CHAPTER 60

Mila stared in fearful recognition at the hard and dangerously handsome face of her captor.
He towered above her at over six feet with hard, sinewy muscles and deeply tanned skin. His face was as cold and handsome as she remembered but instead of the boyish and angelic perfection, a scar ran down the left side of his face, all the way from his temple diagonally down to his chin. That and the deeply tanned skin were the only changes to be seen since she last saw him.
The man still sported the same innocent grin that made her blood curdle and the scar on his face only made him harder and more dangerous. She forced herself to look into his golden eyes.
The eyes she had remembered from the woods was cold and empty but the gleaming gold before her now was more of sad. And the closer she looked, the sadder the golden orbs became and Mila could not help the mushy feeling that squeezed up her heart.
Nothing about the six feet hulk before her seemed the slightest bit soft but she could not help the tender feeling in her chest. She could not help the yearning and craving that overtook her senses as she stared transfixed into his sad eyes. All her struggles with the ropes confining her were forgotten as he made his way towards her with a glass of water in his hands. She wanted to hold him and sooth the pain she saw in his eyes, she wanted to drive away the sorrow and make his eyes shine in ecstasy.
All that, she would do in the blink of an eye, totally forgetting who he was.
He lowered his body to the bed and instead of shrinking away from him in fear, her body struggled to get closer to the beckoning warmth and promise of pleasure of his.
What was happening to her? A dangerous enemy to her pack stood before her and all she could think about was the feel of his arms wrapped around her and his beautiful lips devouring her own. And she had not even had a first kiss to be having such crazy thoughts.
The mere thoughts she was having about him itself was a betrayal to her pack members and Mila closed her eyes and reopened them to focus large, angry eyes on his face.
He remove the duct tape and lifted her head carefully, his hand burying deep into her soft luxuriant black curls. His fingers seemed to massage her scalp and for a wonderful moment, Mila closed her eyes to savour it all, her lips making contact with the glass of water. She drank quickly, realizing her throat was really parched.
She opened her eyes when she was done drinking and the glass was away from her face.
"He's your enemy and your captor. Who knows what he's going to do to you while you lie there mooning over him?," her common sense questioned her urgently and before she realized what she was doing, Mila spat in his face angrily, finally finding her voice in the spell he casted upon her.
"What do you want from me?," she asked in a firm, angry voice. Now, she was sure he would never allow her to live. He would snap her neck with just a lift of his hand and she would be dead. No one would notice she was gone, she thought as angry tears flooded her eyes. She had not formed any roots to be missed.
But she desperately hoped the Luna and Rose at least noticed her absence, she wished desperately as her eyes clashed with that of her captor.
His hand went to his face and he wiped the saliva away calmly, all the while tsk'ing with his tongue and shaking his head at her in disapproval.
"You shouldn't have done that, mate. Now, I can't untie you," he said in his gruff, hard voice.
Mila was sure she was hearing that word from his lips not for the first time and she longed to ask him what he meant by it. But she was not so sure she could deal with the answer she would find.
An enemy of the Alpha was an enemy of the pack and hence, her enemy too.
Such a conspirator would never be her mate.
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Collins slashed through the air with his angry fist and connected sharply with the face of the stubborn wolf before him. The man barely flinched at the staggering impact, his face an unreadable mask as Collins lifted his hand and struck him again. It was as if he wanted the beating and lashing.
"What are you up to? Answer me!," he screamed in anger and desperation.
Since Thomas had told him there was a mole in his pack, he had started paying Ethan his undivided attention, waiting for him to slip up and make the slightest mistake that would confirm his guess.
He still did not know who the messenger was. All his efforts to get the CCTV footages from Anderson Groups had been fruitless. And Thomas' underdogs had not been much help but from their description, the messenger could never be Ethan. But that did not rule out the stubborn wolf's involvement.
If he was to take a guess, his shamed Beta was plotting something of his own, with his own group. But in the weeks since he had been watching him, he had barely even spoken to other wolves, let alone hold a long chat with one. Still, Collins was not stupid. He knew it was all a facade.
Since he was not getting anything out of being patient, he had decided to force the wolf into speaking, beating and threatening him with pain but it was all nothing to Ethan.
"Maybe I shouldn't have killed off all his families when I did. I should have kept some alive for situations like this," he thought out loud, making the wolf before him flinch momentarily.
By now, it was certain Alpha Asher was out for his blood. There was no doubt what the message had been about. As much as he had a lot of followers, he never trusted them not to turn against him, especially Thomas. Hence, he needed to move his plans forward a bit before they started having second thoughts about him, just like he was having second thoughts about himself.
"You can go, for now. But know that when I find out for myself who your courier is, I promise to make you watch him swim in his own pool of blood, just like your siblings and parents did," Collins said with cold resolution.
Ethan limped away with angry waves leaping off him. But then again, he could do nothing about the anger except wait patiently. He could not afford showing his emotions at this critical point in time and messing everything up.
They had done the most they could, for now. They had set an action in motion. All they needed to do was wait for a reaction from the Crescent pack, then and only then could they opt in and do more.
Sam being able to go into the lion's den and make it out alive in itself was a miracle he still could not come to terms with. The young wolf had exceeded his expectations and Ethan would rather lay down his own neck than see him suffer at Collins's hands.
Hence, he had cancelled every future meetings with his group unless a feedback was gotten form Alpha Asher. But so far, nothing was happening and his hopes were wavering again.
If they eventually never got a feedback, then he was going to have to find a way to take out Collins all by himself.
He owed it to Cole.
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He stared calmly at the fiery tempered female before him and he could not help the sad smile that formed on his lips. She was willowy and looked more like a child wolf than a woman with her fire spitting amber eyes, pert nose and plump lips. She was a looker, a budding one who seemed to have done a fine job of hiding it. He did not have to guess. He knew the dark curls framing her face was dyed. But he could not think of any reason good enough to do that.
She was not exactly what he was looking for and not what he needed but who knows? She could come in handy in his plans. A temper like hers could come to good use, even if her status in the pack was nothing. He knew if he made off with her right now, no one would miss her. Such was the fate of an Omega, especially one who seemed to be on her own at such a young age.
"Untie me," she screamed with veiled threat.
"Or what?," he asked with a dark chuckle, her eyes drawing him in the more he looked. He cursed the fates under his breath for taking him to her at a time like this.
"Or I'll scream the house down until someone comes running and you don't want to be found here. I know who you are, the whole pack does," Mila lied.
His reason for tying her up was because he could not deal with her thrashing around and trying to make her escape from a strange man in her home. He could untie her if she was willing to cooperate but then, he could not trust the bad tempered girl not to do something stupid. He was not up for chasing her down and blowing his cover in her territory. "First, I don't think anyone cares enough about you to come running. That should have happened hours ago," he intoned quietly and he watched her flinch at his words, the fire in her eyes dimming the slightest bit. He was right. No one cared about her.
"And no one knows about me, mate. I'm just a dead man," he added stonily.