Chapter 189


    #Chapter 189 – Unexpected Terror


    I stare down at Victor at my feet and then, wild, uprehending, I look up into the room beyond him.


    There, at the door –


    An absolute nightmaree true. I blink, unbelieving – it can’t be possible –


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    But then the nightmare speaks, my own name on its lips.


    “Evelyn,” Joyce says, smirking as he steps forward. “So gracious of you, to distract him while I took


    aim.”


    I gasp, my mind still reeling, and then I fall to my knees, taking Victor’s face in my hands. He groans,


    his eyes pressed closed –


    “Victor,” I murmur, looking all over him – I can’t see a wound anywhere –


    But of course, his back was to me when Joyce shot –


    Unthinking, I pull Victor forward and he cries out in protestation against the movement. I look over his


    back and yes – there –


    Blood is seeping, thick and heavy, from between the edges of his body armor.


    “You,” I growl, the wolf raising inside me, fixing my eyes on Joyce, who stands over us now. “I am going


    to kill you, Joyce –“


    “Careful, Evelyn,” Joyce says, lifting his gun so that it’s level with my face. “You wouldn’t want your


    children to see both of their parents shot dead today, would you?” My body goes still. I know he has me


    trapped, but my lips still pull back from my bared teeth.


    “Joyce,” my mother says,ing forward a step. But she stops when he fixes her with his gaze.


    “That was a pretty speech you made a few moments ago, Mrs. Walsh,” he says casually. “I caught the


    tail end of it as I wasing through the door, after Victor so helpfully cleared the path for me.”


    My mother says nothing, and Joyce’s gun is still aimed at my face, so I can’t move to see her


    expression.


    “Still,” Joyce continues. “It’s unfortunate that there’s not an ounce of truth to it. This pack is mine.”


    The casual veneer that Joyce had been pretending breaks when he says thatst word. It leaves his


    mouth in a vicious hiss.


    “Mine,” he says again, looking between Emma, Delia, and me. “Not yours. Not his, even,” Joyce says,


    indicating my father, still knocked out on the ground next to my mother. “I have long been the power in


    this pack, and I will not have my ns disrupted by three meddling women.”


    “Joyce,” I hear Emma say, her voice breaking, and my hearing is attuned enough to every change in


    the room that I recognize the sound of her foot taking a step forward.


    “You shut up,” he snaps, ring at her with a bare hatred I haven’t seen on his face in a long time.


    Since our own short marriage.


    “Joyce,” she continues, but I hear no more steps forward. “What’s the point of all of this? You have lost.


    You don’t have a pack anymore – Victor destroyed it –“


    “Not quite,” Joyce says, ring at her. “You see, while Victor seeded in getting into this room, he


    never broke the siege on this house. He only got a small force in the back door and down this hall. The


    majority of his forces are still outside, and this house holds.”


    I nche at this news – I had assumed – we all had assumed that it was over –


    “No,” I hear Alvin cry out, but then his cry is muffled. Someone has put a hand over his mouth. My


    mother? Ian?


    God, I desperately want to turn around – or, even more, to look back down at Victor, to help him –


    I close my eyes, listening hard –


    Is he even breathing anymore?


    My own heartrate ratchets up in panic. Oh my god, is he breathing?


    “And,” Joyce continues. I open my eyes to see that he’s looking back down at me, a dirty sneer on his


    lips. “Now that I’ve taken out Victor, his sons will inherit his pack. And since I am the regent protector of


    the Walsh pack,” he begins to smile now, “I’m sure I can make a neat argument for why the Kensington


    armies should be folded into mine.”


    No. I can’t help the groan that escapes my lips at this news, this idea. God damnit.


    “So despite your best efforts, Emma,” Joyce says, his voice light. “At kidnapping, torture, and murder –“


    I hear my mother gasp behind me as she figures out our role in Joyce’s disappearance.


    “It looks like,” Joyce continues, “everything has worked out neatly in my favor. As it always does.”


    He turns his nasty smile to me as he calls out, loudly enough to be heard outside the open door to the


    room. “Betas!” hemands. I nce away from Joyce to see a pack of Betas enter the room – some


    of the same ones who were in here earlier, nning with my father. I see the surprise register on their


    faces.


    “Take Mr. Kensington,” Joyce says, still smiling that twisted smile down at me, “and put him in the cells


    in the basement.”


    “No!” I cry out, throwing myself on top of him. I can’t help myself – it was probably stupid to make a


    sudden move, knowing there’s a gun pointed at me, but I didn’t even think about it. I just moved,


    covering Victor’s body with my own.


    As horrible as it is, I’m relieved to hear Victor’s groan of pain as I do so – thank god, he’s still alive.


    “Get off of him,” Joyce growls, stepping around me and delivering a swift kick to my side.


    I yell, absorbing the blow and wincing at the sharp pain that sets my ribs on fire. “Joyce!” I shout out,


    still clinging to Victor. “You can’t! He needs a doctor! Now!” I yell. “Or he will die!”


    I hear Joyce’s lowugh and look up at him, somehow still shocked by this man’s cruelty. You’d think I’d


    have learned by now. I see his intentions on his face before he speaks them aloud.


    “Precisely my n, my dear,” Joyce says, leaning down to look me in the eyes. “Now let him go, so that


    he can die in peace.”


    I snarl, my ws digging into the fabric of Victor’s clothes, determined to never let go – never –


    But Joyce kicks me again. And again.


    I cling to Victor, hear my mother shouting behind me, hearing Emma step forward – but Joyce shoves


    her away and keeps kicking –


    Suddenly there are hands on my back and shoulders, beneath my arms – hands and arms wrapped in


    Beta ck, lifting me off of Victor –


    I cry out then, and realize that I’m crying real tears as they pull me away. I see Victor’s face, white with


    pain and blood loss, his eyes closed – as they grab him by his arms and begin to drag him from the


    room –


    I scream and tear against the men holding me when I see the trail of blood that Victor leaves behind


    him as he disappears through the shattered remains of the door.


    I thrash until I run out of energy, which is sooner than I’d thought possible. When Ie back to


    myself, I see my boys also gripped in the arms of Betas who hold them back. I see my mother, sitting


    on her chair, her head in her hands. Emma and Delia, wrapped in each other’s arms, both crying.


    “Go,” I yell to both of them, still gripped in the panic even if I don’t have the energy to fight against the


    Betas holding me anymore. “Go help him.”


    Emma lifts her head from Delia’s shoulder and shakes her head at me. “We can’t win, Evelyn,” she


    says, looking towards the other side of the room.


    I follow her gaze to see Joyce standing with Brent, a medic bandaging Brent’s wounded arm where he


    was shot – apparently less lethally than Victor. Brent winces as he speaks to Joyce but is clearly on the


    job again.


    I grit my teeth, shaking my head as I realize that Joyce has stepped seamlessly into the void my father


    left. That he’d been waiting years for this opportunity and was pleased – thrilled, even – that it had


    finallye to pass.


    I return my eyes to Emma. “You’re a coward,” I say, my words bitter. Then, I hang my head, shaking it.


    I haven’t given up yet, though. Not like her. I’m still wracking my mind, trying toe up with


    something, anything I can do when Joyce makes his decision about how to proceed.


    “Right,” Joyce says, turning to the Betas who hold us. “Evelyn, downstairs, in the cell opposite


    Kensington. She can watch him die, if she’s so desperate to be with him. The women, upstairs.


    Separate rooms. The boys – my heirs –“ he smiles at them with no real affection in his eyes. “They stay


    with me.”


    As one, the Betas move to follow the instructions of their Alpha.