and take him down?” I asked Axel silently.
“No, even if we were to reach where he is in time to throw a punch or two, we would be at a disadvantage. His witch would have already cast a spell. She’s strong, quick, and seems to anticipate moves ahead of time. It would have been better if Lee were okay, but he is down and Chase has exhausted most of his strength trying to heal him,” he answered.
“Then are you suggesting we surrender?” I asked angrily.
Before he could answer, Roxanne took a step forward.
“So now what? Will you kill us all?” She asked in a cracked voice as the scent of her tears filled the air.
Roman looked at everyone coldly, then back at her.
“Perhaps,” he answered.
“I figured you would say that,” she said, then raised her hand and slightly sunk her claws into her neck.
“No,” I screamed, then ran towards her to stop her but stopped when Roman grabbed her by the waist and disappeared from my sight in a split second.
“Roxanne!” I called at the top of my voice.
“You would sacrifice yourself for them?” Roman’s growl came from upstairs.
I was about to run there when the witch appeared in front of us.
“Step aside!” Axel commanded with emphasis when he took partial control. He then shifted as Aurora did the same.
“What did you expect, asshole? That I would happily be with you after my parents’ death!” Roxanne’s response came through.
“No,” came Roman’s sad response.
We growled loudly but became surprised when the witch stepped out of our way.
I dashed to the stairs, following their scent, with the rest of the family behind, which led us to a certain room.
When we dashed into the room where they were, we found Roxanne pointing a dagger towards him while he was facing the window with his back towards her.
If he wanted her dead, she would have been dead, that we all knew. What we didn’t understand was why he was keeping us all alive when it’s clear he wanted nothing to do with us.
We were all stunned to see tears running down his cheeks.
We couldn’t understand the bastard at all. Was it one of his other tricks?
We all shifted back into our human form, looking at him.
“You can’t fill the void in your heart despite revenge, can you?” Felix asked softly.
He laughed loudly, then shook his head and moved his hands to his face. When he dropped them, we all moved back.
We didn’t trust him, so we were very conscious of his actions.
“Jersey, send them back. From now on, no one will ever find the coven or this territory,” he said sadly, then forced a smile on his face.
“No!” Roxanne screamed and tried to run to him when a bright light blinded us all.