Alpha Nocturne's Contracted Mate

386 We Never Do

"A little far from your king aren't you?" Adam said, his tone flat as he stood at Ann's side.

The older man lifted his head as soon as he heard Adam's voice, his eyes moving between both Ann and Adam.

"We don't call him that." He smiled, the wound on his lip tearing even further as his lips spread into an eerie mockery of a grin.

Adam's hand snapped into the man's hair and wrenched his face up, his sudden movement making Ann flinch slightly.

"I didn't ask what you call him. Why are you here?" Adam snarled, his wolf flashing in his eyes as he bared his canines at him.

Ann set a hand on Adam's forearm.

"Give him a chance to speak first, Adam. They look as though they have seen enough cruelty to last a lifetime."

Adam let go with a huff of annoyance as the Lycan coughed and spat blood onto the boards, then laughed once, the sound short and ugly.

"He doesn't hide what he is anymore, in his heart. He's coming and he brings death to your doorstep. Your bloodline will be exterminated before the month ends."

The youngest flinched at the old man's words.

"Shut up! Nobody wants to hear this anymore!"

Ann shifted her focus to the boy.

"You know more than the old man?" she asked gently but he kept his eyes on the floor.

"I know nothing."

Ann sighed heavily as she crouched just out of arms reach of the boy.

"You have one opportunity to speak freely and then we will have the truth from you, whether you want to tell us or not. It's not something that I want to do, but you must understand, any information that you or your friends have could be the difference between life and death for my people, and that's something that I am willing to use my abilities for."

The boy remained silent as Ann tried one more time.

"I am the Alpha Queen Ann, of the Veritas bloodline. You know as well as I do that drawing the truth from you is well within my power and I can make it as easy or as hard as I want. I would rather do neither and have you speak freely of your own will. This is your last chance."

The boy's jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed, and in it, Ann recognised the same look of defiance that Lexi got on her face when she was told that she must do something, and didn't want to do it.

"Are you ready Ann?" Maeve asked gently,

"Yes…" she replied hesitantly, "Can you temper the strength a little please? I would prefer to coax it gently rather than rip it from him."

Maeve snorted.

"Ever the softhearted Queen," she murmured as she began to feed the power through Ann's veins.

She could feel the weight of the ability under her skin and she hated the feel of it, the power rippling under her skin, yet it was her duty to seek the truth. So, with Maeve's help, she let it rise, just enough, and set the command into her voice.

"Tell us what you know." Ann said, her voice sounding eerily familiar but not quite the same as it always did. There was an undercurrent of something there that was hard to explain.

The boy's head snapped up as if yanked by a string and then the words came tumbling out.

"He's gathering at the old quarry past the red bridge. It's not just lycans though, the coven's there as well and new Constructs from the last run. New ones are being built from the dead as well, they moved the cages in preparation yesterday." His breath hitched. "There are more cages now."

Maeve's hackles lifted in Ann's head.

"Cages again. Of course. I'm going to hang Ely by his own chain when this is over."

Adam did not move, but the silence around him seemed to sharpen.

"How many." He said, his voice grim.

The boy tried to swallow it back and tried to resist, but Ann's gift didn't care what he wanted. It pulled the words from him, whether he wanted to or not, just as she had promised.

"Two cohorts of Lycans arrived last night and three more are expected by the end of the week. Each cohort is sixty. Plus handlers. Plus coven units. I don't know how many coven members there are. They don't count us when they count themselves."

The older Lycan snarled. "You little fucking idiot."

Ann shifted her gaze and narrowed her eyes at the older man.

"Seeing as how you think you can resist this, I think it's your turn," she told the older one with a snarl,

"Ann, we need to wait to draw on it again," Maeve said, her tone rippling with concern, "This is a lot of energy to expend while we're pregnant and honestly, even though I've tempered it, it's difficult. We need to practice this more. If you can get the information from him without using this again, it would be preferable."

Ann hummed softly in acknowledgement and Maeve let the power dissipate as she sat back and watched.

"I want to know the radius of patrols." She said without indicating that anything was amiss, "Where are they thinnest and which road they'll head down first. Give me something I can use."

He held her stare with a defiant curl to his mouth.

"Why? So you can play at being merciful for another week?"

Adam took one step and every chain in the room rattled as they collectively flinched away from him. Ann lifted a hand without looking at him and kept her voice level.

"Listen, you can bleed in this room for nothing, or you can tell me where your former friends like to sleep and I'll make sure they don't wake up. Choose."

The older man looked past her at Adam, then back.

"He'll go anyway, whether I give you the information or not."

"Yes," Ann said. "He will, but he'll go better prepared with whatever information that you have for him."

The man's jaw flexed as he weighed the options before him.

Either his pride gave way or his self-preservation finally kicked in and with a heavy sigh, he spoke.

"Patrol radius is five miles at dawn and dusk and two at midday. They don't watch the dry creek bed on the south side because the last flash flood carved the bank too sharp for anyone to make use of it as an entrance or exit. They think wolves won't bother to climb it, but I know they're wrong…not that they ever gave a shit about what I had to say."

He shifted slightly causing his chain to scrape along the floor.

"The first push was planned at the east road where your supply runs double back to this yard, not at the river crossing where you expected them. They'll cut the road off completely and panic the runners."

"Good," Ann said. "Now, the routes in and out of the quarry."

He huffed.

"You'll love this. They use the old mine mouth for cages and it has two vent shafts. One at the top of the ridge above and one on the far side behind a stand of scrub trees. If you can't get in at the front, smoke them through a vent and force them out." His eyes narrowed. "You won't like what comes out though."

"We never do," Adam said, drily.