She did not wait when we reached the mansion, she made her way up stairs without a single word. The ride back had been decisively quiet. Not a single peep escaped her. Her not speaking after the test, ordeal was not unusual. But sohow, it felt strange...
To not hear her speak.
"Lilith," I called.
She stopped just as she was about to take another step up the stairs. She didn’t turn around. She just waited.
"What is the matter?" I questioned.
Another round of tense silence followed before she slowly t my eyes. "Even you are not to be trusted," Her voice was stable though I could tell how close it was to wavering.
I blinked slowly, her words striking with unexpected force. Three days. That’s all it had been since we’d first crossed paths, yet the accusation in her voice cut deeper than it should have from soone who was essentially a stranger.
"The test was necessary," I said, my voice steady and matter-of-fact. "It was better for you to go in relaxed, without anticipating what would happen."
"Oblivious," she corrected, her voice sharp with hurt.
I felt sothing twist in my chest at the word, at the way she said it, but I kept my expression impassive. "Call it whatever suits your fancy."
The dismissal hit its mark. I watched her lips tremble for just a mont before her shoulders slumped in defeat. The fight seed to drain out of her all at once.
"I should have known better," she whispered, more to herself than to .
The quiet devastation in those words affected in a way I hadn’t expected. Sothing uncomfortable stirred beneath my ribs—an unwelco sensation that served no practical purpose. This was no ti for useless emotions that would only make things convoluted. We had a mission. Objectives to complete. Her feelings, and whatever these foreign stirrings in my own chest might be, were irrelevant complications.
>"Keep telling yourself that," Zver teased.
I ignored him.
I remained silent, watching as she turned and began her ascent up the stairs, each step heavy. The sound of her footsteps echoed in the vast space, growing fainter as she climbed higher, leaving standing alone in the shadow of what had transpired.
Three days. Such a short ti to build trust, and even shorter to shatter it completely.
But if I was being honest, I didn’t require her trust; I needed her compliance.
I flexed the fingers of my cyborg arm, bringing the artificial limb up to my face. I stared at it knowing what lurked beneath and how little ti I had. I had an oath to keep.
My phone rang pulling out of the haze of mory and bitter regret. I answered the call.
"Hello, who am I speaking with?" I asked, my voice just a bit strained
Silence.
I pulled the phone back for a look at the caller ID only to realize that it was an unknown caller.
Again.
I spoke into the receiver again. "Who is this?"
No reply ca. Only the sound of heavy breathing.
As always.
My skull pulsed with frustration and the aftermath of my terse conversation with Lilith. "Speak!" I growled into the receiver. "You can’t just keep doing this." The vein in my head was close to bursting.
The breathing continued, stable and calm while I wanted to rip out my hair. And then for a second my bunched shoulders slumped, hope and despair clawing their way at strangely equal asure up my throat. I let a rare vulnerability filter through. "If it is you..." I whispered, gripping the phone harder. "just speak to ."
All the reply I got was a beep as the phone disconnected.
Again.
Like every month that the strange, untraceable calls ca, I was left unmoving for a mont too long trying to swallow the bile of agitation.
So many tis, I wanted to believe it was Anna. My baby sister.
She had been a baby when they had ripped her out of my mother’s arms.
Maybe she found even though I could not find her. I knew it was my wishful thinking but hope had an aggravating way of sprouting out of barren land.
I hissed a breath, trying to calm my racing heart. The line had gone dead. Again. Like every month. The breathing vanished, leaving only my own heart hamring against tal and bone. Lilith’s words lingered like smoke—’Even you are not to be trusted.’ Maybe she was right. Maybe Anna knew it too. Wherever she was.
I dragged a cold hand through my hair, my gaze dropping to the phone clenched in my palm. My eye twitched as I realized what I was holding.
The device was no longer just a phone—it was sheathed in a brittle casing of ice, frozen solid and useless.
The sigils etched across my back burned faintly, a restless tingling that made my spine stiffen. And with it ca the unbidden mory—her touch, the fleeting brush of Lilith’s fingers—searing hotter than the frost now biting into my skin. My cock hardened.
Another sign that ti was not on my side.
My rut was just weeks away and I had to lay my contingencies or Lilith would be in danger.
"She will be the end of ," I muttered to myself.
Zver growled a chuckle in my mind, like I had been speaking to him.
>"And that’s saying sothing."
I glanced up at the stairs that Lilith had just taken before turning on my heels to make my way to my office. Without Veronique I would have more work to do until I found a replacent.
I did not let thoughts of her linger in my mind. She had made her choice and I had made mine in response.
I would have to see Lilith before she went to bed. Tomorrow was the ’wedding’ we would have before no other group than the Onyx Concord. I had no ti to waste and knowing my arch nesis, he had sothing up his sleeve already.
I would have to slip a ring onto Lilith’s finger even if all I could promise her in the ’matrimony’ was trials, tribulations and my protection.
"Alpha," ca the voice of a guard as he approached . "The Order Of The Blackmoon prisoner has woken up."
The only one I had spared to be interrogated later.
"Prepare the tools," I ordered, already unbuttoning my shirt. "And ensure the cyanide capsule under his tongue has been removed. All of it."
"Of course, Alpha." He bowed out.
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