The Alpha's Fated Outcast: Rise Of The Moonsinger. - Chapter 419

Chapter 419: Choice…

Lyla

She snapped her fingers, and a large screen on the wall opposite my bed flickered to life. The image that appeared made the blood drain from my face.

It was a live feed from what looked like another room in the same facility. The camera showed an ample space with concrete walls and harsh fluorescent lighting. In the centre of the room, five figures were bound to chairs with heavy chains that looked identical to the ones holding me to this bed.

Ramsey. Kyren. Elias. Miriam. And several other figures I recognised as Hollow Kin elders.

My breath caught painfully in my chest.

They were all unconscious, their heads hanging forward at unnatural angles. But they were breathing.

I could see the rise and fall of their chests, the small movements that indicated life. Ramsey’s hair fell across his face, hiding his expression, but I could see a cut on his forehead that had bled down his cheek.

“No,” I breathed, struggling against my restraints with renewed desperation. Hot tears spilt down my cheeks as the full scope of our situation became clear. “No, no, no…”

“Ramsey!” My cry ripped through the room. I surged forward only to be wrenched back by the bite of the silver shackle. Tears were slipping into my mouth at this point.

Ramsey lifted his head as if he had heard my voice, and for a few seconds, I thought he held my gaze.

Seliora clapped her hands with mock delight in her voice. “Lovely. A family reunion. Such a pity it’s through a screen.”

She leaned forward, giving me a pointed gaze. “Now you’re beginning to understand the scope of your predicament,” she said. “Your mate, your protectors, your allies – all of them are here, all of them completely at our mercy.”

I glared at her through my teary vision.

“Fine. You’ve shown me.” I said, my voice steady despite the tears streaming down my face. “What do you want?”

She smiled again. “Well, you’d better hear it from my sister.”

She gestured again, and the door opened.

Another set of footsteps entered this time. My blood chilled as the newcomer entered the room and started walking towards me.

Seliora’s lips curved with delight. “Lyla Woodland Kincaid, meet my sister.”

“Don’t worry, Sissy,” Delia smirked, “we’ve already met.”

“Are you behind this?” I growled. “You’d better kill me because if I ever get out of this bind, I’ll make sure the last face you’d ever see is mine.”

“Lyla!” Delia chuckled. “I didn’t take you for a weakling, and I was right about that. You’re insolent and stupid and gifted. You knew something didn’t sit right, but you won’t say it. Now, look where it’s landed, everyone.”

“You’re the one behind the killings, right?” I yelled.

“Among other things,” Delia nodded. “But we’ll have time to discuss my various accomplishments later. Right now, I have a proposition for you.”

“What makes you think I would listen to you? Is this revenge for your father? Do you want to meet the same fate as him?”

“I am not my father,” Delia said with a calmness that irritated me. “I am not besotted with you in any way. Although I wish I could fuck your husband, he’s too stiff-necked, and that darn Kyren could read me like a book. Do you know Kyren didn’t tell you everything about what he saw when he first met you?”

As Delia spoke, she walked around the room. “You’ll die here, Lyla!” she said confidently. “My father knew he would die, but he made sure that his toiling for centuries did not go to waste.”

“Tell me something else,” I sneered. “I’ve been told I will die more times than I can remember. Well, this is me now.”

“Stuck in a bed with…” Delia paused and turned to Seliora. “You didn’t tell her?”

Seliora laughed, covering her mouth as if what Delia said was funny. “We were so caught up in catching up with each other that I forgot to mention it. Do the honours, Sissy.”

Delia grinned and turned back to me. “One of the reasons you’d die is because you activated a poison. You’re familiar with wolfsbane and silver and elderberry, right?”

She didn’t wait for me to finish; she just continued speaking.

“When silver, wolfsbane and elderberry are combined, it creates a harmful poison, deadlier than wolfsbane. Seliora rubbed a tiny bit around your shackles to prove to me that you’d be violent, and well, I lost the bet.”

From her pocket, she pulled out some wads of notes and gave them to Seliora, who collected them, clapping her hands in delight.

“Each time you strain against it, a bit of it is introduced into your body, and elderberry is bad for pregnant werewolves. At this rate, you’ll watch your children bleed out and then die next. Given the reddish welts growing around your body in the next 35 minutes, you’ll start bleeding, your tongue will grow numb…”

“W-what do you want?” I yelled out, stopping her midsentence. “What must I give for you to let my husband and everyone else in that room go?”

“Well,” she shrugged, “I have a proposition for you.”

“I’m listening,” I said, though every word felt like swallowing glass.

“It’s quite simple, really,” Delia continued. “You’re going to do exactly what my father failed to accomplish. You’re going to complete the blood oath ritual with him.”

“Xander is dead,” I said flatly. “I killed him myself.”

“Death is such a relative concept,” Delia said with a laugh that made my teeth ache. “Especially when one has children willing to carry on the family business. The blood oath doesn’t require the original participant to be alive, Lyla. It just requires their blood, their essence, and a willing Moonsinger to complete the binding.”

I froze at the realisation. “You want to resurrect him.”

“I want to finish what he started,” Delia corrected. “The blood oath ritual, performed under the proper lunar conditions with the proper sacrifices, will allow his essence to return. And this time, there won’t be any prophecies or Moonsingers to stand in his way – because the last Moonsinger will have willingly bound herself to him.”

I stared at the screen, horror filling me slowly. “And if I refuse?”

Delia’s smile widened. “Then everyone you care about dies. Slowly. Painfully. Starting with your unborn children.”

Seliora moved closer to my bed, pulling something from her pocket. It was a syringe filled with a dark liquid that seemed to absorb the light around it.

“This is a concentrated dose of elderberry suspended in wolfsbane essence,” she said conversationally. “One injection, and your babies will die this instant. I prepared this as a plan B in case that doesn’t do the work we want fast enough. Not just that, your beloved husband would get a dose of this, too.”

“You’re bluffing,” I stammered. “You cannot do this.”

“Am I?” Seliora asked. “We are our father’s children, Lyla. We inherited his ruthlessness along with his ambition. The only difference is that we’re smarter than he was. We learned from his mistakes.”

Delia leaned forward. “You have ten minutes to decide, Lyla. Agree to complete the blood oath ritual, and everyone lives. Refuse, and watch them die one by one while you’re helpless to stop it and still die in the end.”

“How do I know you’ll keep your word?” I asked desperately.

“You don’t,” Delia replied with a shrug. “But you know what will happen if you refuse. The choice is yours. Now, I have other important things waiting for me, and I must leave now. See you in ten minutes.”

Delia pranced out of the room, leaving me alone with Seliora, her vampire brother, and the broken form of the real Circe on the floor.

I closed my eyes, trying to fight the emotions that were threatening to overwhelm me. In my womb, the twins continued their restless movement, unaware that their lives hung in the balance of a decision that could doom the entire world.

Somewhere in another room, the people I loved most were chained and helpless, their lives dependent on my willingness to sacrifice everything to save them.

And in the back of my mind, I could hear Nymeris howling in rage and despair, her voice calling out warnings I couldn’t quite understand.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes to find a way out of an impossible situation, or watch everyone I loved die because of my choices.

The countdown had begun.