by Bella Jacobs
The people here are his creatures, completely loyal to him, and he’s not about to let me contact anyone back home who would actually care.
“Please,” I press after a moment. “If you know anything, I’d like to know, too. I hid in my room while he and Mom were fighting. I heard some things, but I was too young to make sense of them. And now all of those memories are kind of…making me crazy.”
Kelley sets her cards down and laces her fingers together with a sigh. “I didn’t suspect anything at the time. Back then, things were still good between Bane and me. The way he cried when he found out…” She trails off with a shake of her head. “He was so broken. So shattered. I believed he was devastated. I would never have imagined…”
She fixes her gaze on mine as she adds in a flatter voice, “He told me the truth last year. That he killed her. I’m not sure how, he didn’t elaborate, but he wanted me to know that he was responsible.” She swallows. “He wanted me to understand that he wouldn’t hesitate to destroy anyone who stood in his way, even someone he loved. Like a mother or…a mate.”
I press my lips together, not sure what sound I’ll make if I give the swarm of emotions churning inside me a voice.
“Your mother was lobbying for your father to make Maxim his next-in-line and train him to become Alpha,” Kelley continues. “Mara didn’t think Bane had the temperament to lead the pack. Seems she had a pretty good idea her oldest child was a sociopath.”
“Psychopath,” I force out, my throat so tight I can barely breathe.
There’s been so much horror these past two days, I suppose I should be prepared for something like this, but…I’m not.
I’m still reeling.
My brother killed our mother. Killed her.
He took her away from me and everyone who loved her all because he wanted power so desperately. But what kind of power is that? Power that you gain from stealing peoples’ lives and breaking other peoples’ hearts? It’s certainly nothing to be fucking proud of.
“Yes, he is,” Kelley agrees. “But he used to do a much better job of hiding it. I’m sure your mother had no idea he would do…what he did. If that’s any comfort. At least she didn’t have to live with the knowledge of just how evil her son was for very long.”
“I need to kill him,” I whisper, even more eager to spill Bane’s blood than I was before. “I need to be the one to do it. For her.”
“We’ll try,” Kelley says. “But the most important thing is keeping you alive, Diana. That’s what your mother would want. She would want you to live a long, healthy, beautiful life filled with hope and happiness, doing good work for your people. You’re going to be one of Willow’s top advisors, and maybe queen yourself someday if she decides to pass the torch.”
My brow furrows. “I don’t want to be queen.”
“I didn’t want to stay with Bane long enough to facilitate Willow’s rising,” Kelley says. “But sometimes we’re called to do hard things for the greater good.” A shadow passes behind her eyes, and she hesitates for a moment before she adds, “Not everything about this is going to be easy, Diana. This kind of power, what we’re gaining for Willow, it doesn’t come without sacrifice. We’re all going to have to make sacrifices to ensure the safety of our people and our world and some of them are going to be really, really hard. But this is the only way. Much better minds than mine have looked at this from every angle, examined every option, and this is our best shot to do the most good. Just…try to remember that, okay?”
Before I can reply, her cell rings, but not the one she keeps in her dress pocket—the one I’ve had fantasies about stealing and using to call Maxim and beg for help. This new cell is tucked into her fluffy suede boot and is so tiny it fits easily between two fingers as she pulls it out.
She glances down at the screen, her expression growing guarded once more. “Sorry, I have to take this. I’m going to step outside for a moment, okay? Deal us another hand. We’ll start fresh when I get back.”
“Okay,” I say, reaching for the cards and beginning to shuffle.
But I only stay seated long enough for Kelley to step outside before I’m on my feet, dashing after her.
I press my ear to the back door in time to hear her answer the call, but she’s still walking away, and I can’t make out her exact words. Chewing on my bottom lip, I do my best to remember what kind of cover I might find outside. There isn’t much—just a few trees and an old watering trough that hasn’t been used in ages—but it’s worth the risk.
What’s the worst that happens if I’m caught? Kelley tells me to get my ass inside and refuses to play cards with me anymore?
That would be fine with me.
I’m tired of games—nearly as tired as I am of being kept in the dark.
Moving slowly, I push down the handle and open the door just far enough to sneak a peek outside. The day is still bright and sunny, making Kelley easy to spot. The sun picks up the red streaks in her dark hair, making her head shine like a beacon as she paces back and forth not far from the old trough.
Her back is turned to me and there’s no one else around so I make a break for it, dashing on silent bare feet to the trough and dropping down behind it. I squat low, hugging my knees to my chest and ducking my head as I strain to hear what’s being said.
After a moment of silence, where I assume the person on the other line is speaking, I do.
I hear Kelley talking to someone about not wanting to drug Willow until tomorrow night and then, after a little persuading, agreeing to go ahead and drug her today. To drug her and then to bring her to a cell where she and this other person are holding a man prisoner.
She doesn’t say the man’s name, but even hearing just one side of the conversation, it’s pretty easy to connect the dots. Willow’s only got one fated mate, after all—my brother.
The man is Maxim, I’d bet my hands on it, and it sounds like they’re planning to force her to get pregnant by him today and complete the ritual with the sword tomorrow. But he isn’t going to be part of Willow’s rise. He’s going to be kept in that cell for the foreseeable future. Maybe even…forever.
Which means my brother won’t be swooping in to save us.
Willow and I will have to save ourselves.
Her words from earlier, encouraging me to run if I have the chance, even if I have to leave her behind, drift through my head, making my heart race.
I could run now, sneak around Kelley, get to the woods behind the port-a-johns and keep going until I find that cliff Willow was talking about. I might even run into her on the way and be able to take her with me. Yes, it would be better to sneak away at night, when we’ll probably be able to get more of a head start before anyone notices we’re gone, but sometimes you have to take what opportunities you’re given and make the most of them.
Better to go while I have the chance than wait around to see which bad guy is going to tighten their grip on me first.
I’m about to dash toward a sagging shed and animal pen about fifty feet away when a deep voice calls Kelley’s name from nearby, scaring the hell out of me.
I flinch but manage to swallow the startled sound rising in my throat and talk my heart back into beating at a reasonable pace.
Once I’ve regained control, I peek over the trough, watching Kelley spin to greet Bane with a smile as she calmly slides the phone into her cardigan pocket. “Hey there, I didn’t think you’d have any more time for us this morning.”
“Clearly,” he says, making me shiver.
But it isn’t his tone that makes my skin go cold. His aura is a churning mass of nightmares swirling around his head and shoulders that makes me want to shout for Kelley to run.
I don’t like or trust Kelley, but no one deserves to be treated the way Bane treats her, and his colors weren’t nearly this bad before. In fact, his aura this morning, when he slammed his wife’s head into a hunk of wood, was positively cheery in comparison to this shit show.
I have no idea what he’ll
do to her in his present state, but I know it won’t be good and I really, really don’t want to watch it go down. Abandoning her is cowardly, maybe, but it’s also the only shot either of us has at making it out this camp alive. If I can get back to my people, warn them about what’s happening, and gather my own forces, I’ll at least have a chance of freeing Maxim, Willow, and Kelley.
And once she’s in custody in a North Star cell, we can take our time figuring out what she was planning out here and how much trouble she should be in for it. At least then she’ll get a trial by a jury of her peers.
Here, there’s only one judge, jury, and executioner, and he clearly isn’t a fan of hers right now.
“You really thought I didn’t know about your ‘spare’ phone?” Bane says softly. “And that I didn’t have it tapped? And that I didn’t know all about your plans?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kelley says in quite a convincing “confused” voice.
She really is an excellent liar.
Hopefully, that will be enough to keep her alive until I can get help.
Bane says something about how he was only waiting to “root out her allies” before he shut her down, but I’m already on the move. I creep slowly toward the old shed without looking back, that children’s song about crocodiles playing on a manic loop in my head.
Never run, walk away, say goodnight, not good day…
Dad used the song to help me remember the rules about predators. If you find yourself being hunted by something bigger, stronger, or meaner than you are, never run, walk away. Never cry out or breathe too fast. And never, ever look back, you’ll only attract their attention.
So, I don’t look back, not even when I hear the sickening thud of a fist colliding with flesh and Kelley screams in pain. I keep moving, slowly, but surely, making my way around the pen to hide in its shadow while I weigh my options.
A quick glance around the side of the graying wood wall reveals the port-a-johns are busier than they were before, with enough people coming and going that there’s no way I’ll get past them without attracting attention. Best case scenario, I reach the woods and the cliff, but someone tells Bane exactly where to start looking for me. Worst case, I’m stopped before I can get past the glen and tossed into a cage to await my forced marriage to one of Bane’s creepy friends.
Biting my lip, I glance back to my right. I have no idea what lies beyond this old homestead, but the woods on the other side of the abandoned fields are thick and quiet. And if I run that way, I’ll be running away from New York, something Bane might not expect, at least at first.
And what other choice do I really have?
As if to answer my question, Kelley lets out another pained cry.
That’s the other choice—to wait here and be beaten and destroyed by the man who killed my mother.
Hands curling into fists, I take off for the woods, moving slowly until I reach the tree line and then breaking into a sprint. I run like I’ve never run before, fists pumping at my sides, lungs bellowing strong and sure in my chest, each breath a vow that I won’t let Bane win.
I won’t let him kill me.
I will live and I will avenge my mother’s death and save my brother and Willow and…
Jacob.
Bane won’t let him live. Willow and Maxim still have some part to play in Bane’s game, but Jacob…
As soon as Bane realizes I’m gone, he’ll kill my boyfriend. Just for spite.
The certainty rises inside me, summoning a sob from my chest and tears from my eyes. But I don’t turn around, and I don’t stop running. I can’t save the only boy I’ve ever loved, not right now. Turning around would only doom us both, and I know Jacob would want me to keep going.
I swear, I can almost hear his voice in my head, telling me he loves me and to keep running—fast.
Fast and then faster, because time is growing short and the end is already closer than I think.
Chapter Three
Willow
Later that night…
I should have known better than to relax my guard, even for a few hours.
Our escape was going far too well, and that’s not the story of my life.
The story of my life is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Born into a despised family in a violent pack in an age when it’s easier to die of a gunshot wound than grow up safe and happy in Parallel Brooklyn.
And that was all before I realized the moment of my birth basically guaranteed I’d be at the center of the biggest upheaval to hit the shifter world in thousands of years.
I was just so grateful for—and exhausted by—our escape and so blissed out by how incredible it felt to make love to the man the universe made for me that I allowed my focus to slip.
But thankfully, my instincts are smarter than my conscious mind.
I wake up with my heart slamming against my ribs, insisting I do something before it’s too late. I bolt upright in the hotel bed, my breath coming fast, and almost instantly catch the scent of wolf.
But not just a wolf, a shifter, one whose fecund earth and petrol scent I know means nothing but trouble.
And possibly…death.
Pulse rushing in my ears, I shake Maxim awake, whispering, “It’s Bane, Maxim. Outside. I can smell him.”
He moves swiftly into a seated position and reaches out to squeeze my thigh. “Get to the car, get away, I’ll find you later,” he says, fur already beginning to replace skin as he rolls off the bed.
But before he can finish shifting—or get his paws firmly settled on the ground—the window above the small dining table explodes.
I flinch backward on the mattress, lifting my arms to shield my face from the flying glass as a massive brown wolf bursts into the room. He lands on the table, but immediately vaults off of it, flying across the small space to land on Maxim’s back.
Maxim’s head has just gone fully furry seconds before Bane’s teeth dig into his throat. With his thick fur and strong wolf muscles in place, it’s a survivable battle wound, but if Bane had locked his jaw a second earlier, Maxim would be dead.
The realization sends my already surging adrenaline levels skyrocketing, the terror shoving me into a vision the way it did that morning at the pharmacy.
The scene of Maxim and Bane fighting in the shadows is instantly replaced by splintering wood and crumbling plaster as a giant yellow claw crashes through the room’s door, impaling Bane on its sharp edge.
No, it’s not a claw…
It’s the front of a bulldozer, a small one.
My brain throws up a memory from earlier tonight, when we were pulling into the motel, of the small post office across the street with the torn-up lot and the construction equipment parked beside it.
A beat later I come fully back into my body with a gasp and sharp pain spreading through my mid-section. But it’s not as bad as it was at the pharmacy. I can still breathe, and when I jump off the bed and run naked across the room to the demolished window, I have no trouble bracing my hands on a glass-free patch of windowsill and vaulting over the edge.
I land on the other side with a wince and a curse as pieces of something sharp dig into the bottom of my foot, but I don’t stop running. I know that visions don’t always come true. What I saw happening to Diana and Jacob didn’t come to pass. I can’t take for granted that I’m going to be able to save Maxim just because I saw it in a vision.
By the time I dash across the street and aim myself toward the bulldozer, I’m limping and bleeding freely from the bottom of my right foot, but I don’t stop. I climb up into the seat of the machine, hand trembling with gratitude as I reach for the key still sitting in the ignition.
I have never driven a piece of heavy equipment—I’ve only rarely driven a car, seeing as my parents and I were both too poor to afford one—but thankfully the controls are fairly intuitive. By the time the light flicks on in the apartment over the hotel office and a man shouts, “What the hell is going on?” from an ope
n window, I’m trundling back across the street, tugging at the lever that lifts the sharp digging apparatus into place.
The machine moves so slowly that it makes my jaw clench with anxiety and the guy from the window has plenty of time to shout several more things at me before I reach our room, but I don’t stop or allow anything to divert my attention.
I have to get to Maxim in time. This has to work.
If I don’t save him; he’s a dead man. There’s no way he’ll be able to beat his brother in a fight right now. He’s still injured and weak from being tortured.
And from making love to you all night…
I swallow hard, praying my insatiable lust for Maxim hasn’t put his life in further danger even as I swear to all the gods in the heavens that I won’t touch him again until he’s fully healed. Just let him live, let us get out of here, and I’ll go back to my celibate ways for as long as it takes.
“You can’t do that!” the man shouts from his window as it apparently becomes clear what I intend to do with this bulldozer. “Stop! Stop it! I’ll sue!”
If only getting sued were the worst thing I had to worry about.
Instead, I’m terrified I’m going to be too late. Or maybe even too soon. What if I crash into the hotel room a few seconds too early and cut Maxim in half with the claw instead of Bane?
The thought zips through my head and I mentally cry out, Maxim, I’m coming in. Watch out!
I doubt he’ll be able to hear me. Since my pack gift came online, I’ve been able to hear other wolves in my mind at times, but so far, I haven’t had any luck talking back.
But I have to try.
If I accidentally kill him, at least I’ll know I did everything possible to keep him out of harm’s way.
The door, Maxim. Push him in front of it! As high in the air as you can!
Breath held and my heart slamming in my chest, I burst through the door and part of the wall, pieces of the ceiling crumbling into my hair as the bulldozer slams into something soft, but heavy on the other side. A strangled howl echoes through the night, followed by horrible guttural whimpers, but there’s too much plaster in my eyes to see who I’ve hit.
