Chapter 47
Chapter 47
Chapter 47 Trap
Thea and the triplets went to the first potential bar site Monday morning. Half the Delta team was already there, ensuring the area was secure. The other half followed Thea in vehicles to make sure she was secure. Nobody noticed anything suspicious at that first site, and Thea wasn’t impressed with the site itself for the bar.
Half the Delta team drove ahead of her to the second site. When Thea arrived, the other half of Delta team trailing her, she was very excited about the location. It seemed perfect for what she had in mind.
“I’m pretty sure this is the one, but let’s go to the last location just to be sure,” she said.
Again, half of Delta drove ahead, the other half behind. This location didn’t excite her either. She called Davie and told him which one she wanted. He told her to meet him there.
They drove back to the second location and waited for Davie to arrive. Since they had already been there, everyone seemed to relax a little. Thea wanted to look around some more, and she went outside to see about parking. She didn’t realize she left the triplets and everyone else inside, and no one noticed her slip out. She walked to the edge of the parking lot. Looking at the small patch of asphalt, she knew she would need to expand it. She smiled. They were one step closer to getting the bar up and running. Having the physical location picked out and seeing it in person made it all seem real.
Thea turned around and looked at the land surrounding the bar. The bar was right off the highway, and everything around it was woods. It was perfect for a werewolf bar. She thought about patrons leaving the bar, coming out here to shift and run through the woods. She felt drawn to see what they’d experience. She walked into the woods.
The next thing she knew, she was on her back. She felt hazy. A man was leaning over her. He smelled off.
“Let’s see if we can make her shift,” he said.
She didn’t recognize the voice.
She felt a hand go around her throat and squeeze. She tried to move, to stop the man from strangling her, but her limbs were heavy, and they wouldn’t move. She saw spots, and just when she was about to succumb to the darkness, the pressure released.
“Maybe she is human,” a female said. There was something wrong with her voice. She sounded foul. Corrupt. “Let me see if there’s any magic in her.”
A woman straddled Thea and leaned over her face. Her eyes were black—not just the irises like when a wolf has control of its human’s body. The entire eye was black, even the sclera. It was so disturbing and mesmerizing Thea almost missed the dark personage superimposed over the woman. It was leaning toward Thea, looking at her hungrily.
The woman put her hands on Thea’s cheeks and looked deep into her eyes. It felt like she was ripping out her soul. Thea felt helpless. She had no strength, no wolf to save her, and she couldn’t mind link anyone to let them know what was happening. Tears spilled down the sides of her face onto the woman’s fingers. After a while, the woman released Thea and licked the tears from her fingers.
“The only magic in her is the mark from her matebond. Inject the wolfsbane, just to be sure.”
Thea felt a prick in her arm as the man injected her, but otherwise, she felt nothing. Wolfsbane had no effect on humans, but it hurt werewolves, made them sick, and stopped their wolf powers. Given enough, it could kill. “If she has no gift, we should kill her,” the man said. “ She’s seen our faces.”
Thea’s heart started racing. She tried to scream for help, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak. Then she remembered the triplets could hear her thoughts. She screamed in her head, told them
where she was and sent the image of the man and woman to them. She hoped they heard, and whatever magic was keeping her immobile wouldn’t block it.
“Our transcendent master wouldn’t want it,” the dark personage said, leaning out of the woman. Thea forgot it was there, like a shadow, ignored. She pushed its image and the sound of its voice to the triplets before she lost the memory.
“She doesn’t know who we are,” the woman said. “That pack adores her. If we kill their beloved Luna, they won’t stop until we’re all dead. Now is not the time to make such an enemy. Our exalted master won’t be happy about that.”
“I would never want to upset our glorious leader,” the man said. “Can you erase her memory?”
“Thea!” Alaric called out.
The man and woman looked behind them. The triplets and Delta team ran toward them, half of them in wolf form.
“No time,” the woman said, getting up. Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.
The man crouched down, extended a claw, and sliced into Thea’s neck. He felt around and nicked her carotid artery.
“They can’t chase us if they’re saving her,” he said.
The shadow seemed to engulf them, and they took off at an unnatural speed.
A moment later, Alaric was pressing his hands against Thea’s neck.
“She’s bleeding out!” Alaric said. “Goddess, that burns!” Half of Delta team surrounded Thea. The other half gave chase to the duo.
“It’s probably wolfsbane in her blood,” Liam said.
“Thea! Look at me, babe,” Conri said, kneeling next to Alaric. She didn’t move. He took her hand in his.
Kai took her other hand, kneeling on her other side. Her hands were limp in theirs.
“Why isn’t she moving?” Kai said. “Why didn’t she try to stop the bleeding?”
“Can we heal her with our licks?” Alaric said.
“Not with wolfsbane in her blood. We need a surgeon,” Liam said.
“Can she make it to the pack doctor?” Kai said.
Liam’s eyes glazed over.
“He said not to move her. He’s coming to us,” Liam said. “ Can you keep holding pressure with the wolfsbane in her blood?”
“I’m fine,” Alaric said.
“If you need a break, tell us. Someone else will take over.”
The Delta team turned and growled when they heard someone walking toward them.
“Woah, it’s just me,” Davie said. “No one was in the building. I saw the crowd over here. What’s going on?” He saw Thea between the men, immobile on the ground, blood all over her upper body, Alaric holding pressure on her neck. He gasped. His instinct was to go to her and help, but Delta team wouldn’t let him through.
“We’re waiting for the pack doctor. Someone attacked her,” Owen said.
“I shouldn’t have let her come here. We could have had her assistant do a virtual tour,” Davie said. He rubbed his jaw with his hand.
“We all took a calculated risk,” Liam said.
The pack doctor and several nurses arrived with a mobile operating room. They set up powerful lights, placed surgical instruments, hooked her up to machines, got IVs in her, started a saline drip.
“It looks like she’s under a paralyzing spell,” the doctor said. “We need to get blood transfusing before I can begin the surgery.”
“Take mine,” everyone said at the same time.
“I can’t,” the doctor said. “Our werewolf blood will react to the wolfsbane in her system. We need human blood to transfuse. I sent one of my nurses to the human blood bank. We just have to wait for her to get here.”
That was the last thing Thea remembered before darkness took her.