by Scott, Helen
Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that.
Gaping at him for a second, I turned back to the forest. My highly tuned senses picked up on some shrieks coming from the woods, which told me Marcella was back in her skin and she was either leading my brothers a merry chase, or they were teasing her.
Even as I wondered why she wasn’t exhausted after the day we’d had and all she’d been through, I realized she must have fed and my cock grew hard. Had Barc and Gid taken her together? Gid wasn’t used to sharing. Barc was game for most things, especially if it would make Marcella happy. In that regard, he was like a puppy. My lips curved at the thought. Not only because his wolf was anything but a pup, and was fucking huge, but because Barc was a good man and though it made me a pussy to even think it, I loved him.
He was everything I wasn’t, and I knew he’d be good for Marcella. Raven and I were lost causes. That didn’t mean we were going to give her up. She was ours. But we were dark. Keiran could be. He had the potential, but I knew she’d keep his traits under control. Barc and Gid were cut from the same cloth though. They were decent men. They’d treat her well.
Walkers were…
I blew out a breath.
We were scum.
Capable of such evil that my fingers gripped the armrests as I thought about the shit walkers had brought on the world.
Had Marcella not come into our lives, had we been forced to link with that bitch Lily Addams, I was under no illusion that Raven and I would have been lost to the darkness in our nature.
“Morgana messed with my head,” I told him softly.
“How? The shadows?”
I gritted my teeth. Shadow tainted. How pansy ass was that fucking label? “I don’t know. I’m aware of my capabilities in a way I wasn’t before.”
“Explain.”
The bark of command in Darius’s tone didn’t bother me. I was used to it. If anything, the order made it easier to share. Made it a necessary, something I couldn’t wiggle out of. “I didn’t realize how far I would take something…” I hesitated. “Protecting Marcella is my priority.”
“But?”
“I want to tear off Sylvester’s head.”
Darius snorted. “We all do. You’re not alone there.”
No, I guess that fit. We were very protective of our mate.
“It’s different,” I rasped, wishing I could find the words to explain what I was talking about. “Before Morgana, I just did shit. I didn’t care what it took to reach the objective. Now? It’s like I’m standing on the precipice. I can dive in or I can step back.”
Darius processed that for a second. “Is it going to affect your ability to defend Marcella?”
I scowled. “No. Fuck that.”
“Well then, don’t worry about it. She’s all that matters.” He grunted. “Being aware of our potential is never a bad thing, Cade. For good or ill. It’s when we’re in the dark about those things that can lead to trouble.”
“Isn’t it?” It was making me feel like a monster. “I have memories flicking through my head like a picture book. It’s weird.”
“Of what?”
“Shit I’ve done. My childhood. I forced all that shit to the back of my mind a long time ago. I have no desire to remember any of that crap.”
“Maybe it’s coming back for a reason?” Darius held up a hand to stall me. “I don’t know what that reason is. The Sires have a plan for us, and that’s why I’m unsure as to our next move.
“We just spent far too much time in torture chambers with those dealers, trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with Gideon. I hate torture. Always have. I’ll do it, but I loathe it. That’s the kind of stain you can’t wash away, and I know Raven and I will suffer for what we did in ways the Maker sees fit…”
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“Yeah? We learned shit all from them.”
“No. We learned a lot,” I argued. “We learned Elizabeth was a lying cunt. We learned shit about the Kronos deal. And, like it or not, we found the Cavalry’s woman. That’s a marker they owe us. Especially since we helped assure her safe passage from the council’s wrath.”
Anger flickered in Darius’s dark eyes a second before he nodded. “True.”
I cleared my throat. “This Kronos shit… why did you really bring the case to us?”
“The humans were getting antsy. Any investigation into our world is controlled from the start. You know that.”
Though his words fit, I knew it wasn’t the full truth. “Darius, if you want to fit in, you have to bring us before the council. Marcella won’t forgive you if you hold shit back from us. To her, we’re all her mates.” I could see that Darius didn’t like the reminder, but he couldn’t hide from that particular truth. “Her pursang needs specific things from you, but she needs all of us.”
Darius’s nostrils flared. “I know.”
“Then what aren’t you telling us?”
“Nothing you can’t already surmise.” Darius got to his feet, but he didn’t storm off as I’d expected. He headed for the main post of the fencing that surrounded the building’s veranda. As he leaned against it, his eyes focused on the forest as though he could see between the thick clusters of trees and zoom in on the woman who had rocked our worlds in more ways than anyone could ever have imagined.
I didn’t push him. Didn’t ask him to speak. Just waited. I knew he’d talk. If that wasn’t his intention, then he’d have headed inside or walked away.
“The Cavalry asked me to put a brotherhood like yours together, and I did. Several times I tried, but they didn’t always stick. You know finding the right balance is difficult.”
I did. Eastbrook wasn’t like a regular Academy. It wasn’t like Hogwarts, for fuck’s sake. There weren’t classes in the regular sense. We fought. A lot. With different brothers from different subspecies.
We’d hang around for two weeks with a group, then be on rotation. Masters would watch us. They’d discern friendships, would see if boys fought well together, would pit them against each other. It was a weird combination of survival of the fittest and Lord of the Flies.
Friendships were tested, nemeses were cultivated, and all the time, you were shifted around like a foster kid was shuffled between homes.
Never allowed to settle. Never allowed to relax.
For eighteen years, we endured until the Masters told us who our brothers would be.
Sometimes it was great; sometimes it wasn’t.
Gideon and Raven had loathed one another. For the first three years, it had been a fucking nightmare getting Rav to stop fucking with Gid’s head. And after he did, then we’d have to deal with whatever shit went down when Gid called on the elements to punish Rav.
“Yeah, I know the right balance is difficult,” I prompted, when Darius fell into his thoughts again.
“It was harder with you because you started later on. You weren’t as easy to mold. I rarely went to Eastbrook—”
“Why?”
“I loathed the place. Fucking shithole gives me the creeps.”
“You don’t approve?” I cocked a brow in surprise.
“No. I don’t. But what can I do? Fuck all. Pursangs are arrogant bastards. It would be easier to stop fucking other species but…” He blew out a breath. “That’s a discussion for another time. I went every year, monitored the situation. By the time you arrived, I’d already settled on having another mind walker in the brotherhood, but you changed the balance.
“I watched all five of you. Wanting to see you grow, mature. Sometimes, my selections would appear perfect until the final moment. I knew Raven and Gideon loathed each other, and that was, I felt sure, what would be the downfall of the brotherhood, but somehow, you survived it.”
I frowned at him. “Okay. So, what are you telling me here, Darius? It’s not exactly a pleasant walk down memory fucking lane.”
Darius shrugged. “I watched you so much I grew attached.”
That had
me squinting at him. “You feel like my daddy?” I sneered.
Darius snorted at that then shot me a look. “If needed, I’d beat the shit out of you, Cade, so no, I don’t feel particularly paternal. I just…” His mouth twisted. “It was the start.”
Scowling, I was about to ask what he meant when I heard another of Marcella’s shrieks that morphed into giggles. A soft laugh escaped me. “Yeah. I get it.”
“When you stole her, I was furious at the wasted potential. But I knew a way to get the council to forgive you and I used it.”
“So you brought us the Kronos case.”
“Yeah. I did. And now? Now I’m wondering why I did that.” His jaw worked. “If fate was working on us from the very beginning, what if that case appeared in my lap for a reason?”
“It did. Elizabeth. She belongs with the Cavalry.”
“More than that. It’s brought us to Sylvester, and I know he has to have a hand in dealing Kronos. Most of the crime that binds pursangs with humans has his taint.” He rubbed his chin. “I’m uneasy and I don’t appreciate feeling that way.”
For a man as controlled as Darius, I could understand that he wouldn’t appreciate that feeling. But I was satisfied that he shared the breach in control with me. It felt like a step forward.
“We need to figure out how to move forward. We can’t just stay here in the forest forever.”
Darius sighed, and it sounded tired. “Can’t we?” His shoulders slumped, surprising me.
“No,” I replied softly. “You know the Sires want her.”
“They want to use her.”
“If they do, then they’ll be using us too.”
Darius dipped his chin. “Of course. I-I won’t lose her, Cade.”
My brow puckered. “Why would you?”
“I haven’t waited all this fucking time for my mate only for the Sires to put us in a situation that robs us of our lives.”
His words had my gut twisting. “No. But, Darius, I don’t think we have much of a choice either way.”
* * *
Marcella
I hadn’t wanted to come back from the woods and the lake. I hadn’t wanted to leave the little oasis we had made for ourselves.
For just a moment I, we, had been able to forget about all the crazy shit going on and just be.
Now I was sitting across from my father who was bound and gagged, and all I wanted to do was leave. Not run away—because I would never run from him again—but I just didn’t want to look at the asshole anymore, didn’t want to be reminded of my past and everything I went through, or what my mother had to go through while she was under his tender care.
“So, Father, there are a few things I want to know. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer or I’m going to let my mates at you again, and you won’t like what they want to do to you. Do you understand?” I asked, looking at his already swollen and bruised face.
My mates had already shown him exactly what they thought of him when we first got him into the house we were borrowing—they’d let him fall on his face a few dozen times as they hauled him in—but that didn’t mean they had expressed all their frustrations. I wanted him to know that things could get much, much worse if he didn’t cooperate. The thing I didn’t want him to know, was that I had forbidden any of my mates from being in the room with me. This was something I had to do alone. He was the monster that haunted my dreams, and it was time to face him and overcome the fear he’d instilled in me as a child.
“Nod if you understand, Father,” I ordered as I clenched my hands, trying to keep my temper—which was already starting to flare just from my memories—under control.
Slowly, he dipped his chin, and I sighed. At least he seemed willing to communicate.
“Do you know who is behind the creation and, or, distribution of Kronos?” I questioned, maintaining eye contact with him so I could gauge his reaction. The bastard didn’t even bat an eyelid or do so much as twitch.
When I pulled the gag out of his mouth, I pushed a little of my energy into my speed, so if he did want to try something, he wouldn’t be able to catch me.
Sylvester coughed and spluttered, smacking his lips and wiggling his tongue around, acting like he’d gone weeks without a drink instead of a few hours. I lifted up a paper cup that had a mouthful of water in it, and he nodded eagerly. When I put it to his lips, he tipped his head back, and I lifted the cup to empty the contents into his mouth.
“I don’t know who is behind the creation or distribution of Kronos,” he said eventually. His voice was hoarse from all the yelling he’d been doing while my men rained punches down on him, the likes of which he had never experienced before—after all, he was a high born pursang. No one would even dream of laying a hand on him. Until now.
His lie scented the air with a bitter tang and I sighed. Did the man really think I was an idiot? Did he think his daughter, who he knew was powerful and capable of shadow weaving, wouldn’t be able to tell a lie?
I wanted to yell at him, to read him the riot act, to make him see how much more I was than just his biological daughter, but I knew as soon as I thought about it that it wouldn’t do any good.
“Why did you come after me?” I inquired, changing the subject, knowing full well that if he lied so blatantly to me again that I would lose my patience.
He stared at me for a moment before he said, “Because you shouldn’t exist. Because you took some of my power when you were born and I want it back.”
“How could I take some of your power?” I asked, surprised that he’d told me the truth—what he believed to be the truth, at any rate.
He sneered at me. “How would I know what your bitch of a mother did? All I know is that when you were born, I felt weak and vulnerable, and it’s taken me all these years to recover.”
“Why did you beat my mother? She was your mate; you should have worshiped her.” Anger and, dammit, hurt tinged the words.
“I had a life! A life I was proud of, one that I had forged through sheer determination, then one night of me being weak with a bloodwhore, and I lost it all.”
I was surprised by the honesty that rang in his voice, but I didn’t understand what he was talking about.
As though he could sense my thoughts, he added, “You think my wife just put up with me having a bloodwhore as a mate? No. She extracted everything she wanted from me inch by inch, threat by threat, until I was left with nothing and was completely under her control.
“I was respected for my title only, until I started acting on my darker impulses, ones that I think you understand better than you want to admit. It was only after people heard of my deeds that they began to fear me, not respect me, but fear me, and at that point, I would take what I could get. She took my manhood away from me. The only time I had it back was when I was with your mother.”
“So you determine your manliness by beating someone bloody?” I challenged, trying to keep my temper out of my voice.
“Your mother made me weak, so I made her weak in turn. She deserved everything I gave her for ruining me and the life I had built for myself.”
I took a deep breath, urging myself to let my anger go, not to cling to it like a scared child who was using it as a shield. I couldn’t, though. My fury was a termite, digging into me and making a home for itself within my skin, until it was all-consuming and clouding my every thought.
Sylvester was watching me like a hawk, noting my every move, every twitch, every emotion that passed over my face. The problem was that he watched it all without any empathy. He was devoid of emotion, a yawning black hole, sucking everything into it and giving nothing in return.
My mind reached for Raven. I needed his powers, needed to see what the hell my sperm donor was talking about. They came easily, like a bird to a flock. I reveled in the warmth coming from my mates’ bonds as they tried to quell the storm that was brewing inside me. I knew just from the bonds that they were right outside the door, waiting, ready to burst in if
Sylvester tried anything. I was grateful, but I didn’t need them, not this time. This was between my father and I, not that he deserved that title.
Without hesitation, I used Raven’s power to look into Sylvester’s mind. It was a snarled hedgerow of thoughts, more tangled than a necklace that had been forgotten at the bottom of a drawer. I wasn’t about to waste any time trying to detangle it; all I wanted was to find my answers and move the hell on.
I pushed further, going past his conscious mind, which was as confusing as a labyrinth, to his subconscious. He would divulge what I wanted to know, but he wouldn’t realize it, which was almost better than him outright telling me.
Raven’s powers weren’t enough, though, and I was struggling to get deeper than his conscious thought and current memories, so I reached for Keiran’s power and twisted them together.
As I went even deeper into my father’s mind, I became more and more disgusted as I found out what he was truly like. His wife had been his punching bag before my mother. I was fairly confident that the reason she took everything from him was because she had been planning on leaving him. It was something only a woman would notice when looking at memories. Her emotions were hidden in her sidelong glances and her nervous fidgeting, which my father had brushed off as her being emotional or overreacting.
It was all too much. He lied to me about everything, and now that I knew he could mask when he was lying, it made his obvious falsehood about the Kronos that much more curious. The lengths he went to for manipulation would be fascinating, if they weren’t appalling.
The more I looked, the more I learned about him and his life, which only led me to hating him even more. He had never truly suffered any heartbreak or pain, and nothing had ever happened to make him question what he thought of as his rightful place in society. He had been born with a golden spoon up his ass and had stayed that way for the rest of his life, using his good looks, family connections, and eventual power to get whatever he wanted, including his wife.
