Not-So-Fated Mates

Chapter 44: Inner War

Isaiah’s POV

The flame of rage that Zach had ignited in him had yet to cool off. It had been a few hours since Layla had awoken and found out the bastard had…he couldn’t even think the word without wanting to run into the living room, where the asshole was currently watching TV like nothing was f*****g wrong, and tear him limb from limb.

Isaiah knew that he wasn’t a good guy, but he’d never have done that to anyone. Yes, in the time he’d been with Gideon and Jess, he’d done his fair share of killing and torturing their enemies, and he knew that their end game didn’t make it okay to do so, but what Zach did…it was unthinkable, especially when the i***t claimed to love her. You just didn’t do that to someone you love. And he knew that all too well, unfortunately.

What he’d told Layla about his father and his pack had been the truth. For years, he’d thought he’d somehow deserved the abuse, that he was just wrong and shouldn’t have been born in the first place. It wasn’t until his father had damn near killed him, until he’d finally escaped his pack, that he’d realized that he wasn’t wrong. They all were. The few weeks following his escape had been hell, though. He couldn’t hunt, as his father and the pack had not allowed him to let his wolf out until his body would force the change, and when that happened, they’d forcibly drugged him with wolfsbane and mercilessly locked him in a silver cage. Which meant, when he escaped, he could only live off what he could find. That prompted him to start sneaking into people’s campsites to steal whatever they hadn’t locked up. He’d almost been caught a few times, but he’d made it through.

Unfortunately, after a couple weeks of this, word of the thefts had gotten around, causing less campers to come into the areas he’d been roaming, and, when they did, their food had been locked up and usually hoisted somewhere high with no way to climb to it without waking someone. Thus, he’d been forced to the city, where he lived off of old, rotten food from dumpsters. Thankfully, being a shifter and stronger than humans even in his weakened state, he hadn’t needed to worry too much about the thugs that wandered the same seedy areas he did. That didn’t mean he hadn’t encountered them, though. The last time he’d been confronted by one, he’d had to shift and, to make sure none of the other shifters came after him for revealing their secret, he’d been forced to kill the man. His first kill.

That was when he’d started noticing his emotions slipping away. Unfortunately, he just couldn’t afford emotions and be able to survive, so his heart had hardened against them. He knew the process had started long before that night, due to the trauma of the abuse he suffered, but he had never noticed until he’d stared into the widened eyes of the man whose throat he’d ripped out that fateful night, seeing the panic, the plea to be saved, and yet couldn’t seem to feel anything for the guy. Years before, it would’ve killed him to take another’s life, but not then.

Shortly after, he’d fled the city to avoid detection, and it was not long after that Gideon and Jess had found him and taken him in. They weren’t like parents to him, but he was extremely grateful that they’d helped him in his time of need. When they’d told him their plans to free the rogues from pack tyranny, he’d been on board, remembering how f****d up his pack had been. What he hadn’t realized then, though, was that a pack wolf like Layla could exist. It simply hadn’t seemed possible, after hearing the other rogues horror stories of what packs had done to them, and knowing the atrocities his pack had committed.

That was why Layla had confused him, why he felt so protective of her. She’d never cared that he was a rogue; instead, she’d taken him in, always making sure he’d had enough to eat, trying to connect with him, and so on. It had rattled him a bit, since even the two people who’d quite probably saved his life had never gone so far to take care of him. Honestly, it was interfering with his ability to complete his mission. He knew that, the second he handed her over to Gideon, if she didn’t comply with his wishes, she’d be facing the worst they could do to her. When he’d alerted Gideon to the fact that Zach had used the opportunity to rape her, the only reason he’d even gotten upset was he thought Zach might try to pull one over on them, especially if he managed to impregnate her. Thankfully, his leader had at least made it clear to Zach that that wasn’t to happen again; if it did, he’d make sure the pissant never saw her again.

Still, he wasn’t pleased with the situation. It was annoying; normally he didn’t give a s**t what Gideon and Jess did with other shifters, and he’d even helped them. But Layla was different. She wasn’t like the pack wolves they were trying to take down. She was exactly what pack wolves should be, in fact. If packs had more people like her, they wouldn’t need to go to the extremes they had to go to now.

He didn’t know what to do. On one hand, he’d pledged his loyalty to his saviors, and believed in their goals; on the other hand, he just couldn’t seem to accept Layla’s fate. He knew talking to Gideon wouldn’t help, as the man was very single-minded when it came to his goals and what he thought was the best way to achieve them, and he absolutely didn’t tolerate his subordinates questioning him. Jess was a definite no, as, despite her relationship with Gideon, she was still a very jealous person. Since Layla had formed a relationship with Drake, Jess would automatically view her as the enemy. He’d heard the giddy yet sadistic tone of voice she had used when he’d reported that they’d abducted her, and, after knowing her as long as he had, he knew that, once Layla served her purpose, she was as good as dead if Jess had anything to say about it. And what Jess wanted, Gideon would walk through hell to get her.

He was stuck between two sides, a position he didn’t relish. If he betrayed Gideon, his fate would be as bleak as Layla’s. If he betrayed Layla more than he already had, for the first time in all this time he’d spent as an unfeeling bastard, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself. He looked over to where Layla was curled up, staring blankly at the wall away from him, chewing his cheek in thought. Could he be the good guy again? Could he do what was necessary to keep the one innocent person he’d met in his life safe? Or would he keep sinking farther and farther into the darkness that seemed hell-bent on consuming his soul?