Sold To The Alphas

Chapter 5: Isn't She Just a Hybrid?

Roman's POV

The moonlight broke through the tree canopy above us, cold and pale, casting everything in silver.

Five of us. Standing completely still.

Not one of us breathing.

Then Damien moved.

He was beside her one second and the next, his hands were around her throat.

"You dare show your face to us?" His voice came out shredded, barely human, his grip crushing. "How are you even alive? You don't deserve to be alive, you filthy"

The sound of it snapped the rest of us out of our daze.

But nobody moved to stop him.

Because every single one of us felt exactly what he felt.

I watched her face. Dirt-streaked, bleeding, barely conscious and she wasn't fighting back. She wasn't clawing at his hands or twisting away.

She was closing her eyes.

Slowly. Willingly.

Like she was saying, yes. Finally. This.

That's when it hit me.

She wanted this.

"Damien, let her go!" I grabbed his arms, throwing my weight into breaking his grip. "We need her, for Caden! Let go!"

"She killed my sister." The words tore out of him like something that had been locked behind a door for six years. Raw. Ragged. His hands were shaking even as they held on. "My mother died because of her, Roman."

"I know." My own hands were trembling. "I know. But Sophia is still alive, Damien. Sophia needs a pureblood she-wolf or she won't make it. You want Caden to lose her too?"

At those names, something in Damien's face cracked.

His grip didn't release, but his eyes went uncertain.

I caught Eli's gaze across the dark. One small nod.

Eli stepped forward without a word and drove a sharp kick into Damien's ribs. Damien hit the ground, gasping, and his hands finally came free.

I dropped to my knees beside her immediately.

Her chest wasn't moving.

"She's not breathing." The words came out flat even though my pulse was spiking. "She's not breathing"

I looked up at Caden.

He stood a few feet away, absolutely motionless. His jaw was locked. Every vein in his forearms visible where his fists were clenched at his sides, like a man holding back a flood with his bare hands.

No one had lost more because of this girl than Caden had.

His parents. The woman he loved, left broken in a hospital bed. The child she'd been carrying.

All of it, gone.

And yet he stood there saying nothing, holding himself back with everything he had. For Sophia. Only for Sophia.

I turned back and started to reach for her, CPR, now, move, when a boot came down hard on her chest.

The crack was sickening.

She convulsed. A violent, gasping cough tore through her, blood speckling her lips as her lungs remembered how to work. Her body curled with the pain of it, each breath a wet, ragged struggle.

I turned on Cole.

"Are you trying to kill her?"

"I wish," Cole said. His voice was ice. "Should have stayed dead if she didn't want to come back."

I didn't argue with him. His rage was legitimate. All of theirs was.

But someone had to keep a clear head. Tonight, that was me.

"We're taking her to the hospital," I said, moving to lift her.

"Hold on."

Eli's voice. Quiet, precise, and perfectly capable of stopping a room.

We all looked at him.

"She was always a hybrid," he said. "Weak bloodline. No wolf worth noting." His crimson-ringed eyes moved to her unconscious face. "How is she suddenly pureblood? Are those men playing us?"

The question landed like a stone in still water.

He was right. We'd known her six years ago as a half-breed. Insignificant. Wolfless, by all appearances.

Damien was back on his feet, jaw tight, blood from Eli's kick staining his shirt. "Then there's no reason to keep her. She's no use to anyone." He took a step toward her.

I moved first. Planted myself between them.

"They wouldn't lie to us," I said. "They know exactly what happens to people who deceive Blackridge Pack. And we saw the blood work, certified results, sent directly to us."

Damien closed the distance between us until his face was inches from mine. His voice dropped to something low and lethal.

"Roman." His eyes were hard. "We all know you've been desperate for this, a mate, a family, the whole picture-perfect dream. I get it. But not this woman. Anyone but her. She doesn't get to walk back into our lives and become your fantasy. She dies tonight."

"She was a minor when we knew her," I shot back, keeping my voice steady even as something hot moved through my chest. "Purebloods hide their nature when they're young, you know this. What if her bloodline was concealed to protect her? We run the test again at the hospital. If she comes back hybrid, I'll help you bury her myself. You have my word."

The woods held its breath.

"Enough.”

One word.

Caden's voice. Not loud. It never needed to be.

Every head turned.

He looked between Damien and me for a long moment, then shifted his gaze to Cole.

"Take Damien. Go back to that facility. Find out if those men lied to us." A pause. "If they did, make sure they regret it thoroughly."

Then those dark eyes moved to me.

"Take her to the hospital. Run every test. If she's a hybrid" he stopped, and something moved behind his eyes that I couldn't name, "you won't need to tell me what you decided."

He turned and walked back into the dark.

Eli followed, silent as always.

And then it was just me.

Me, and the unconscious girl on the forest floor who had destroyed our lives six years ago.