Chapter 7

RIVER BROWN

Xandar Khan is a man of influence.

The noise outside this room says so and the pictures of him petting a lion in his office definitely screams Alpha.

More than that? I don’t like Xandar, not when I entered his creepy domain and certainly not while he sits in his skull-designed chair that looks like a throne eyeing me like I’m his next snack.

Shane didn’t look at me like that. Shane looked at me with…why am I thinking about Shane?

I left him. I left them. I’m seated in front of their enemy ready to end them just to get what I want.

“You are way prettier than you are in your photos”

“Umm…thanks”, I say dryly.

What photos?

Xandar blows another puff of smoke in the air, his gray eyes scanning me the way his rogue betas glared at me when I arrived.

“I trust that my men treated you well before they brought you here?” he asks with a slight furrow of his brows.

“They killed an innocent man”, I accuse, Xandar cackles.

“Wrong. Any pack member of the Moon shadow pack is an enemy. My enemy”

Moon Shadow pack. That’s the Kincaid brothers’ pack, isn’t it?

“Your enemies are the brothers, any member in their pack is innocent. Should I be dead too because they kidnapped me and took me away from my home?”

Xandar leans forward, his yellow-stained teeth gleaning against the lighting.

“But you are not just any pack member are you, River? Word on the street is you are their mate which makes your life valuable”

My life hasn’t been valuable since forever, I want to say but instead I say,

“All I want is to go home. You promised you could help me get there, what do I have to do for you?”

He stands, moves around his desk until all six feet one height of him is towering in front of me.

He’s wearing a dark suit, one that doesn’t look as sexy as the one that was on Shane.

He has a gnashing scar against half of his face that makes one of his grey eyes look more whitish. The scar should make him scary but nothing is as scary as an angry Connor about to hurt you as I’ve come to realize.

He pulls up a warm smile, directing it at me. I’m disgusted.

“Sit and wait for the bastards to show up”

I almost laugh but I don’t because I’m on edge.

“That’s it?

That sounds like a terrible plan. They might not even show up. They left me to rot for a week in their apartment no matter what Greta says.

“You want to go home. I want them dead. Trust in me, River. They are not leaving here alive. You get what you want and I get mine”

My heart crushes all the way to my stomach. Will their deaths make everything okay?

This looks like betrayal. I’m betraying them, the way Landon betrayed me and it doesn’t feel right at all.

I should cancel the deal.

I don’t want the brothers dead.

Unfortunately, the words don’t get to leave my throat because the door to Xandar’s office creaks open and one of his betas stirs the room with tension,

“They are here and they don’t look happy, X”

No.

“When have they ever been happy?” Xandar scoffs.

The same egg-shelled teeth smiling at me, his expression dark and evil…because Xandar Khan was and is evil, he shoots me a question,

“Ready, doll?”

“Xandar, I don’t want to- “

Don’t want to see them again. Don’t want to see them die.

“They’ll be gone from your life only through my help River. Fail to help me and you and I are as good as dead”

They are here, I’m already dead.

xxxxxxxxx

Black shirts, dark cargo pants and heavy army boots.

The triplets have matching clothes and that’s not the only thing they have in common right now.

You can see it in their eyes. Carnal anger, bloodthirsty need to punish everyone here including me and most especially the man in front of me who thinks he has a chance against the brothers.

Shane stands in front like he did when I first saw him.

He takes the role of leader. Fierce, powerful and about to kill everyone here.

Goddess, help me.

Connor is next to him with a scowl on his face that shows popped veins on his neck. He’s not looking at Xandar, no the man is looking at me with the fury of a thousand suns.

And it’s safe to see I’m melting with nerves at his gaze.

Neo is also angry, more than I have ever seen him and his eyes poke Xandar’s head like he intends to incinerate him.

Funny, the brothers are all the way down there, standing in the middle of a fighting ring, surrounded by an army of betas while I’m up here with Xandar and I feel like I’m about to faint on the spot.

“Hand her over, no one has to die”, Connor’s hard voice pierces the silence, I gulp saliva nervously as we lock eyes.

“No one has to die”, Xandar mimics and his army laughs tauntingly.

I’m too scared to laugh. Too scared to poke the wolves.

“See that’s where you are wrong, Kincaid. Rules are simple around this joint, you don’t trespass on my property I don’t trespass on yours.

You bastards are on my property.”

Everyone hurrahs.

Xandar smirks turning to look at me with a sinister grin.

Before I can even ask what, he’s doing, his hand finds my waist and he pulls me flush towards his body.

“What are you doing? Unhand me, this wasn’t part of the deal”

Xandar doesn’t let go. Instead, his hand crawls down my back until I feel it on my ass, squeezing it.

“I’m taking everything they have, doll. Your fine ass included”

No. No.

“Don’t do this. We had a deal”

“Deal’s changed”

Those two words almost crack the ground itself underneath me. Guilt, nausea, fear, they all ball into one cutting emotion that rips my insides.

Xandar was never going to help me. I was never going to go home. He lied to me, he set a trap for me and like the clueless River I always am, I fell for it.

Fell for it to the point of I thought Xandar was my savior.

I thought wrong though.

A savior didn’t order his betas to kill an innocent man.

A savior didn’t surround himself with an army of betas if he wasn’t a threat himself.

“Touch her again and I’ll rip you apart and feed you your balls through a bendy straw”

Neo’s voice brings me back to reality.

Oh Goddess. What have I done?

Sickening disgust chokes me, I’m weak in Xandar’s arms, I’m scared for my life and the only odd thing going on apart from not knowing what a bendy straw is; is that deep down I’m afraid of Xandar.

My eyes which are blurred with fat chunks of tears glance down and I see the brothers.

I shouldn’t have left them.

I should have stayed put back in the apartment.

Connor’s eyes are still on me, fueled with anger, disappointment, resentment? I don’t know but I read his lips and he utters words that assure me and shatter me at the same time.

‘It will all be over soon, baby’

The sick man hurting my wrist pulls me closer to him, he lowers himself next to my ear, dropping his voice down to an octave so that I get the message what will happen today.

“You hear that? You see them down there? They’re like children after having taken candy from them. The Kincaid brothers I know of don’t talk back, they react, they kill and right now they are not doing that because of you.

That’s how I know, they are going to die tonight. And when they are gone, I want you in my bed. I want to know what’s so special about some naïve woman from Brackenridge”

He lets me go. He shoves me away from him and I meet the pillar of concrete behind us holding onto it while I try to breathe.

Breathe. Breathe.

“Your little mate came to me, begged me to help her destroy you. Said she’d rather be one of mine than be one of yours. You know what that means? She’s my property, you arrogant punks. I didn’t kidnap her sweet ass because she came to me willingly”

Lies. He’s lying.

I want to scream at him, scream to the men glaring at me down there that I didn’t do any of those things.

But didn’t I want them to die?

Didn’t I forge an alliance with Xandar?

“You’ll have to fight for her”, Xandar croons and I wonder why I didn’t see his villainess from the get-go.

It’s written in his scar, in his face, in the sick way he stands proud like an Alpha about to kill any member of his pack just to get what he wants.

“An agni-kai”

The two words are delivered so smooth, so slickly and so sickly that everyone falls silent.

I know what an agni-kai means. I have never witnessed one because no one dared to challenge the alphas in Landon’s family but I knew it was brutal.

An agni-kai meant two alphas fighting. A fight to the deaths. A fight till you killed your opponent. And the prize of it all? The winner got the loser’s pack and mate.

“One of you versus me. A fair fight. If I win, I get control over everything, I get to taste your mate every single night and chain her to my bed and if you win and that’s a big if, you get everything that’s mine”

They’ll not do it. They’ll not risk their lives for me. Leave me with Xandar, I deserve it. I deserve that and more.

“Who will it be, gentlemen?”

“I’ll end you and feed your carcass to my dogs myself”

Chill bumps scatter across my neck all the way down to my back.

Xandar’s sadistic face pulls up a smile that I’m sure every one in this hellhole understands.

He issued a challenge.

He offered the brothers a choice. Fight or leave.

They chose to fight. They accepted the challenge.

I’m scared to admit that…one of the Kincaid brothers might have just signed his death wish.

For me.