Jane |18+| ✔️

44. The time I played russian roulette with a Wolf

Jane

"Impossible," he counters. "I'd not only know being the expert I am," he pulls at the neck, tearing his pristine dress shirt to shreds, "but I'm the sole keeper of the Wollbanian Flower Reserve in the western continent. You could never get your hands on the product, let alone smuggle it into a human zone thousands of miles away without me knowing—"

"And yet I did."

"Impossible!" he coughs out, looking up at me with a sweat-soaked face. "This isn't Wolfbane. I've been experimenting with the plant for well over a century. I know every facet the bloom offers, and this isn't—"

"It is... along with a little something special, just for you," I tentatively move towards the door. " You keep assuming I am powerless, Dante, a mere human waiting to be plucked from my zone and mauled, played with, tortured, and then killed by your hands. I've given you ample opportunities to make your move, and yet you haven't." Locking the doors, I inwardly laugh at the absurdity of the notion. But, hopefully, keeping Silas's brother further distracted will only buy the time I need to end this treacherous dance. "I have a theory—"

"Shut the fuck up, Jane." He chokes, slamming the palms of his hands against the ebony wood of the brilliant floor. I may not have seen many shifters phase before me, but I've seen enough to know Dante is trying.

"It won't work. The Wolfbane has silenced and handicapped your wolf." The growl that follows has my bones shaking and the floors beneath me vibrating. "When I was kept captive in Glendale Creek, Silas had left me an abundance of time and literature to learn all about the enigmas of your kin—"

"Shut up!" I smile, skirting far around him just as he collapses on his front. I can hear the commotion in the courtyard and the restaurant below. It's a matter of moments before we're bombarded with wolves. The question is, whose side will prevail?

"I absorbed all I could. Hour after hour, text after text—I was a sponge sucking up and righting every misconception or learning every secret I had no idea existed. The wealth of knowledge I had stored in my minute little human brain was incredible once I began to jog it. Once I began to remember—do you know how that came to be?" Reaching into the flower arrangement elegantly centred on the mantle, I grasp the metal end of the knife I had planted. "Silas." I turn just as his brother's blood-teared face turns to mine.

It's working!

His eyes are black as coal while the crimson drips down his chiselled cheekbones and squared jaw. "You may have messed with my memory, but you had no control over my soul. We met many times within our dreams. Dreams so vivid and real you'd question if they happened long ago and," I pause only to ponder while playing with the tip of the stainless steel blade, "a short time ago."

"Jane," he groans in evident pain, "the purple pill was Silas's idea to relieve you of all memory of your time spent in the North. He was never supposed to mark you. It was the Swinish Spawning that coerced him—only that." He spits a wad of blood onto the floor before growling in agony. "My brother never wanted this life for you," he looks up at me, "or with you. He had me manipulate your memories and all aspects of your life—no one else. He's made me out to be a villain more than once, to flush out the vermin within our lands—and, in this case, Wellington. It's a game we've played all of our lives, Jane. It's how he's risen to be the Alpha he is today—because of me." His deep sigh and callous grin send shivers down my spine and have the hair rising on the back of my neck.

Keep it together, Jane. Just a little longer.

I watch as he uncontrollably shakes, fighting for strength over the paralyzed state to which the anesthetized wine had relinquished him. Of course, I was bluffing about the Wolfbane, but he's on my turf with loyal friends and coworkers. All blowback would fall on me, especially the Barbiturate I happened to research and snag from the veterinary clinic my parents and I clean once a week.