outstretched like he wanted to snap his neck.
“Don’t you touch him!” I shouted, and pulled against the guys holding my arms.
Caleb laughed. “Oh, you are a tasty treat. I can see why Talbot might hesitate bringing you in. I can imagine that he wanted you for himself.”
“Father,” Talbot said, “I told you, I was bringing her to you all along.”
“I am joking, my son,” Caleb said. “Only joking.”
My eyes flitted from Talbot to Caleb. Didn’t Gabriel tell me that Caleb was the one who was behind the attack on Talbot’s parents? Wouldn’t
Talbot know this? How could he call Caleb Father? Why would he even be helping him? Then again, for all I knew now, Talbot’s entire story could have been fabricated. His being the last Saint Moon could be a total lie. Except the way Gabriel stared at him, as if looking at a ghost, made me wonder otherwise.
But before I could say anything, Caleb snapped his fingers, and the guys who held me let go of my arms and pushed me toward Caleb. I stumbled forward. Caleb grabbed my face with one of his hands, cupping my chin with his long fingers. His fingernails jabbed into my skin. I could barely hear Daniel shouting at his father over the pounding of my pulse in my ears. My muscles seared with a burning pain more intense than I’d ever endured before.
“It was nice of you to dress the part. Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.” He looked me over from head to toe. He trailed the fingers of his free hand down my arm, making my skin crawl under his touch. He leaned in, his mouth close to my ear. “My, what nice assets you have, my dear.”
“Better to burn you with,” I said, and swung my arm up with a flash of power and smashed my silver bracelet against the side of his cheek.
Caleb screamed. He let go of my face and slammed my arm away from him. A large angry burn blistered up along his cheekbone.
My arms went up in a defensive position, but before I could act, three of Caleb’s boys were on top of me, binding my arms and legs. I kicked and screamed and tried to flail as they forced me to my knees. Caleb glared down at me, rage burning in his eyes.
“Who let her wear silver in here?” Caleb shouted. “Tell me!”
He scanned the boys in the room. I could hear them all take in a breath. They all feared Caleb—their father, so to speak.
Jude stepped forward from beside Talbot, his head still bowed submissively. “I am sorry, Father. I did not realize her bracelet was a danger. I thought it was just a trinket with her costume.”
“Well, take it off her now!” Caleb roared.
Jude shot him a look, then ducked his head even lower and approached me. One of my captors held out my arm to him. I stopped struggling and tried to meet my brother’s eyes as he stooped in front of me. But he wouldn’t look at my face.
“I know there’s still good in you, Jude,” I whispered. “You were always such a saint … and now you’re lost. But you’re still my brother. You wouldn’t have called to warn me if you didn’t still care.”
“I am not your brother,” Jude whispered angrily. “You betrayed me. This is my family now.” Jude’s hands hesitated over my bracelet, anticipating the burns.
“What kind of father would force you to hurt yourself?”
“You hurt me worse than any burn.” He snatched my bracelet off my wrist and cast it aside. He shook his hand as little blisters bubbled up on his fingertips.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I’m your sister. I want to take you home.”
Jude finally looked me in the eyes. His flashed with silver at first, but then softened into the violet eyes that were a mirror image of mine. My brother was in there somewhere. “Just don’t pull a stunt like that again, and you’ll be fine,” he whispered. “It’s Daniel he wants.”
“I can hear you,” Caleb said. “Superhearing, remember?”
“Sorry, Father.” Jude lowered his head and stepped aside as Caleb approached.
The welt across Caleb’s cheekbone had lessened some, but it was still a bright pink. He sneered in my direction, but then walked past me to
Gabriel, who was held by only one guard now.
“I’m impressed,” Caleb said. “I set a trap for one nuisance and ended up with two. It’s fitting that you’ll see what I’m going to do here. Since ultimately, this all comes down to you and your pack.”
“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked.
Caleb’s crooked smile danced on his lips. “We both know Sirhan is dying. And when he does, I’ll be there for the challenging ceremony.”
“You’re not wolf enough to show up there alone,” Gabriel said. I could practically hear the bluff in his voice. “You weren’t even wolf enough to try to kill Sirhan yourself. You made your little friends do it, and they ended up killing Rachel in the process. The pack doesn’t forgive easily.”
“I’m more wolf than you,” Caleb said. “You sit up on your mountain, teaching werewolves to go against their nature, to be peaceful. Thanks to you, they won’t be ready for the fight I’m bringing their way. As you’ve seen, I’ve been recruiting my own pack. And my boys and me, we’re coming to that challenging ceremony, and we’re taking over. We’ve collected enough money to buy off the other challengers, and we’re strong enough to fight anyone else. I’ll spit on Sirhan’s corpse before they lower it into the ground. I’ll have everything that should have been mine years ago. And the best part is that you’ll just stand by and watch it all happen, won’t you?”
Gabriel didn’t answer. He just stared at Caleb, as if unmoved by his admission.
So my fear had been right? Caleb wanted to take over Sirhan’s pack, and Gabriel was going to do nothing to stop him? If Caleb was capable of practically overrunning the city with fear as the leader of the Shadow Kings, what would happen if he became the alpha of the strongest pack in the country?
It would be Gevaudon all over again.
Caleb’s eyes seemed to flash with satisfaction at Gabriel’s blank response. “Coward,” he said, and cuffed Gabriel across the forehead with his fist.
Gabriel grunted. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp. His captor let go of him, and he crumpled to the ground. The Shadow Kings were apparently good at knocking people out with a single blow. I wondered if that was how they had pulled off so many crimes without eyewitnesses.
“Now, I just have one last thing to take care of.” Caleb turned around, smiling like a jackal, and approached Daniel. “I thought you were gone for good until Jude told me where to find you,” Caleb said to Daniel. “I was surprised you’d come back. Last I’d heard, you’d split town when I left with your mother. And then you just dropped off the map. I was hoping you were dead. I told your mother you were.”
Daniel almost flinched at the mention of his mother. It had been almost four years since she chose Caleb over him. “And where is she? I’m sure you have her on a leash around here somewhere.”
“I killed her.” Caleb pulled a short knife from a sheath on his belt. “With this.”
“What?” Daniel struggled to break free. He always said he didn’t have a real mother, but I knew he still cared about her.
“She kept bitching about wanting to come back for you. So I told her you were dead. But that only made her angrier. She wouldn’t shut up, so I stabbed her. I guess you can say it’s your fault she died.”
Daniel’s nostrils flared. “So if you didn’t want to find me then, why do you want me now? I assume this trap was set for me?”
“Quite right,” Caleb said. “I’m glad your friend told us where to find you. Saved me the trouble of doing it myself before the challenging ceremony.
Thing is, I thought Jude looked familiar when Talbot brought him home to us. He’d been living on the streets like a stray. Most of my boys were.
That’s the nice thing about desperate teenagers—they’re easy to dominate. You tell them they belong, and they’ll do pretty much anything you ask.
But I didn’t realize who Jude was until one night he decided to entertain us with the story of how he became a werewolf. Seems his sister Grace and her boyfriend, Daniel, had something to do with it. You can imagine how much I enjoyed listening to his story from the balcony, and how badly I wanted to know more.
“He tried to run when he realized who I was and what I wanted. But then I helped him see we had something in common. We’d both been betrayed by our families. Sirhan would rather leave his pack in the hands