Captured - Cara Wylde Page 0,17

Reid were doing a better job of keeping their emotions in check. They were always good at it, as opposed to Chase and I. We’d always been the younger pups. When Jax and Reid were learning the ropes, guided by our father to become the future Alphas of the Woodward Pack, Chase and I were still running through the forest, playing, hunting small animals for fun, scaring them out of their burrows just to let them go later, after we’d had enough. I’d been the closest to Chase. Jax and Reid had always been together, had always had their own games and pranks that were a dozen times more violent and dangerous than ours. So, as I watched the flames rise toward the night sky, illuminating the forest and the valley below, I wondered… Did they hurt as much as I did? Did they miss Chase as madly as I did? They wanted revenge, still. Even after we’d torn our brother’s killers apart, they were thirsty for blood. They’d been the ones to decide that Isabel needed to suffer, and I wasn’t sure I was with them on this one. Maybe I should’ve been. Maybe they were onto something, and Isabel indeed didn’t deserve to live, let alone live in peace and privilege when her parents had done what they’d done. If we let her go, what would she do? Go back to her family estate, right? Live among the dead, stuffed corpses of the wild creatures her family had turned into decoration. Would she throw them all away, instead? Would she give them, perhaps, a proper burial?

I turned to look at her. She was tied to a tree, so close to the fire that she couldn’t help but recoil in fear, trying to keep her long blond hair away from the hungry flames. No, I decided. She probably wouldn’t do the right thing if we let her go. Now she hated us – for killing her loved ones, for keeping her in that horrible cell, for having brought her here, in the middle of our pack, and let our people spit and throw rocks at her. She would want revenge, too, if she ever got out. She would go straight to her rich, privileged friends, and they would take up arms and come hunt us on our very land. No, Isabel could never be set free.

As the fire died down, the crowd started to thin. One by one, they went down to the village to continue mourning their lost Alpha around campfires, passing bottles of alcohol from one to another. Jax and Reid took our mother, making sure she didn’t hurt herself as they climbed down. Jax shot me a glance and tipped his chin toward Isabel. I nodded in understanding. I was going to take care of her tonight. Soon enough, we were alone on top of the cliff. I went to sit by her side.

“Why?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

What didn’t she know? What I was asking her, or why her family had done what they’d done?

“Explain yourself.”

She looked up at me, her blue eyes wide and filled with fear. I could see the rope had dug into her skin, leaving red, angry marks on her ankles and around her torso and waist. Reid had tied her up good. I debated whether I should’ve showed her some kindness and loosened the rope. Not yet. She had to answer some questions first. She had to earn my mercy.

“Explain what your family did and why. All those trophies on your walls… Explain them to me so I’d understand.”

She sighed, letting her head fall in defeat. Her hair fell like a curtain around her face. I turned my hands into fists when I felt the impulse to stroke it back and tuck it behind her small, fragile ear. Her whole body was like that. Her whole being. Small, frail, insignificant. As we sat with our backs against the tree, I looked like a giant, and she almost looked like a child. The lost, orphan daughter of a clan that had gotten what they deserved.

“I can’t do that,” she finally said in a whisper. “I can’t explain, because I don’t understand myself. I never agreed to their practices, but they never cared about my opinion. They never cared how I felt. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand what they were doing for a long time. We came here, at Black Diamond Lake every summer, and I’d