My Alpha's Mark

53 Run

Kacie

Clara’s eyes flicker to me.

“And maybe things could have been different,” she whispered before she turned back to Ken.

“Tell me where she is,” she asks as she stares impassively at Ken. She takes a step forward and Ken flinches.

“Now,” she says as a black cloud appears around Ken.

Ken’s eyes widen as he stares at the mass of black fog that has surrounded him. He starts shaking his head and tries to take a step back when his movements stop. His eyes dart back to Clara.

I can feel my strength returning as I watched the darkness almost completely surround Ken. They were both sidetracked and I had a feeling Clara wasn’t going to hold me anymore.

This would be the perfect time to make a run for it but-

“Have you always been this terrible at making decisions?” Athena asks. I’m so shocked and thrilled to hear her, I have to clamp my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

“Athena!” I whisper yell mentally. “I’ve missed you!”

“And I’ve missed you. I’m excited to be back but do you want to explain how you’ve been able to regain your strength while still being here?” Athena asks.

I fill her in on Clara helping me and she goes silent.

“Athena?” I ask.

“I still don’t like her,” she says in a low voice.

“Athena!” I reprimand her. “She’s helped us!”

“Yes, and she’s also done some pretty fucked up things too,” she said with a hint of anger.

“How about we focus on the present and how to get out of here?” I ask. “We don’t have any friends in this Goddess-forsaken place and we need to take what we can get. You told me I make terrible decisions so why don’t you help me figure out what we can do.”

A pain-filled scream rips thru our conversation, dragging my attention back to Ken as a finger drops to the floor followed by a sprinkle of blood.

I think I’m going to be sick.

“FUCK!” Ken growls.

As much as I hate him, I wouldn’t enjoy watching him get mutilated. I have a sinking feeling I know what happened to Clara’s sister. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

Clara doesn’t move. She continues staring at Ken, waiting for him to tell her what she wants to know. I watch her expression border on pure madness when she realizes he’s still not going to talk. She shifts her head to the left and another scream fills the room. I cringe as something hits the floor and I refuse to look and see what it was.

“Clara,” I say hesitantly.

She doesn’t look at me but I know she hears me. She chooses to ignore me but I call out to her again.

She shakes her head in response. Ken rocks back and forth holding his bleeding hand while cursing her.

I swallow.

“This is your only chance,” Clara says without looking my way. “I’m not going to kill him until I know where my sister is. When I know where she is I will leave here to retrieve her.”

“She’s telling us to run,” Athena murmurs.

Before I could even try and think of a way out, Ken growled like the asshole he is and shot forward. I flinched but when I opened my eyes he’d only moved maybe an inch or two from where Clara held him.

“Your focus should be on me, mutt,” she purred. With another jerk of her head, his whole hand drops to the floor. Clara’s darkness seemed to cloud around her and Ken as her patience wore thin. The darkness seemed to swirl and wrap around them like a storm.

My ears felt like they were bleeding from the scream that ripped from Ken’s lips. Blood gushed and spurted out like a fountain. The bile spewed up and I leaned over the bed as it made its way out of my mouth, I retched onto the floor.

Ken’s eyes flickered open and shot to me. Even if I wanted to help him as someone who doesn’t want to see anyone be tortured, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t. Clara had a right to know where her sister was or what happened to her. This wasn’t my fight to interfere in.

I have my own bone to pick with Ken but I didn’t bring myself here on purpose, I didn’t seek him out. He brought me here. What I needed was to move on from him and I was working on that. I had been working on myself.

Wiping the vomit from my mouth, I took deep breaths to calm myself. Ken groaned in pain and I looked to see my fingers shaking. I clasped my hands together and tried to stop the shaking I felt from my head to my feet.

I wanted to run but I was frozen in fear at what was happening in front of me. The look in Clara’s eyes showed there was nothing she wouldn’t do to get the information she wanted. I knew she wouldn’t stop mutilating him until she knew where her sister was.

I knew I had every right to not care for her, I had every right to agree with Athena and hate her. She’d tried to sway my mate and she had worked with Ken to get me here. Even knowing all of that, my heart went out for her.

She had seen Viktor in a vision and came to our territory knowing that she would betray him for her sister. She hadn’t seen me but when she found out about me her she couldn’t help but be angry knowing that the Moon Goddess had probably known what she was going to do and made me for him.

The jealously and hurt she must have felt seeing her destined with someone else. Imagine knowing that the hard choice you had to make for your sister would have been your only choice even if she’d wanted him. She couldn’t have had him. He never would have been hers.

She moves her head but before she can jerk her head to slice another part of his body off. Ken lifts his head and looks her in the eyes. Sweat poured down his temple and his chest rose and fell rapidly.

“She’s dead,” he breathes.