Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Chapter 126
1 month later.
We were visiting Andrei’s Pack, we just pulled up out the front of the new packhouse and my stomach dropped. It was exactly the same as my vision. His future was already set in motion and I had no doubt it was exactly what I saw in his future or glimpses of.
“Looks like a fortress, ” Mateo mutters. The entire place was made of concrete and I gulped at the modern version of what looked like a prison. The entire bottom level had no windows, just a door. I shift in my seat when Andrei opens my door. A huge grin split on his face.
While I frowned, this is the place he built to call home? This concrete-looking dungeon. Pack members were walking around with their heads down and no one crossed our path as he walked us toward the place.
The front door was made of steel and resembled a door that would be suited for a safe room then a house.
“I wonder if the decor is concrete too” Mateo mutters to me and I elbow him and I waddle along. My belly had really popped out and I now looked pregnant. Just seeing this place made bile rise in my throat. If only my mates knew of the t*ortur*e that would happen in this place. I needed to find some way to stop it.
Looking around, most of the houses had been rebuilt, making me wonder how much it cost him to have this place built so quickly and why the rush.
Andrei stops at the door and I look up to see a camera above it. He places his hand on the panel on the door before I hear the gr0@ning and straining of the locks unlocking before he twists the handle and pulls the door open.
“Little over the top don’t you think brother?”
” Precaution”. He says.
“Who are you trying to keep out, god?” Mateo asks while all I could think is who is trying to keep in.
“Stepping inside though it was vastly different but it was so cold. Inside looked like a normal house but the lack of windows made it dark except for led lights in the ceiling. Polished floorboards ran through the place and a huge concrete fireplace sat in the living room.
Inbuilt concrete bookshelves line the hall and concrete stairs but the walls had all been painted white. I could still smell the fresh paint and it made my head spin with how strong it Was.
We followed him through the maze of a place to the kitchen to find a galley style kitchen with stainless steel appliances and black marble benchtops.
“The kitchen is nice” I say, it was the only comment I could make without hurting his feelings.
The place looked nice but the concrete made it feel cold and like the prison I saw it as.
There were no windows or doors except the one leading in on this floor. I suddenly felt claustrophobic despite its vast size.
Ezra picking up on my unease grabs my hand squeezing my fingers gently.
“You okay?” He asks through the link and I shake my head.
“This place isn’t a home, it is a prison” I tell him. This place was soulless just like his pack called him. Cold and soulless. It was like walking around in the darkest pits of somebody’s mind. A part of his mind I wish I never saw.
Andrei shows us back through the house to the stairs. I noticed a door underneath the stairs and stop. I knew without asking what that door led down to. “What’s through there?” I ask him.
“Just the basement, nothing to see down there” He says glaring at the door. Yet I knew there was plenty to see. I knew there were steel tables lining the center of the room, shelves and walls containing different devices to inflict pain. I knew because I saw it. Smelt the tears and the bloodshed that would happen in that cold place.
A cold shiver runs up my spine at the look he gives me, endless pools of black staring back at me before he notices my gaze. His face morphing like he just came back from somewhere before composing himself.
“This way” He says, turning on his heel and walking up the stairs. I could feel Ezra’s hand on my lower back making sure I didn’t slip as I climbed them. Though getting to the top I see light filtering in before realising what I thought were windows were actually just perspex panels made to look like windows.
Ducts in the ceiling pushing air around the place yet still no windows that could be opened. Nothing at all but the coldness of the place, this place held no life. No pictures and no hope. I knew once inside no one would escape this place.
Andrei opens up a door with a key from a chain that hangs around his neck. He pushes the door open and I find it is some sort of surveillance room.
Huge screened tv’s hung on the walls and I could see every border of his pack, every street outside this place and every room in this place. All but one the basement. Which I had no doubt was saved for the one tv that wasn’t on.
I knew losing a mate could send someone mad, crazed but I couldn’t picture my loving brother, despite seeing it. I couldn’t picture the man he is around me being a sociopath, a serial k!ller in the making. He was always so gentle, so loving with me and my mates, yet the man from the visions was a cold and cruel hunter and the world was his prey.
“You have every perimeter” Ezra notes looking at the cameras.
“Yes, nothing will get in or out without me knowing” Andrei says. Ezra nods, fiddling with the tech and pulling up different angles while Andrei explains to him how it all worked and the different traps set out amongst the borders that he could control from this very room. Mateo grabs my hand leading me out and down the hall.
“I know something is wrong with you” He says, tucking me under his arm and kissing my forehead.
“I think something bad is going to happen” I tell him and he stops looking at me.
“What do you mean?” He asks.
“This place isn’t a home Mateo, my brother isn’t who we think he is, at least not anymore” I tell him.
“Your vision?” He asks, leading me to the end of the hall before pushing open the door.
“Yes, this place was in it” I tell him and he furrowed his brows.
“You know we can’t do anything without proof Kat”
“And how many have to d*ie before we get it?” I ask him.
“Pardon?” He asks, confused. I told them about my visions but not to the full extent hoping I was wrong, hoping what I saw was just a figment of my imagination.
“This place isn’t a home Mateo, this place is where people come to d*ie, d*ie painfully in his hands” I tell him and he cups my face with his large hands.
“Are you scared of him?” He asks and I shake my head.
“No, I am scared for them”
“And who is them?”
“The rogues, the people he brings here”
“If they are rogue we have no say Kat, you know this. We would have to fight to have the laws changed”
“What good is it being the Queen of Alpha’s, the kings of Alpha’s if we cant help people Mateo. This? This is wrong”
“Yes but they aren’t our people, we have no say. Queen or not Kat, we can only step in when we have proof when he breaches wolf law”
“I am the law, and I will find a way, this cannot happen but I fear it has already started, she brought me back for a reason and I intend to prove I am worthy of it, I don’t care if they are rogue they are still my people” I tell him. Mateo nods.
“He is your brother Kat”
“Yes, but my real brother d*ied when Angie did” I tell him. He stands upright before nodding and we look around the room. This room was the only room in the house that looked lived in. It was his bedroom. A huge bed sat in the middle and it had oak furniture, I could see the bathroom attached and a closet.
This room was warmer than the rest of the house or maybe it was the black rugs covering the floors and the light filtering in off two walls but one.heavy dr@pes lined those walls of this perspex room and I could see half the pack from them. On the other wall, the only one that wasn’t made of perspex was a tv nestled between the two doors on either side of it.
For the most part this place looked industrial and clinical except for his room and the kitchen. Andrei and Ezra come in and Ezra wraps his arms around my belly, his hands rubbing it and I notice Andrei’s eyes go to his hands before they flicker to Donnie his wolf before we make eye contact.
“So you like it sis?” He asks.
“Just so cold in here,” I tell him .
“ I don’t mind the cold” he says and I nod trying to think of what I could do to prevent more bloodshed. But Mateo was right, me rushing in would start a war and not just with Andrei but the other packs, thinking I was abusing my power, abusing what the Moon Goddess gave me.
“What happens to any rogues that cross your lands?” I ask him, trying to keep the accusation from tipping off my tongue and into my voice.
“What of them?” He asks.
“Have any?” I ask him.
“None have crossed” He says yet the moment he said the words the image of Donnie and him in either form crossed my line of sight. He was right, none came here, he hunted them.
“I don’t think any would cross with the security measures you have” Ezra says and Andrei nods.
“They won’t make it out if they do” Andrei comments.
Andrei showed us around his newly built pack before we headed home. The entire way home something was eating at my insides, eating away at my subconscious. Angie’s death made him like this, destroyed him in every way, he was no longer a man but a monster.
Someone you prayed to the fates to never cross, someone you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemies. Gone was my loving brother and in his place the soulless Alpha. I understood the name that had been bestowed upon him.
Yet Angie’s death made him like this he wasn’t to blame. He was only to be blamed for his actions. I suddenly wished more than ever that second chance mates existed. If a woman could make him this way, could one bring him back to the man he once was.
Would I be cruel wishing a woman on him. I knew Andrei would never choose a mate, but could I ask this of the Moon goddess. Would she shoot my request down? I wasn’t sure but I had to try.
All night I tossed and turned, all night I was plagued with the images of what I saw. All night I wondered who the people were that haunted me. Getting up, I noticed Ezra and Mateo were sound asleep. I climb over Ezra, his hands going to my thighs as I climb over him.
“Where are you going?” He asks sleepily. I lean down kissing his lips. “Go back to sleep” I whisper and he mumbles incoherently but rolls over and tugs Mateo to him before kissing his shoulder and tucking his face between his shoulder blades.
I smile at them before walking out of the room, my hand running down the bannister as I walk down the stairs before walking through the house to the back yard.
I push the glasssliding door open and step into the darkness of the night. Only the full moon that shone down on me provided light. Goosebumps rose on my arms as I felt the moon recharging me, awakening the power within me.
I sit on the sandstone block staring at the Moon. “
Seline my Goddess, my Moon” I whisper hoping she could hear me. I felt like an idiot talking to the moon yet I continued to call her. I feel a chill rush over me and sigh. I don’t know what came over me and I went to stand to go back to bed.
“I may be a goddess but you are my moon, my little prodigy” she chuckles and I stop. My lips tugged up at the sound of her voice.
“Now tell me Katya what is it my daughter wants from me, what is it you need that you call out my name” she asks.
I turn to face her. She was always a sight to see and I would never stop being in awe of the way she carried herself.
“I wanted to ask a favour”
“Does this favour have anything to do with Andrei? ” She asks and I nod sitting back down.
“I have saw his future and I see him now, he has so much anger, so what is it you need of me Katya”
“I came to ask for a second chance, a second chance mate for him” she places her index finger on her chin thoughtfully.
“A second chance? There are no second chances only chosen that can tempt fate” she muses.
Though I could tell she was truly thinking it over.
“What if there was, what if you gave them a back up plan. A second chance for those that need it”
“But how would it work, does everyone have a second chance or do I pair only those that loved and lost, what of the rejected?” She asks.
“What about hope, hope can change the future Seline those left behind or forgotten, some never know love Seline only pain. What if a second chance gave them hope, how many of your children would it save?” I ask her.
“Andrei is a hard man to f0rce fate on someone”
“I know what I am asking but I know no other way to save him from himself”
“And if it doesn’t work, what becomes of her, who would be strong enough to endure him, katya. Who would be strong enough to change the man they call soulless”
“So it has started?” I ask her.
“Yes, had for a while in the tunnels near his pack, I watched but couldn’t interfere, I prayed with them and soothed their souls when they returned to me” She says.
“It would take a strong woman to survive him or a weak on to endure him but that is no life Katya”
“What if she is both, what if she could change him and him her” I ask knowing I was asking the impossible.
“Not all broken people fit together like puzzle pieces of the soul, some clash and others resist” she says though I could see the flash in her eyes she felt it too. Hope.
“But if it does? Isn’t it worth the chance to see if it does work” I ask.
“Like a trial, using Andrei?” She suggests and I nod.
“What if she is the very thing he is hunting, would he destroy the one thing that could save him?” She mutters to herself.
“So you can do it?” I ask her and she nods but I could see the Indecision in her eyes. She was scared to pair him.
“If he can’t be saved Kat?”
“Then I K*ll him” I tell her and she nods.
“You would do that, K*ll your own family to save them?”
“Have I not proven I would lay my life down for my people, they may be rogue but they are my people Seline. Family or not I will do what is right”
She nods her head. “1 year. A trial of 1 year if she can’t change him, you give me your word that you will take his life, not your mates but you” I swallow but nod my head.
“Choose wisely please Seline ” I ask of her, please choose wisely I think.
“I have someone in mind, someone just as broken, one he can’t break when there Is nothing left to damage” “What do you mean?” I ask.
“Remember my words for he will ask, but the woman I will grant is just as broken though not twisted. He is this way because he loved and lost, she is the way she is because she has never been shown love, hopefully they can be each other’s saviour but It won’t be no fairytale Kat, any woman that could survive him has only known pain, hopefully we aren’t forcing her to endure more of it ” she says and I swallow.
Seline walks over and places her hands on my shoulders. “1 year Kat, 1 year. Let’s pray she saves him and he her” she says before pressing her lips to my head.
The Moon Goddess disappears and I feel arms wrap around me, warm and soothing.
“Why are you out here kitty” Comes Maddox’s gravelling voice next to my ear. I look up at him, his face barely an inch off mine. Maddox had control yet he was calm, not angry, just worried. I press my forehead to his. “Tempting fate” I tell him and he brushes his nose across my cheek. “Can I tempt you to bed, it is cold out here you should be sleeping” He says, his hand going to my belly and I nod.