by Aliya DalRae
Startled, I threw my hands up as small arms wrapped around my waist, and a little blond head buried itself in my stomach. Allie was bouncing as she hugged me, squealing my name in excitement.
The door burst open and the lumberjack went straight for Malcolm, grabbing him by the back of his shirt, and moving with incredible speed for a man his size. Though Malcolm struggled, he couldn’t break free of the bigger man’s grip. So not my problem.
I knelt to give Allie a proper hug and she said, “I knew you would come to see me, I just knew it. They said you wouldn’t want to, but I knew better. Can you stay for lunch? Do you want to see my room?”
I couldn’t help but smile as the little girl chattered on, but my gaze returned to the woman on the sofa. Her hands were covering her mouth now, and tears were spilling from large hazel-green eyes.
A noise drew my attention to the right and I looked over my shoulder at the man coming around the desk. He was tall and lean, light brown hair with reddish highlights falling roguishly across his forehead. And while the woman’s sole focus was on Allie and me, this man was staring daggers at Malcolm. Ice blue daggers.
My mouth went dry as I looked from the man back to the woman. I thought I recognized her before, at the Polar King, but seeing them together I knew.
She was my mother, and that intimidating figure shooting death eyes at Malcolm—that was my father. Maggie and Patrick O’Connell. Only that wasn’t their name anymore, was it? I’m sure I heard Mason say the Alpha’s name was Wayne or Dane, something like that.
Son of a bitch. I might have said that out loud.
“Allie, go to your room,” Patrick said, and Allie pulled away from me, confused.
“But Daddy, I want to stay with…”
“To your room. Now!” he bellowed, and Allie and I both jumped. I remembered that voice, that demanding, commanding voice, and how I would cry if that tone was ever directed at me. Allie, however, looked indignant.
“Fine!” she yelled back at her father, adding a foot stomp for emphasis. She turned to me and brightly said, “Will you come and see my room later?”
I glanced between her and her father—our father, I guess—and said, “I’ll try.” This seemed to appease her, and she offered me a radiant smile before turning a scowling face to Patrick, stomping out of the room, and slamming the door behind her. I suppressed a smile of my own as I stood, rubbing my damp palms on the legs of my jeans. She was so much braver than I ever was.
I had almost forgotten about the drama taking place around me until the lumberjack spoke. “What do you want me to do with the cat, Boss?”
Patrick looked at Malcolm with such fury, and I was that little girl again, small and so easily intimidated. “I told you what would happen if you went near her again.” He was talking to Malcolm, who was staring back at the Alpha, dead in the eye. “Take him,” Patrick ordered, and the lumberjack jerked Malcolm to get him moving.
“Whoa,” I challenged, finding some of Allie’s courage and stepping between the two men and the door. “Wait a minute. What do you mean? What’s going to happen to him?” I looked at Patrick, his mouth set in a firm line, but he remained silent.
“Tell her,” Malcolm said, joining the conversation. “Tell her what you’ve done. Tell her how you hired me to spy on her. And when I came to you saying it wasn’t right, that I wouldn’t do it anymore? Tell her how you said you would kill me if I went near her again. Go on,” he was yelling now. “Tell her!”
“Is this true?” I asked. “Are you the ones having me watched?”
“We were worried about you.” This from my mother. From Maggie. “When the Sweets died, and you were all alone—we were just so worried.”
Really?
“So you thought it was okay to hire someone who could sneak around without my knowledge, and report back to you with every little thing I did?” I looked from one to the other.
When neither responded I said, “And, what? I become friends with your spy and that’s an executable offense? Where the hell were you when I was in real danger?” Now I was the one yelling.
“Where were you when I got mixed up with the Vampires? Where were you when I was being attacked by Sorcerers and ferals? Was this just to keep you in the loop, so that, what? You’d know when I turned up dead? And where the hell were you when I was five years old and needed my parents? WHERE WERE YOU?”
I waited, my chest heaving as I tried to control my anger, but still not a word. Only a muffled sob that escaped from Maggie, and the sound of Patrick’s boots scuffing on the floor.
“Let’s go, cat,” the lumberjack said, and he started yanking on Malcolm again. The look in those green eyes, one of such resignation, had the anger I was struggling so hard to control boiling up within me again. I was shaking with the effort to contain it.
I was still mad at Malcolm, but for a minute I had truly cared about him. These people had no right to threaten that, and the desire to fight back overwhelmed me. When the man in plaid approached me, dragging Malcolm behind him, I screamed and punched him in the solar plexus. He released Malcolm and bent over, gasping for breath, and I delivered a swift side kick to his knee. When he dropped to the floor I finished with a front kick to the groin, emphasizing each strike with the words, “Leave. Him. Alone.” He growled and reached for me with the hand not clutching his ‘nads, but I jumped out of his range, pushing Malcolm behind me toward the door. Maggie shrieked, jumping up from the sofa, while Patrick watched me through narrowed eyes, wearing a look that might have been parental pride.
“As you can see, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, so just do what you’re good at, and leave me the hell alone.” I pushed Malcolm out of the room before stopping in the doorway and locking eyes with the man who was once my father. “And if anything happens to Malcolm,” I said, struggling to keep the tremor out of my voice, “you should know that I’m not without powerful friends myself.”
We marched through the big room, out the front door, and to the top of the steps, only to be faced with a half dozen wolves blocking our path to the car. “Move,” I screamed, and Malcolm smiled. We were outnumbered, but there was no way Maggie and Patrick would let them do anything to me. As angry as I was, I knew this to be true.
Malcolm was another matter, but I would die before I would let them hurt him. Somewhere along the line my loyalties had shifted, and rather than throwing him to the wolves I found myself protecting him from them instead.
Behind me I heard people approaching, but I didn’t turn around. I stood my ground and stared the creatures down, Malcolm at my side. After a moment, the wolves dropped their eyes and backed away, the lot of them slinking back into the shadows of the forest.
I strode to the car with great purpose and only turned back to the house after I opened the car door. The people formerly known as my parents stood on the porch, Maggie still crying, but Patrick—Patrick looked me right in the eye. We stood like that for a long moment, and when I didn’t look away he gave a small nod. He gathered Maggie in his arms, and guided her back inside the log haven, back to the new life they had built for themselves, once again leaving me behind.
Chapter Eighty-One
T he old man’s rheumy eyes held Raven’s gaze steadily now. These same eyes had once been clear, had filled him with a sense of relief when they first beheld him as a small child, alone in the woods.
Allon had rescued him, taken him in, and memories long buried resurfaced inside Raven, dragged into the present by a forgotten connection now being restored. Allon taking him to his cabin, offering him food; showing him the proper, legal way to hunt for blood; teaching him his letters; reading together in front of the fireplace. It was a good life, a simple one.
But Raven had been so enshrouded in hate and fury, he was unable to see what this good man was offering him.
Allon reached a shaky hand to retrieve the glass of water, lifted it to his lips, and drank, sloshing some of the cool liquid onto his hand as he did so. He set th
e glass back on the table and accepted the handkerchief that Mason extended to him to dry his hands. After a long moment, Allon resumed his story.
“It was early fall when Marcella went into labor. I stayed with them the entire night, and when the child at last was born, a son, we all cried with joy. And with despair. We knew the consequences should they try to withhold the boy from the Primeval, but he was so beautiful. It was difficult to imagine him ever doing harm to anything or anyone.
“Our emotions were interrupted when Marcella’s pains began anew. When I checked her, I discovered my mistake. There was, indeed, another child eager to be born. At this point Marcella had been laboring for many hours and was exhausted, but she was Vampire, a fighter, and within twenty minutes of her first born son entering the world, a second identical boy joined him in his mother’s arms.
“None of us knew what we should do. Victoria had said nothing of a second son, and what were the odds that both of the boys would grow to be evil?
“Of course, the smart thing, the right thing to do would have been to take both boys to the Primeval, let him sort it out. But Marcella and Matthias begged me to leave them one son. ‘How can I?’ I asked them. But they convinced me that the Primeval would never know. He was expecting a single child, so what harm could be done by leaving them one son to hold as they grieved for the other?” Allon still held Raven’s gaze, his eyes now begging for Raven to somehow understand, forgive, what he was being told.
“Choosing, of course, was another issue. How does a parent decide which child to keep, and which to send away? Knowing that you are gifting a true life to one, and to the other a life of captivity at best, torture and death at worst. We had but two days, as I had to travel back to Court with the child and would need at least a day to do so.
“In the end, it was left to me. Marcella and Matthias said their good-byes to both children and I sent them into the woods to await my departure. The boys were identical, but the decision was no less difficult for me. In the end I simply picked one up, laid him in my cart, and drove away.
“Once I delivered the boy to the Primeval, I knew I couldn’t stay at Court. Should I ever be found out, they would certainly execute me. And so, I returned to the cabin where Marcella and Matthias clung to their remaining infant and convinced them that we all needed to go into hiding. I found a place for them deep in the woods just north of what is now Turin, Italy. I found for myself a place nearby, so that we could keep an eye on each other, lest the Primeval of London should learn of our deception.
“As for the rest, well, as they say, it is history.”
Chapter Eighty-Two
R aven blinked. He could no longer look into the eyes of the man who had delivered his twin brother—his older brother, he was later told—to the Primeval. He had loved this male as a father. And yet because of him, Raven was given a normal life, brief though it was, and his brother…he couldn’t bear to think what his brother had endured.
The War Room was silent, the calm before the storm, as everyone held their collective breaths, waiting for Raven to explode. But this news had left Raven feeling bereft, at sea.
How different his life could have been had he and his brother been raised together at Court. He would never have been in the woods, never near that village where the inhabitants felt the need to murder his parents. Never would he have suffered the undying anger that had built up inside of him until he had no recourse but to destroy those who had slaughtered his mother and his father.
Perhaps they would still be alive, his parents, and Raven, his twin, all of them could be living in London. Or maybe they would have moved to the country where Raven and his brother—his nameless brother—would have found mates, had children whom their parents would have spoiled and adored. Perhaps.
Raven swallowed hard, the depth of the deception sinking into the pit of his soul, his beast writhing, eager for release. He shook his head, trying to see through the haze of anger building behind his eyes. His brother. Raven had a brother.
A brother who was now posing as Raven and terrorizing the good people of Fallen Cross in an effort to, what? Exact revenge on a twin he never knew, for a crime he had no part in perpetrating?
His brother.
“I know you have questions,” Allon said, but Raven held his palm up to silence the ancient male. There was nothing he could say that would ease the pain tearing Raven’s insides apart. It was like reliving the loss of his parents, only now there was the loss of this sibling as well.
Because there was no doubt in Raven’s mind, given the current situation, that even though his brother lived, he was indeed lost to him. There would be no coming back from this treachery. Not only had his freedom nearly been taken from him, it seemed likely he would lose Jessica as well, and if that happened, there would be no forgiveness. Only war between Raven and…
“I do have one question,” Raven said, his words freezing in the air around him. “Does this brother of mine have a name?”
Allon nodded, his sorrow which had earlier moved Raven now only serving to antagonize.
“The Primeval called him Nox.”
Chapter Eighty-Three
L ying on the hard mattress, Nox couldn’t stop the visions of his latest kill from playing across the ceiling in the darkened room. Closing his eyes didn’t help, simply made it more vivid, the blood brighter, the sounds clearer.
The aftermath of this one was a replay of the first. The uncontrollable shaking, the inability to purge his body of that ill begotten blood, the horror he experienced, both in what he had done, and in the pleasure he had derived from it.
And yet this time seemed worse, somehow. Two days had passed, and the thought of his actions still made him sick. Father said it was to be expected, that the emotional high he achieved with each kill would be like a drug, expanding through him until it was all he could think about. At the time that sounded perfectly reasonable, but now? Now he wasn’t so sure.
Giving up on sleep that was beyond his reach, Nox swung his long legs over the side of the bed and sat up, elbows on shaky knees as he rested his head in his hands. His hair was loose and it hung in a dark curtain around his arms. After a minute he smoothed it back into a tail and sat up straight.
Perhaps this was not the time to be alone.
He reached for his jeans and stepped into them, fastened them around his waist, and headed into the hall, grabbing a shirt and pulling it over his head as he went.
The ferals were in the ad hoc wreck room, a cavernous space Father had filled with pool tables and dusty sofas. A generator chugged away in the corner, providing electricity to a couple of televisions and the requisite video gaming equipment. It didn’t matter how old the feral was, they all acted like children. It annoyed him sometimes, but they were the closest thing to a family he had, so he tolerated them as best he could.
He should feel badly about the two they lost; however, they were Father’s recruits so Nox hadn’t really known them. Father had insisted that they all call him by that horrible name, even his own brood. He hated it, but Father was adamant, and going against him was never advised.
Laughter assaulted him as he approached the room, the ferals loud and boisterous, and it did nothing to calm his already jangled nerves.
Father was already talking about their next mission, though he was keeping the details to himself for the time being. All Nox knew was that it involved the Sweet girl, and that he was going to be asked to do something big. That’s what Father called it, big, huge, the ultimate payback.
He should be grateful that Father had made him such a big part of his plans. He should appreciate all the male had done to ensure that Nox and his ferals were well taken care of. They had food, shelter, entertainment, and blood whenever they wanted it.
And yet, he couldn’t stop this damned shaking.
He stood inside the doorframe, watching his comrades as they laughed and cut up. Gods, they were idiots, but what was the saying? When in Rome?
Nox too
k a breath to steady his voice, and pasted a smile on his face he came nowhere close to feeling. Once more with the deep breathing, and he stepped into the room, clapped the nearest feral on the back, and joined them in a game of eight ball.
What else could he do?
Chapter Eighty-Four
M alcolm turned the car around, and drove slowly back down the pitted lane, the midday sun high in the autumn sky. I remained quiet until we were once again on a real road. Turning to him, I said, “You knew.”
“Knew what?” His eyes never left the road.
“You knew who they were, that they were my parents. This whole time, you knew.”
“No,” he said, “I suspected, but I didn’t know. It wasn’t until the other day, when my employment was terminated, that I even had a clue.”
“Really? What was that?”
“I saw a picture of you on Patrick’s desk. When you were little.”
“How did you know it was me?” I asked. It could have been Allie, depending on the age.
“I knew because you have the same picture hanging in your stairwell. It’s the one with you and the Sweets on the steps of the old County Courthouse in Dayton. The day you were adopted.”
“Oh,” I said, leaning against the car door, the weight of his words landing like a roundhouse kick from Sensei. How could this be happening? They left me, without a thought—just left me—and now that I’m a grown woman they want to protect me? I shook my head, trying to make my thoughts settle into place, to force myself to understand, and in doing so, something occurred to me.
