Darkness Unleashed

by McKenzie Hunter

  I turned and went to the open door of his office. He extended his hand to a chair, inviting me to sit. Once I did, he relaxed back in his oversized leather chair. Although he overwhelmed his office as he did most rooms, the vast area suited him. A large executive desk of dark wood with carved designs along the front anchored the space, and matching bookcases lined the back wall. Wildlife paintings, something seen throughout the house, covered the walls. All of Sebastian’s paintings were of wolves baring their teeth in attack poses. Most people had pictures that relaxed them in their offices—it was unsettling that these comforted him.

  His appearance never belied his feral alertness. He was handsome, no doubt about it, but the wolf was always front and center. It wasn’t something he could turn on and off because it was entwined into his being, his very essence. Even with the knowledge that the bottom row of his bookshelf housed first editions of John Keats and Robert Frost and the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and Nikki Giovanni, which I had discovered while snooping in his office, I was very aware that I was facing a predator.

  After appraising me for a long time, he finally settled upon a wisp of a smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. When he spoke, his voice was soft and earnest. “A pack can be complicated, and the nuances of its functions and the members’ effects on it can be hard to understand and describe.” He shifted forward, his gaze holding mine with an astute intensity. “The emotional state of it is more fragile than we often care to admit, and some members have more of an influence on it than others. Most often, it’s the one we least expect. You have never ceased being an enigma, possessing a strength that is always underestimated. Your anxiety is palpable, and your high distress is noticeable. It reeks and feels uncomfortable.”

  I blinked several times, trying to grasp what he was saying. “Are you saying I’m stressing everyone out?” I asked, incredulously.

  “I felt it even before you walked into the house.” His eyes went to the floor, and I tried not to gawk at him, but it was the first time Sebastian’s unwavering strength had folded for a moment. He was concerned for me, or rather perplexed by the situation. Or maybe it was a confluence of both.

  “I can’t help how I feel—I can’t control it.”

  He rested his elbows on the table and then steepled his fingers in front of him. His tone remained soft and low as if he were trying to soothe an agitated animal. “Steven isn’t going to prison. I give you my word.”

  I didn’t have any doubt that Steven wasn’t going to prison. It was how this goal would be achieved that bothered me. Sebastian couldn’t guarantee that Steven would be acquitted of the charges. I was sure Ethan and Sebastian had a nuclear option already in place, but how radical would it be? Would Steven have to leave the country? Would we have to resort to dark tactics to free him? There were so many ifs about the situation.

  Sebastian screwed his eyes together and winced.

  “Sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sure what a surge of anxiety felt like, but from the look of him, it was like bile creeping up into his throat. “But you can’t promise me he’ll be acquitted, can you?”

  After several moments of deliberation, he nodded. “Yes. I can guarantee he will be acquitted.”

  Wow, I guess Sebastian is a wizard.

  Despite Sebastian’s confidence and bravado, I was still concerned about consequences if Steven was found guilty. The only other option would be for them to send him away. He’d be a fugitive and couldn’t come back to the States.

  Before I could question his assertion and ask if sending Steven away was their backup plan, there was a knock at the door, and I saw unruly chestnut waves of hair before Quinn, a former member of the Worgen pack who went by the moniker Casper, stepped in. I’d assumed the name was a reference to the friendly ghost; however, when I’d asked, he’d given me some long, convoluted answer that had eventually caused me to lose interest. Apparently, he got the name because he was capable of getting into any system without leaving a cyber fingerprint behind. No one ever knew he’d been there. He might now go by Casper, but I was pretty sure if he kept hacking, he would eventually go by the name inmate-number-whatever.

  Quinn seemed to be the Worgen’s Alpha. He possessed a quiet, coiled strength that was quite noticeable. Even when he was relaxed, he appeared restrained and tense, as if he struggled with control. Maybe that was it; he was struggling to control his animal half. Most of our pack had a symbiotic relationship with their animal half, so much so that it was often difficult to decipher the line between person and beast.

  My curiosity got the better of me as I speculated about him. I watched him with intensity, and he gave me a forced half-smile as he entered the room. Oddly, he looked more comfortable with Sebastian than with me. Was I really putting off emotions that heavily? Did he view me as having a toxic aura? When his nose flared and he noticeably smelled the air, I inhaled, too, but I didn’t smell anything except for hints of cedar with an undercurrent of cinnamon. I gathered Quinn smelled something different. Was anxiety as easy to detect as fear, which had a strong, undeniable scent?

  “They still haven’t processed Steven.” It felt like Quinn was offering me the information instead of Sebastian.

  “You can see that information?” I asked.

  “Yes. I cloned their system. I can see everything they do, and once Steven is processed, I’ll let you know so bail can be issued,” he said in a flat tone. Maybe it was just me, but when you admitted to doing something that blatantly illegal, you should at least have a tinge of shame in your voice.

  Sebastian nodded. “What about Dexter? Have you found him?”

  He shook his head. “I’m monitoring all his financials. He hasn’t used his passport, and there aren’t any records of him flying, so I assume he’s still in the country. I can prohibit him from accessing any money; I think it will force him to surface faster,” Quinn offered.

  Wow, that doesn’t sound remotely legal.

  Sebastian considered his suggestion for an extended period of time. I made myself believe that he was debating the morality and legality of doing it and battling his conscience. I was eternally optimistic.

  “Don’t do anything to Dexter’s account,” Sebastian finally instructed.

  “I can do it without triggering suspicion,” Quinn said with confidence and a look that said he’d been waiting for the okay to meet the challenge.

  “But if you don’t, we are not in a position for you to fail. I suspect, if Dexter is as cunning as he’s proven to be, it will be a trap. You do it and it’ll trigger something.”

  “They’ve never caught me before.” And then he listed all the websites and agencies and banks he’d hacked in the past. I wished I hadn’t heard that. I really wanted plausible deniability. My attention bounced between the two of them.

  Sebastian’s eyes stayed steady on him, but not with apprehension like mine, but with consideration. Sebastian possessed power, resources, aggression, and an overwhelming presence that commanded subjugation; Quinn and his crew were just as dangerous in their own right. When it came to hacking and cyberattacks, they had us beat. It was never easy to guess what went through Sebastian’s mind. I could only speculate because he was always playing the long game, putting the pack at an advantage in the worst-case scenario. He did it with ease, and it wasn’t until he had shown his hand that a person realized they’d been out of their depth the whole time.

  He finally shook his head, dismissing Quinn along with his proposal. “No, I don’t trust Dexter not to be setting a trap. Let’s be more careful.”

  Once Quinn left, closing the door behind him, I gave Sebastian the same shaming look I’d given him when he’d failed to adequately address my discovery of how the pack was financed. Our pack was large, and each member gave it a percentage of their personal income, which was invested in several holdings and businesses owned by the pack. A stipend was issued to each member based on money invested in the pack. The Worgen pack took a different approach. When Sebastian had had his “welcome
to the pack, I’m sorry I had to disband yours” meeting, I’d expected him to at least vehemently denounce their past ways of doing things, especially how they financed their pack—by funneling money out of bank accounts.

  They used the polite and willfully wrong word funneling as opposed to stealing, the accurate word. And instead of telling them that all stealing was wrong and wouldn’t be tolerated in his pack, Sebastian had told them they would have to stop stealing money out of bank accounts. In response, they’d astutely pointed out that they didn’t steal; they simply funneled a dollar from every account holder in the bank. The problem was that for most major banks, a dollar out of each account could easily hit high six to seven figures.

  I’d developed muscle fatigue from scowling, my mouth dropping in morbid disbelief, and glaring at Sebastian over his handling of the situation. The new additions to our group had seemed obviously out of their depth, used to a different way of life, and had now been absorbed into a pack with strange politics, rules, and fealty expectations.

  I’d questioned whether they would assimilate well. And I’d seen the same concern in Sebastian’s eyes as he’d looked upon his new members, dressed in their t-shirts with weird slogans—very different from Ethan’s brother, Josh, who wore his ironically. And a couple of them had worn rings on their fingers, their homage to the Lord of the Rings. I’d realized assimilation wasn’t possible. At best, we should expect them to adapt. And during that meeting, they hadn’t gotten the chastising I’d expected; instead, Sebastian had said he was very aware of what they were capable of, what they had done in the past, and how most of them had acquired their nicknames.

  Instead of condemning their deeds, Sebastian had pointed out that the more they did things like that, the bigger the risk was of them being caught, and how important it was to minimize risk. And as I’d stood with my mouth gaping open, giving him my full-on look of judgment, he’d smiled and shrugged. “I told them to stop.”

  I guess being the pack’s moral compass is my job. “Really, because I’ve heard you tell people to stop things. It usually involves the weird eye thing, growling, and occasionally your hand wrapping around someone’s throat. That, Mr. Alpha, was the most pitiful berating I’ve ever seen you give. It’s fine if you’re scolding a kid for taking goodies from a store, but their ‘funneling’ is a federal crime.”

  “And they said they wouldn’t do it.”

  “When exactly did they say that?” I’d asked. “I didn’t hear that one time. Did they breathe it in Morse code or something?”

  Sebastian had looked over his shoulders at the guys, his tone deep, firm, and casually dismissive as he had asked, “You all won’t do that again, will you?”

  Almost in unison, with mischief in their eyes and half-smirks on their lips, they’d said, “Of course not.”

  “You heard them. ‘Of course not.’” And he’d left me behind.

  As I sat across from Sebastian, reliving that day with the nearly acquired Worgen pack, I felt like I was experiencing déjà vu. Just as with the conversation before, a charming smile had settled over Sebastian’s features, and it was quite easy to be disarmed by it. It held a beguiling allure, intentionally generated to make a person forget they were dealing with an apex predator with human intellect. Being aware that he was doing it didn’t make it easier to ignore; I was just cognizant that I was falling for it.

  I settled back in my chair and relaxed the scowl and the squint in my narrowed eyes. “Okay, it’s all fun and games until SWAT teams and the FBI get involved,” I said coolly.

  “Sky, you’re being dramatic.”

  Sebastian,” I said firmly, standing my ground.

  “I do believe we’ve had this conversation quite often. Let me ask you, Sky, has it changed anything?”

  “What conversation?” Ethan asked, only knocking to notify us of his entrance.

  Sebastian grinned. “Apparently, I’ve failed to adhere to Sky’s strict code of black-and-white ethics and have delved too deep in shades of gray for her liking. It seems I am, once again, on the receiving end of her scathing looks of judgment and disapproval. Perhaps, at this point, I should be quivering under her harsh displeasure.”

  Oh great, he thinks he’s funny, too. The mocking half-grin confirmed it.

  Behind the smile remained unwavering imperiousness, a constant reminder of the Alpha that lingered. “Did you need something else, Sky, or do you wish to continue to provide an assessment of my dereliction of duties as the Alpha? Or have you forgotten I am the Alpha?”

  I smiled, genteel and demure, and spoke in an overly cloying tone. “Mr. Alpha, I could never forget that. And if by chance I do, you’ll just do that weird eye thing and growl to give me a friendly reminder.” This time, I exposed my teeth when I gave him a sugary smile.

  He leaned back in his chair, studying me. “Really. It hasn’t seemed to work on you lately. Perhaps I need to change my tactics.”

  Sebastian didn’t bring out my fight-or-flight response the way he once had, but I was never unaware that he was a very dangerous were-animal. “But you are different. Always have been.” He wasn’t evaluating me as the same oddity, the magical abnormality he had in his pack or the woman who he worked so diligently to hide their secrets from. And I wasn’t under any illusions that some of those secrets were still there. I held his gaze for longer than I’d intended to.

  “Very different,” he acknowledged quietly. His look of unsettled curiosity remained as he directed his attention to Ethan.

  “Are you sure he will get bail?”

  Ethan nodded. “He was arrested for a triple homicide and animal cruelty, so it will be really high.”

  “He didn’t kill an animal!” I snapped, not at Ethan but the situation. “They were about to shift and attack him. If they’d had their way, he would be the one dead. And the other one had already shifted. It was justified.” I was fuming, and some of that anger was directed at Sebastian. He was the one who’d sent Steven out to confront that pack. And I had to shoulder some of that guilt as well because I was the reason Sebastian no longer allowed fringe packs in his territory.

  “We know that, Sky,” Ethan said softly. I tried to shrug off my anxiety and frustration because based on the tension in Ethan’s shoulders, he was feeling it as if it were his own.

  “I can see what happens at the bail hearing. Between that and the arraignment, I suspect the charges will be downgraded. They have no evidence except an altered video, which probably won’t be admissible.”

  I was used to Ethan being overly confident and borderline arrogant about everything, but now it was distilled. Not totally gone, but not nearly as flagrant. I wondered if at any point he’d considered that dealing with misdemeanors, corporate law, and pack business hadn’t adequately prepared him for defending an accused murderer. A murder trial was different from one for assault; in the latter, he could probably handle most of it before the trial and strike a deal.

  Ethan moved closer to me, and my gaze locked with his, making that connection that was intimate and solely ours. I forgot others were in the room. It was just us. Pressing his hand against my cheek, he said my name, his tone honeyed, low, and velvety smooth. He spoke almost in supplication. “I need you to trust me. Okay? Steven will be fine.”

  The heaviness seemed to lift, and I couldn’t explain it. Ethan seemed to be sharing my burden, and I willingly gave it. I wasn’t sure if it was real, but it was definitely something I needed.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ethan made a face as I picked up his phone and checked it for the fourth time. “Sky, I told you they aren’t likely to release him on a Sunday, and I can assure you they won’t do it at eleven o’clock at night. Tomorrow. We will have him out by tomorrow.” His tone was easy and gentle, but I’d heard the light tinge of irritation. Blindly following him or Sebastian and accepting that “they would handle it” was difficult. I wanted to be proactive.

  “Sebastian shouldn’t have sent Steven,” I finally said. Ethan placed hi
s hand over mine and gave it a squeeze.

  “Sky, we aren’t having this conversation again because it won’t change anything.” His voice tightened, and the change in his mood was apparent. I couldn’t see my injuries from the attack by the small pack, but I could still feel them, and they’d been bad. Dr. Jeremy had thought I was going to lose an eye, I’d had multiple breaks, and I’d been in so much pain and so afraid that I couldn’t shift. The tense muscles in Ethan’s neck were a reminder that he was remembering that day, too. He hadn’t responded well to it.

  “I understand why we don’t allow lone packs; I don’t understand why Steven has to deal with them the most often.”

  “He has the best temperament—he’s less threatening and often chooses diplomacy when most wouldn’t.” Ethan failed to add that Steven’s gentle demeanor and cherubic appearance caused people to underestimate him to their peril, which was what had happened the night he’d been arrested.

  “Did you enjoy yourself?” Ethan asked, using the rearview mirror to look at the canvases placed against the backseat. The attempt at a smile was the same one he’d worn throughout the wine and canvas event we’d used to pass the time. I looked over at his canvas, the nice lines, the strokes that didn’t look like the work of an amateur, and the complementing colors that had drawn several people to our area to look at it. Ethan had played the part; although his emotions were never easy to hide, I felt them. He hadn’t enjoyed it, but he’d done it for me. The day had been his attempt to distract me, and for the most part, he had. Between dinner, going to visit Claudia at her gallery, and wine and canvas, I’d only checked his phone or asked him to check it a few times.