Sophia is immediately dashing closer to try and help her mate, a growl leaving her lips, but Caleb raises a hand, stopping her in her tracks even as his throat bobs heavily and with effort. Sophia whimpers helplessly, resorting to using her words.
"Marisol, please, let him go. We're not your enemies." She pleads.
"Lies" Marisol counters in a growl, her grip tightening around Caleb's throat, and the latter could swear he saw his life flashing before his eyes.
"Let him go, please!" Sophia cried out, "You're here because we need you. We do not want to bring you harm, I promise! We need you to fulfill the prophecy, Marisol. It's the only way to save us all."
Marisol laughs, and it feels dry, unamused, and dripping with malice. "By us all, don't you mean yourselves? Because I don't remember a prophecy bearing my name, and that means it doesn't affect me. Now, let me go if you want your mate and Alpha to live!" She demands, voice bouncing off the walls. She watches as Sophia's eyes dart between Marisol's fingers around her mate's throat and Marisol's pained expression.
"Please, Marisol," She implores, her eyes reflecting her desperation, "We need you to understand."
"Cut the bullshit and Release me now," Marisol yells, her grip on Caleb unyielding.
"We can't, Marisol. It's not possible," Sophia's voice is tinged with helplessness as she answers.
"Do you think I won't go through with this?" She presses further into Caleb's throat, who exhales shakily at the force. "Remove whatever force field you put around your pack and let me leave!."
"We- I can't release you, Marisol. You need to understand where I'm coming from."
In response, Marisol maintains her grip, the air charged with tension.
"You want to lose your Alpha then." She growls, Caleb lets out a low hiss as unforgiving fingers dig into his throat, just shy of breaking the skin, but just like that, the grip loosens almost immediately and Marisol falls back into the bed with a dull thud, unconscious.
The door swings open, and the entrance of Leticia, her smile ominous and enigmatic, marked an unforeseen twist in the unfolding drama.
"Seems like we're dancing on the edge already, doesn't it?" Leticia chuckles, ever the joker.
Her presence suggested that she'd done something.
Caleb, who jumps back as soon as he is released, gasps, his fingers replacing Marisol's on his sore throat. "What did you do?" He questions, just as Sophia's body collides with his as she burrows further into him with a relieved cry. She'd been terrified. Her wolf howled in unease.
"Shouldn't you be thanking me?" Leticia smirks, head tilting.
"Thanking you? Look at her. She looks terrible. We don't need her on another sleeping spell." Caleb croaks out his disagreement.
"Did you think she was bluffing, Alpha? A soul as desperate and agitated as hers would not have hesitated to take you down with herself if I hadn't intervened." She drawls, her tone eerily light considering the gravity of her words.
"You're not getting the point!" Caleb exclaims, exasperated.
Leticia shrugs and begins walking away. "We all are still lucky that she hasn't awoken. And how about you guys give her some breathing space to actually process her situation? It's highly unlikely that she'll listen when you are always in her face and repeating the same words each time she comes to. Leave her alone, and maybe you'll stop needing my sleeping spells."
Caleb leads Marisol back to her room within the Pack's premises less courteously than she'd been treated since her last slumber. Anger boiled within Marisol like a tempest, and as soon as they stepped inside, her fury erupted, snatching her arm away from his grip like she'd been burnt.
"You think this is acceptable? You're locking me in this room, treating me like I'm some kind of criminal when I've done nothing to you! Why am I being treated like this because of you...? Why did you bring me here!?" Marisol's voice echoes with indignation, her eyes ablaze with a mix of anger and hurt, finally finding an opening to ask about Caleb's true intentions since the earth-shattering revelation.
Caleb, taken aback by the sudden outburst, attempts to defuse the situation. He steps closer, cautiously, this time as he holds a hand out, "Marisol, please. I know this is difficult, but you have to understand -"
"Understand, understand, understand! What exactly is it that I'm supposed to understand about being imprisoned and deceived by you!?" Marisol intercepted her tone, a clear representation of the rage that brewed beneath the surface. "Understand that I'm being ostracized because of you?"
Caleb guesses he should've expected this much, but he, too, had a general lack of understanding of the situation. The least he could do at the moment was to try and placate. "I'm sorry. I promise, I didn't mean for any of this to happen," he tried to explain. "We can talk about this."
"Talk about what exactly? How I'm forced to live like a prisoner in a land where my people were deceived to believe I would be treated with respect!?" She shoots back, her words like fiery arrows.
"I'm sorry if you feel that way. It wasn't my intention," he repeats, struggling to find the right words to convey his sincerity and appease the angry Marisol.
Marisol, however, was not having any of it. She shakes her head, almost vibrating with the almost painful whirlpool of emotions concocting within, "Intentions don't matter when the result is the same. I didn't come here for this!" Her words were becoming a frustrated cry, reverberating through the confined space.
"Marisol, there's a reason for all this. Please, let me help you understand," he implores.
She scoffs, her patience wearing thin. "Don't you get tired of repeating the same bullshit over and over again!? I said, I don't want to be here! Let me leave!"
"But you can't go. The prophecy-"
"What prophecy, Caleb!? I keep asking what exactly it is you want from me! What is this about!? Why am I here!? But all you do is give me the same repetitive bull!"