Chapter 160: Chapter 159

Xander Zane and | backed away slowly, holding our hands up.

“No f ucking way we're arrested,” Xander said. “I’m the Alpha.”

n thin ica” Gustav “| told you you were said, his icy blue eyes flashing with irritation.

“Then make us stand before the Council first!” Zane snapped. “You can’t just arrest an Alpha and a Betal without allowing them to plead their case.”

Gustav crept toward us, clapping his bony hands in front of him.

“When it comes to murder, that isn’t an option,” he said.

Murder? What the f uck was this sen ile as shole talking about?

“We didn’t kill anyone,” | scoffed. “You must be confused.”

“I'm not arguing anymore,” Gustav said, waving his hand dismissively. “You're being arrested for the murders of multiple hybrid she-wolves, including Lanie Stanton.”

alive, My hands went numb, and the world seemed to spin. The edges of my vision blacked out. Lanie was a or at least she was this morning. And we’d never touched another hybrid, much less murdered them. That was...

Realization crashed around me. | turned to Zane, we locked eyes and both spun around to face Gregory and Lucas. They wiggled their fingers in a little wave.

“Sorry, boys,” Gregory said. “Nothing personal.”

Those f ucking ba stards.

“YOU SET US UP!” | snarled, lunging at them.

But before | could make contact, multiple sets of hands were on me, pulling my arms back and tying them with heavy silver chains that singed my skin. | winced and growled at the pain.

Zane growled, too, and | looked over to see him thrashing and howling against the men chaining him up.

How could | have been so f ucking st upid thinking Gregory and Lucas were confiding in us, thinking | could actually trust them?

They were basically laying out their plan for getting us locked up, and we didn’t even realize it.

My father was too f ucking powerful, he owned everyone and everything. There was no way we were ever getting out of this.

“Our babies!” | cried. “Our twins! You can’t leave them.”

“Oh, we won't,” Gustav said icily. “They'll be very safe with us.”

Not our babies. They couldn’t take our babies.

Another cry of anguish ripped from Zane’s chest.

“Zane, stop fighting.” | yelled at him. “Struggling only makes it worse.”

“What the f uck do we do, Xander?” Zane asked me desperately.

“| don’t know,” | said, “We have to see where they take us first and then-”

“ARRRRRGH,” | screamed as an electric shock zapped from my back, all the way up to my head. The sound of anguished screams echoed around in my brain and it took me a moment to realize they were my own. Mine mixed with Zane’s.

“What the hell?” | said to Zane, but something didn’t feel right. It was too quiet inside my head.

“No silent plotting.” Gustav tutted.

They'd really just zapped our f ucking brains so we couldn’t speak via our mind link?! | didn’t even know. they had the science to do that. What else could they do that we didn’t know about?

Another black-cloaked wolf approached me and threw something over my head.

And then the whole world went dark.

| woke up who knew how many hours later with a splitting headache.

As soon as | moved, white-hot pain raced up my arms.

“Silver shackles,” Zane croaked from the cell next to mine. The walls were metal but thin, and there was a small barred window in the door where | could see a sliver of the dark cellblock hall.

F uck. Being bound by silver meant that our wolf abilities were weakened so much that we couldn't shift. They were treating us like criminal masterminds, like f ucking murderers.

But | guess that’s what they thought we were. Or at least what my father, Gregory, and Lucas wanted everyone to think we were.

Our strength was gone, our twins were gone, our mate was gone...what else did we have?

| said a silent prayer of thanks to the g ods that we’d fought with my mother that morning, otherwise she’d probably be locked in here with us, Unless she was in on it...

| shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough that my father had sent his own son to prison, but my mother, too? My mother who had always seemed to care about right and wrong?

But she’d cursed Zane and me, ripped us apart from our mate.

Dread settled in the pit of my stomach. Was my father acting as Alpha now? And where was Lanie?

| was torn away from my thoughts by the sound of footsteps coming down the cellblock.

A figure stood in front of my cell, shrouded in Shadow.

“Looks like you could use my help, Xander.”