Twenty-One
"It's only for a day, sweetheart. There and back- no stops," Colton explains to me as he throws a red shirt into his backpack. I'm about one week away from popping both of these kids out and they're leaving. How stupid can they be?
"A day is like a hundred years in pregnant time! What if I go into labor while you two are away, huh?! If you think I'm keeping these kids in and waiting for you to get here you've lost your damn mind!" I'm outraged with their decision. Like they couldn't reschedule some irrelevant Alpha meeting?!
"Cassia! Don't speak to him like that. We're going and that's final. We promise we'll be back by tomorrow morning and no babies will have shown up. Werewolf pregnancies are very textbook and you know that. The odds of them coming are incredibly low." Caden gives me a stern look and I roll my eyes, walking out of our master bedroom. I can't believe they decided this without me. They're always telling me how we're equals but then they go and do asinine stuff like this!
"A little angry, are we?" The sound of my best friend's voice instantly perks me up.
"Smith!" I walk over to him as fast as my body allows and give him an awkward hug, still wishing I could bottle them up and keep them forever.
"You up to hang out?"
I look towards the staircase and feel the anger rising in me. If they wanted to act like immature five-year-olds and not include their mate in things then I would happily oblige them. "Heck yes, I'm craving Chinese food. Let's get out of here."
"Are you going to tell your men?" Smith gives me a questioning look but I smile indifferently. Why ask them if I can leave? It's not like they ask me anything, either.
I grab his hand and take a set of keys from the table beside our front door. "You drive," I say and throw them to Smith. It turns out I grabbed the keys to Caden's brand new mustang- a mistake I will surely pay for later. He doesn't let anyone drive his baby. It may sound bad but I have some self satisfaction knowing that I did another thing just to get them angry, though. Revenge is a dish best served cold, I guess.
After a much needed best friend hangout session, Smith is all too soon dropping me back off at home. It's around five in the evening and the house is empty when I enter. I remember them saying that they were leaving at noon which means our fight won't continue until tomorrow morning. Idiot boys.
I walk into the kitchen to get a bottle of water before I retire to my room and see a note sitting on the counter top. Picking it up, I carefully read over the messy handwriting:
Cassia,
We'll talk when we get home. Caden's pissed about the mustang and we're both pissed that you left without telling us. That being said, just know we love you even when you're angry. See you in the morning, sweetheart.
Love,
C & C
Guilt clenches in my gut at not seeing them off and resolving our issue before they left. Now I'm going to have to live with the fact that I won't get to see them for the next twenty-four hours. I know it sounds minuscule but when it comes to your mate any length of time apart feels too long. How am I going to even sleep tonight?
"Jeremy?! Lance?!" I call out. They're usually on patrol from four in the evening to three in the morning so it was a long shot, but I hated being by myself.
"They're not here," a voice startles me and I turn to face it.
"Ashley? W-What are you doing here? I haven't seen you since..." Since I told her she could have Colton. Wow, was I really so naive?
"You haven't seen me since you lied to me you bitch. You said I could have Colton and Caden would've been mine too!" she snarls. "If I can't have them, then nobody can, got it?" A hand grips onto my forearm from behind, scaring the pee right out of me.
"What's going on? Ashley, what have you done?" I desperately ask her. If my mates are in some type of trouble...
"Well let's just say you're looking at your new Queen of the Werewolves. Clyde and I had similar ideas about our society and your mates, you, and those babies inside of you are a liability. Your mates are already on the way to the palace which is where you'll be going right now. Oh, and don't bother calling for those weak ass Beta and Deltas of yours. They've already been sent to training by order of the court. Clyde intends to raise an unstoppable army with only the of toughest werewolves." Her devious smile is filled with so much malice that I wish I would have payed more attention to what she was doing. I should have known she was a threat from day one. Now my babies and my mates are in harms way. How did everything go wrong so quickly?
"No, you're lying! This doesn't make any sense! Clyde is a good man. He helped me escape from my father!" I try to convince her but I don't know if it's me or her that I'm trying to fool.
Caden! Colton! Ashley is here! I need you guys to come back! I yell through our mate bond, trying to find help.
"Silly girl. You don't think we blocked all communication between you two? Scream for them all you want but no one is coming." She looks to the man behind me. "Take her to the palace. She has a nice comfy cell waiting for her." The man takes a hold of my other arm and I protectively wrap my hands around my bulging stomach. As they lead me to the car I focus on trying to find my mates, maybe pinpoint where they are or if they're alive or dead. I feel and hear nothing but a static that can only be related to the kind from a television.
This was the danger she was talking about all along. We are the ones that did this to the werewolf community, Zara whines and an image of our mates flashes through my head.
Do you think we'll get to see them again? It's killing me that I fought with them. I didn't even get a chance t-
Do not think like that! We cannot think like that. I love them more than anything in this world, but there is a chance that they could already be dead, Cassia. Our goal is to keep our babies safe, even if we do not survive. You know that is what they would want us to do and thinking about them is going to make it that much worse, Zara says and I know immediately how right she is. I love Colton and Caden but these babies are apart of us. If they live on then we do too, and that's going to have to be enough for me.
For the second time I am taken back to the palace. In the car I hoped that both my mom and Smith realized we're missing and maybe sent help- if there is even help to be sent anymore. They don't bother with a blindfold as I'm taken down to the prison that seems to be below every castle. The decor is incredibly cliche too, but I don't think their interior designers really cared about that.
A pair of bars is slammed in my face and I whimper at the finality of it. I am going to die here. I am going to die, but my babies will stay safe. Sitting down on the dirt floor, I wonder how I'm going to pass the time. My stomach grumbles and I realize they're probably not going to feed me which means my poor babies won't get fed, either.
"Damn," I swear into the humid air of my cell. I just wish th-
"Cassia?! Cassia, is that you?!" My head whips to the front of the cell and I scramble to them. An arm is waving right beside my very own "room" and I choke back a sob. Putting my arm through as well, I take a hold of my mate's arm.
"Colton! I can't believe it's you! You're alive. Oh thank the goddess you're alive!" Tears are streaming down my face as I hold onto Colton for dear life.
"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so sorry that Caden and I didn't protect you and our children. The one job we were meant to do and we completely failed!" I hear the desperation in his voice so I squeeze his hand in reassurance.
"Caden. Where's Caden?" I ask frantically at the mention of him. He would've said something if he were down here too.
"They took him about an hour ago for goddess only knows what. I'm really worried about my brother."
"Me too, but we have to find a way out of here. We have to! Zara and I were talking though, and we agreed that the babies come first. There's a very real chance that I'm going to be giving birth in here so they need to be our number one priority, okay?" I hope to every deity there is that he agrees with me. I won't be able to do this without him.
"I agree and I'm sure Caden would also. I think that we ne-" Our conversation is cut off by the door that connects us to the rest of the palace opening. Three guards come through and head straight for Colton.
"It took five guards to get Caden down," Colton comments. "And before I leave there's something I need to tell you. It's always been Ashley. From the attack in the woods when I first found you all the way to now. She's been working with Clyde all because I didn't choose her as a mate." He pulls his arms back through as they open his cell door but quickly reconnects our hands again as they try and pull him away.
"I love you so much," I cry to him as I hold on for dear life. "If you see Caden again tell him I'm sorry and that I love him, too." Uncontrollable sobs rip through my body as the guards finally pull him away from me and I'm left alone. And I thought things couldn't get any worse.
(A/N: Yeah so, that happened. Sorry for no update I was grounded! Horrible, right?!?!?!?! This story would have been finished weeks ago if it wasn't for my step mom so blame her, not me. I hope this chapter was as terrible for you as it was for me. My poor characters! I love them and they're in pain! Especially my poor baby Colton! I <3 you, Colton! BTW I'm think one MAYBE two more chapters, an epilogue, one bonus chapter, and a character ask until the official end. That sound fair? c: Enjoy!)