Makara Ch. 11

"He took advantage of you. Again." Cade clenched his teeth, and his hands closed into fists at his side. "Can I kill him now?"

I breathed a sigh of relief that Cade's anger had been directed towards Rodan, and not me, although I felt I deserved it.

"No," Bridger spoke from the ground, slowly pulling himself into a standing position. He wiped at his mouth, spitting blood onto the floor, uncaring about the stain that it left on the carpet, or the smear on his arm.

Cade growled, a blatant threat.

"Down, boy," Bridger told him condescendingly, rolling his eyes.

I reached out to touch Cade's arm, feeling him relax slightly as the mate bond flared at our contact.

"Explain," I demanded. "What does Rodan have to do with this?"

"Rodan must be kept alive. Silas too. At least until after the ritual."

"Why?"

"Do you think Silas came up with the ritual all on his own? Do you really think he has that kind of power? No. There's a witch who started the whole thing, convinced Silas to agree to it. If you kill Silas before he completes the ritual, she'll just use his corpse to finish it. No one wants her to have control of a hybrid wolf puppet."

"And this witch has enough power to do that?" Cade asked, still tense, but wisely putting aside his personal feelings.

"She used to, but not anymore. She doesn't need it now. The power is in the ritual itself, in the fountain filled with the blood of magical creatures. The only way to stop it now, is to let it happen."

"How exactly will that help us?"

"Rodan polluted the ritual," Bridger stated, giving us both a pointed look, the implication that he had done so by sleeping with me hanging thickly in the air. I flushed, but didn't say anything, waiting for Bridger to continue. "Now, when Silas completes the ritual, instead of transforming, he'll die. That's why we need you, Makara. You need to be there so Silas can finish. Then this whole thing will be over."

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Would you have believed me? If I told you last week that Silas was murdering his own pack, would you have listened?"

I looked away from him. I may not have believed him last week, but I may have believed him yesterday, the threat to my mate still fresh in my mind.

"And you think, after everything, that Makara will just go with you? Are you crazy?"

"I'm not sure we have a choice, Cade." He turned to face me, still watching Bridger through his peripherals. "This poem says he'll get untold strengths and gains when he completes the ritual. If he's willing to kill that many people for it, what's he going to do with that strength once he gets it?"

"We can leave," Cade replied. "Get far away from here so he can never finish. You're the Omega, he needs you."

I shook my head.

"I'm AN Omega. Omegas might be rare, but there are more, others. Rodan has already-, well, as an Omega I'm already...altered." I chose the word carefully, not liking the way polluted sounded. "If Silas gets another Omega, he'll get what he wants. At least this way, there's a chance that we'll win."

"Exactly," Bridger added. "And he won't hesitate to kill the next one. He needs to die. You nearly wrecked everything by running away."

I rolled my eyes. It's not like they had given me much of a choice.

"I'll be okay, Cade. Silas doesn't want me dead."

"But he does." Cade thrust a thumb at Bridger.

"Not yet," the Beta mumbled.

"I can handle Bridger," I told Cade, confident, if not entirely convinced of the truth of that statement. Stepping closer, I kissed him lightly, and he put his forehead against mine.

'I don't trust him,' Cade's voice filled my head. How quickly this form of communicating had become natural to us, never even discussing the shared emotions, images, and words between us. It was like night and day when compared to my wolf. We struggled to communicate, and there were times, like now, when she was decidedly quiet, that I almost forgot she was even there.

'Neither do I,' I responded, using the same silent words as he had.

•°~~****~~°•

Bridger walked slightly behind me, and we were silent as we moved, the sounds of the insects and animals in the nearby trees the only things to be heard, besides the occasional direction Bridger barked at me.

I could feel Cade back at the hotel, clinging to our link as it grew weaker and weaker, the distance making it difficult to grasp. Eventually it fell away completely, and my heart sank. I had hoped he would follow us.

"Through there," Bridger told me, pointing at the gaping entrance of a cave in the rocks. I stared at the dark passage. It loomed over me, sharp spikes of minerals jutting from the ceiling like teeth in a mouth about to swallow me.

I looked at him defiantly, and he rolled his eyes, stepping past me to walk into the blackness. Following him cautiously, I shuffled along the stone ground, my hands on the rough wall for guidance. Some areas of the tunnel were brighter than others, cracks in the ceiling allowing just enough moonlight in to see by.

Shadows danced along the walls as we approached one such crack, the night sky just barely visible right above us. Bridger paused, turning around to look at me. He didn't say anything, so I assumed he was checking that I was still there. There were three directions we could have gone in that particular intersection, and I had no idea how Bridger had known that we needed to go left, but he did so without hesitation.

From there, there were multiple splits in the rock, each offering us a new path. Some, we walked by, Bridger not sparing them a second glance, others, we followed. There was no pattern, no logic to the course we took, but the tunnel eventually opened into a wide cavern.

The space was lit with sconces along the walls, the flickering flames lending themselves to the eerie atmosphere of the room.

The first thing I noticed was the large fountain in the middle of the room, the thick, red blood that cycled through it making my stomach turn. The second thing, was Silas, leaning against a table with his back to us. He spoke, quietly enough that I couldn't hear what he said, even in the echoing chamber.

Bridger coughed, drawing the Alpha's attention and Silas turned, focusing on me intensely, his expression giving nothing of his thoughts away.

He pushed away from the table, stepping around it to walk towards me. My eyes snapped to the woman just a little farther ahead, visible now that Silas had moved.

I recognized her, her sunken face, the limbs so thin they looked like they were about to snap, and the knotted hair, matted to her head before falling in thick strands past her shoulders. I had seen her before, in my dreams.

Silas watched me with gleaming eyes, scanning me from top to bottom. There was a thickness around us, a tension that had never been there before. He reached a hand out to touch me, but pulled it back as if I had slapped him. Shifting from one foot to the other, he fidgeted in his place, unsure of what to do with himself. I was not inclined to help him, and I let him stand there uncomfortably.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then pressed his lips tightly together, directing his attention over my shoulder.

"Well, she's not in chains," Silas started, speaking to Bridger as if I weren't standing right in front of him. "And she's not running, so I guess you found a way to get her here willingly."

"He told me everything," I stated calmly before Bridger had a chance to respond, not willing to let Silas treat me like an object again, talking about me, instead of to me.

As if my knowledge of his actions and subsequent presence in the cave were enough for him to believe I was on his side, he let the awkwardness fall away, smiling wide, and lifting his hand to the side of my face, stroking my cheek with his thumb. I knew things would go smoother if he trusted me, so I leaned into his hand, pushing away intrusive memories of the last time his hand was on my face. Shifting his hand to the back of my head, he stepped closer, and pulled me towards him in the same motion, kissing me with the full dominating power of an Alpha.

I let him kiss me, opening my mouth to his tongue as he ran it across my lips, despite the urge to push him away. A small part of me, the bond, was thankful for the contact, craved it, and pushed me to lift my hands to his chest. I allowed the small action, knowing it would increase the trust between us, even as I buried the rest of the urges under my hatred for the man in my arms.

I nearly stumbled as he pulled away, and I swallowed my disappointment as he stepped back, focusing on my anger.

"The power we'll have, Makara," he stated. "It'll be like no one's ever had before. I will rule as the most powerful Alpha, and you," he ran his hands down my arms, grasping my hands in his. "You will be my Luna."

I managed to smile at him, a thin, tight lipped expression that didn't reach my eyes. He frowned, not satisfied with the hesitant action.

"You understand, don't you?" He asked. "Why I-, why it had to happen? I need you to understand." He raised both his hands to my face, shaking me slightly and forcing me to look directly at him. I just barely stopped myself from gasping in fear, and trying to pull his hands away. "Tell me you understand." He stopped shaking me, staring at me, waiting intently for my answer as if I were deciding whether he would live or die.

I understood, of course, why he had done it. I understood that he was a selfish, power-hungry man who wanted nothing more than to be in charge, and I understood that he would sacrifice anything and anyone in order to get it. I understood that no truly powerful man would ever put the world through so much misery, and I understood that under his self-important personality, and despite his large muscles, Silas was weak. But I couldn't tell him that.

"I understand," I told him, keeping the rest of my thoughts to myself, though it was difficult to avoid sounding accusatory. He either didn't notice the tone, or he ignored it, choosing to hear only what he wanted as he smiled broadly at me again, squeezing me in a tight hug before finally letting me go.

"Are you ready?" Bridger asked from behind me.

I turned to look at the Beta and he gave me a slight nod, almost imperceptible. A pang of regret and suspicion rang through me, and I was suddenly nervous that I had made a mistake in trusting Rodan and Bridger. But it was too late now, and I had no choice but to follow Bridger as he walked past me.

As we moved, I noticed the old lady was no longer in the room, no doubt having disappeared at some point while I was talking to Silas. I looked to the half dozen gaping cracks in the cavern wall near where she had been standing, but there was no indication which passageway she had taken.

One fact about her was clear, she was someone important, likely the witch who Bridger said created the ritual. But how had she gotten the power in the first place? Although, it didn't really matter anyway. Bridger said her power was gone, so once Silas was dead, she likely wouldn't be able to cause any more harm.

Bridger led me to a tall platform on the other side of the room, the surface raised to look like an altar, four pillars set with decorative rings stretching a few feet from the surface, and I macabrely made a comparison between myself and a sacrificial lamb before Bridger spoke.

"Take off your clothes."

"What? No," I answered defiantly.

"It's part of the ritual. It won't work if you don't follow it."

"So this all powerful ritual that will reverse a punishment put in place by the Moon Goddess herself won't be able to find its way past a few pieces of fabric?"

"No." He sighed at my obstinacy. "The punishment is from a time when we were a lot more primal than we are now. Nudity in any context wasn't an issue back then, and therefore, clothes were not factored into the ritual. Take them off."

Looking behind me, I saw Silas was already removing his clothes, his shirt tossed haphazardly to the ground and his pants pooling at his feet before he stepped out of them.

I nudged my wolf, hoping she would have some idea of how to get out of this, but she ignored me.

I didn't relish the idea of being naked in front of either of the men, the time I had already spent in such a state having been more than enough, but I didn't have much choice, so I reluctantly peeled off my clothes. Bridger turned away from me as I worked, displaying a gentleman's modesty that he hadn't bothered to show me in the past.

Squeezing my legs to hide my folds between them, I crossed my arms over my chest, covering as much of my nakedness as I could. I coughed to get Bridger's attention, not sure what I was meant to do next.

He guided me by the elbow to a set of stairs that led to the top of the platform, where I could now see a long cushion set between the front-most pillars.

"Kneel," Bridger directed me, pointing at the cushion.

I looked between him and the cushion, and he silently repeated his order with a thrust of his chin. I obeyed, walking forward and cautiously kneeling down on the cushion. It was soft under me, protecting me from the hard ground. There were certainly worse things to kneel on, I was sure.

I heard Bridger doing something behind me, so I turned to face him. He was closing a door to a compartment in one of the pillars, a length of rope in his hand.

"Rope?" I asked accusingly.

"The Omega was never expected to be willing," he explained, knowing I would object to being tied up. "It's a formality, but it must be observed."

"And if I refuse?"

"You want him dead as much as I do," he whispered, so low I could barely hear him. "Are you not willing to do what it takes to make that happen?"

"How do I know you won't kill me right after?"

"I swear on my dead mate, I won't kill you. At least not while you're tied up."

I searched his face for any kind of deception. Finding none, I reluctantly handed him my wrist.

He tied each limb to one of the pillars, threading the rope through the decorative rings. He pulled so tightly I was forced to stretch out my arms, and spread my legs, leaving myself embarrassingly exposed.

My breath quickened as I realized how vulnerable I was, and I gave an investigative tug on the ropes that bound me. The knots tightened painfully.

"Just relax." I cringed as Bridger spoke, remembering how Silas had told me the same thing as he raped me. I wondered if Bridger had remembered as well, if he had done it on purpose. "It'll be over soon."

Bridger moved from in front of me, walking down the steps to stand at the base of the platform. I could see Silas standing at the edge of the fountain, his flaccid cock gaining some rigidity as he saw me displayed, although it did not expand fully.

Bridger gave the Alpha a nod, and that desperate excitement Silas had shown earlier changed to something more serious. Fear? Determination? I couldn't quite tell.

He turned from me, stepping into the blood of the fountain. I fought off a gag as the viscous liquid stirred around him, sloshing up to stain the flesh of his legs bright red before slowly dripping back into the pool. It barely came halfway to his knees, and when he sat, legs stretched out in front of him, his entire torso remained visible. It wasn't until he laid back, submerging his head under the blood, that he disappeared completely, the redness swallowing him whole.

At first, nothing happened, but just when I was about to question Bridger, the blood began to bubble. After a moment, the entire surface was roiling and churning, as if someone had set the fountain to boil.

I tensed, knowing that if everything went to plan, Silas was about to die. I noted the contrast between my nervousness and Bridger's own calm mannerisms as he took out his phone, typing out a quick message before putting it back in his pocket.

A few moments later, the blood still heaving and swirling in the fountain, Rodan walked through one of the crevices, giving me an appreciative glance before standing beside Bridger.

I was shocked by his appearance, but knew I shouldn't have been, admonishing myself for the oversight.

The two men spoke quietly, low enough that I only picked up a few words.

"...warriors...position...order..."

I ignored them, too distracted by the killing in progress to pay them any heed.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the fountain began to calm down, eventually settling into a placid pool, no signs of life stirring the surface. A part of me was sad, and I knew it was not the part of me that had been raped, not the part whose mates were threatened and friends were killed. Silas had protected me, even if not from himself, and in his own way, loved me, but he had caused too much pain for too many people for me to allow those sympathies to take root within me.

I let my head fall back, happy that, for once, trusting Rodan hadn't been a downfall.

'What's happening?' Cade's voice filled my mind, and I opened my eyes, smiling, glad that he had, indeed, followed me.

'It worked,' I told him silently, allowing my relief to flow through our link. 'He's gone.'

And as if on cue, as if the whole thing had been orchestrated simply to prove that I was a fool, Silas burst through the surface of the pool, sputtering, and coughing up blood, but alive.