by Bella Jacobs
She has a lesson to learn, and I can’t tolerate her defiance.
I have to find out what her sister’s up to and for now, Willow’s cooperation is the only way to make that happen. Her newly found Pathfinder gift may be able to give me clues that will help stop another attack on our tower before it happens, not to mention track down her sister and, maybe, my long-lost brother, Bane, as well.
But I can show a little mercy.
Or at least assure the woman I was half naked with earlier tonight that I didn’t pull up memories of sexual trauma or something on purpose, like some sick fucking bastard.
I’m not sure if that’s what she saw, of course, but just in case…
“If it was something about Pax. About what he did to you…” I clench my jaw, shocked by how much I want to destroy Pax for daring to lay hands on this woman, the one who feels so much like mine, though she isn’t now and never will be. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Her breath shudders out. “It wasn’t that. It was…” She shakes her head, her eyes so haunted I hope she’ll keep her trauma to herself. Instead, she says, “There was a man. His pack gift was bringing people back from the dead. He grabbed me and…killed me. Over and over again. He got off on the moment when my soul left my body. I could hear him groaning when it happened.” She gulps air. “I was eight.”
My teeth grind harder together, but I don’t let the emotion surging through me show on my face.
Sadly, I’ve heard worse during these sorts of interrogations, especially from shifters who grew up in The Parallel. It’s an ugly place where ugly things happen to those too weak to defend themselves. Children are prime targets.
But to think of a grown man grabbing little Willow when she was not much more than baby and doing that to her.
I want to gather her in my arms and hold her until the horror fades. I want to rock her and kiss her forehead and promise I’ll never let anything like that happen to her again.
But I’m the one who made her relive it, and I don’t have the luxury of mercy. I’m the Alpha of the North Star pack. Thousands of lives are depending on my leadership. I can’t afford to lose my head, or my heart, right now.
And then she says in a shattered whisper, “Mama helped me forget it. That was her gift, banishing memories, but I didn’t…” A soft sob escapes her lips. “I didn’t remember any of that until just now.”
And then she starts weeping for her mother, on her knees on the floor, and I just…can’t.
With a savage growl, I storm out of the room, out of my apartment.
I run down the halls, fighting the urge to partially shift, to transform just my hands and drag my wolf claws down the walls on either side of me. I want to destroy something, to shred the people who hurt Willow, to bloody my hands with their life force and watch the light fade from their eyes.
But I’m one of those people.
Maybe I am one of the monsters.
And if that damned prophecy that my father’s so fixated on is true, maybe I shouldn’t take it for granted that I’m the brother who will turn toward the light.
Maybe my heart is as fucking black as I’ve feared since the day I learned that my “gift” is pain.
With a howl of rage, I shift into my wolf form and run for the stairs leading to the roof, silently sending out a telepathic order for Hermione to fetch Willow from my rooms and lock her in her apartment for the night.
And stand guard, I add after Hermione says she’s on her way. Don’t let anyone in to bother her. Not even me. Not even if you have to fight me to keep her safe.
Hermione replies, Yes, Alpha, and severs the connection without a hint of judgment or rebuke.
But I feel it all the same.
I’ve let my second-in-command down and tortured a most likely innocent woman and I’m no closer to knowing what Kelley Astor was doing in my tower than I was before.
But I know where to start looking…
I send out a second telepathic call, this time to Cameron, my father’s personal assistant/nurse/bodyguard, asking him to join me on the fifty-first floor.
Cam knows this tower and its secrets better than anyone except Dad.
And he loathes me.
He’ll give me honest answers, even if they’re answers I don’t want to hear. And he might be able to do something for Willow. Cam has the gift of forgetting, too, though he stubbornly refuses to use it.
He believes in the integrity of the mind and the sacred nature of human—and shifter—experience. To my knowledge, he’s only used his gift a very few times, usually to banish the memory of such excruciating pain that the people involved could no longer function in the wake of their trauma, even after their physical wounds had healed. He attends to people who have been tortured by our enemies, burn victims, and children who have suffered horrors too intense for their still-forming minds to bear without potentially fatal damage.
As a child, Willow absolutely would have qualified under his strict moral code for using his gift. Victims of childhood trauma are two to three times more likely to succumb to fatal addiction or suicide than other children. What Willow’s mother did for her likely saved not only her daughter’s sanity, but perhaps her life as well.
And I destroyed that precious firewall for nothing.
For a power play.
To show this woman who gets to me like no other who’s in charge.
I try to tell myself I was doing what I had to do for my pack, and that there’s no way I could have known that she had a horrible gift-suppressed memory. I tell myself I have a responsibility to return to her tomorrow and keep at it until I get what I need from her.
I tell myself that I’m not the bad guy.
But even I don’t believe it.
Chapter Three
Willow
I’m dimly aware of Hermione untying me, helping me to my feet, and leading me out of Maxim’s apartment and down the hall to my rooms.
But then time jumps forward.
Now suddenly we’re in my bathroom and she’s wiping my face with a cool cloth, asking me if I want her to help me take a shower or a bath while I shake my head frantically from side to side.
I can’t bear to be touched, even by someone I know means me no harm.
The memory of the man’s hand over my mouth and my soul leaving my body is too strong; it has ballooned inside my brain until it fills every inch of available space with fear.
Fear.
Maxim’s gift is fear.
No wonder he’s afraid all the time, I think. He knows just how much there is to be afraid of. How fear poisons and destroys.
Before tonight, I would have felt sorry for him, that he has born witness to so much suffering and pain.
Now…
Now, I don’t know what I feel for him.
I think I may hate him, but I’m too shattered to be anything but terrified.
“There’s water by the bed,” Hermione whispers, once she’s helped me into pajamas and pulled back the covers. “Can I get you anything else? Maybe a sleeping pill?”
I shake my head. “No, thank you. If I take a pill, I might not be able to wake up if I need to,” I mumble in my tear-clogged voice. “If there are dreams…”
Nightmares. They won’t be dreams, they’ll be nightmares, I know that already. And I know I will want to be able to wake up from them, to flee into the relative safety of my prison in Maxim’s tower.
“All right. But do try to rest. You need it. And the more you can sleep, the faster the fear will fade. It’s always worst right after.” The gentle wolf tucks me in and promises to wait by my bed until I fall asleep.
I thank her, though I know it’s no use.
I won’t be safe in sleep. That evil man will come for me there.
And when I wake up another evil man will be waiting…
He is evil.
Isn’t he?
I honestly can’t say for certain. But I know it hurts to hold the Maxim who sat beside me in the theater, laughing
at the play, the Maxim who kissed me like my lips were all he needed to survive, and the Maxim who tortured me, all in my head at the same time.
It’s too much. Too confusing, especially now that my head is full of an ominously humming swarm of terror locusts, primed to feast on what healthy things are left in my mind as soon as I close my eyes.
But I’m too tired to keep them open.
My lids slide closed, and I fall into a dream, but it isn’t of the man or the alley.
And it’s so much crisper and cleaner than any dream I’ve had before.
When I look down at my hands, I can see the wrinkles on my knuckles, the veins beneath the thin skin, the freckles near my wrist, even the dry, calloused place by my thumb nail that I try to file down when I remember. It snags on my gloves at the lab if I don’t.
The lab…
That’s where I am. I know it, even before I look up to see the rows of white tables with their beakers and burners all wrapped up for the night. It’s dark in the room, and outside the windows, the stars are coming out.
I’ve never been in the lab this late, but I like it. It’s peaceful, and the smell of the chemicals is strangely comforting. Familiar.
In this room, I rule.
In this room, no one puts me on my knees.
My brain was nearly my ticket out of the lowest survivable status in my birth pack, and it will serve me well again. I just have to keep using my head. I can’t let my body start calling the shots.
And I certainly can’t lose my heart.
“Sometimes you don’t have a choice,” a soft, familiar voice sounds from in front of me.
I look up to see my reflection staring back at me from the window, but it’s crisper than it would be in a normal dream, too. And it’s not actually a reflection. I’m wearing my lab coat in the dream, but in the window, I’m wearing a red dress with a plunging neckline that’s far more daring than anything I’ve ever worn before.
My hair is flowing in curls around my shoulders and my lips are bright, ruby red.
The color of fresh blood.
“Everything is a choice,” I reply, pulling my coat tighter across my breasts, feeling the need to cover up to compensate for the way my other self is letting it all hang out. I swear, I can almost see my—her—nipples. “There’s always a choice.”
My reflection arches a dubious brow and glances up at the sky. “The stars are beautiful tonight, aren’t they?”
I frown, not enjoying her thinly veiled reference to Fate and what it might have written in the stars for me. “Fuck fate,” I say, heat in my voice that isn’t like me.
But then, maybe it is.
Maybe this is the new me, the me who refuses to beg and grovel for kindness and mercy, the me who demands what is hers and isn’t afraid to take it.
By force, if necessary.
“And how are you going to manage that?” my reflection asks. “A queen can rule without a king, but she can’t win the game. You need him, Willow. At least in the beginning.” Her lips curve. “Once you’ve united the packs… Well, then you can decide whether he’s worth the trouble of keeping around long term.”
I snort. “Me? I just want to live my life without being afraid some Alpha-hole is going to kill me or torture me or hurt my family. I just want the jerks in charge to at least pretend they care about the welfare of their people. That’s it. I have no desire to rule anything.”
She lifts a bare shoulder and lets it fall. “All right, then you can let the king call the shots. He can decide what’s right and wrong, what’s fair and what’s foul, who will receive mercy and who will live in the deep, dark shadows of fear.”
I shiver, the memory of the man who attacked me rising inside me so swiftly I swear I can feel his fingers wrapping around my throat and beginning to squeeze.
“No,” I choke out. “I don’t want to be his queen. I don’t want anything to do with Maxim Thorn.”
“Who said your king’s name was Maxim?”
I blink. No one said it, I just…know. Deep down, I know that Maxim is meant to be mine in a way I knew Pax wasn’t.
But I don’t want to admit that to my reflection or anyone else. I don’t want to be Maxim’s mate or Pax’s mate or tied to any other Alpha bully who will treat me like a tool or a toy or anything other than a soul worthy of dignity and respect.
“I don’t want a king,” I insist again. “I’m just fine on my own.”
“None of us can make it on our own, Willow. No matter how hard we try. Wolves who travel alone get hacked to pieces by wicked woodsmen.” Her smile falls away with a suddenness that makes me flinch. A moment later, she glances furtively over her shoulder, before leaning in to whisper urgently, “Beware the woods and the prophecy. It isn’t too late to keep this from happening.”
“To keep what from happening?” I ask. “What prophecy, what—” My words end in a startled cry as a man’s giant hand wraps around her neck from behind, summoning a strangled gurgle from her throat.
“Run, Willow. Talk to Pax,” she gasps. “Pax knows the truth.”
Before I can ask her if she’s out of her mind—or demand that the disembodied hand behind her let go of her, me, whoever she is—the woman in the red dress is wrenched away from the window.
Behind her, the scene changes to reveal a ballroom filled with people in gorgeous formal clothing, wearing masks shaped like wolves, big cats, bears, and other shifter creatures. As the man with his hand around the woman’s throat drags her through the crowd, the other partygoers part for them, oohing and ahhing as they point at the woman in red’s swollen belly.
She’s pregnant.
I’m pregnant, and I instinctively know that’s very bad news.
I can’t have a baby yet, especially not with a man who drags me around by the neck. It’s not safe. I have to ensure the right people are in power and my little one will never know violence and fear the way I have.
I have to make the world safe for that baby.
For myself.
So…maybe I will have to rule, after all.
I wake to see the moon still hovering over the city skyline. I’m covered in sweat from the dream, but my cheeks are dry and tear-free.
I’m not afraid anymore.
And I know what I have to do.
Chapter Four
Maxim
On the fifty-first floor, Cameron guides me back to the artifacts room, where the team investigating the theft is finishing up their work. As my father predicted, the Alpha bands and the spirit sharing cup are missing.
But there’s something else gone, too…
“The Goddess of the Barren,” I read from the bottom of Briggs’ report, then glance up at Cam, who stops pacing in front of the dusty books on the other side of the room and turns to me, his gray brows bobbing up and down on his thin face.
“Really?” He turns to Briggs, who stayed to answer any questions we might have, though he sent the rest of his team to bed. It’s nearly one in the morning, but I can’t imagine sleeping right now.
I need answers. I need to at least make some progress toward solving this mystery before I go insane.
And I need to stay far away from Willow because, as shitty as I feel about what happened, a part of me still wants to seek her out, to demand she allow me to be the one to comfort her instead of my second-in-command. But that isn’t how “comforting” works.
Even a motherless son who grew up without much comfort in his life knows that.
“Yeah,” Briggs says, running a tired hand over his close-cropped brown hair. “We almost missed that, though. Kelley was brazen about the rings and the cup, but she took the time to rearrange all the fertility objects in the bottom drawer. If Denver hadn’t checked the inventory a second time, we wouldn’t have realized it was gone.”
Making a mental note to reward Denver with an extra day off this week, I ask them both, “So, what’s the deal with the goddess? Is she a statue with magical powers or something?”
C
ameron’s nose wrinkles with disapproval. “Our ancestors believed these objects were sacred for a reason, Maxim.”
“I understand,” I say. “But none of these objects have been magically charged for generations. We’ve had fairies in to check. Several times.” I pace closer to Briggs. “Why doesn’t Kelley know that? Bane knew. Why hasn’t he told her? Assuming he’s not dead, of course.”
Briggs exhales with a shake of his head. “I don’t know. And I don’t know why she’d try to hide one theft and not the other. But to answer your question, the Goddess of the Barren is a…” He trails off with a soft laugh and turns to Cam. “Help me out, man. I’m so beat, all I can think of is ‘cock ring,’ but I know that’s not right.”
My brows shoot up my forehead and my lips quirk for the first time in hours. “Yes, please do help us out, Cam. Because that wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. At all.”
“It’s a cervical charm,” Cameron says, clearly judging both Briggs and me for our adolescent amusement. “Inserted into a woman on her wedding night, it’s alleged to ensure conception, even if the woman in question is otherwise considered to be barren. But it only works on the wedding night, after bride and groom have both drunk from the spirit sharing cup.”
My amusement vanishing, I say, “So Bane and Kelley are planning to get married and knocked up on the same night.”
“Looks like it,” Briggs says.
I suddenly wish my father was here. He would know if this has something to do with the prophecy or if Kelley and Bane are just both getting up there in years and have decided they should get started on building their family.
The thought sends a sharp pain through my chest.
Growing up, I took for granted that someday Bane and I would be fathers together, that our children would run wild through the tower the way we did as kids, but they’d have those cousins we always wished we had to play with. Our father’s sister died of cancer before she could have kids and his much older brother was killed in the escape from The Parallel. He stayed behind to provide a distraction to those who might come looking for our people and paid the ultimate price.
