20

Ruby

I could still feel Xavier's lips on me and his strong hands holding me, even hours later. Amid this chaos, he had made me forget everything so easily even if it had only lasted for a few hours. I had needed the distraction, a break to experience some form of normalcy. I know now that, if given the choice to go back and time make different choices that would allow me to live my life as I had been, I would still make the same choices again. That might be the selfish thing to do, but I'd still want to know Xavier, Natalie, and Mathieu. I'd still want to know about werewolves and witches.

I paused as I looked from left to right, my mouth twerked to the side in contemplation. I'm not sure I'd want to meet Axel. That prick has single- handedly ruined everything. Well, at least now he's been pulled into the madness against his will, which he deserves, of course. I don't get how he thought he could walk away from this unscathed. This is just further proof of what I've thought all along - karma's a bitch.

One thing I did fear was the idea that perhaps Xavier might come to resent me one day for all the trouble I have caused him and his pack. Yes, he wasn't feeling that way now and professed to be ready to leave his pack for good to be with me, but the trouble certainly wasn't over yet by any means. Axel has proved he's ready to reject me or pawn me away for his pack. Was it only a matter of time before Xavier came to feel the same?.

Will he eventually hate me because he picked me over being something he was born to be? Maybe he'll learn to hate me long before that because no one knows what's in my past. I shook my head to be rid of those thoughts and continued walking down the corridor.

I've been locked away in my room since returning to the house with Xavier, a different room than the one I had been sharing with Axel. I didn't

want to see or speak to anyone, and the last person I wanted to run into was Olcan. I had only eaten when Natalie had turned up with dinner. She had finally filled me in on how an Enchanted named Adolfa had transferred all her power to her and the significance of her hair color change.

I was still blown away by the fact that she's a descendant of a goddess, a real goddess. It had been hard to follow everything that Olcan and the others were talking about this morning, but that bit of information had been mind-blowing. I hated the fact that I would be leaving her behind, but at the same time, I was happy she wouldn't have to be dragged to another country as well on account of me.

Considering it was already 10 pm and we all had a dreaded day ahead of us tomorrow, everyone had retired to their own spaces early. This was the perfect time for me to roam around or whip something up in the kitchen. It really wasn't hunger driving me to leave my room. I was just too anxious to stay in one place any longer, and I was eager to stretch my legs. I wanted to take one last long look at this place. Despite everything I've been through here, this was the best home I have ever lived in. I hoped my socks were allowing me to move around without being heard and that was proved to be accurate when I walked by a slightly cracked door and heard Axel talking.

"This isn't what we agreed on."

I frowned and pressed myself to the wall beside the door before peeping inside. Sure enough, Axel was standing with his back to the door, his hair loose around his shoulders. I couldn't see whom he was speaking to, but I had a strong suspicion about who it might be.

"Plans change," I heard Olcan respond in his usual indifferent tone, and I edged closer to the door.

"My father has been ill for a while, and I've already taken over as Alpha. You know that."

This was news to me and I had a feeling it would be news to Xavier as well. I pressed myself closer to the wall instead of looking into the room and risking being seen. Did they know I was standing here? Surely, they could smell me, or were they too engrossed in their conversation to notice?

"I can't leave my pack and go to Romania. Can you even say how long I'll have to stay there? No, you have no idea."

Olcan sighed. "This isn't up for debate, Axel. I think it's obvious that you can't be left behind. You are the girl's mate as well. Your presence

will be needed."

"This is up for debate. This is not the deal we made. This is a bad time for me to leave my people," Axel growled.

"Deals change! A lot has changed! This was a bad time for me to drop everything to come here, but here I am. She is a problem, Axel, much more than you had portrayed, and more than any of us had thought."

"Because she knows Lovette? This is how she is treated because of that? You don't know what she knows."

"Exactly!" Olcan yelled. "No one knows what she knows! No one knows who she is!" My eyes fluttered as I looked down, his words cutting through me. "I need to know what she knows, everything that she knows." His voice grew deep and threatening, and I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. "And I will learn it all, even if I have to cut it from her skull myself. I don't give a fuck about her being your mate or Xavier's. She's not one of us, and she never will be. You're both alphas-to-be. In fact, you're already an acting alpha, so act like it."

Was Olcan saying what I thought he was saying? Was he talking about killing me? He couldn't be. No. My heartbeat spiked as I continued to listen, but they were no longer speaking. As the silence stretched on, I started to panic that maybe they had finally realized I was eavesdropping right outside the door. I had just started to move away when Axel's voice met my ears, his voice as low as Olcan's.

"What are you saying, Olcan?"

"Don't tell me that now after all this you actually care about what happens to her, Axel. I'm here because you brought me here. Xavier is already too close to her and that will be taken care of, but don't you join him, Axel. You'll meet the same fate, and I don't want to lose yet another promising Alpha, especially one who understands the Council's vision. A human can't be mated to a wolf. Period. Imagine the chaos and uncertainty within the wolf community if something like this ever got out. We must understand how this happened and how to prevent it from happening again."

I turned away slowly on tiptoe until I felt like I was far enough away from the room. Then I started running. I have to get out of here. I can't stay here. I can't! I ran down the stairs to get to the second floor but as I rounded a corner, I heard whispering. I stopped running, my chest rising and falling rapidly as I listened, but the whispering had stopped.

I started walking down the dimly lit hall, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end as the faint whispering started once more. I spun around in time to see a black shadow disappear inside the wall to my left. My eyes widened as I immediately turned and started running. Ghost or not, I wasn't sticking around to find out.

I pumped my legs as the feeling of being chased grew worse. I heard a scream, much like the ones I had heard during that vision inside my mind. I skidded to a halt as the world around me fell away, and I was once again at that place in my mind with all the humans running in fear.

I rubbed at my eyes, and when I opened them, I was in the hall once

more.

What the hell is going on?

"Ruby?" The voice hadn't registered until I had spun around and my

fist was caught inches away from crushing a nose. Xavier's head tilted to the side; his brows knitted as he lowered my fist. "What are you doing?" I threw myself at him and buried my face in his chest. "Ruby, you're freaking me out. Why were you running like that?"

"Something was…" I looked up at him. "We have to leave, Xavier."

He stared down at me sadly. "We have to go, Ruby. We don't have a choice."

I untangled myself from him as I shook my head. He had no idea what was about to happen. "They're going to kill me." His expression of pity didn't change, and I felt like punching him in the face for real. "I'm not being paranoid, Xavier. I heard Olcan say it aloud. He's going to kill me. I don't know exactly what he has planned for you, but I doubt it'll be pleasant."

His face slowly morphed into one of confusion and anger. "What are you talking about? You heard Olcan talking when? To whom?"

"Just now, on the third floor, he was talking to Axel. He wants to know what I know, and he's prepared to do anything to get that information. He said I'm not one of you and I never will be. , He doesn't care that I'm mated to you and Axel. All he wants to find out is how I'm mated to a wolf, to begin with, and how to stop it from happening again. He has no plans of ever letting any wolves get a whiff about our mate bond. He's going to kill me, Xavier. We have to leave now."

He stepped away from me, his face turning red with rage. With his black T-shirt and jeans and the semi-darkness around us, he blended into the

shadows around us easily while pacing back and forth. "Axel's the Alpha now because his dad is sick," I said, and as I expected, he turned to me with confusion written on his face. Obviously, that was news to him, too. "He's mad about being forced to leave his pack behind to come with us, but Olcan doesn't care about that either. He doesn't care about any of us."

"She's right."