Quinn had no answer to this question and she reacted defensively.
“How the hell would I know? It all happened over a thousand years ago! All I know is King Eldon would have had a good reason to do what he did. They broke the law!”
“Whose law?” he thundered, his face incandescent with rage. “Eldon’s? Why should Aleksei obey Eldon’s laws?” It was something in the way that he said it; a dark, personal fury that could only stem from one thing.
“Oh my God,” Quinn breathed. “You know him. You know Aleksei.”
Drake’s face had turned to stone and his hands trembled as he set his bottle down on the table so hard that it cracked in two. Quinn watched helplessly as the amber liquid pooled around the green glass and then dripped steadily onto the wooden floor.
“You don’t know anything,” he growled, getting to his feet. “And I think you’re just about adult enough for the boy Guardian who so obviously has feelings for you. He’s right for you, Quinn – you have the same beliefs, the same ideals and you have obviously both been brainwashed to despise something you have never even gotten to know. I feel sorry for you.”
“Wait!” Quinn leapt to her feet as he disappeared into the hall. “Drake, I... I don’t want this to be how...”
“Worried you might lose your one good lead?” he asked darkly. The hall seemed to shrink, closing in on them. Glorious in his fury, Drake was terrifying and larger than life. “Don’t worry Quinn, I’ll help you find your sister’s killer, but you might want to consider the possibility that it wasn’t an evil vampire who did it.”
The door slammed behind him so hard that the windows rattled. Quinn slumped back against the wall feeling horrible. Was he right, a small voice in her head whispered? Drake was certainly not the evil creature she had believed all vampires to be. What if there were more like him? What if everything she had been told was a lie?
Drake let himself into his house not even bothering to switch on the lights. He was furious – furious with Quinn for her narrow-minded superiority, and furious with himself for allowing her to bait him. He had almost lost control around her and he could not afford for that to happen; for her to discover his secret. He was so on edge that he didn’t even notice the figure sitting on the edge of the sofa until she spoke.
“Where have you been?” Genevieve pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.
“You’re back?” Drake was not often caught unawares. “When did you arrive?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” she lied, her lips curving upward in an inviting smile. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he replied automatically, stepping into the living-room.
Easing herself off the sofa, Genevieve coiled herself around him, running one long-taloned fingernail down the front of his shirt, hard enough to make him wince.
“Show me,” she murmured huskily, and Drake bowed his head to hers.
Chapter 4
Isaiah stood alone in the great hall of the Cathedral with only his thoughts for company. The arrival of the newest Fae baby was a beautiful reminder of his purpose, the reason he had been chosen for this life. Isaiah had personally known King Eldon, and he had drawn on his passion, as well as his humility. Sliding the heavy silver bracelet off his wrist, Isaiah traced the red tattoo that marked his pale skin. He had been but an ordinary Guardian when he was branded as the most lethal vampire hunter of all. Daniel’s despair over Emily’s death had unleashed a rage in Isaiah, borne of compassion, and fuelled by the insatiable need to fix something that had been broken. Daniel hadn’t always been the hard, unyielding man he was today. He had been trained with Isaiah, taught that kindness and humility were traits to be cherished, by a King who had failed to listen to his heart. Eldon had learned from his mistakes, but Daniel had changed after Emily’s death. He would always be Isaiah’s best friend, but he would never be the same again.
Pale blue veins pulsed on Isaiah’s wrist, disappearing in spidery lines below the blood red of the tattoo emblazoned there. It had been both a blessing and a curse. For such a peaceful man, the violent urges were even more difficult to bear. Daniel had always questioned why it was Isaiah who had been chosen as the Slayer when he himself was the logical choice. Isaiah believed that it was for this very reason that Daniel hadn’t been chosen. To control the Slayer instinct was no easy feat; it required strength of a different kind. Power of the mind. Daniel, in his rage and the anger that he still held on to, after all these years, would have become a force of destruction. It was better, Isaiah mused, that he shouldered this burden, so that Daniel could perform his duties and not give in to the darkness.
He heard the soft whooshing that signalled someone was coming through the Gateway, a sound so soft that most Guardians weren’t aware of it, but Isaiah had spent over five hundred years in this Cathedral and he knew it’s every secret.
“What is it, Braddon?” he asked, the silver bracelet firmly back in place.
“It’s Rayna,” Braddon answered, “she wants to see him.” Rayna, for all intents and purposes Rafe’s sister, given that they shared a mother, was a she-wolf, and a member of the Lunar pack. Still, Isaiah was surprised that she would want to visit her half-brother. Rafe and Rayna had never had much of a relationship. Rayna had been born of Vivienne and Grayson’s union, after Grayson had defeated Rafe’s father, but the bad blood between their fathers had ensured that the half-siblings had never seen eye to eye.
“Would you like me to bring her in?” Braddon asked.
“Yes,” he nodded. The wards were never brought through the Gateway, but, as Rafe was still in the infirmary with Channon, Rayna would have to come to the Cathedral to see him.
Braddon did not stay to assist. Having brought Rayna through, he disappeared almost immediately.
“Where’s my brother?” Rayna asked immediately. She seemed uninterested in her surroundings, despite the fact that she had never set foot outside the City. Isaiah admired her singular purpose.
“He’s here,” Isaiah assured her, “but he’s not well. May I ask why you want to see him?”
“He’s my brother,” she replied haughtily. “I want to see for myself that he’s okay. After what happened to Channon. And… my mother.” The mention of Vivienne broke her strong façade and her face crumpled for just an instant.
“Are you all right?” Isaiah asked gently. “Vivienne’s death was a terrible…”
“I know what it was,” Rayna interrupted. “And I don’t want to talk about it with you. I want to see my brother.” Satisfied that she was here with only good intentions, Isaiah acquiesced.
“I’ll take you to him.”
Rafe heard the footsteps approaching and assumed Isaiah was making another of his frequent visits to check on them. Channon was healing remarkably, but Isaiah refused to allow her out of bed, much to her chagrin. She was as stubborn now as she had been as a child, Rafe mused. Before their relationship had grown into something stronger, Channon had been his friend. He had known her her whole life and they had always had a volatile relationship. They clashed as often as they got along, but it worked. Channon challenged him and would not be taken for a fool, and Rafe loved her all the more for it. She was the perfect Omega. It was too bad that Caleb saw it too. In truth, although Rafe had insisted Channon fulfill her duty, it had crucified him to think of her with Caleb. She was the love of his life. It was bittersweet that Channon defying the Alpha’s claim had resulted in his own mother’s death. Rafe felt as though he had been forced to choose between them.
Channon had not stopped apologising for failing to protect Vivienne. Even now, she was playing it back, over and over, trying to figure out what more she could have done – if she could have prevented it.
“If I had just accepted Caleb’s advances,” she muttered, “Vivienne might still be alive.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“But if I had…”
The footsteps stopped outside the door and Channon promptly stopped speaking, her mouth
snapping closed. Rafe knew something was amiss when her eyes widened, and he glanced over his shoulder just as Rayna took her first tentative step into the room.
“What are you doing here?” Rafe demanded. Rayna froze where she was, only just inside the small room.
“I came to see if you were okay,” she announced. Channon squeezed Rafe’s hand, but the gesture was unnecessary. Rafe’s next words were no softer spoken, but they clarified his meaning.
“You shouldn’t be here, Rayna. It’s dangerous. The Alpha has made it clear that the pack is not permitted to see me.”
“I don’t care.” She was as stubborn as he was, hardly surprising given that both of their fathers had been Alphas. They had inherited their arrogance and pig-headedness.
“He will hurt you,” Rafe insisted, in a low, guttural growl. He refused to look at her, but Rayna pushed forward, coming to stand on the other side of Channon’s bed so that he had no choice, unless he deliberately turned his face away.
“What do you want Rayna?” Rafe had killed Rayna’s father, Grayson, when he replaced him as Alpha. It pained him that he had caused her such grief, but he had never regretted it. It had kept Channon safe from Grayson’s clutches.
“Our mother is dead,” she announced boldly, “The only tie that we had in this world is gone and I thought I could finally just forget you ever existed.”
“There was nothing to forget,” Rafe challenged, not letting her finish. They had never had any relationship. Rayna had been born after Grayson had defeated Rafe’s father and he had never been able to accept the offspring of a wolf who had usurped his father’s place, in both the pack, and his mother’s life.
“You have always blamed me for your family’s collapse,” Rayna was getting angry now. “Did you ever consider that I had nothing to do with it?” She sounded almost rueful, as though she wished things could have been different between them.
“It doesn’t matter,” Rafe countered, “even if we had bonded as siblings, that bond would have died along with your father, the day I killed him.”
“You know, Rafe, you’re not always right,” she snapped. “In fact, sometimes you are so wrong I wonder how you ever led our pack. Has it ever occurred to you that I didn’t hate you for what you did? Yes, you killed Grayson, but you did it to protect her,” she pointed a finger at Channon, who was trying to act as though she wasn’t there.
“Oh, so now you’re saying you care about Channon?” Rafe gave a short bark of laughter that, even to his own ears, sounded childish and petulant.
“No,” Rayna shook her pretty head, “but I did care about my mother. Our mother.” This brought Rafe up short. Neither of the siblings noticed Channon as she hid a small smile, sensing where the conversation was headed.
“Might I remind you that when my dad transferred his affections to her,” Rayna pointed again, “no offense,” she added and Channon shook her head to indicate none was taken, “that he abandoned my mother. He cast her aside as if she meant nothing to him. You were older, you’d distanced yourself, so you didn’t see the toll that took on her. She had learned to love him over the years, probably just as much as she loved your dad… Oh, don’t look at me like that, I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s the truth. Suck it up.” Rafe looked suitably affronted and Channon had to stuff a fistful of her sheet into her mouth to keep from laughing.
“He just dropped her,” Rayna finished, “like that!” she clicked her fingers to emphasise her point.
“What a dog,” Channon declared and Rayna nodded agreeably. Rafe gazed between the two of them, dumbstruck.
“What are you saying?” he asked, his confusion evident.
“What I’m saying is that I never hated you for becoming Alpha,” Rayna explained as though speaking to a child, “although how you treated me after certainly didn’t endear me to you in any way.”
In his utter confidence that his sister would have hated him for what he had done, Rafe had treated her harshly. Well, not exactly. He had done something worse than that – he had treated her as though she didn’t exist. In his newfound status, he had spurned her and many members of the pack had followed suit. Rayna’s resentment had grown, and slowly the two had become strangers, sharing a mutual enmity toward one another.
“Okay, so you didn’t hate me then, but the fact is that we don’t get on,” Rafe retorted. “So why are you here now?”
“Because just when I thought I was free of you, something else occurred to me.”
“And what was that?”
All the arrogance faded from Rayna’s face, replaced by a deep sorrow.
“That you are the only family I have left.”
When he didn’t respond, Rayna inhaled a deep breath and turned for the door.
“Rafe,” Channon whispered, prodding him in the side. Rafe shook his head. He had been so startled by Rayna’s revelation that he had, temporarily, been physically unable to respond.
“Wait!” he half-yelled, as he watched his sister’s departing figure. She turned around warily. “I’m sorry,” he admitted. “I honestly didn’t know. All these years I… well, I’m sorry if I made you feel like you didn’t matter. Every member of the pack is valuable, and family… well, family is everything. I should have reached out to you. I always thought I was a good Alpha… it never even occurred to me that I might be the worst of them all. Maybe it’s better that Caleb…”
“No!” Rayna’s voice echoed around the small room. “No, Rafe, that’s not what I meant. You were a good Alpha… the best, from what I hear from the others. Caleb is a monster.”
“The others…?”
Not for the first time, Rayna looked hesitant.
“That’s what I came to talk to you about. Caleb has gone too far. He killed mom, and he won’t stop there. None of us are safe. He’s evil and the pack knows it.” Rafe narrowed his eyes. In wolf form, the pack operated on a single consciousness and he doubted that they would turn on their leader so easily.
“Okay, maybe not the whole pack,” Rayna admitted, as though reading his thoughts. “But there are a few of us who…” Now it was Rafe’s turn to interrupt, and when he did, it was as though his own life depended on it. He stepped forward, seizing her by her slim shoulders.
“Rayna, listen to me. Do not do this. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, or what they’ve been saying, but you don’t understand the pack hierarchy. He will find out and he will punish anyone who has even thought about defying him. And he’s within his rights to do so,” he added gravely. “The pack is not a democratic alliance… it is a society run solely by one man. Caleb is that man, and anything you do that intimates otherwise will be very, very bad for you.”
“But we can’t just let him carry on like this! He’s already threatened you, murdered a she-wolf… not to mention what he did to Cassandra.”
“I killed Cassandra,” Channon spoke up.
“Only because of what she did. I grew up with Cassie; she wasn’t a bad person. Caleb treated her like dirt; he used her and then humiliated her in the worst way. He preyed on her animal instinct and then fanned the flames until she couldn’t control herself. He’s not good for the pack,” she turned back to her brother.
“There’s nothing you can do,” Rafe reiterated. “Please Rayna, don’t get involved with this… rebellion, or whatever it is. It’s not going to work. I’m begging you, just go back inside and tell no-one that you saw me. Keep out of his way and you will be safe.”
“What about you? Word has it you’re being brought back in.” She was desperate for him to deny it.
“The Guardians should never have let me out. Too many wolves have been hurt because of me.”
“So you’re going to just lie down and die?”
“It’s not like that! Don’t you think I’d kill him myself if I could? I can’t beat him, Rayna; I’m too old, too weak.” Admitting it out loud was almost too much for him.
“I won’t let you die.”
“What?”
>
“I won’t let you die,” she repeated. “At the next full moon, the Guardians will release you into the City. Caleb is going to try and kill you. I won’t let that happen.”
“How do you propose to stop it?” Rafe smiled sadly.
“Dominic will challenge him!”
“Dominic?” Rafe’s eyes widened. He vaguely recalled that his sister and the young wolf were close, but Dominic was nowhere near a match for Caleb’s strength. “Are you insane? Dominic will get himself killed!”
“We have to try.”
“Is Dominic the one who’s got you wrapped up in this mess?”
“Give me a little more credit,” Rayna sneered. “My father was an Alpha and my mother was one of the strongest Omegas this pack has ever known. I can think for myself.”
It was hopeless trying to talk her out of it, Channon thought, although Rafe did his utmost to try and do just that. Eventually, only to set his mind at ease, Rayna half-heartedly agreed to stay out of trouble. Giving him an awkward hug, she left.
“She’s not going to listen to me,” he announced when she was gone. His face was greyer than before.
“No, she’s not,” Channon agreed.
“What on earth is she thinking? They can’t do this!”
“They have to try.” Her acceptance riled him.
“How can you say that?”
“Because come the next full moon you and I will be gone,” she spoke with such acceptance it sent chills down his spine. Any hope he had clung to that Channon would finally concede defeat and go along with Caleb to avoid her own death died at the finality in her tone. “And our pack will be left with a tyrant to rule them,” Channon continued. “They are the future… Rayna, Dominic, and all the brave young wolves who see him for who he really is. Someone has to challenge him. I hope that they do. I hope that they keep challenging him until someone finally overcomes the bastard. A lot of wolves might die before that happens, but it’s inevitable. Rayna is on the right side.”
Guardians of Summerfeld: Full Series: Books 1-4 Page 31
