Chapter 374


    Chapter 374 – Betrayer


    Roger


    “My phone,” Dominic murmurs as I look over his wounds. “Fuck your phone,” I murmur, shaking my


    head and leaning closer to a deep slice on his stomach that makes me hiss with anxiety.


    “Roger,” Dominic snaps, and I look up at him with a frown. “The priest – he said the master had


    Rafe. Check my fucking phone – E will…” his head. 1 falls back, exhausted. But I interpret his


    meaning. So, I reach for his back pocket. Dominic moans loudly as I turn him a little so that I can


    get behind him, but eventually I get the phone and flick through it, my face going pale at what I see.


    “Shit,” I murmur, flipping through the messages first from our father’s phone and then an unfamiliar


    number.


    “What?” he asks.


    “They don’t have Rafe,” I sigh, tucking the phone into my own back pocket. ” The priest was wrong


    about that. The baby’s still with E and Cora. But…” I sigh, and Dominic opens his eyes to look at


    me, bidding me silently to tell him everything I know. “They attacked the bunker when we left. The


    girls got out through the passage – they had to leave dad behind. And…Cora’s hurt,” I say, working


    hard to get the words out steadily. “They went to Hank, to try to patch them up.”


    Dominic’s eyes go wide now. “E’s gift?”


    “Bound,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know how-”


    “Doesn’t matter,” my brother murmurs, and then to my shock – he curls his body to sit up, almost


    screaming at the pain it causes him.


    “Dominic!” I shout, putting my hands on his shoulders, but he works to swat me away, so I back off.


    “We have to get to them,” Dominic says, panting and holding my eyes. We can’t – we can’t trust


    Hank…”


    Slowly, I hold his eyes and shake my head. “Let me go, Dominic,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re


    in,” I hesitate, but when I look at the blood seeping from his wounds I know that I’m right. “You’re in


    bad shape.”


    He just res at me and I sigh, knowing it’s a lost cause.


    “Fine,” I say, giving a little shrug and working to put my arm beneath my brother’s shoulder to help


    him up. “But if you fall to pieces on the way, don’t me me.”


    Dominic mutters something in response as we get him panting to his feet, but I ignore it, seeing


    Conoring close.


    “Nothing, Sir,” Conor reports, looking anxiously towards my brother. “No one else here. If the man –


    Xander if he was here, he’s not anymore. What can I


    “Nothing,” I snap. But then I rethink themand. “Actually – get the cars close. We need


    transport, now. You take all the men – injured and healthy – back to the bunker. They were attacked


    when we were gone – they’ll need reinforcements. Dominic and I…”


    “The Lunas,” Conor says, giving us a quick salute. “I understand.”


    And then, his face serious, Conor turns and starts to givemands to the men. “That one needs a


    promotion,” I murmur to my brother.


    “Later,” Dominic sighs, his eyes on the stairs. “Right now, let’s just figure out how the hell we’re


    getting me out of this house.”


    E


    My eyes dart to Hank, going immediately wide. And suddenly, Henry’s ideas echo in my mind. That


    we can’t trust Hank. That he’s gotten too close to our family too quickly. That he’s an ambitious,


    eager man who has worked suspiciously hard to work to a ce of trust with our inner circle.


    And then, today – why was he asking so much about my gift and how I could use it? Did he really


    really want to help Cora and her baby? Or was there something else…


    “Don’t!” I gasp, throwing a hand out towards the Priestess, Rafe still crying loudly in one of her arms


    while she holds one of the empty jugs of holy water with her other hand. “Don’t give him the baby!”


    Property of N?)(velDr(a)ma.Org.


    Hank turns to me then, shocked and confused. “What?” he asks.


    “Don’t do it!” I say, ignoring him, my eyespletely focused on the Priestess before me. “Don’t


    trust him – please! Just – ”


    But then, I go pale as Rafe begins to scream in her arms – a noise beyond the normal cries of a


    disgruntled baby who wants his mother. A very true, very desperate scream –


    As if –


    As if Rafe himself intuits something about her –


    That’s something is wrong –


    My face goes ck with horror as I shift my eyes away from my baby and back to the Priestess who


    holds him, as I see now the vicious sneer on her face as she whips up the hand which is not


    holding Rafe and cracks the jug still held in her fingers hard across Hank’s skull.


    Hank gives a horrible cry of pain and then falls to the ground, his hands immediately going to his


    head –


    I begin to leap to my feet, heading immediately for the priestess, but she whirls on me next,


    throwing out a hand towards me and growling some words that have no meaning to me –


    But even if I don’t understand them, their effects are immediately clear as the water that surrounds


    me instantly freezes.


    I scream, the cold of the ice burning my skin where it touches, pinning me in ce, binding me to


    the floor. I shove my arms against it but – somehow – it’s not natural ice. Instead, every time I break


    it, it re-freezes, holding me ever steady in my ce in the center of the room as the Priestess lets


    out a darkugh.


    “No!” I scream, trying to reach for my baby, but my arms can’t move at all. Hank moans on the


    ground beside me, but I see his feet move- working to get up – see him


    The Priestess turns to him, her face turning wicked now, and she delivers a sharp kick first to his


    rips – taking his breath and then to my horror to his head making his moan deepen and 1 his body


    go ck –


    “Thank you,” the Priestess says, turning back to me with a nasty smile. ”


    For making this so easy for me. For bidding mee help you once you were separated from that


    idiot Alpha you call your mate. For telling me precisely where you are, instead of having to hunt you


    down. The Master will be…quite pleased with me, that I was able toplete the job even when


    you weaseled out of his first and second traps.”


    I’m still screaming at her to let me go, to give me back my child, telling her that I’ll kill her – and


    then, desperate, that I’ll give her whatever she wants.


    She ignores me though. And, as I watch, the Priestess raises one hand over her head and snaps


    her fingers. A darkness descends over her then as her robes shift in color from dove to a dark and


    turbulent grey. And I know, instantly, that she’s one of them.


    One of his.


    “So good to be back in my true form,” she murmurs, shaking herself a little in relief. Then she


    smirks at me. “And so good to finally be able to get away from those goody-goods who worship


    your idiot mother.”


    Then, taunting me, shees close to grin down into my face, my baby screaming in her arms. “So


    good to again serve a real God. He will reward me much when he sees that it is me who has


    brought the Master his boy. The Master,” she says, her voice hardly more than a whisper now –


    hardly audible over Rafe’s screams, “always gets what he wants,”


    And then sheughs, turning away from me, as I scream after herpletely desperate, but totally


    unable to move. And she takes my baby away.