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Chapter 31

Alisha let the crystal clear water of the pond caress her feet. It was refreshing and soothing. Her animal instinct and hearing had led her there, a small body of water hidden among a thick stand of trees to the east of the mansion, within the alpha’s grounds. Perhaps Serguei didn’t know of this wonder, or else she would declare herself its owner.

She still felt her body shudder slightly from the memories still visible in her mind. She had let Cristián pamper and comfort her for a considerable time. She had cried like a child. What a shame. At the bottom of the well again, losing her dignity, though she had none of it left.

When she had pulled herself together she had not refused his touch, but she had not let him k**s her. She had risen from his legs and lay on her side on her bed in a ball. He waited for her to leave her alone and apparently she had taken the hint because he covered her with a thicker quilt and left without saying a word to her. He was worried about her, he felt it as if it were his own feelings. Now that they were entwined she was more aware of how deep the man had gone. For the moment, he still needed space.

She had lain there for hours, not sleeping a wink. She was afraid to relive those scenes. Christian’s scent was still close by. She searched for him in her mind and he was on the other side of the door. If only she didn’t feel so betrayed, if only they had been honest, she could open her frozen heart a little.

It was a whole day before she left the room again. Some thought she didn’t want to see their faces, but the work had piled up so much that most of the time she had spent sitting in front of her laptop, after all she was a businesswoman and couldn’t put her responsibilities aside even though she no longer belonged to the human world.

With the excuse that she was going to get some fresh air in the garden, she had sneaked out with the curiosity of knowing what this place that called her so much was like. It had taken her almost an hour on foot, but she was already there, forgetting all her worries.

She stripped off some of her clothes only to find herself in her favourite black lingerie set, not because it was cute, but because it was comfortable. She stuck her leg in, testing the depth. The temperature was nice and refreshing. She let her head sink down and pulled her head out, slicking her hair back. A smile spread across her lips. How good it felt.

She stretched her body and swam to the other end where it was deeper and she couldn’t get a foot in the water. He turned back to continue swimming in a circle. It had been a long time since he had exercised so much that his arms began to ache after a while.

He stopped in the middle of the pool with the water at the edge of his neck as his vision blurred for a moment. He kept his balance with the slippery moss at his feet. He put his hand to his head and touched his temple. His knees began to give way as the rest of his body slowly sank.

No sound. Everything was dark, no trace of life. It felt so lonely, so painful. He opened his eyes blinking as he felt the water against his corneas. The images were blurred in front of her and a glass separated her from reality. Alisha hit the glass so hard with her little ones that her skin broke open. Words were silenced by the bubbles of air escaping from her body.

She recognised the tall, thin body of her father behind the glass with a pitiful smile on his lips.

She hit the material harder in an attempt to break it. It would not budge.

The man put a hand on the same level as hers.

-Calm down, princess, I’m here. Be good, Daddy’s experiment is a success,” she barely heard his voice and a shiver ran through her.

She stepped back and her back hit the glass wall. She looked around desperately for a way out of there. The pain of going from the spoiled child of the house to a prisoner with hundreds of tubes hooked to her body, without any consolation of rescue, stunned her.

And she was not the only one in that place. At least 20 prisons like hers were strategically lined up, containing roughly unconscious bodies her age.

Terror gripped her. She panicked. She flailed her arms in a desperate attempt to pull apart the multiple serums encased in her skin to become more entangled in them. The air left her lungs. Her world was going dark. Everything was fading.

Blaren couldn’t believe he was there. Babysitting his brother’s human wolf mate. He had been brought up to date with the new and crazy happenings and boy had he been brought up to speed with what Christian had to lead.

They had seen Alisha leave the house and when her mate signed out to follow her he got a call from Serguei regarding the council, and when they tracked you down it was best not to keep them waiting. They were the longest lived and oldest set of wolves, with too much intelligence. They were the ones who had helped keep the race alive. Without them extinction was only the future.

Christian had had no choice but to trust her to keep an eye on him while he was away. No one had foreseen that the woman would take to walking the length of the mansion grounds.

As a result, he was hiding behind one of the trees at a safe distance so as not to be detected. He had turned his face away the moment she removed her clothes, the beta would kill him if he suspected he had seen her, b***d ties to infinity and beyond.

It had been a worrying amount of time since she had submerged herself in the pond water. The alarms in her head went off and she became alert.

He waited five seconds in the hope that he would come up, but no, he did not.

-Damn it-

He ran to the pond and, taking off his thick jacket and shirt, jumped in to save her.

He knew only one thing when he pulled her out and laid her on the grassy shore. Alisha. Her brother’s companion. The most mysterious being in the pack. She wasn’t breathing.