*Isla*I sit on my bed, staring across the room at the wall, watching the sun chase the shadows across the painting that hangs there of a woman reading a book. I don’t know who she is, and it doesn’t matter anyway because I’m not paying any attention to her.I’m basically as oblivious to her as she is to me.My mind goes back over what Ben found in the floor. He hadn’t been able to look at any of the papers because he’d heard our other brothers coming in the front door and quickly shoved everything back into the hiding place and repositioned the board over top.But it’s fine because I don’t really need to know what the papers say in order to put the pieces of the puzzle together.Those “earrings” weren’t earrings at all. They were cufflinks. I could tell by the way that Ben was describing them to me. He said they had weird fasteners. Every detail he mentioned about them told me they look exactly like the pair that I had given to Maddox.So… that means they both came from Maatua. I hav
*Isla*My stomach is tangled in knots as I stare across the room at the tray of table Poppy has brought me. She keeps bringing me things to eat that I’m too nervous to touch.Poppy putters around the room, rehanging clothes, moving things from one place to another that don’t need to be moved. She’s cleaning the same surfaces over and over, too, as if she has nothing better to do but also doesn’t want to leave me alone.Her sources, the other staff in the castle, have let her know that Maddox left Duster pack a few hours ago. Where he was going, they weren’t certain at first, which made me very nervous.Then, Beta Seth came in to check on me, and I could tell he was nervous. He’d tried to play it down like everything was fine and he was just there to make sure I was doing well, but eventually, I got him to tell me the truth.Well… part of it anyway.Maddox had gone to Hill Country pack, the same place where he’d picked up Sydney and ended up killing the Alpha. I asked Seth what Maddox
*Isla*The puddle of water sinking into my carpet is the least of my worries as Sydney is panicking. She grabs onto my arm and squeezes, her nails digging into my skin.“What? My water broke?” she shouts. “That means I’m having this baby right now?”“Well, soon,” I tell her, prying her fingernails out of my arm. “Come on, let’s go back to your room. I’ll get the healer.”She starts to walk to my bed. “No! I have to lay down right now!”The thought of her getting goo all over my bed is unappealing. I know that she has time to get to her own room before she has the baby. After all, I do have a ton of younger brothers, and my mom gave birth to all of them at home because she couldn’t afford to go to the hospital.Grabbing her arm, I pull her back toward the door. “Sydney, there’s time,” I tell her. “Let’s go to your room.”“You can’t expect me to walk at a time like this!” she shouts at me, trying to pull away.Thankfully, I hear a familiar voice at that moment as Poppy comes in the door
*Maddox*When we arrive at the castle, I have the pack members of Hill Country who slaughtered Alpha Hayes and his household moved into the dungeon first. I’m glad to see that Alpha Jordan hasn’t managed to find his way out of his cell. Everyone who was in the dungeon when I left appears to still be there.Zabrina is another matter altogether, and I have her moved down by a team of Omegas who I know won’t put up with her shit. They’re all female, and they don’t mind slapping the cuss out of her every time she says something that she shouldn’t.By the time Zabrina arrives in the dungeon where I am overseeing the escorting of the other assholes into their new homes, she is bleeding from her mouth, nose, and one ear.Something tells me that the ladies were lenient on her after all.“Put her in that one,” I say, pointing at the smallest, dirtiest, darkest cell we have. “Chain her to the wall.“No, don’t do that!” she barks. “My ribs are broken! If you do that, it will hurt like fuck!”“Do
*Isla*Mystica has put an oxygen mask of some sort over Sydney’s mouth and nose and asked her to breathe deeply. She also gave her something else, something that will make her go to sleep soon. I hold her hand and force myself to smile at her, but as the other woman’s eyes grow heavy and flicker closed, I can’t help but wonder if she will ever open them again.I have all the faith in the world in Mystica. She saved my life, and she’s treated my injuries more than once. But that doesn’t mean she can save everyone in every situation.Mystica and her nurses begin working quickly as soon as Sydney is out, and I no longer feel the need to sit next to her and calmly hold her hand, especially when I see the sharp instrument that Mystica is about to use to cut her open.We have a similar thought at the same time as Mystica says, “Isla, dear, you can let go.”Can I, though?I haven’t known Sydney long, and I’m not even sure that I like the girl, but I do feel awful for what is happening to her
*Maddox*“You can’t do this to me! Don’t you know who I am?”The sound of Zabrina’s wailing echoes down the corridor as I exit the dungeon, tired of listening to her scream at me that I can’t execute her.I’m the fucking Alpha King. I’ll do whatever the hell I want….As I approach the stairs, Beta Seth comes from another hallway and joins me. “Did she tell you anything?” he asks me as we take the stairs quickly. I am tired of being down below the castle where everything smells like urine.With a sigh, I say, “Not anything that’s honest. At least, I don’t think a damn word she said was true.” The fact that she is blaming Alpha Grant for all of this makes me want to scoff.But then again, stranger things have happened.“What did she say?” Seth asks me. We reach the top of the first flight of stairs and then walk through the main dungeon, the one where the regular prisoners who haven’t killed anyone or tried to assassinate the King’s breeder are kept. “Did you get anything useful from he
*Isla*Maddox is looking at me like he’s afraid I’ve lost my mind. His eyebrows are nearly touching, he’s so concerned, and he’s keeping his distance. I imagine him bolting out the door and not stopping until he reaches at least the same point in the woods where he intercepted me a few days ago.I want to ask him why he’s looking at me like that, but I suppose I already know, at least to a degree. He thinks I’m crazy for naming the baby after him. He thinks I’ve grown too attached.And he’s right. I have, but he doesn’t understand the situation. At least, I don’t think he has. I doubt anyone has told him exactly what happened, but even if Mystica or someone did explain it to him, he can’t possibly understand the connection I have to this child.“Maddy?” he finally says, a lilt in his voice that shows me he’s either frightened or overly concerned.I nod. “Her mom wanted her to be named Isla, but I didn’t think that was a good idea.” It was something Sydney had mentioned when she was in
*Isla*Back in my room, I can still smell the sting of the chemicals someone used to clean the mess up from when Sydney’s water broke.It seems like that happened ages ago, but it was really only a matter of hours. Maddox still has my hand, and when I pause and stare at the spot where Sydney was standing when she came into my room, he has to stop walking. “What is it, Isla?” he asks me, his tone so gentle, no one would ever imagine he was known as a ruthless killer.Shaking my head, I try to jar the memory free so it can float away, but it won’t come loose. “Uhm, it’s just… Sydney. When she came to get me, she was so scared, and I thought she didn’t really have anything to be afraid of. But clearly, I was wrong.”He seems to be putting the pieces of the puzzle together now. He must not have known that she was here, that she’d come into my room, but I see his nostrils flare slightly as he catches on that more happened here than he’d first realized. It’s not uncommon for my room to smel