๏ผก ๏ผฃ๏ผฏ๏ผฌ๏ผฌ๏ผก๏ผข๏ผฏ๏ผฒ๏ผก๏ผด๏ผฉ๏ผถ๏ผฅ ๏ผฐ๏ผฏ๏ผณ๏ผด๏ผฉ๏ผฎ๏ผง
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๏ผก๏ผค๏ผก๏ผญ, ๏ผด๏ผจ๏ผฅ ๏ผก๏ผฌ๏ผฐ๏ผจ๏ผก
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๏ผฌ๏ผก๏ผต๏ผฒ๏ผฅ๏ผฎ ๏ผณ๏ผฉ๏ผฌ๏ผถ๏ผฅ๏ผฒ๏ผณ๏ผด๏ผฅ๏ผฉ๏ผฎ
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Lauren felt bad for the young man delivering the news who was practically falling over himself trying to please his Alpha. As Ian, Adam had had that affect too, but since coming out as the bloodthirsty warlord of old people were more afraid what not pleasing him might do. "That will be unnecessary." Lauren abruptly interjected before the young man could even finish his last sentence.
They both looked at her. The predatory gaze in Adamโs eyes immobilized her with fear and for a moment she seemed to forget what she was going to say. Now she was not feeling very clever given the details she overlooked, the newspaper, the guards.. She would be unable to convince Adam of not scheming behind his back, but maybe she could convince him that her motives were more innocent than nefarious. That he didnโt catch onto her bigger plan was of greatest importance.
She set aside her sewing things and stood up on weak knees, holding Adam's gaze as best she could. "..It is my own fault. I dismissed the guards so that Charlotte could be returned discreetly back to the surface. I was unaware it was Darylโs plan to take her himself. Nor that it would be so dangerous.. I feel absolutely terrible for what has transpired.. And that I went behind your back my love. It was a terrible choice, but I just thought I was doing the right thing."
Adam smiled at her but it was a manic looking, terrible thing. It took every ounce of control he had in the fiber of his being to keep his eye from twitching in that moment. He didn't mind losing Charlotte, she wouldn't of been of much use the way his plans were shaking out...Leverage if things were to go south but little more. He could stand to sacrifice her just to be rid of Daryl, if he was being honest. What was even better was now Daryl was out of his way without any of the blood falling to his hands, and the wolves would be out for vengeance with a prominent and well liked leader taken or preferably murdered. However...her act of disobedience was not to be borne. And further, she had revealed her insubordination to a third party. If the Alpha's own mate couldn't be made to bend to his will, how could any of them? Where was the irrefutable, united front they were supposed to be giving? The one worth following?
"My poor, sweet, naive lover...Your heart always in the right place but never quite in line with your mind." he ground out as he shook his head weakly before looking to the wolf at the door. "Go retrieve me Bishop and Warren, tell them to assemble our strike team and join me where the sectors meet. We haven't a moment to waste." Then, just as the messenger turned to leave, Adam stopped him once more. "Oh..and Rose...bring me Rose immediately." He said ominously, tone loaded all the foreboding the wolf needed. He cast one final and fearful glance to Lauren, his obvious concern ghosting across his pallid face but he made no plea on her behalf before vanishing down the dark tunnelway, leaving her alone with the Alpha who slid the door closed with an eerie sort of lackadaisical abandon. Adam made a point not to look at her when he turned back around, but instead meandered past her towards the couch. He settled himself there once more and began rolling one of the sleeves of his aegean blue button down up past his elbow. "Pet." He growled. "Might you fetch the steel lock box from my bedside table drawer? Now." He finished pointedly, making it clear this was not a request but a demand. His smile was now replaced with a leer that marred his usually comely features, distorting his expression into a malicious one that fit the archaic monster he was said to be.
In Adam's parody of a smile Lauren could see castles burning in his eyes and the force of a barely restrained wrath behind it. She watched him curiously and with fearful stillness as he rolled up his sleeve, then when he gave his command, jumped to obey it. "Yes." she replied readily, her meek voice barely audible. She went behind the triptych and soon reappeared with the steel metal box between her hands. Uneasy and unsure, she stood in front of him and held out the box silently. His current calmness was doing nothing to make her feel better, only heighten the horror of the moment and she could see now with her arms outstretched the slight tremble in them. He didn't accept the box but rather nodded to her. "Open it." he intoned with a blossoming grin. She blinked a few times then turned the box towards herself and undid the latch in front. When she laid eyes on what was inside, four syringes filled with dusty argent liquid, each neatly lined up in grooves at the bottom, her face blanched. "Silver?" she whispered, voice high. She didn't even need to ask, she knew what it was from her instinctual adverse reaction breaking out in cold sweat and hives up her arms like an allergy. It was silver nitrate used in Wolfsbane bullets. She had seen its affects on less fortunate wolves, boiling in the blood like an explosive chemical reaction, foaming and choking at the mouth. She looked back to him, eyes wide. Was he planning to kill her with this? Had her disobedience angered him so much?
He relished in watching her breath catch in her throat. Wrapping his massive hands around her slender neck had not deterred her well enough, she had been threatened before so many times in the days before him after all, so he had to take extra measures to make it known just what he was and what that meant. He was sure, for many a time she had been half in love with easeful death, called it soft names in many a mused rhyme but her end with Adam would not be that...not a gift of escape but a pain like that which she'd never known. He needn't await her mea culpa, her culpable expression was admission enough. "Very astute Lauren, you are correct. It's silver." He finally took the weighted container from her lithe hands and set it on the table in front of them before retrieving a hypodermic from the box and awarding her with it. He watched the inner struggle take place behind her eyes; run, fight, or give in? All three had the same outcome so she acquiesced...but he would not ask her to stick herself with it. Not today. "Now, if you would be so kind, inject me." he asked unwaveringly.
An utterly lost expression wrote itself across her face. Inject.. him? Was this some test of nerve? Was this really silver at all? What game was he playing? If she went to inject him would he determine her bold enough to try to kill him and kill her instead? Or if she disobeyed him would he only become angrier? All that came to her mind as a certainty was this man, Alpha of Alphas, love of her life, father of her child, was psychotic. Finally she sat down next to him, seeming to really set her mind to the puzzle. With her other hand she reached out and took his forearm and held the needle poised just under the crook of his arm. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the blue of his vein and his eyes, trying to gauge a telling reaction but seeing none. Then just when it seemed she had made her final decision to steel herself and drive the needle in, she withdrew back,still holding his forearm and looked up at him, eyes filled with defeat. "I-I can't. I can't do this."
He snapped and roughly grabbed her by the wrist then, his grip so tight her arm shook with the pressure and was sure to bruise in the ugly shape of an unmistakable handprint. He used his leverage to drive the needle point to flesh as he forced her thumb down on the plunger with one of his long fingers. The silver fluid slithered up his arm beneath his pale skin visibly, but he didn't so much as flinch. He didn't even blink least he break eye contact with her, all the while the argent solution sizzled in his veins, scorching his blood vessels. "I took to doing this a few centuries ago, built up quite the immunity...I will not allow for any weaknesses no matter what form. Do you understand?" he asked rhetorically, gaze locked with her own in a battle of wills. "I will always remain, even if it means I'm all that remains." He had used his grasp to pull her mere inches from his face while he spoke, but released her suddenly now. Had she been unable to perform the task because she was weak or because she still held some misbegotten allegiance to him? At the moment he didn't care, his point had been well made. He watched her slump back into her seat, her bones looking like they had liquidized as he stood in time for a second knock to sound at the door. Rose.
Adam met her at the threshold and spared Lauren one final glance before he gave the command, "Stay with her and ensure she doesn't get an attack of conscience. She is not to leave this room until my return. I have a city to burn to the ground." And with that, he was gone, leaving Lauren behind with the one person in all of the sector who abhorred her more than her own son. The one who sought to take her place, who had been dethroned. An inimical simper stretched across Rose's gauche face. They were alone at last.
They both looked at her. The predatory gaze in Adamโs eyes immobilized her with fear and for a moment she seemed to forget what she was going to say. Now she was not feeling very clever given the details she overlooked, the newspaper, the guards.. She would be unable to convince Adam of not scheming behind his back, but maybe she could convince him that her motives were more innocent than nefarious. That he didnโt catch onto her bigger plan was of greatest importance.
She set aside her sewing things and stood up on weak knees, holding Adam's gaze as best she could. "..It is my own fault. I dismissed the guards so that Charlotte could be returned discreetly back to the surface. I was unaware it was Darylโs plan to take her himself. Nor that it would be so dangerous.. I feel absolutely terrible for what has transpired.. And that I went behind your back my love. It was a terrible choice, but I just thought I was doing the right thing."
Adam smiled at her but it was a manic looking, terrible thing. It took every ounce of control he had in the fiber of his being to keep his eye from twitching in that moment. He didn't mind losing Charlotte, she wouldn't of been of much use the way his plans were shaking out...Leverage if things were to go south but little more. He could stand to sacrifice her just to be rid of Daryl, if he was being honest. What was even better was now Daryl was out of his way without any of the blood falling to his hands, and the wolves would be out for vengeance with a prominent and well liked leader taken or preferably murdered. However...her act of disobedience was not to be borne. And further, she had revealed her insubordination to a third party. If the Alpha's own mate couldn't be made to bend to his will, how could any of them? Where was the irrefutable, united front they were supposed to be giving? The one worth following?
"My poor, sweet, naive lover...Your heart always in the right place but never quite in line with your mind." he ground out as he shook his head weakly before looking to the wolf at the door. "Go retrieve me Bishop and Warren, tell them to assemble our strike team and join me where the sectors meet. We haven't a moment to waste." Then, just as the messenger turned to leave, Adam stopped him once more. "Oh..and Rose...bring me Rose immediately." He said ominously, tone loaded all the foreboding the wolf needed. He cast one final and fearful glance to Lauren, his obvious concern ghosting across his pallid face but he made no plea on her behalf before vanishing down the dark tunnelway, leaving her alone with the Alpha who slid the door closed with an eerie sort of lackadaisical abandon. Adam made a point not to look at her when he turned back around, but instead meandered past her towards the couch. He settled himself there once more and began rolling one of the sleeves of his aegean blue button down up past his elbow. "Pet." He growled. "Might you fetch the steel lock box from my bedside table drawer? Now." He finished pointedly, making it clear this was not a request but a demand. His smile was now replaced with a leer that marred his usually comely features, distorting his expression into a malicious one that fit the archaic monster he was said to be.
In Adam's parody of a smile Lauren could see castles burning in his eyes and the force of a barely restrained wrath behind it. She watched him curiously and with fearful stillness as he rolled up his sleeve, then when he gave his command, jumped to obey it. "Yes." she replied readily, her meek voice barely audible. She went behind the triptych and soon reappeared with the steel metal box between her hands. Uneasy and unsure, she stood in front of him and held out the box silently. His current calmness was doing nothing to make her feel better, only heighten the horror of the moment and she could see now with her arms outstretched the slight tremble in them. He didn't accept the box but rather nodded to her. "Open it." he intoned with a blossoming grin. She blinked a few times then turned the box towards herself and undid the latch in front. When she laid eyes on what was inside, four syringes filled with dusty argent liquid, each neatly lined up in grooves at the bottom, her face blanched. "Silver?" she whispered, voice high. She didn't even need to ask, she knew what it was from her instinctual adverse reaction breaking out in cold sweat and hives up her arms like an allergy. It was silver nitrate used in Wolfsbane bullets. She had seen its affects on less fortunate wolves, boiling in the blood like an explosive chemical reaction, foaming and choking at the mouth. She looked back to him, eyes wide. Was he planning to kill her with this? Had her disobedience angered him so much?
He relished in watching her breath catch in her throat. Wrapping his massive hands around her slender neck had not deterred her well enough, she had been threatened before so many times in the days before him after all, so he had to take extra measures to make it known just what he was and what that meant. He was sure, for many a time she had been half in love with easeful death, called it soft names in many a mused rhyme but her end with Adam would not be that...not a gift of escape but a pain like that which she'd never known. He needn't await her mea culpa, her culpable expression was admission enough. "Very astute Lauren, you are correct. It's silver." He finally took the weighted container from her lithe hands and set it on the table in front of them before retrieving a hypodermic from the box and awarding her with it. He watched the inner struggle take place behind her eyes; run, fight, or give in? All three had the same outcome so she acquiesced...but he would not ask her to stick herself with it. Not today. "Now, if you would be so kind, inject me." he asked unwaveringly.
An utterly lost expression wrote itself across her face. Inject.. him? Was this some test of nerve? Was this really silver at all? What game was he playing? If she went to inject him would he determine her bold enough to try to kill him and kill her instead? Or if she disobeyed him would he only become angrier? All that came to her mind as a certainty was this man, Alpha of Alphas, love of her life, father of her child, was psychotic. Finally she sat down next to him, seeming to really set her mind to the puzzle. With her other hand she reached out and took his forearm and held the needle poised just under the crook of his arm. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the blue of his vein and his eyes, trying to gauge a telling reaction but seeing none. Then just when it seemed she had made her final decision to steel herself and drive the needle in, she withdrew back,still holding his forearm and looked up at him, eyes filled with defeat. "I-I can't. I can't do this."
He snapped and roughly grabbed her by the wrist then, his grip so tight her arm shook with the pressure and was sure to bruise in the ugly shape of an unmistakable handprint. He used his leverage to drive the needle point to flesh as he forced her thumb down on the plunger with one of his long fingers. The silver fluid slithered up his arm beneath his pale skin visibly, but he didn't so much as flinch. He didn't even blink least he break eye contact with her, all the while the argent solution sizzled in his veins, scorching his blood vessels. "I took to doing this a few centuries ago, built up quite the immunity...I will not allow for any weaknesses no matter what form. Do you understand?" he asked rhetorically, gaze locked with her own in a battle of wills. "I will always remain, even if it means I'm all that remains." He had used his grasp to pull her mere inches from his face while he spoke, but released her suddenly now. Had she been unable to perform the task because she was weak or because she still held some misbegotten allegiance to him? At the moment he didn't care, his point had been well made. He watched her slump back into her seat, her bones looking like they had liquidized as he stood in time for a second knock to sound at the door. Rose.
Adam met her at the threshold and spared Lauren one final glance before he gave the command, "Stay with her and ensure she doesn't get an attack of conscience. She is not to leave this room until my return. I have a city to burn to the ground." And with that, he was gone, leaving Lauren behind with the one person in all of the sector who abhorred her more than her own son. The one who sought to take her place, who had been dethroned. An inimical simper stretched across Rose's gauche face. They were alone at last.