Locked in Archer's embrace, I suddenly didn't feel so safe anymore. I stilled when I heard that hate filled, mocking voice and its mimicking clap. We should've gotten out of here when we had the chance. I turned slowly in Archer's arms to face Vaughn and gave him the most malevolent glare I could muster.
"Are Seth and Jack okay?" I whispered to Archer, remembering their limp bodies in the dungeon.
"Yeah," he whispered back, "Why wouldn't they be? Seth came to help find you."
I felt stupid for believing Vaughn's little trick in the dungeon. The two limp bodies had not belonged to either of the two. I had been scared out of my mind before now, now I just wondered who they were. But this was not the time for that.
Vaughn grinned something ugly and full of spite, "I hate to break up the waterworks, little brother. But you can't have this one. She's mine."
Archers arms tightened around me before turning me so I was behind him slightly. "She's my mate, Vaughn. I would die before letting you have her."
"That can be easily arranged. Men?" He motioned towards the door and two burly guys stepped out, half in wolf form, half in human. They had tails and furry hands complete with long claws. Two ears sat atop each of their heads and their feet were like their hands. "These are my new creations. I'm surprised you fell for my little trick in the dungeon. I didn't take you to be that gullible. But, alas, now you know that your men are safe, I might as well bring mine out to play. These were the men in the dungeon, they were starting to become half bloods while you watched. If you'd stayed a bit longer, you would've been able to see them change."
Suddenly all the pieces fit together - at least, if what I think was right was - and everything made sense. I breathed, "You're building an army... And you want me as bait. This was never about your mate Lydia, this is about control."
Vaughn laughed. "Finally, someone who understands my plan! Unfortunately, this little flea here has gotten in the way, so my actions will take place sooner than I expected. But yes little Kat, in the first place it was about revenge for Lydia. But I killed your father, so that took care of that. Now it's about control. I'm going to have dominance over the biggest pack in the world, and you, little brother, will be dead and the lovely Kitten will be at my side."
He must be pretty confident. In movies the villain never reveals his plans until he knows he is going to win for sure. He motioned to the two half men beside him and pointed at Archer and me. I panicked and stepped back as Archer whispered, "When I say run, run, got it? Go find Seth and tell him I need help and then get to safety."
I nodded helplessly as the men advanced, feeling like the damsel in distress. The two men sprang into motion at the same time and Archer yelled, "Run!"
So I ran. Out the door and through the hallways, hiking up the dress as I went. I could hear pounding footsteps a short while away from me, I was fairly sure it was Vaughn, but I didn't want to turn to find out. I tried to concentrate and mind-link Seth. 'Are you okay? Where are you?'
'Kitty? I'm in the dungeon untying some female.'
'Okay,' I closed the link and ran, knowing exactly where he was. He was with Anita, the woman I'd talked to. I didn't want Vaughn to follow though, so I lead him in circles.
Once I'd thought I had lost him, I mind-linked Seth to ask him where he was. The response came quickly, 'I'm still in the dungeon with this unconscious female.'
'Don't move, wait for me there.' I sent back.
Thankfully, I could see the mental map I'd drawn out when I was being escorted to my new room from the dungeon and it was easy to find my way back. With only a flew blips along the way and an unfortunate run-in with a mouse trap, I reached the dungeon.
I carefully opened the creaking doors and peaked my head inside. The only two in the room were Seth and Anita, the latter of which was still unconscious.
"Seth?" I whispered.
He looked up and I watched his eyes light before they darkened. "Did he hurt you?"
I shook my head no and moved to help him with Anita. His arm was in a sling and I figured he'd broken it in the battle against the inhuman wolves. The battle seemed like so long ago, even though it really wasn't. So much had happened since then. So little time was left before the full moon as well.
"What happened after I blacked out?" I asked, meaning during the battle when I was hanging from the balustrade.
Between the two of us we were able to hold Anita up, Seth could've carried her except for his broken arm. He answered, "Well as soon as you blacked out, Vaughn announced that he was taking you with him, and if anyone tried to stop him he would kill you. So we had no choice but to let you go."
I knew their decision to stop him was for my own good, but I can't help but feel slightly betrayed by the fact that they didn't even follow. When I voiced this, Seth shook his head. "There were too many inhuman wolves, we had to stay and fight. A lot of them have been killed, but they weren't the only ones with casualties."
I ran a hand through my hair and played with the silky fabric of the blue dress I'd taken from the closet in the room I was held in. "Do you know if Aidan and Tess are okay?"
Seth shrugged, "Aidan got out with minor injuries and Tess is nursing her mate back to health. Other than that, they're fine."
I breathed a sigh of relief and limped out of the dungeon with Anita and Seth. With four days left until the full moon, time was running out. For everyone. Anita was still on the brink of death, Seth was hurt, and Archer was no where to be found. God, I hope he's okay.
'Archer' I whispered to him through his mind link. 'Are you okay? Where are you?"
'I'm... Fine.' Came his halting reply, as if he was either fighting or dying. 'Just get home and get safe. I love you.'
Shit, he's dying. Why else would he say that if he was planning on living through this? I tried to mind-link Tess to tell her to get someone to drive a car as per the boy I sent running the first times' instructions to here. It was to far away though and I couldn't connect to her. Come on Archer, be okay, be okay.
We dragged Anita through the corridors and eventually landed outside with little difficulty. Oddly, there was no one around to stop us from getting away. From my knowledge of crime T.V. shows, this was bad and we were about to get ambushed. As per usual.
'Archer' I called to him, 'Get out of there as fast as you can, if you have to kill Vaughn, do it. But if you can get out sooner, get out. We need to leave.'
'Just go, love. There's no way I'm getting out of here. Just stay safe and know I lov-' he was cut off and I started to panic.
"Seth, get her to safety, I'm going to find Archer!" My eyes were wide and my heart was beating quickly and harshly against my chest. I couldn't let Archer die, I had to go back in for him.
As soon as I dropped my half of Anita I heard a thump and I turned back around to see Seth on the ground. Vaughn stood over him, holding a gun. "Going somewhere, Kitten?"
Shit. Shit. Shit.
"I'm disappointed in you. I made up Lydia's old room nice and neatly for you and this is how you repay me? By running away?" He shook his head an made a tsking sound. "I guess I'll just have to show you what I think of that."
With no other warning, he took the shot. The bullet pierced Seth's leg and blood flowed easily from the wound. "No!" I screamed. 'Shit! Archer, you need to help! Please! Seth's been shot and Vaughn's here!' I prayed he could get out of wherever he was and that he heard my plea before it was too late.
I stood my ground, only my shaking hands betraying the stillness of the rest of me. I wiped my face blank of emotions, but I'm sure he noticed the paleness of my skin.
"That's a silver bullet, Kitten. He has approximately three hours to get to safety before the silver creeps through his bloodstream and into his heart. You have a choice: you can come back inside with me and I can patch him up all nice, maybe put a ribbon on top for good measure, or you can try to kill me and he dies. What'll it be?" Vaughn's face showed triumph glittering in the black eyes. He already knew what my choice would be, I don't know why he even asked the question to begin with.
I dropped my head, "I'll go-"
"She's not going anywhere with you."
My head snapped up and I wheeled around. Archer clutched his chest where a red wound soaked through his shirt. "Archer! You're-"
He nodded grimly an handed my his phone, 'Text the omega for backup and a car. They'll be able to track the phone, you don't need to tell him where we are.' His voice in my head was urgent and I rushed to do what he'd said.
Archer stepped up to Vaughn, holding up his hands to show he had no weapons. "Why are you doing this? We're brothers."
Vaughn laughed and sneered, "That's where you're wrong. We were never brothers. Maybe by blood, but nothing else. I don't owe you anything."
I frantically scrolled through the contacts until I found the name of the omega and sent him a text. His reply was short, simply reading: Hold him off, I'll be five minutes.
'He'll be here in five. Keep him talking.' I mind-linked Archer.
He nodded to show he understood but didn't reply. To Vaughn he said, "What's your big deal? You want the pack or do you want Kat? Maybe you just want me dead."
Vaughn's smile was menacing as he spat into the ground, waving the gun in the air. "I want all of that."
"He doesn't care who he hurts. He just wants control, isn't that right Vaughn?" I put in and stepped closer to Archer, squeezing his hand gently.
Vaughn shrugged and carelessly pointed the gun at Archer. "I could shoot him too, if you won't cooperate. I have no qualms about killing my own brother."
How do I phrase this without getting into more trouble? "What would be the point of doing that? Then I wouldn't come with you for sure."
My pulse thudded in my ears loudly and Archer pulled me closer to him, shielding my body slightly with his. His eyes told me not to get Vaughn angry and I simmered down, thinking of what to say next.
"Maybe not, but your itty bitty beta is still as much a liability as-" he stopped talking and his eyes rolled into his head. Huh?
His body thudded to the ground, face first and I stepped closer to see a small tranquilizer dart embedded in his neck. But where did it come from? I looked around and grinned when I saw Archer's omega pretending to blow gun powder away from the cylinder of the tranquilizer gun. "My work here is done." He jumped out of the truck he was driving and moved to help the two of us carry the bodies of Seth and Anita.
We placed them carefully in the the truck bed, lying them both side by side. "What do we do about him?" I indicated my thumb towards Vaughn.
Archer shook his head, "We don't have time to deal with him, we have to get the silver out of Seth before he dies."
There was no back seat in the truck, so I sat on Archers lap on the way back. The ride took longer than five minutes because we didn't want to jostle the two too hard. Eventually, we made it back to the pack house and hauled both bodies in to the hospital.
Doctor Schmidt shooed us out quickly when he saw Seth and got to work immediately. I wanted to open the door to see what was going on, but I had to wait outside with Archer, who had been given a huge wad if gauze to wrap around the wound in his chest.
"Shh," Archer smoothed my hair and pulled me into his arms. "Don't cry, he's going to be fine."
I hadn't realize I was crying, but sure enough, there were tears rolling down my cheeks. "But what if-"
Archer shook his head, "It's going to be fine."
We stood in the waiting room for a long time. At some point my tears had dried up and Archer was just holding me close and whispering nothing of import into my hair. He pressed his lips to the top of my head and sighed, guiding us to a chair.
He pulled me into his lap, needing the same company I did. After all, if Seth died, it wasn't just me losing a mate. It was Archer losing a best friend.
Somewhere in time my eyes closed and I drifted off with Archers words of comfort ringing like a lullaby in my head.
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A/N: I'm so sorry for the long wait, but I wrote half my chapter on paper and lost it then couldn't remember what I wrote so I had to re-write it... And I was screwing up character names - I accidentally wrote Aidan instead of Jack who is the best friend that Vaughn supposedly captured - had to change that. Then I went through all the other chapters and I was seeing how the days were weird (chapter 7 or something I wrote there was a week till the full moon and chapter 8 said twenty-five days) so I'm confusing myself. I basically coughed this one up just to put something there. Sigh. Vote and comment anyway. Need some moral support right about now. XxEmmy.