Chapter 51

“Holy shit! What the hell happened in here?”

Mully’s voice couldn’t have been any less welcomed as it split through the brittle silence and echoed through the rubble. What had once been a rather generic looking waiting room designed in the same way as a corporate hotel lobby now resembled a bombed out building in some worn-torn country. Mully had seen plenty of scenes like this but none with so much blood and caused by supernatural beings battling it out.

The first thing that was evident was that this part of the building was ready to collapse. Thick chunks of concrete and plaster had already begun to fall onto the mess of what appeared to be bodies and the steel framework was completely bent back or hanging like the broken bones on a skeleton. Furniture had been completely decimated and was now strewn across the floor as shards of broken wood and split cushions. Amongst it though was the mildly terrifying form of the fallen-angel and Kade’s broken body. Between them was a pitch black mark that vaguely looked like a human but looked as if someone had thrown a grenade which had burnt a blast mark into the floor.

The auction had been locked down successfully with minimal casualties. The terrified women and girls who had been forced there to be sold like cattle were receiving medical attention and the suspects were currently being processed before they would be transported to a holding facility to be questioned. A few supernaturals had been amongst the victims and suspects and they had been covertly separated from their human counterparts to be dealt with by their own kind.

With everything in hand, Mully, Daniel and Karim had gone to see if Kade and Lucien required backup only to find the fight already over and neither side looking like clear winners.

“Where’s this demon you were trying to stop?” Daniel asked, blue eyes narrowing at the sight before him.

“You’re looking at him.” Lucien replied as he motioned to the black mark between him and Kade. “Your beta dealt the fatal blow.”

Daniel pushed past Mully without a word, rushing over to Kade who lay slumped against a pile of rubble. He looked like a bloodied mess with his clothes torn and blood oozing from numerous cuts and grazes. Thick, dark bruises had begun to form over his eyes that were now swelling.

“Goddess,” Daniel muttered, shaking his best friend gently. “Kade? Kade. Kade.”

There was no sound or movement from the beta, his limbs floppy like a doll and his eyes not even twitching. The overpowering silence set nerves on edge as waited to see if the beta would wake up on his own.

“Fuck,” Daniel growled, releasing his Alpha’s aura. “William!”

“Ugh.” Kade suddenly groaned, shifting uncomfortably. “What did I say about calling me that awful name?”

Relief washed through the four men staring at Kade’s prone body. His eyes were no more than slits when he opened them and even then everything was a little blurry and he was sure he had grit in them. His ribs hurt more and more with each breath and it felt like his skull had been split open and a dull knife was now digging into his brain. It would take a little time to heal from the multitude of broken bones, possible internal bleeding and severe concussion but time wasn’t something Kade had.

“I thought you were dead.” Karim watched as Kade moved to try and get himself up.

“Oh trust me, I’m in far too much pain to be dead.” Kade grimaced, pain flashing through him from all angles. “Help me up.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Daniel shook his head, resting a hand on Kade’s shoulder to keep him from moving any further. “Kade take a few minutes, you look like you’ll die the minute you stand up.”

“I need to find Thalia.” Kade grunted.

“Trust me, wherever the girls are, they’re not going anywhere right this second.” Daniel replied. “I think we can afford a few minutes while you heal.”

“Wait, what do you mean wherever the girls are?” Kade glanced between his friends. “They’re here, aren’t they? Dante was holding them here.”

While Daniel had mastered the perfect poker face which gave away nothing, the uneasy look that passed between Karim and Mully contradicted that and instantly had Kade on high alert. He didn’t need anyone to voice it. Karim and Mully’s sudden change in demeanour said it all. The girls weren’t here. Thalia was still missing and worse still, they had no clue where they might be.

“Fuck!” Kade barked, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

“I can put out some calls to see if we can locate any property Dante owns in the area.” Lucien spoke up. He was now back to his more human appearance and even donned a tailored suit and shirt. He looked like he hadn’t just been fighting a demon and Kade would have been jealous if he were currently trying not to lose his cool. “Dante will have kept them close. I will admit I am surprised he didn’t bring them here but perhaps Dante had some inkling that something might happen and so wanted to keep the girls out of the way.”

“See what you can find out.” Daniel agreed before turning to look at Kade again. “We will find them. Some of Dante’s personnel are still alive and currently in custody so we will get them to talk.”

“Karim and I can handle that.” Mully offered, earning a nod of agreement from Daniel.

“Right now, we need you to heal.” Daniel raised an eyebrow and perhaps for the first time ever since Kade knew him; Daniel hesitated. “Also…there is something else.”

“Please don’t tell me there is another demon trying to destroy humanity.” Kade grumbled.

Kade froze when Daniel held up his phone with a picture on the screen. At first the beta thought he was imagining what he was seeing. He had taken a good few whacks to the head so it was quite possible he was hallucinating and yet the torrent of cold shock told him that this was far from a hallucination and that he was looking at a very recent picture of the one person Kade thought he would never see again.

“Mum?”

—

Ms Mary Thorton sat quietly in the makeshift interview room with an air of defiance around her that challenged anyone who dared to walk into the room.

Handcuffs linked up to one of the legs of the table in front of her glimmered in the dirty light as she grasped her hands together on the surface. Despite having been in the middle of a police raid and then arrested and dragged to a small room to await her interrogation, Ms Thorton looked surprisingly well put together. Not a single hair was out of place in her sleek beehive updo and while her lipstick was now gone, she had somehow avoided the rest of her make up being destroyed. In fact, if it wasn’t for the handcuffs, one would never have guessed that she was currently in a lot of trouble.

“I’ve already said I am not interested in talking.” She spoke up sternly, her yorkshire accent thick with annoyance when the door opened again.

“Hello mum.”

Hard blue eyes snapped away from the wall they had been trained on to the man standing in the doorway. He looked like he had been through hell with blood caking his chestnut hairline and staining the dirty and torn t-shirt he was wearing. Steel grey eyes peered out from beneath black and purple bruises, watching her intently and yet giving nothing away.

“You look just like your father.” Mary commented with just a hint of resentment. “How is the miserable bastard?”

“Dead.” Kade replied as he pushed away from the doorframe and let the door shut behind him.

“Good riddance.” Mary muttered, looking away. “My only regret is that I wasn’t the one to end his life.”

Kade didn’t reply. He didn’t really know how to or what to say. He hadn’t seen this woman in fifteen years, everyone had told him she had died in prison and that was that. His father never wanted to talk about her and Dagmar had mentioned her sparingly so as not to upset Kade’s sister. Kade hadn’t been much of a talker anyway so he had just bottled it up but there was no denying that losing his mother and being left with a monster for a father had left him with some issues. But he had found his own way to grieve the loss of the woman he idolised. He had found a way to cope or at least ignore the pain and gotten on with his life.

Now, he was staring at his mother.

The first thing that Kade noticed was that Mary looked really good. The second thing he noticed was he could no longer sense her wolf.

"What happened to Elise?" Kade frowned softly.

"She's in a better place just like I was until you messed it all up." Mary replied, raising a sharp eyebrow. "I should have known somehow one of you would find a way back into my life."

"Funny considering you're meant to be dead." Kade bit back. "They told us you died of cancer."

"Yes well, technically I was." Mary sighed, tilting her head as she regarded her son with a critical gaze. "And then I made a deal with the devil."

"You mean Dante."

The blonde smiled at the mention of the demon, her eyes lighting up. "Ah so you've met him?"

"Unfortunately." Kade frowned.

"Yes well, while you might not like him, he gave me my life back." She smiled tightly. "And in return I had to let Elise go and agree to work for him."

"That's it?"

She shrugged softly. "My servitude in return for peace and a roof over my head. No beatings, no screaming and shouting, no being looked down upon by a pack who were meant to protect their own. I would say I got a great deal."

"And not once did you think about Sierra or me?" Kade's upper lip curled up in a snarl. "What about the girls that your boss was taking and forcing to be his surrogates? What about the false promises he made? Do you not feel anything? What if he had done that to Sierra? Would you have still been able to sleep at night?"

Mary laughed but the sound lacked humour. Instead it was callous and cold. "Of course I thought about you two! You are my children! But I was never going to see you again either way. It was this or dying a slow, painful death. I had nothing left, William! Your father had taken everything he could from me. The last kind thing I could do was try to keep you away from him and send you to live with Dagmar!"

Silence fell within the small room. A maelstrom of emotions were swirling around the pair like natural gas, waiting for the spark that would ignite it.

"Mr Connaught is going to get me out of this." Mary spoke up finally, a watery smile quivering on her lips. "When this whole misunderstanding has blown over maybe we can talk more."

Before Kade could say a word, there was a soft knock on the door before Mully peered in.

"We think we've found the girls."

Kade was out of his seat immediately. He was done with this reunion. While the woman sat opposite him looked like his mother, she had stopped being his mother long ago. It seemed that the day she gave up her wolf was the day she also gave up her morals and any good left in her.

"By the way," Kade turned to look at Mary one more. "Dante is dead so no one is coming to save you this time. You'll be going to jail for a very long time."