Chapter 19.

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I felt Nicholas shove my back and wanted to roll my eyes. He was pissed because all the wolfsbane I had consumed and injected seemingly had no effect on me. Seemingly. I could feel it burning through my veins, it had damaged the inside of my throat and my stomach felt terrible; I was not going to show him any of that though. Well, I was trying not to but felt like I was swaying on my feet even though I knew I was not.

He had not had any more for me to take so we just set off towards wherever they were hiding out, him walking behind me. More than he knew I could not do much at the moment, he knew that I would not. Still, he did not want me behind his back. Turns out he was not completely stupid.

"You know, Nic –"

"Be quiet," he cut me off.

"I prefer literally anything but peanut butter. Maybe put something better on the sandwiches for our next 'picnic'? You know, if I decided not to kill you." I said, "I love hot food but don't you think wolfsbane is pushing it?" I added. I felt him punch my back and peeked over my shoulder amused to aggravate him more, it worked and he shoved my head so I was looking forward.

"You're going to wish you kept your mouth shut, Eli."

"Ooo. No 'Alpha'. Such disrespect." I chuckled, "You rebel." I teased.

"Shut up!" I dodged the branch he swung at me, turning to him before he grabbed my collar to shove me against a tree roughly.

"Aren't you going to fight back, Eli?" He asked before smirking, "I thought Alphas don't back down. Fight me."

I grabbed his shoulders and stepped forward swinging us around and slamming him against the tree. He did not try to stop me at all.

"What are you playing at?" I hissed.

He bit his lip as he glanced down between us and I narrowed my eyes letting them fall to his hands when they lifted to gently take hold of my wrists before my eyes met his hazel pair again, "Stockholm Syndrome?" He smirked. I wanted to rip his heart out right there. All of it was a fucking joke to him. "Get your hands off of me before I have Danté killed, Eli." he said, "I never liked him anyway, always has that rude look in his eyes." His mention of it made me realise Danté never quite liked Nicholas either. Even when he was a toddler, he never quite took to Nicholas the way he did to the rest of my friends and always ran off when the guy was around us. Guess my brother had good instincts.

I did not want to listen to Nicholas; he could not tell me what to do. Well... in the past. Now... I let go of him but swung my fist into his face as soon as I did. He fell to the ground clutching his jaw and I watched him as I unclenched my fist and clenched it again. It wasn't a lot of wolfsbane, but I was losing strength. It did not show as much but I could definitely feel it.

I grit my teeth feeling my heart burn. We needed to move quicker, I wasn't sure if I was healing fast enough with all of the damage happening inside my body.

"Get up, 'Alpha'." I mocked grabbing the back of Nicholas's shirt and dragging him to his feet.

He shoved my hand from him as soon as he was up and I watched the cut on his lip slowly disappear as he glared at me. "You're going to pay. For everything. I-I hate you." He hissed. Everything? He meant being Alpha? I decided not to reply. I did not want us wasting more time out there. I began to leave but he caught my arm and I immediately felt something prick into it. I looked back at him and met his glaring eyes as I felt the liquid burn through the vein it was pierced into. I was determined not to show him any type of weakness despite feeling that the wolfsbane he was currently draining into me was a lot more concentrated than the others, "I did not want you dead. I did not want to use this. Why are you like this?"

What the fuck was he talking about? Earlier he said he wanted me to die but Craig insisted on keeping me alive. I clenched my fist in frustration as he finished.

"Where is my brother, Nicholas?" I sounded dangerously calm and for a second I saw fear in his eyes before he smirked.

"Kill me, Eli." He chuckled. "Aren't you just dying to?" He gave what sounded like a genuine giggle, "That's funny, you're literally dying to." he added.

I felt my wolf urging a shift but refused. I would not be able to think as clearly in wolf form, with my wolf in charge and the last thing I needed was to lose control near Nicholas because the first thing we would do was tear him to shreds.

Nicholas, realising I was done talking, chuckled as he shoved me to keep walking. I looked down at my arm and noticed some blood tricking from the prick, burning my skin. It should have healed immediately when he took the needle out. I wiped the blood away with my shirt feeling a little light-headed and bit my lip nervously. I had never been weak before... I had no idea how to deal with it... How was I supposed to protect Danté – defend myself feeling that way? No. I just needed to get him out of there, and then I would not need to physically protect him. Releasing him was the most important thing. Right. I could waste any more energy on fighting Nicholas.

I was hit by the strong scent of wolfsbane again and soon I was surrounded by lots of it. Nicholas grabbed my arm and dragged me through it as I tried to figure out how no one noticed that all of it was growing out there. I looked up and spotted a cabin before I gave a dry chuckle.

"That's not weirdly out of place," I mumbled.

"It was built pretty recently." Nicholas shoved me towards it making me realise I had stopped walking to stare at the only house in the forest. I stumbled slightly before regaining my balance and heard Nicholas chuckle behind me. "Trouble walking, Eli?"

I did not reply and instead focused on finding my brother's scent. I found it as soon as the cabin's door was pushed open and immediately grabbed Nicholas' hair before bringing his face down onto my knee. I let him fall onto the grass and muttered a spell that instantly caused him to break out screaming as he burst into flames. I ran through the cabin knowing Nicholas knew exactly how to put that spell out, but it was fine; I just needed to stall him. Running through the small cabin, I stumbled again and cursed feeling dizzy. It was harder to keep a hold of my brother's scent feeling as sick as I did. I needed to throw up...

Once finding the basement door, I shoved it open and stumbled down the stairs into a hallway deeper underground. It was so long, there were so many doors. Built recently? Bullshit. Or was Nicholas just talking about the cabin at the top? How long and Craig been up to this?

I began to run down the hall following Danté's scent but I slowed as different scents surrounded me clouding my sense of smell. Were there wolves in all of the rooms? I did not have enough time to release everyone. What do I do...? Danté.

I ran by several doors down trying to focus and sort through all the smells until I reached the one Danté's scent was coming from. I slammed a door open and stepped in, instantly feeling dizzier at the smell of more wolfsbane. I was surrounded by cages of wolves.

"Eli?" I heard a mutter and turned to see a Danté I barely recognised given his beaten, bruised and burnt skin, "Eli!" he yelled grabbing the bars in front of him before he let out a shout quickly pulling his hands back. The bars were coated in wolfsbane.

I gave a breath of relief before noticing the lock on his cage. Cage. I felt furious.

I looked around at all the wolves staring and shouting helplessly at me. I could break some of the locks but breaking each one at a time would cost me valuable time and energy. There was no way Danté could escape by himself, lots of people would confuse Nicholas.

"Oh, there he is." Craig.

I had no time.

I held my breath as I stared at the lock on my brother's cage and watched the ice form on it slowly.

"Where's Nic –?"

"Stop him!" I heard Nicholas shout as all the locks around me shattered. I coughed falling onto my knees and cursed at myself. It was one spell, not even that strong. I could not be that fucking weak already!

"Get out!" I shouted at the stunned wolves who were just staring at me. Their cages are open but they aren't even moving! What the hell was wrong with them?!

They scrambled to leave their cages. They were clearly weak too. I watched one try to fight Nicholas but Nicholas threw him against the wall and easily ripped his heart out without even a second of pausing.

To my relief, the rest of them took the hint and instead of trying to fight just ran as fast as they could to make their escape. Everyone except one.

"Eli –"

"Get out!" I shouted shoving Danté as he tried to help me up. I forced myself onto my feet seeing Nicholas move and cut him off before he could tackle my brother, "Fucking listen to me, Danté!" I took my frustration out on Nicholas as I punched him in his face again. "Get out!" I ordered in my alpha tone as I used all my strength to throw Nicholas into a cage and melt the door shut.

I fell back onto my hands and knees seeing stars and I heard my brother's rapid breathing as he stumbled out of the room. Finally. I coughed slipping and falling onto my stomach.

"Wow. They said you were strong. Guess not." How could I forget about him?

I tried to get up, fight the darkness but the black stars only grew in my eyes until there was no light at all.

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