Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 283

Chapter 283

Andrei’s POV

“Start talking,” I growled, pressing the knife harder against Lilith’s throat. “Or I’ll slit your throat.”

“Andrei, please-”

“Tell me everything you know. Now.”

She was quiet for a long moment, and I was about to make good on my threat when she finally spoke.

“When they first took me, I was a prisoner,” she said quietly. “For the first few months, they kept me chained up, barely fed me. I thought I was going to die there. But then one of them… he started bringing me extra food. Talking to me.” Lilith’s throat bobbed against the knife. “His name was Erik. He was different from the others. Smarter. Kinder.”

I felt my jaw clench. “So you fell for one of your captors. So what?”

“He fell for me, too. And after a year, thanks to him, they stopped treating me like a prisoner. I had my own tent, my own space. I helped with cooking, with planning raids. I became part of their community.”

“And what information did you learn while you were playing house with murderers?”

Lilith flinched. “There were rumors. Talk about someone up north, in the mountains beyond the Thornwood. A leader who was gathering rogues from all over the territories. They called him the Winter King. Said he had a stronghold up in the snowy mountains where no pack has ever been.”

The snowy mountains. No one ever went there–the environment was too desolate and dangerous.

I processed this information while keeping the knife steady at her throat. A rogue leader in the far north, gathering followers, making plans. It explained the coordinated attacks we’d been seeing lately.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.

“Because I knew you’d react exactly like this,” Lilith said bitterly. “I knew you’d see me as a traitor instead of someone who survived the only way she could.”

“You are a traitor. All that talk of being a captive, of wanting to come back to me…”

“I came back, didn’t I? Erik helped me escape, but I came back to you. Because I loved you more.”

I wanted to call bullshit on that–I didn’t think Lilith was capable of loving anyone but herself–but now wasn’t the time for that. “This Erik. What happened to him?”

“You tell me.” Lilith squirmed against my grip to no avail. “You’re the one holding his knife.”

I looked down at the knife in my hand and furrowed my brow, thinking back to the rogue I’d killed in that tent.” Did he have dark hair?” I asked, and Lilith made a little sound of distress. “Blue eyes? A scar across his jaw?”

Lilith sagged in my grip. “Yes.”

“I killed him.”

+25 Bonus

The sound that came out of Lilith’s throat was barely audible. She tried to collapse, but my arm around her neck kept her upright.

“You killed him,” she whimpered. “You killed Erik”

I felt something twist in my chest. Not guilt, exactly, but something. I’d never seen Lilith cry like this. Never saw her care so much for another person.

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