Being dead didn’t stop the worry. If anything, it made it worse. I was nothing but a whisper in the wind now, a silent observer tethered to the two pieces of my heart that remained on this cruel earth. I hovered in the damp air of the Obsidian Shadow Pack’s gardens, watching my daughter try to make herself invisible.
Adley was tucked behind a stone statue of a howling wolf, her small body pressed into the wet ivy. In her hands, she held a crumpled, mud-stained newspaper she must have fished out of the trash bins behind the kitchen. Her lips moved silently, forming words.
*Stocks. Market. Crash.*
She was reading. My brilliant, starving girl was reading the financial section because it was the only thing with words she could find.
Heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel path. My spirit flickered with anxiety. Holden.
He was pacing, his aura a storm of agitated black smoke. His wolf was restless, pacing under his skin, sensing a connection he couldn’t logically explain. He turned the corner and stopped dead. His golden eyes—eyes that Adley had inherited—narrowed as they landed on the small intruder.
"You," he rumbled.
Adley jumped, the newspaper fluttering to the grass. She didn't run, though. She scrambled to her feet, her back hitting the cold stone of the statue. She looked so tiny next to him. He was a titan of muscle and rage; she was a bag of bones in an oversized wool coat.
"What is that?" Holden asked, pointing a gloved finger at the paper.
"Reading," Adley whispered, her voice trembling but defiant.
Holden stepped closer, his shadow engulfing her. "Rogue brats don't read. Who taught you?"
Adley clutched her hands into fists at her sides. "Mama."
"And where is this Mama?" Holden’s voice dripped with that familiar, icy venom. He thought she was some negligent rogue whore who had abandoned her child. "Did she teach you to steal, too?"
He leaned down, invading her space, using his size to intimidate. It was a test. He wanted to see if she would cower.
She didn't.
Adley’s upper lip curled back. A low, vibrating sound rose from her chest—a growl. It was small, pathetic really, but the intent was pure Alpha. She bared her tiny, human teeth at him, her golden eyes flashing with a ferocious need to protect her dignity.
I gasped, though I had no breath. It was like looking in a mirror. I had seen Holden make that exact face a thousand times when the Council tried to control him.
Holden froze. The irritation on his face slackened into pure shock. He stared at the snarling five-year-old, his wolf suddenly pushing forward, confused by the reflection of its own dominance in this frail creature.
"Stop that," he snapped, straightening up abruptly. He looked rattled. "Go back to the kitchens. Before I change my mind about letting you stay."
Adley snatched up her newspaper and bolted. Holden watched her go, his hand raking through his dark hair, his chest heaving. He needed to hit something. I could feel the violence itching under his skin, the need to silence the questions his wolf was screaming at him.
***
An hour later, the rain had turned into a deluge. Holden stood at the edge of the territory, surrounded by his Delta team. He needed a distraction, and the universe had provided one: a tip about a rogue slave ring operating just five miles past the border.
"No survivors among the traffickers," Holden ordered, his voice void of mercy. "Kill them all."
I followed him into the dark. The raid was a blur of blood and silver. Holden fought like a demon possessed, tearing through the rogue guards with a brutality that made my soul weep. He was punishing the world for the pain I had caused him. Every snap of bone, every spray of blood was a testament to the heart I had broken.
When the silence finally fell, the slavers lay dead in the mud. Holden wiped a splatter of blood from his cheek and walked toward the covered trucks parked in the clearing. The smell coming from them was horrific—unwashed bodies, fear, and rot.
"Open them," he commanded.
His warriors threw open the back of the largest truck. Inside, a dozen women huddled in cages, their eyes hollowed out by abuse. They were skeletal, filthy, stripped of their humanity.
Holden walked down the line, his face a mask of disgust. He wasn't looking for survivors to save; he was looking for intel. He stopped at the last cage.
A woman lay curled in the corner, her hair matted with grime. But I knew that hair. It was the color of autumn leaves, just like mine used to be.
*Liana.*
My scream echoed in the void, unheard by the living. My little sister. The last time I saw her, she was sixteen, laughing in the Moonstone pack house. Now, she was a broken shell, branded and beaten.
Holden stared at her. Recognition dawned slowly, followed by a cold, hard fury. He didn't see a victim. He saw a connection to me.
"You," he breathed, grabbing the bars of the cage and ripping the door off its hinges with a screech of metal.
Liana flinched, curling tighter into herself. She didn't look up. She was too broken to hope.
Holden reached in and dragged her out by her arm. She was light as a feather, but he handled her with no gentleness. He hauled her to her feet, shaking her.
"Liana Phillips," he snarled, his Alpha aura crushing down on her. "Look at me."
She raised her head slowly. Her eyes were vacant, dead things. She didn't recognize him. Or maybe she did, and she just didn't care.
"Where is she?" Holden roared, the sound echoing through the rainy forest. "Where is your traitor of a sister?"
Liana blinked, a tear cutting a clean track through the dirt on her cheek. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
"Don't play dumb!" Holden shook her again, his desperation bleeding through his rage. "Molly is out there, living her life, while you rot in a cage? Is that it? Tell me where she is!"
He thought I was alive. He thought I had abandoned my own blood to slavery while I lived in luxury with some imaginary mate. The injustice of it tore at my spirit.
*I’m here, Holden!* I screamed at him, uselessly. *I’m in the ground! I’m dead! Stop hurting her!*
"Speak!" he bellowed.
Liana’s knees gave out. She slumped in his grip, a puppet with cut strings. She stared past him, at nothing, her mind retreating to a place where he couldn't reach her.
"Take her back to the cells," Holden shoved her toward his Beta, his face twisted in a snarl of pure hatred. "She talks tonight. Or she bleeds."
He marched away, into the rain, chasing a ghost he would never catch, leaving my sister in chains and my daughter in the scullery. And I could do nothing but watch.
