“Diskant.” Ava’s voice seemed so out of place, so incredibly wrong in the violent fury that permeated the room. She rested her fingers on his cheek. “Don’t be the animal they believe you to be. You’re better than that.”
Pain flitted across Diskant’s face as he gazed down at his female and Trey knew that as much as Diskant wanted to give her what she wanted, he wouldn’t be able to. Pack law dictated revenge and consequence.
“She shouldn’t stay down here, D. It’s too much, too soon,” Trey spoke up. “Have her take the information we need and go back upstairs.”
Diskant bent over and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and turned toward the asshole who remained a mystery to them all. As soon she stepped toward him he started struggling, fists opening and closing as he attempted to rotate his wrists and free himself from the restraints. His good eye narrowed, a line of spit seeping past the gag and down his chin. His words were muffled but his anger was evident, his fury so strong that the pack started shuffling around the room.
Halfway to the man, Ava stopped. A soft intake of air was followed by an ominously whispered, “Oh, dear god.”
She gagged and sagged to the floor. Diskant’s much larger body covered her like a shield as he placed a hand on her lower back and followed her down. She vomited while on her hands and knees, the retching sound loud inside the too-quiet room. She continued until the gagging noises vanished and her heavy breathing replaced them.
Slowly she turned her head, peered past Diskant’s arm and gazed at the Shepherd. The beautiful enchantress was gone, replaced by a woman who had clearly seen something so disturbing she couldn’t stomach it. Her irises shifted color, revealing her bloodbond to the pack for the first time.
“There’s more to it. Isn’t there, Moses?” She struggled to her feet, shrugging aside Diskant’s hand when he tried to help her.
She walked to the Shepherd without hesitation, placed her hand across his face as he started to squirm and closed her eyes. It only took a moment for her to let go and, when she did, she immediately bent at the waist and dry heaved, using the back of the chair the Shepherd was seated in for balance.
“Ava?” Diskant went to her again and this time she accepted his support, leaning into him when he wrapped an arm around her waist. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth and stared at the Shepherd, her sapphire eyes brimming with hate and outrage.
“The shifters in this room aren’t who you should be afraid of. Not really. They want you dead but they won’t damn you to hell.”
Her words caused the Shepherd to pale but had the opposite effect on the man across the room. He began rocking his body until the legs of the chair began to wobble. Brian stepped forward and placed his hand on the back rail, keeping it in place. Tension built inside the suddenly confining space until the shifters began to growl in response.
“Tell him, you sorry sack of shit,” she whispered venomously, glowering at the Shepherd. When he remained silent, she threatened, “Tell him, or I will.”
Still he remained as he was, refusing to speak, lips firmly pressed together.
“You know,” she moved from Diskant’s embrace, “I would have asked them to show you some mercy. Now you’re going to wish you’d done the right thing while you had the chance.”
She walked toward the man who snarled and struggled in his chair even as it remained firmly in place. When she finally reached him she elicited shocked gasps from several of the pack when she reached out and smoothed a lock of hair away from his forehead, her touch undeservingly gentle. If her intention was to calm the man, she only made him worse. He jerked from her hand, pressing as far back as he could.
“Ava,” Diskant ground out, his tone a definite warning. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Everyone needs to leave,” she said and glanced over her shoulder to look Diskant in the eye.
Again they stared at each other for several long, agonizing seconds in that eerie fashion that told Trey they were speaking to each other somehow. Diskant glanced at the man just out of Ava’s reach before he turned to study the Shepherd.
Trey started forward but stopped when Diskant shook his head. “We have a lot to discuss, but not right now.” Diskant gazed at the faces inside the room. “Everyone, out.”
Kinsley complied without comment, taking the stairs two at a time, but each wolf shifter in the room stood in a stunned silence, waiting for Trey’s acquiescence. Diskant might be the Omega but, as their Alpha, Trey’s order was the one they’d follow.
“D—” Trey started to argue but Diskant cut him short.
“You want me to take your place? Trust me enough to do what I say without question.”
Damn it.
Trey knew that the decision he made here could make or break him. Diskant had just staked his place as Alpha, giving Trey an instruction instead of a request. If he wanted to continue with his plans he had to back Diskant’s decision in front of the pack, solidifying his faith in the shifter he’d chosen to lead and protect them.
“You heard the man,” Trey growled in frustration and all of the pack moved at once. He hiked his thumb in the direction of the stairs and made sure Diskant was looking at him when he warned, “As soon as your ass comes upstairs, we’re going to have a nice, long chat.”
“Save us some pizza,” Diskant responded, catching him off guard, and turned away before Trey could say anything more.
“Fucking smart-ass,” Trey grumbled as he took four long strides and started climbing the stairs.
The pain was incredible, so consuming it was difficult for Ava to breathe. It wrapped around her, cocooned her and shrouded her in misery. She continued stroking the forehead of the tortured man in front of her, unable to bear his grief, and felt her heart break when she glimpsed the fact that no one had laid a loving hand on him since his wife had died a year before.
His wife—Andrea.
The enormity of his loss—a wife and soon-to-be-born daughter—was equal to that the pack was experiencing, although she knew some would argue the point. Once she might have agreed that the impact and devastation was worsened by the sheer number of those who had died, but since she also knew what it meant to love and need someone so utterly and completely that it consumed you, she realized they would be wrong. This man had lost the thing most important to him, as well as a part of him he had never been given the opportunity to know, to hold, to adore.
“You’d better start explaining.” Diskant tugged her away from the man and, in the doing, severed the connection between them, forcing her to grasp Diskant’s arm to keep balanced as he pressed into her space, his large body brushing against her. “Stop shutting me out. It’s disorienting, and I don’t like sensing your pain when I don’t understand what’s causing it.”
“I’m sorry, I knew you didn’t want anyone to know that I could read their thoughts or share yours and I wasn’t sure what to do. This was too important.” She expelled the words in a rush, keeping her voice low. “I only sought out the answers you requested, looking into Moses’ mind to see what they had planned for the shifters, Emory and Mary. I can’t see what I’m not searching for, and I wouldn’t have thought to look until I started reading Caden and realized there is so much more involved.”
Instead of answering any more of his questions, Ava opened the link between them and sagged in his arms as the horrific and heartbreaking images flashed through her mind.
Once again she smelled the stomach-churning rustiness of blood, urine, feces and decay. But it was nothing compared to the mental picture of the heavily pregnant woman who rested upon the floor, coated in the dried substances, her stomach shredded by what appeared to be raking claw marks. Her face had matching wounds that ran from her left temple and across, her nose entirely gone along with her upper lip. And sticking out of one of the wounds in her abdomen was a clearly visible hand that was tiny yet perfectly formed…