Fake Mate of the Enemy Shifter (Red Oak Shifters #2)

7. Grey

Chapter seven

Grey

A gasp rips from me as I jolt awake, my ears ringing with white noise as my vision sharpens from a hazy blur.

“Woah, woah. You’re okay. Take a breath.”

The voice is slightly muffled, but I can make out the words. I breathe in deeply through my nose and blink hard, clearing my vision enough to figure out where I am.

“What am I doing in the dungeon?” I ask, my voice bordering on a groan as a dull ache grips my head. My memories lag behind in a distorted, unordered mess, only giving me glimpses of what happened before I landed in the cells under the castle.

Brenner gives me a worried look as he crawls closer to me, a trail of dried blood running from his red hair to his jaw. “Moonveil attacked us in the night. They captured us and put us down here. Chained us with these cuffs with some sort of warding on them.”

That’s when I finally notice the weight on my wrists. I look down and see metal cuffs with a spell warding carved into the material, but I can’t read the language.

My mind races a million miles per second, my memories beginning to stitch themselves together.

I allowed Moonveil to stay with us for the night. I met Cassia and followed her out to the hills. We talked. Kissed. Bonded. Then, the battle started. We fought. She knocked me out.

Snapshots of each moment light up my mind, making angered heat burn deep in my chest. I was deceived this entire time! I let enemies into my home, and I let one of them twist me around her finger because I thought she was beautiful and mysterious.

I thought there was something between us!

“We lost?” I breathe out as I look around me, seeing dozens of other Everblade wolves and witches trapped in the numerous, large cells that fill the dungeon. We’re confined in our own prison and defeated in our own home.

And it’s all my fault.

Brenner nods. “We fought like hell, but they kept showing up in waves. They planned their attack well.”

“But there are more of us on the way,” I say, hope flaring in my eyes as I get to my feet. I move to the bars of the cell, gripping them tightly as my eyes narrow. If I shift, I can break the bars apart.

“Don’t try. The cuffs keep us from shifting or casting. It’s powerful magic,” Brenner mutters in defeat as he lets his head drop back against the stone wall behind him. “I couldn’t even cast a measly illumination spell.”

Besides the torches burning on the walls outside of the cells, it’s incredibly dim in the dungeon, the strongest source of light coming from the stairwell that leads up to the main floor. From where I’m at, I can see two Moonveil witches guarding the stairs.

“The king and queen are coming. They can defeat them,” I tell everyone who is in the same cell as me.

They all look tired and battered, though. This was a fight we never saw coming, and they’re not wrong to be optimistic because when the dungeon door thuds open, my parents and the other Everblade wolves and witches don’t storm inside to save us. They are led and flanked by Moonveil witches, their hands weighed down by cuffs.

My heart sinks as I watch my own parents be pushed into the cell next to mine, more bars separating us. I hurry over to that set of bars, my fingers wrapping around the cold iron. “Mom, Dad!”

My mother slips through the crowd first and places her hands over mine, a worried look forming on her face. A cut adorns her bottom lip, and a small section of her brown hair is matted and sticky with blood. “Oh, Grey. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

My father emerges from the crowd in their cell, looking defeated and confused. He typically stands tall and large, but he walks with a slight limp now. “What happened?”

“I think we can answer that better than your son.”

Morgana’s voice cuts through the muffled hum of numerous voices. She strides to the middle of the dungeon in front of the cells with Lucian trailing her. When me and my parents move to the front of our cells where she can see us, a cold smile crosses her face. “Aw, the family is finally reunited.”

“Who are you?” my father bites out, his dark eyes narrowing as his teeth bare at her.

Morgana gestures to herself and then her brother. “I’m Morgana. This is my brother Lucian. We’re the leaders of the Moonveil Coven.”

My father pitches my mother a confused look. “Moonveil?”

My mother shakes her head, having not heard of them either. They came out of nowhere, and that’s what helped their plan of attack the most.

Cassia warned me that I already messed up by underestimating a supposedly small, unknown coven.

“Why did you do this? I offered you shelter for the night. I let you sit at our dining table!” I bite out, anger flowing through me. “This wasn’t a fair fight. Attacking us while we slept was cowardly and you know it!”

Lucian shrugs. “You may see it as cowardly, but we see it as strategic.”

Morgana laughs and shakes her head at her brother. “They wouldn’t understand. Everblade is all about hitting as hard as they can. They don’t know how to strategize like us.”

I grip the iron bars so tight that my fingers ache. If I could rip them apart, I would so that I could get these backstabbers off our land. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you just kill us? What do you want?”

Lucian places his finger against his lips. “Shh…”

My mouth suddenly feels paralyzed, my lips, tongue, and teeth unable to budge a centimeter. With a racing heart, I quickly reach up to my face and try to move them, but whatever spell he has casted has left me effectively mute.

“We’re going to take over the whole region,” Morgana states as she places her hands on her waist just below her black corset. A black cape with a yellow interior rests on her back all the way down to her boot-covered calves. “Everblade’s rule is weakening, along with your forest. The other clans will soon smell blood in the water and attack, and the last thing this region needs is another huge war.”

“The best way to avoid conflict altogether is to be united as one,” Lucian adds. “No wars. No bloodshed. No struggles for power. One united clan in one united region.”

“Under your rule?” I scoff once my mouth can move again. I shake my head in disbelief. They’re insane!

“We’ve taken over a dozen smaller covens and even recruited some outside of the region,” Morgana replies as she steps closer to me, her eyes sharpening. “We’ve grown slowly and silently for years now, gaining power and numbers. Our way of ruling works, and it will maintain peace and control in the region.”

“Do you hear yourselves? You sound like Voren or Nyxara,” my father bites out. “You don’t care about peace. You just want to be more powerful than all the rest.”

“We want to better the region,” Lucian corrects him. “Strict rules and specific roles have allowed us to absorb weaker, more radical covens and turn them into effective, strong Moonveil witches.”

“And you expect us to fall in line like the rest?” My mother questions him.

“Yes, you will submit to our rule and become one of us, or you will be exiled from the region,” Morgana states in a cold voice before a cruel smile crosses her face. “Or you can be turned into powerless servants. We always need people to bury bodies and clean the facilities.”

“Be one with us. You can still live on your land,” Lucian urges us.

“But we’ll answer to you,” I mutter as bile threatens to rise up my throat. “We will no longer be Everblade.”

“Does a name mean so much to you?” Morgana sighs as she rolls her eyes. “We’ll give you some time to think about it, but you won’t leave these cells until then.”

“You can’t do this!” My father shouts at them as he grips the bars, trying to rattle them open.

“We already have,” Morgana replies with a laugh before leading her brother back up the stairs.

The dungeon door closes with an echoing thud, soon followed by the panicked murmurs of my kingdom.

“What are we going to do?”

“I’d rather be exiled than join them!”

“There has to be another way! We can overthrow them!”

Everyone’s voices fill my ears at a deafening volume, making my head ache as I make my way back to the bars separating me and my parents. When they make their way there, I shake my head as a disappointed frown forms on my face. “I’m so sorry about this. It’s my fault. I should’ve never invited them to stay. They just seemed so genuine.”

My mother reaches through the bars and takes my hand. “I know you didn’t mean it, honey. We never saw them coming either.”

“We can’t let them get away with this,” my father tells me with a grave look on his face. “If they get their way, there is no telling what they’ll force us to do.”

“Do you think they can truly take over the region?” My mother questions him.

My father shakes his head as he lowers his eyes. “I don’t know the answer to that. You saw how many of them there were, and they were able to capture us all. If they can do that to us, they can do that to smaller clans.”

My mother lets out a distressed sigh as she looks over at me. “I don’t know what to do. They have us surrounded.”

“And powerless,” my father murmurs as he holds up his cuffed hands before lifting his eyes to mine.

As my parents gaze at me, I’m struck with a heavy, crushing weight, the air breaking free from my lungs. My chest tightens, and my throat constricts like a serpent is winding its way around my entire body.

They’re looking to me for an answer. This is my problem. My mistake that I have to fix.

I glance around, seeing other Everblade wolves and witches looking in my direction. They wait in tense silence, expecting an answer or a plan that’ll save them from this hell that we’re stuck in.

I have no idea what to do, but I need to convince everyone else that I’m going to figure it out. Then, I’ll convince myself .

“I’m going to save our kingdom,” I state in a clear voice, hoping that my words do not waver. I can’t afford to be seen as weak and scared right now. “Rest and gather your strength. When it’s time to fight, it’ll be for our lives and our freedom.”

It’ll be for everything. The preservation of our past, the security of our present, and the promise of our future.

I either save them all or lose everything.