21. EZRA: UNDER OUR NOSES

*Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!*
It was all going too well until I fell right into their trap! Devrim had warned me that they might try something to trick me to figure out if I was truly on their side or not.
I had been prepared for it, but it completely slipped my mind when I was faced with the possibility of Vanya having been found and captured.
Despite things I had said and the way I acted, it was now clear to me that I hadn’t been trusted. They had followed me around without me noticing it.
Until I was caught.
I growled when I reached the wall. Spinning around, I paced back to the other wall and then repeated it all over again.
There were no windows which prevented me from knowing for how long I had been locked inside the small room. The darkness and isolation were starting to get to me. I should be happy that they hadn’t used chains to restrain me.
*Just keep breathing*, I reminded myself.
Vanya, Obsidian, and Devrim should have reached Darial’s house.
*Unless they ran into trouble. .*
I paused for a moment as the thought ran through my mind. Nobody knew where they were going and we had made sure that nobody saw them leaving, but the possibility that they could have been followed was still there.
What if they really have Vanya? What if they had been followed and never made it to the house?
I shook my head as I started pacing again. They were safely at Darial’s house where Obsidian would be making sure to strengthen their bond.
My hands curled into fists.
He had told me that there was no way for us to bond with humans but he had bonded Vanya. If a bond was possible then so was breeding. Vanya would be able to carry our pups. We would be a real family.
But not yet.
Snarling, I spun around and stared at the door. I had tried breaking it down right after I woke up and discovered where I was, but the wood didn’t ever crack. All it resulted in was a few more bruises.
I froze when I heard a faint click coming from the door.
It opened a moment later, making pain shoot through my head from the sudden bright light that flooded the room.
“Let’s go, human-lover,” he sneered.
I snarled at him but stepped out of the room. He gripped the back of my neck, halting my movements. My hands were tied behind my back with a thick rope that cut into my skin as I tried to free them.
The firm grip he had on my elbow prevented me from trying to make a run for it.
As we walked up the steps, I realized that they had locked me in the basement of the main house—a place I wasn’t even aware existed until that moment.
Most of the pride was gathered outside the main house, listening intently to the man who stood at the top of the steps. He stopped talking the moment I stepped out of the house.
Turning, he sneered at me. “Ezra.”
I frowned as I tried to remember his name. He was a rare member of the pride who had bonded to a female while in the facility. She had been killed during our rescue which destroyed him. Instead of killing him, Devrim allowed him to live since the man kept mostly to himself and rarely caused any trouble.
As far as I was aware, the man hadn’t even chosen a name for himself when we were given the opportunity.
“We have a traitor,” he growled. “A human-lover.”
My eyes darted over the faces of the pride members. They were all familiar but I wasn’t on speaking terms with any of them. Those who I had befriended during my stay at the main house after Vanya went back to her apartment weren’t present.
“We all know that once you become a human-lover you always stay one. He turned his back on us for a human!”
“But he’s one of us,” someone called out.
“We’ve been fooled. The moment he heard that we had captured his mate, he tried to free her.”
“Doesn’t he have the right to get answers?” My eyes searched the crowd until they located the man who spoke. “They left him here without any explanation so it’s only logical for him to want answers from her.”
Orion’s eyes narrowed when they locked with mine. My heart dropped to my stomach when I spotted his brother not far behind him.
Had Devrim been wrong when he said that the brothers could be trusted?
“What about a test?” someone else called out. “He claims to be loyal to us so let him prove it if you don’t believe his words.”
The silence only lasted a few seconds before they all started talking at once. It was hard to make sense of anything that was being said.
The man, who seemed to be in charge of everything, raised his hand, instantly silencing them. He turned around and silently studied me. The cruel glint in his eyes made my stomach roll with unease.
“A test it is,” he hissed.

***

The sickly sweet smell of fear was the first smell that filled my nostrils when the door was opened.
I swallowed and tried my best to keep my face as impassive as I could. One sign of emotion and it might get me killed along with whoever they had locked up.
For a few seconds, I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. I shifted through all the scents, searching for one that was familiar.
Dread flooded me.
I would know the smell of Vanya’s blood from anywhere since she has bled in front of me before.
We rounded a corner and my eyes instantly locked on the woman chained to the wall. She was naked except for a pair of panties. Bruises covered her pale skin on the right side of her body over her ribs and she was bleeding from a cut on her knee.
The woman shared the same blood as Vanya, but she wasn’t Vanya and it was proven when she raised her head to look at me.
Fear-filled amber eyes locked with mine for a moment before she glanced at the others. She pressed herself tighter against the wall when someone growled at her. Goosebumps broke out over her pale flesh as the scent of her fear intensified.
“She showed up, asking around for Vanya. She claims to be family.”
Family? I was certain that Vanya had no other family other than Reeves.
“Who did you say you were?” he asked her.
She swallowed, her eyes moving from him over to me. “Her c-cousin.”
I frowned. That was a word I was not familiar with. But her blood smelled like Vanya’s so she couldn’t be lying about being family.
My eyes darted over her face. There were some resemblances between Vanya and her but the woman’s bone structure was different.
“What’s your name?” I asked her.
Her lips parted but she pursed them when the man in front of me growled at her. He walked over to her and reached out to take hold of a strand of her hair. Raising it to his nose, he sniffed at it.
“I just love the smell of their fear,” he moaned. “Smells like candy.”
A growl rose in my throat but I quickly swallowed it.
“Here’s the thing Ezra,” he muttered as he turned to face me. “Some believe that you will be a good asset to us because you had been betrayed by them, but I don’t believe that.”
*Just breath*.
Smiling, he pulled a knife from his back and held it up in the air for a few seconds. His eyes held mine, the challenge clear in them. I tensed as he turned around and pressed the tip of the knife to her cheek. He let it rest there for a few seconds before he slipped it lower, down the side of her neck to her right breast where it lingered again before he moved it closer to her nipple.
She screamed when it penetrated her skin and slid deeper.
Pulling it out, he raised the knife to his lips and licked some of the blood from the tip. His action reminded me so much of Obsidian that it wasn’t hard to imagine him as the one standing in front of me.
“Tasty,” he growled. “Untie him.”
I rubbed at my wrist the moment my hands were freed, but I kept my eyes locked on his.
“Prove to me that you’re on our side,” he said, holding the knife out to me. “Kill her.”
For a few seconds, I stared at the knife. My heartbeat increased with every step I took closer to him. I felt physically sick by the time I reached him. Taking the knife, I sucked in a breath and turned towards the woman.
Her tear-filled eyes locked with mine. “P-please,” she croaked, “please don’t k-kill me.”
I gripped the handle of the knife tighter.
*For our mate. For Vanya. For our future pups and the rest of our pride. *

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I raised the knife.