Free Web NovelChapter 377: Chapter 377 Kidnapped
Allison POV
Evening settles over the pack grounds like a held breath, lights strung between trees and along the courtyard flaring to life one by one, warmth pooling where shadows had lived an hour ago, and for the first time since the council chamber cracked open the past, the pack feels open.
Not unanimous, not perfect, but open.
Long tables are set under the trees, food steaming, laughter threading through the air in cautious waves that grow steadier with every greeting, and I move through it all with my shoulders back and my focus wide, returning smiles, meeting eyes, answering questions without deflecting or shrinking, because tonight matters and everyone knows it.
Hands clasp mine and mindlinks brush politely, curious and tentative, some warm, some guarded, most honest.
’Welcome,’ someone sends, relief plain.
’Glad you’re here,’ another adds, quieter but sincere.
Council members approach in pairs or alone, questions careful, voices low, asking about ops boundaries, about how the changes will affect their families, about what it means to have a future Luna who doesn’t fit the mold they were taught to expect, and I answer what I can, promise transparency where I must, and watch something fragile and hopeful take root in the spaces where fear used to live.
When they leave, most do so with a nod that means support. Not blind, but chosen.
Ruby hums beneath my skin, alert and pleased, tails flicking with contained satisfaction.
’They’re listening,’ she says.
’They are,’ I answer, letting myself feel it without clinging to it.
I scan for the triplets without thinking, habit and instinct braided together now, expecting to catch Ethan’s steady presence near the head table, Ezra’s laugh somewhere to my right, Elijah’s calm close enough that I can feel it even without looking.
They aren’t where I expect them but that doesn’t worry me.
Then a pack member approaches, someone I recognize by sight if not by name, posture deferential, expression earnest in the way people get when they think they’re part of something exciting.
"They asked me to find you," he says quietly, leaning in so his voice doesn’t carry. "The Alphas. They said to meet them at the treeline, before dinner starts. They’ve got a surprise." My first instinct is to mindlink them, but when I try it flickers.
Not blocked, not jammed. Just busy.
The pack’s collective hum is loud right now, overlapping conversations and greetings crowding the channel, and I hesitate for half a heartbeat, weighing the moment, the trust I’ve built, the way the man in front of me doesn’t feel wrong.
’Just a minute,’ I link to no one in particular, more habit than warning, and step back.
"I’ll be right back," I tell Abigail as I pass her, earning a knowing smirk and a raised brow. "Apparently I’m being stolen."
"Figures." She chuckles.
I follow the pack member toward the treeline, the lights thinning behind us, the sounds of the dinner softening into background noise, and with each step the world narrows a little more, the air cooling, the scent of earth and leaves replacing smoke and food.
The trees close in, the ground slopes, and then it’s wrong.
I feel it a split second before it happens, Ruby’s warning flaring sharp and furious,
’Allison..’
Hands slam into me from behind.
Magic snaps tight around my throat like a collar, cold and choking, my breath tearing out in a sharp gasp as I stumble, claws scraping for a purchase that isn’t there, and a sharp sting bites into my neck before I can form a thought.
"No," I snarl, twisting, but my limbs go heavy immediately, strength bleeding out of me like water through sand, my vision blurring at the edges.
Drugged deliberately.
I try to scream, but nothing comes out.
The forest tilts, shadows smearing, and the last thing I register before the dark takes me is Ruby’s rage, white-hot and feral, slamming against the inside of my skin.
’Let me out,’ she roars. ’I will tear them apart!’
’Not yet,’ I force back, clinging to the thought like a lifeline even as everything slips. ’Not yet. We need time.’ Then darkness takes me hard and fast.
When I wake, the world is stone and damp and cold.
My head throbs in a slow, nauseating rhythm, the air thick with the scent of old earth and metal, and it takes a moment to understand why I can’t move, why every breath feels constrained.
Chains.
Cold iron circles my neck, heavier than anything I’ve ever worn, anchored into the wall behind me, another binding my ankles, limiting even the smallest shift, and the magic woven into them hums low and vicious, suppressive rather than painful, designed to contain rather than torture. It doesn’t bite, and it doesn’t even touch my magic enough to suppress anything. It’s just annoying.
For now I keep my eyes closed. Keep my breathing shallow.
Play dead.
Footsteps echo nearby, voices carrying through the space with careless confidence, and I recognize them immediately.
Lizzy’s laugh cuts through first, sharp and unhinged.
"She’s nothing," she spits. "Nothing. And they chose her." I feel Ruby slam against the bindings, fury incandescent.
’Let me..’
’Quiet,’ I push back gently but firmly, every instinct screaming in protest. ’Please. We need to hear this.’
Lizzy paces, boots scraping stone.
"I did everything right. Everything. I was the obvious choice. Wolf. Loyal. Willing to sacrifice whatever it took for the pack. And they threw it away for a fox."
Jack’s voice answers her, smooth and malicious.
"They’ll regret it. All of them." The sound of him here, of all places, sends a cold shock through me even as part of me had already suspected it.
"You promised," Lizzy snarls. "You promised they’d listen."
"I promised to try," Jack replies calmly. "And when that failed, I promised to fix it."
Another voice joins them, older, clipped, unmistakable.
Harlan.
"This is risky," he says, irritation threaded through his words. "If she’s found.."
"She won’t be," Maren cuts in, her tone brittle with contempt. "And even if she is, the damage will already be done."
Lizzy laughs again, breathless.
"They’re going to break when they can’t find her. They’ll tear the pack apart themselves." Jack hums thoughtfully.
"Or they’ll come. All of them. And then we’ll finish it." ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
The plan unfolds in pieces as they talk, confident in my silence, in my supposed unconsciousness, details slipping loose because they believe they’ve already won, and I catalog everything, time frames, locations, the way they keep referring to the pack dinner as if it’s leverage rather than coincidence.
They want my mates distracted. The pack pulled thin and everyone desperate.
Ruby shakes with barely contained violence inside me.
’I can kill them,’ she growls. ’Right now.’
’You can,’ I answer silently, steady despite the fear coiling tight in my chest. ’But if you do, they’ll know. And the pack will come blind.’ I swallow, forcing my breath to stay even.
’We buy time,’ I continue. ’We listen. We remember. And when the moment comes we end this.’ Ruby stills, fury compressing into something razor-sharp.
’I will follow you,’ she says finally. ’But they will bleed.’
I don’t open my eyes and I don’t move.
I let them keep talking, let them believe the drug has done its job, because every second they waste is a second my mates are still free, still searching, still able to tear this place apart once they find the thread that leads here.
And they will find it, I know that with a certainty that doesn’t waver.
For now, I endure. For now, I listen. And when this breaks, when the ground finally gives way under their feet, it won’t be because I was helpless. It will be because they underestimated how much damage a fox, and her wolves, can do when cornered.
