32. Revelations

Mayra.

I look at the man that has haunted my dreams for fifteen years. I feel the familiar fear that I used to rush through me. My bones lock and my heart constrict. I’m no longer in the room with him and Alice.

Instead I’m back in the lab. Back to those times when he drugged and raped me.

“How?” I ask. My voice shaky.

He died. He was supposed to be dead, but here he is. Very much alive.

I stare at him trying to get my brain to work. To piece things together. One side of his face and neck is burned. There is nothing there but marred and scarred skin. It’s raised and bunched up. It looks ugly.

He is also bald on that side. If he turns and hides the other side. You wouldn’t be able to tell that it is him.

“How am I alive or how am I here with dear Alice?” he asks. His voice deeper than I remember.

I’m hit with another memory. His groans of pleasure as he released inside me. The memory makes me want to puke all over both of them. I turn to look at Alice. Still unable to believe that she betrayed me.

I still can't even wrap up my mind how she and Daniel are in this together. I know she knows him from what I’ve told her about him but for her to work with him then it means she knows him more than I told her.

“Both” I answer, my eyes shifting between him and her.

Daniels smiles. Or what you would imagine a semblance of a smile looks like.

“Now that, my love, is a long story” he says and I see Alice flinch a little.

I wonder why. Is it because there is something more between them? How the hell did they even meet?

And how the fuck is he still alive.

“First of all, I’m not your love…and beside, the fact that you kidnapped me means you plan to hold me here for a while meaning we have time”

My voice came out assured but I was shaking inside. I mean, the man of nightmares is alive and he just kidnapped me. I won’t let them see how scared I am though. I won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me tremble in fear.

He rushes to me at an inhuman speed and grabs my jaw. Bringing me close to his face.

“I told you you’re mine, Mayra. Remember that?.”

He places a kiss on my lips and the need to vomit takes over. I felt disgusted and violated. I looked at Alice and see pain there. Pain I didn’t understand.

“Now, I want you to be still while I tell you everything. It’s going to blow your mind at what I’ve managed to accomplish”

I let out a sarcastic laugh. “It’s not like I can go anywhere with silver chains tied to my wrists and ankles”

“Great…Alice, be a good girl and get me a chair” he snaps his fingers and Alice rushes to get him one.

I stare at her in astonishment. Is this the same woman who sat with me as I narrated what I had been through? Is she the same woman that told me that I had to be strong? Why would she let a piece of shit dictate her? She was a werewolf for fucks sake.

“Where to begin” he starts. “Ah, I will begin on the night that your people attacked my lab and took what was mine. It was an agonizing and painful night. I mean we had no idea that we would be found let alone attacked.

The government didn’t even know about us. Those scientists were so foolish thinking that it was a government project and that I was just a benefactor.

I can’t say that I shed a tear when they were killed I honestly didn’t give a fuck. I begged you to help me but you didn’t and I understand that it was because you were weak. You couldn’t help anyone”

What the hell? Was this man delusional? I didn’t help him because I hated him. Because I wanted him to die, not because I couldn’t.

He continued. “After you left me, I crawled and pushed myself to get out. I knew the building would blow anytime and while your people were distracted with saving the remaining wolves, I took that opportunity to escape.

I was sure that if they found me they wouldn’t let me live and I couldn’t let you live all alone with the pain of losing me. It was terrible honestly, slithering through the fire while you were already burnt. I got out just in time to witness my building blow up”

I’ve never wanted to hit anyone like I did right now. The guy was fucked up in the head and it showed.

He actually believed that I would shed a tear if he died. Believed that I cared for him and that I felt the same. It was disturbing.

“I waited until everyone left. I don’t even know how no one noticed that someone had escaped death. I managed to get out of the field and into the forest. I passed out after that and when I woke up, I was in a house. Turns out Alice found me during her morning runs and saved me”

So that’s how they met. But still, something didn’t add up.

I face Alice who was leaning against the wall.

“Why would you save him? Given the fact that you took him home instead of a hospital meant that you knew or suspected that he was one of the humans that held us captive. Why didn’t you hand him over to the council?” I ask her. Anger lacing my voice.

This was her fucking fault. She should have killed him when she found him instead she helped him.

“He is my mate. I couldn’t do that to him” she says in a soft and almost childlike voice.

Saying I was shocked would be an understatement. My mind was blown away. I just couldn’t believe it.

Was the moon goddess playing a trick or something? Why would she mate a man who harmed her children to one of her own? It didn’t make any sense.

“She’s a darling. She nursed me back to health. I told her to keep her ears open at the hospital. I wanted to know everything concerning you. When she found out that you were going into therapy, we moved things around and she was assigned to you. I had to have sights on you until I was strong enough to take you back”

Doesn’t Alice have any dignity? How could she tolerate a man who was using her to get another woman. A woman she knows he raped?

“You have a mate Daniel. Alice is your mate” I tell him through clenched teeth.

He shrugs his shoulders as if he isn’t concerned by that at all.

“Alice understands that she is nothing but a placeholder. Sure, she has scratched my itch a few times after all I couldn’t stay celibate for five whole years, but she always knew she wasn’t the one I wanted”

I see her face fall. Despite trying to stay strong, I know that those words hurt her. Daniel was a bastard.

I don't understand why Alice can’t see that.

“I’m already taken, I don’t know if Alice filled you in on that”

“Oh, I know that but she also told me that the moment I marked you, his mark will disappear and so will your bond to him”

I laugh at that. “You can’t mark me, Daniel…you’re not a werewolf”

“That’s where you’re wrong” he says as his voice gets deeper and deeper until it’s nothing but a growl.

Right before my eyes, his green orbs turn red and black fur starts to sprout from his skin. A minute later the red-eyed wolf is standing before me. It’s hideous scent filling my nose.

I look at him completely shocked. This has been a day of nothing but revelations. Shocking revelations at that. I couldn’t believe that Daniel was the wolf that Sebastian has been looking for.

“Impossible” I murmur, unable to look away from him.

He changes back and just like his face, half of his body is burned. Alice hands him some clothes and he puts them on.

“Nothing is impossible, my love” he smiles, making me wince at his choice of words.

I wasn’t his love and I didn’t plan on being.

“You see, all those DNA samples I took from you I was actually experimenting on myself. At first nothing happened but I continued on, trying to bond my human DNA with yours.

It wasn’t till the final year right before Iris was born that I finally accomplished what I sort out to do. It was victorious. I didn’t tell the others. This was strictly my project. I wanted to be with you and to do that I needed to be like you.

At first nothing happened. I couldn’t shift or anything like that and I thought it was a burst until about a year ago when I got so angry when I learned you’d be sleeping with that bastard that I shifted.

I understood right then that the reason why I survived the fire and attack was because of your wolf DNA”

I was numb. The fact that my DNA created the monster that has been killing mercilessly nearly destroyed me. This was all my fucking fault. All of it.

I let out a deep breath. “There’s something I never understood, how did you know about wolves and why go after the other ones?”

“When I was eleven I witnessed my parents being killed by wolves. Those wolves then transformed into humans. I tried telling the police but they choked it up to PTSD and a wild imagination. After all, werewolves weren’t real. It got worse and I was sent to a psychiatric facility.

I didn’t get out until I was sixteen. They tried convincing me that werewolves didn’t exist but I knew what I saw. You kind knows how to hide in plain sight, I’ll give you that. I thought all hope was lost until I saw you shifting in the forest. When I caught you it started as a means to get vengeance but let’s just say that things changed”

Raya was right. It was my selfishness that led to Daniel discovering about us. If I hadn’t insisted on running instead of just driving then he wouldn’t have the proof he needed of our existence. My face turns to Alice. She was just standing there like a statue. She behaved like Daniel was her master or something.

I was about to say something when we heard howls, followed by a commotion. I sigh in relief. Help was here. Alice looked panicked while Daniel looked unbothered.

“You still haven’t answered me about the other wolves and if you wanted me with you, then why did you attack me that night?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “It was fun and I liked the fear I evoked in them once they realized who I was and as for you, I wanted you to feel the fear I felt when I didn’t know if I would survive or not…and just like the others it was fun unsettling you with the pictures and notes. Alice found something that concealed our scents so it was easy to sneak and out...You”

He never gets to finish because the door bursts open and Kai barges in. His eyes are wild and death plays behind them. Daniel quickly transforms and attacks. I struggle to get out of the chain but it’s of no use. They continue fighting. Daniel manages to claw Kai but it isn’t deep.

A minute later, Daniel’s howl of pain fills the room. Kai had bitten off a big chunk of his belly and now his intestines were spilling over. He transforms back to human. Holding his stomach where a huge hole lay. Kai transforms too, leaving Darren standing in front of Daniel.

He grabs the other man by the neck and lifts him off the ground.

“Did you really think you could kidnap my mate and get away with it?” he asks as his left hand punches through his chest.

Daniel gasps in shock then winces when I assume Darren squeezes his heart. Killing the other wolves had made him cocky. He didn’t realize that killing an already broken and scared wolf was easy. Killing an Alpha was a whole different case.

Darren begins to pull his hand out and Daniel begins to sputter and cough blood.

“If I can’t have her then neither can you” he says and gives Alice a sideway glance right before a needle pierces my skin.

My insides begin to melt and my vision begins to fade. I watch as Darren rips out Daniel’s heart before letting go of his body. He turns and his face turns ashen when he sees me. He rushes to me pushing Alice aside.

“No! No! No” he keeps whispering while he breaks the chain.

I fall limply but he catches me before I can hit the ground.

“Mayra, baby…hold on please. Keep your eyes on me” he begs but I had no strength to hold on.

I know what was happening. Alice had injected me with silver and it was killing me. It was spreading fast and I knew there was no chance of getting me to a hospital in time.

“I-I love you” I stammer the words. Blood filling my throat and mouth making it difficult to speak.

“Please ta-take care o-of Iris for me. I l-love both of y-you so much”

He holds me close to his chest. Begging me to stay with him but this time I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t up to me.

Darkness soon begins beckoning me and the last thing I see before everything fades is Darren’s heartbroken face.