Carnage Island (Reject Island)(84)

Seriously, why aren’t you moving? I think, locking eyes with my father while Alpha Kin continues speaking.

“I don’t know why Bryson wanted to keep you. Maybe he thought you’d be an Alpha, someone he could mold into a weapon. Or perhaps he planned to fuck you when you came of age,” he says. “Regardless, he found a use for you with that idiot Santeetlah Wolf. At least until you turned white.” He steps forward. “So you ended up here, and we’ve now come full circle.”

I swallow again, my gaze darting to Alpha Kin’s crazed expression.

He’s too close for comfort.

And he looks pissed.

“You have ruined everything. I tried to handle it, but Tieran was too fucking fast. And Dirk proved to be an incompetent ass.” Alpha Kin shudders visibly, his eyes closing for a moment. His irises are full brown again when he reopens them. “I told Bryson to fix it. He failed. And now I have to decide what the fuck to do with you.”

The insanity in his expression disappears behind a mask of indifference similar to the one my former father is wearing.

It sends a chill down my spine.

“But we have a game to play first. I need you to scream.” He reaches for me with lightning speed, slamming me back against the wall and taking the blade from my former father’s grip. The sharp edge meets my shoulder, sliding beneath the fabric of my sweater to touch the skin. “It’s too bad you're my half-sister. Otherwise, we could have some fun first.”

He drives the tip into my shoulder, shooting fiery pain through my body all the way to my toes.

“Can’t have you dying yet, Aspen. You’re my ticket off this fucking island,” he says. “And I have one more deal with Bryson to make—his life for mine.”

I don’t understand.

None of this makes any sense.

Alpha Bryson knew my mother was part Carnage Wolf. He knew a Carnage Wolf fathered me. Yet he still tried to mate me off to a Santeetlah Wolf by “using my sexuality.”

When that failed, my not-father disowned me and my mother—a female temporarily traded to a Carnage Wolf as a fuck toy by her own Alpha—-which led to my exile and her death.

And now my half-brother wants to use me as some pawn?

He yanks the knife out, only to slash it across my cheek, drawing a hiss of pain from me that ends on a whimper.

A whimper I despise.

And my former father still doesn’t fucking move.

It makes me want to hurt him. To kill him. To unleash all this anger on the man I trusted to protect me in this life.

I didn’t choose to be the product of a rape.

Nor did my mother choose to be used by her own Alpha as a fucking sex pawn.

What else did he do to her? I wonder, recalling all the times Bryson visited our home.

How could you let this happen to her? I want to demand of the frozen male standing there, watching me endure Alpha Kin’s insanity.

The knife touches my neck again as he spins me in his arms, pressing my back to his chest.

“Smile for the camera, Aspen,” my father says flatly, holding up a phone.

“Yes, say, free me,” Alpha Kin coos in my ear as he presses the silver into my skin.

It doesn’t slice this time, it just burns, causing me to shriek in both agony and fury.

Agony because silver fucking hurts.

And fury because I can’t believe my former father is just standing there holding a phone, videotaping my torment.

Who even are you? I nearly shout. Instead I scream as Alpha Kin licks my throat.

Everything about this is so damn wrong! Alphas are meant to protect. Mates are meant to cherish.

And this… this is the opposite of that. It’s cruel. It’s twisted. It’s— “Make a choice,” a new voice says, drawing my attention to the phone. Alpha Bryson, I recognize, my blood going cold. “Your lives or hers.”

No.

No. No. No.

“Cease fire!” Tieran bellows, his voice sending a chill down my spine.

Alpha Kin chuckles at my back, amused. He shifts the blade back to my shoulder, digging in again to reopen the wound he created there. It isn’t deep but it hurts, drawing a scream from my lips that makes him laugh harder behind me.

Fucking sadist!

The silver leaves my skin, returning to my neck as he wraps his palm around my waist to hold me upright. He thinks I’m losing strength over this. Maybe I am.

Or maybe I can use that to my advantage.

He sees me as an Omega. A weakling.

But he has no idea who I really am, who I trained all my life to be.

I feign a shudder that earns me another lick to the neck. I fight the urge to gag, my stomach churning in disgust.

“Well played, Bryson,” he says as the male in question appears on the phone—which my former father is holding with blank eyes.

He’s definitely under Bryson’s hold, I decide.

Not that it makes anything different between us. He willingly handed my mother over to the Santeetlah Wolves. And he disavowed me in front of the pack. That was all him.

Not the Alpha studying me from the screen.

Bryson doesn’t say anything for a long moment, his eyes assessing. I feel cold under his stare. Dead.

“What a disappointment you’ve proven to be, Aspen,” are the words he finally chooses to voice.

And something about his statement makes me even angrier.