Chapter Forty-One
Catherine glanced down at her phone after Graham’s voicemail picked up. She sighed and threw it to the bed in frustration. Theo shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he inched toward the door with Natalie clinging to his arm. Lucas was propped up against her bedroom door, looking at his nails as if they held the secret location of the holy grail.
“Hold on!” Catherine yelled, pointing a finger at Theo who managed to get to the door. He paled as he looked back at her, his expression filled with guilt. “You’re telling me you found the rogues, questioned them and everyone was ordered to come home except for my mate?!”
She was livid. Five days. Graham had been gone for five days and besides that first day when she’d tried to shift, she had not spoken to him. They played the most infuriating game of phone tag. Due to the lack of help in the kitchen, she woke up every morning at five and didn’t stop until the last dish was washed by eight at night. Her exhaustion was on another level and waiting for him to return her calls was next to impossible. Two days ago, he’d become unreachable. She’d feared the worst.
Then, an hour prior, Theo waltzed into her room and threw his mate over his shoulder. He’d made it to the door before Catherine, filled with her own excitement, asked where Graham was. That’s when he told her. He wasn’t coming home.
Theo cleared his throat and glanced to Lucas for help. Lucas let out a harsh laugh before turning to leave. “Oh, hell no, I’m not taking the fall for this one. He made you leave, you cover his ass.”
Natalie was the one who spoke. “Catherine, Graham is the lead warrior and the best tracker of the pack,” she reasoned, causing Catherine to roll her eyes. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have stayed behind unless it was absolutely necessary. Right, Theo?”
“Uh, yeah for sure. He did tell me to tell you he promised he would come home as soon as he could.”
“You mean after he’s caught every rogue wolf on the continent, solved world hunger and brought peace to the earth?!”
Theo chuckled but stopped when he saw Catherine and Natalie’s glares. Theo sighed and Catherine tried to remind herself he was just the messenger. He pried Natalie’s hand off him and walked to Catherine. He gripped her in a hug and she clung to him, not knowing how much she needed the comfort until he offered it. He sighed again.
“Graham wants to be here with you, Catherine,” Theo told her. “He’s leader for a reason. He knew if he came home empty-handed, Jensen would send him back out and cost you two even more time. He wants to end this so he can be wholly with you. I promise.”
“I just… I really need him here, Theo,” Catherine admitted.
The nasty remarks hadn’t ended. Lucille and Arabella along with their minions went out of their way to mock her, especially after word spread that Jensen was her father. What was meant to earn her respect had actually caused the opposite to happen. No one wanted her. Not her mate. Not even her father. As far as she knew, Lucas kept his word to not tell Graham what was happening. At least, she hoped he had because if Graham knew and did nothing with the information, it may just break her.
C
“He’ll be here as soon as he can. He told me every day how badly he wanted to kill Jensen for keeping you from him,” he said with a slight laugh.
Theo pulled back and wiped the tears from her face using his sleeve. Natalie came up behind him and wrapped her arms around both of them. Catherine was fortunate that Natalie wasn’t possessive of her mate and allowed him to comfort her. She could see the lust swirling in her friend’s eyes though and knew she needed her mate, if for different reasons than Catherine needed hers.
Catherine straightened her shoulders. “I’ll be fine. You two go home. I’ll make it. I need to get some rest before tomorrow anyway.”
“Oh yeah!” Theo exclaimed. “Nat here has been waxing poetic about the new food. I’ll be here bright and early to get a taste.”
“We’ll see,” Natalie said, tracing her finger down his chest. “We have something for you to eat at home.”
Theo waggled his eyebrows and kissed her lightly. “I am starving.”
“Oh, you two go!” Catherine pleaded, covering her ears.
They didn’t need to be told twice as they took each other’s hands and bolted for home. Catherine would be surprised if they made it out of the packhouse before getting naked. Natalie was a very sexual creature and spent many hours telling Catherine how needy she’d been for Theo while he was gone.
She sighed and picked up her phone again. She held it to her ear only to hear the automated voice telling her to leave a message. She fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Why couldn’t he have been a car mechanic or store clerk or something?
1/3
Chapter Forty-One
At some point she’d fallen asleep. She wasn’t sure what woke her up, some kind of thud? When she woke there was a crick in her back from how she’d fallen asleep with her legs hanging off the bed. She sat up, gripping her back. An uneasiness settled over her. Her instincts made the hair on her arms stand on end. She listened but heard nothing. She got up and stretched, trying to figure out the source of her unease. That’s when it hit her… She heard nothing.
Catherine went to her door and glanced around the hallway. All of the doors in the hall were open. Normally the warriors were a rowdy bunch. They held parties, loud sexual sessions, karaoke, and even trivia tournaments. Apparently lycans didn’t need a lot of sleep. She’d been lucky to be so tired every day that the noise hadn’t bothered her.
She hesitantly walked down the hall. The moon was high, telling her it was the middle of the night, yet there was no one in the packhouse. The rooms were all empty. Even Lucas’ room was vacant which sent her heart thumping.
Graham ordered Lucas to stay by her side and stay by her side he did. Because she was in the kitchen every day, he took up the kitchen island as if it was a cot rolled out for his pleasure. He laid himself down on it and stayed there, his eyes following her and Mable around the kitchen. If she was stupid enough to ask him for help he would laugh until he cried and then interlace his fingers atop his stomach and go back to his “guarding.”
She hurried down the hall to peek around the corner and that’s when she saw him. Lucas was sprawled across the floor, blood oozed from his temple and his breathing was far too shallow. Even in the darkness she could see how pale his face was.
“Lucas,” she whispered, tapping his cheeks to rouse him. “Lucas!”
Catherine pried his eyelids open and gasped. The veins of his eyes were black, progressively moving from his retinas outward. Wolfsbane. She sprung to her feet, slipping on the blood beside his body. She ran to her room and searched for her phone. Then she heard howling. Lots of it. She glanced out the window but the howls were coming from deep in the woods. Her phone rang in her hand causing her to scream. It was Graham.
“Graham!” she answered quickly, unable to hide the panic from her voice.
“Baby what’s wrong? What’s happening?” he asked.
“How did you…” she shook her head, it wasn’t important. “Everyone’s gone. There’s no one in the pack house and Lucas… Lucas has been poisoned and…”
“Graham step on it,” a female voice ordered him on the other end of the phone. Catherine’s blood went cold. Why was there a woman with him? “We have to hurry,” the woman said.
“Catherine? Catherine, are you there?” Graham asked. She heard the sound of an engine revving as he picked up speed.
“Graham, what’s….”
Whatever she was about to say was muffled as a hand went around her mouth. The phone fell to the floor as she grabbed at the arms securing her. She heard Graham yelling her name. The person holding her was twice her size. He picked her up and she saw a syringe in his hand. She flung her legs up and then pulled her body weight down, knocking him off balance. She elbowed him in the gut and he finally released her. She fell forward, caught herself on her palms and then kicked back. Her foot collided with the man’s knee, taking him to the ground.
“You bitch!” The man reached forward grabbing her ankle.
“Graham!!” She was yanked back and the man straddled her, trying to grab her wrists. “Let go of me!”
Catherine managed to punch him in the jaw and he whipped his head sideways. She took the opportunity to extend her claws and dug them into his neck.
“You want to play dirty, huh?” the man asked.
He smacked her with the back of his hand… hard. Stars swam in her vision and she heard the sound of her clothes ripping. No, no, no. She looked up and was relieved to see him using tatters of her shirt as a tourniquet for his neck.
She continued to fight. She dug her claws into his thigh, his arm, anywhere she could find purchase while struggling to push him off her. His hand came down and clasped around her throat. As she lost the ability to take in air, she retracted her claws and gripped his wrist, trying to force him to give her even an inch to breathe. She jerked her legs and kicked as she gagged.
“Not to worry,” he grinned, finding the syringe with his other hand. “It’s not lethal. I have instructions to keep you alive.”
Catherine couldn’t even make a sound as he plunged the syringe into her thigh. She continued to struggle until her legs started to feel heavy. Her lungs screamed and the pain from lack of oxygen intermingled with the progression of the poison. The man loosened his hold and the air slowly came to her but still she could not move.
2/3
Chapter Forty-One
Catherine heard a thump. The man on top of her turned and she glanced at the doorway where a tall figure was struggling to hold himself up against the door jam.
“What the hell?” the man on top of her exclaimed.
“Should have killed me, fuck face,” the familiar voice said on a laugh.
“The dose I gave you should have done the job, wolf, but no matter. I’ll finish you off with my fists.”
The weight atop her lifted as the man stood. He advanced on the figure in the doorway. A shot rang out and the man jolted. He looked down at his chest and then another shot rang out. The man hit the floor beside her, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
The figure in the doorway stumbled forward and crumpled to the ground beside her. He rummaged in his pockets, breathing heavily until he found the syringe he was looking for.
“Lu…. Lucas…” she tried to tell him about her friend.
“Yeah, yeah I’ll get to the Lycan in a second,” he hushed her.
He thrust the syringe into her heart and she groaned at the pain, still unable to move. He checked her eyes and looked her over for any other injuries. He let out an exhausted breath and sat back for a second, Catherine tried to make out his features in the dark but his tanned skin blended with the night. After a minute to catch his breath he carefully picked her up and laid her in the bed.
“I’ll go take care of that sorry excuse for a guard and be right back.” As he walked away he shook his head. “Far more trouble than she’s worth.” That’s when she realized who he was. What was he doing here? Had he been here the whole time? She didn’t have time to analyze his appearance further. As Timone walked out the door to help Lucas, the poison, antidote and waning adrenaline pulled her into the darkness.
Surrendering to Destiny
