She stared at him in astonishment. Was he serious right now?
“I am going to repeat my question, Riannon,”
Brayden growled, “What have you done to my mate?
“What have I done to your mate?” She shot her brow up at her ex, “Your so-called mate has just killed Dean.”
She felt tears sting and burn at her eyes again, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her crying in front of him. Not even for Dean. Brayden did not deserve to see her cry.
“That’s a lie!l” her ex-husband gritted through her teeth “Why on earth would Roxy do something like that? She is a weak omega! She couldn’t hurt a fly!”
“We have at least a dozen witnesses, Bray!”
She stopped him, and his mouth opened in shock. “
She is hardly an omega! Moreover, she isn’t even a wolf! She is a goddamn fox!”
He stared at her bluntly, lost in his thoughts and at a loss for words. Then he clenched his fists and looked the crowd, who came with her, up and down. His own warriors were already by his side.
“l guess those wonderful and very reliable witnesses of yours are the Lycans with you? How convenient! Maybe,Maya the traitor?”
She slapped him. Hard. She knew this was the last thing she should have done and would in no way get her what she wanted. But it felt so good.
“Don’t you dare!” she warned him, “The only traitor in our pack was always your fake mate!”
“It’s not our pack anymore,” he smirked, ” Remember, you ruined that earlier today?”
“I saved what I could from you and your fox!”
she snapped at her ex again. For the first time ever, she felt like she really hated him. Onyx, who growled within her, wasn’t helping to calm her down either. In their past life, he had hurt her the most and she had yet to forgive him for his betrayal.
“How fortunate for you!” Brayden chuckled, ” Riannon the saviour! When I do something, it’s because l am selfish. But, when you do something, it’s for the common good!”
“That’s what happens when you think of others over yourself, Brayden. You should try that one day” she scoffed, folding her arms across her chest, “I demand you give me Roxanne. I need just a minute with her and I will prove to you who she is!
Now that I know the truth, I will kill her with my own hands for everything she has done!”
“I tire of repeating myself,” Bray rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out an exasperated sigh, “
She is not here! I thought you took her-“
“Useless!” Ria mumbled to herself, rolling her eyes. That fox wouldn’t come back here. Not when her identity has been discovered.
Thinking about it, Ria understood what a silly assumption this was. Still, in the heat of the moment, she wasn’t thinking clearly, and this fiasco was the result.
“Let’s go,” she commanded her people, turning away.
“Not so fast!” Brayden grabbed her hand. In a split second, Gideon had him pinned to the wall of the mansion. It all happened so fast that the guards from both sides didn’t have time to react.
“You touch her like that again, and I wll rip off your head,” the Lycan King growled, squeezing his fingers around his opponent’s neck, “Not only is she an Alpha of her own pack, but she is also my queen. Do something like this again and it will be your death sentence! You would be lucky if it’s you alone who suffers at my hands. If you piss me off one more time, I may very well wipe out what is left of your pack! Not that there are a lot of you left.
“Gideon,” Riannon brushed her hand over her mate’s back, soothing him,”Please, don’t.”
He sighed heavily and released Brayden with a huff. The alpha almost fell to his feet but managed to lean against the wall for support.
“You came to my territory! You did something to my mate!” he started listing the things he thought actually happened.
“Your mate?” Gideon chuckled loudly, “Are you serious? Haven’t you lost her? AGAIN. Do you know that it is physically impossible to lose a mate or to forget about her?I hate to be the one to break it to you, Alpha Brayden, but you don’t have a mate. I mean, maybe you do, somewhere in the world, and you could one day meet her, but that fox isn’t the one.”
“She is not-” Bray tried to protest.
“She is a fox!” Riannon cut him off, “She also works with werebears. I don’t know how she convinced you she is your mate, but I seriously doubt that it’s the truth. Think about it, Brayden.”
Her ex-husband looked at her with clenched lips and fists that she had no idea if he believed them, nor did she care anymore. It was his problem and not hers.
Ria knew that the next time she would meet Roxy, she would be the one to kill her. Ria’s patience was wearing thin. She only regretted not having done it sooner. Then maybe Dean would be alive.
“Let’s go, Riannon,” Gideon coaxed, wrapping his arms around her and Iooking her in the eye. “I don’t think she will come back here. She is not that stupid.”
“Yes,” his queen nodded and followed his lead back to the car.
Brayden’s warriors got closer now that the Lycans were gone, but he pushed them away and retreated into the mansion.
He watched his eX-wife being cared for by the Lycan King before his eyes and the sight still made him inwardly shudder. As if it couldn’t get any worse, the news of his mate was breaking him.
He didn’t even notice when she disappeared.
Of course there was a simple and reasonable explanation for her absence. He was busy. With his pack being broken in half and with the move. So much had to be arranged in such a short period of time that he completely forgot about her.
Was it normal? Could this be happening?
The Lycan had a point. How could he forget about his mate?
Riannon used to be his chosen mate, but he never forgot about her. Not once. Even now, after everything. He still thought about her more than she deserved. His thoughts today were busy with her when he had to pay attention to his true mate.
He called his top warrior, Jacob, and promoted him to a Beta, then ordered him to find out what happened to his mate.
“Find video footage from the grounds, a trace, her scent-whatever. I want to find out if she walked out of here herself or was kidnapped,” he told the guy and looked him in the eye, “Be discreet about it.
Until I know exactly what happened here, I don’t want anyone to know a thing about your discovery.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Jacob bowed politely and walked out.
Brayden did not count on him finding out much about it. He wasn’t Ash. His previous Beta had an eye for details that everyone else missed.
He paid attention and knew how to stay in the shadows, unnoticed.
Jacob wasn’t it. He was one of his best warriors, but not a match to his old friend. The same way as Roxy wasn’t a match to Riannon. No matter how much he tried to imagine she was.
Was it possible Roxy was a fox? He had never asked her to shift. Mostly because he thought she was an omega, and he was embarrassed for others to see that the Moon Goddess cursed him with a weak mate. What if she wasn’t weak? What if she wasn’t his mate?
That thought scared him the most. Then he had lost Riannon for nothing.
Everybody knew foxes could change their scents, so theoretically speaking, if Roxy was indeed a fox, she could fake the scent of his mate.
For that bit of deception, she would need to know his mate’s scent. Moreover, the scent alone wasn’t the problem. The bond was. No fox could fake that.
Why had he wanted the redhead all the time? He wasn’t a manwh0re. Lvst wasn’t what he lived for and he knew quite well how to control himself.
What would happen if Roxanne wasn’t his mate? Could there be a different explanation? That did not seem likely. Unless witches were involved.
But that was also a far cry. Love spells did not exist.
Werewolves were resistant to any kind of spell-infused mind manipulation.
He couldn’t find an answer to his questions no matter how hard he tried.
After he dealt with all urgent matters, he closed himself up alone in his office with a bottle of brandy.
Usually, Ash would join him for this with a conversation that would help all his issues and doubts settle into their right places as Ash helped him gain clearer perspectives. Until Riannon came to end it with an even better solution.
Then she would take him to bed.
Neither of those were an option.
He took a deep gulp of the fiery liquid, feeling it burn his throat. However, it did not make him feel any better nor did it answer his unanswered questions.
His fingers ended up rubbing the mark on his neck, which was bothering him. It did not disappear. Even though he didn’t feel pain through it anymore, with his bond to Riannon now broken, it was even more painful now than when she was in the Lycan’s bed.
The knock on the door broke his train of thought, and his new Beta walked in with a laptop.
“Alpha,” he said, “l think you need to see this.”
***
Roxanne drove fast. She couldn’t let anyone catch up with her.
Today she fvcked up big time and she knew it.
Castiel would never forgive her for destroying his perfect plan this early in the game and for losing that many people. The Bear King wouldn’t be happy either.
Luckily, she had a plan. She always had a plan.
This was why she was the top spy in her group.
Always.
She wouldn’t come to her king empty-handed.
She would bring him a peace offering.
She parked right next to the packhouse in the Fox Kingdom and walked out of the car. She knew she couldn’t go inside. Roxy wasn’t wrong about her assumptions because when Castiel walked out of the mansion, he looked furious.
He didn’t even let her say a word before he grabbed her neck and jerked her up in the air. Her legs trembled, not finding any support in her limbs nor the ground beneath her, and she felt his grip getting tighter and restricting her airways.
“You are either super brave to come here after what you have döne, or you are super stupid!” her king growled. In other circumstances, she would enjoy that sound. Now wasn’t one of those times.
Now, he wasn’t playing with her. Now, he was ready to kill her at any moment for her mistakes.
“You failed your mission, couldn’t fix it, and then only made it worse from there! You blew our cover and had my men killed!” Castiel continued, “
You almost cost me this war! Tell me, Roxanne, why shouldn’t I snap your neck at this very moment? don’t think I need to keep a disappointment like you around!”
One of his eyes glowed red and her toes curled. This man had always been her weakness.
“I brought you something!” she croaked, hoping to appease him, “It will help-“
He watched her for a few seconds and swearing loudly, dropped her to the floor.
“This better be good!” he spat, and she crawled in the direction of the car trunk. Roxy stood up on shaky legs, trying to slow her rapid breathing, yet failing. She hated to be so weak in front of him. He hated weakness.
She grasped the key in the back pocket of her jeans and opened the trunk, gesturing to him her little present and praying this was enough.