Authors: Rebecca Royce
Leaning down, he growled his intentions aloud so they would hear them.
“Oh look, Penny, its wolf-boy. Should we turn him into a rat before we kill him or just kill him straight out?”
If the one on the left was Penny, that meant the one on the right was Charra. He’d hardly paid attention to them the first time he’d met them—all of his focus had been on Elizabeth. Now he regarded them as prey. They were neither tall nor short, standing, he would guess, at about five-feet-five. Like their height, they were of average weight. Their figures were nothing to write home about either. Bland brown hair, round faces, and small pug noses did nothing to improve their looks. All in all, they were the most unremarkable people he’d seen in a while.
They didn’t hold a candle to his Elizabeth, which must have been the reason their mother had chosen the type of curse she had inflicted on his mate. Jealousy. Pure and simple. These women were not in her league in external or internal beauty.
He leapt forward, catching Penny straight on the shoulders. They crashed together to the floor. She screamed, and his wolf shrugged. He hadn’t even done anything to the girl yet. His wolf had only wanted to show her how strong he was. Growling, he turned his eyes on Charra. She needed to see the hate in his gaze. If she had any brains in her head, she’d run.
“Kill him, Charra, kill him.” Penny’s shriek made his teeth ache to tear her throat apart.
The door to the bathroom swung open and Elizabeth screamed at the top of her lungs. Rex moved away from Charra. What was wrong? What had they done to her?
“No, don’t hurt him!”
He stopped his run. Him? She yelled like that about him? He was fine, why the hell hadn’t she stayed in the bathroom.
Elizabeth, go in there and lock the door
.
Charra must have realized what was happening because she lunged at him as he spoke with Elizabeth. “I can feel you talking to her, you freak of nature.” He whirled, ready to take off the woman’s head. Her mother would have to deal with only having one daughter returned.
The first blast rolled over his back. He’d been warded against most magic, thanks to his sisters-in-law. It wouldn’t work forever, but, for now, it seemed it was still intact. The twins could find a way around it, if they tried long enough, which meant he would have to make sure they didn’t get the opportunity.
Lips back in a snarl, he lunged at Charra. She would die first.
“Wait. I’ll kill her.” Penny’s voice cut through his haze. He turned around already knowing what he would find.
Can’t get to both of them.
His wolf told him what he already knew.
Penny had Elizabeth by the back of the hair. Why the hell hadn’t she gone back into the bathroom? Rex shook his head. No matter, he had to exist in reality and this was what was happening now. He called the shift onto himself. When he was fully transformed, he stared at Penny. “Let her go.”
“I don’t think you’re exactly in a position to dictate what we do with our slave, wolf.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her. There was no way she couldn’t see his intention to kill her in his eyes. “We have a problem. You aren’t going to be able to kill me with your magic. It’s not possible. And I don’t honestly believe you will harm her.” Rex restrained himself from clenching his fists. He needed to look calm and relaxed even though he was anything but.
Don’t worry, little witch
. He tried to sound soothing in her mind.
Don’t underestimate them
.
He wouldn’t.
“She is bound to us and she left us to go with you. We have every right to harm her.” Rex sighed. “What world do you live in?”
“Mine.”
Rex whirled around at the sound of a voice he’d not expected to hear in the room. He hadn’t smelled anyone coming or heard a sound, and yet there stood a man he’d hoped to never see again in his life. Well, he wouldn’t have minded witnessing the man’s death.
But like this? No. Not in a million years.
He could hardly breathe as he regarded the single figure leaning against the door like he had not one care in the world. His father looked exactly the same as the last time they’d been alone together. Kendrick Kane should have aged over the years—he’d been mated, which should have triggered his aging—but his father never seemed to.
Eternally thirty years old, at least on the outside, members of their pack often remarked how much their new alpha, Tristan, resembled Kendrick. But Rex didn’t see it.
He would never mix up the two. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, like the night had swallowed him up and spat him back out leaving a touch of itself behind, his father embodied all that was wrong in the world.
At the current moment, Kendrick didn’t have a smell. That meant he’d taken herbs that were better than the ones Azriel had for Westervelt, or Kendrick was dead. Rex didn’t suppose he could get that lucky. “Shouldn’t you be in Maine attempting to cause havoc on people who wish to never see you again?”
His father shook his head. “I can be many places. I can be all over the world in seconds. You’ve never understood how things could be, Rex.” Moving from the doorway, Kendrick limped slightly, a reminder Az had nearly managed to kill him recently. Rex smiled at the knowledge. His father was not invincible.
Not by a long shot. “Whatever you’ve done, whatever magic you’ve engaged in—I’m not interested in knowing about it. I never have been, never will be. And somehow, I’m not surprised by the company you keep.” His father was involved with the coven that had cursed Elizabeth. It all fit. Like finding like; evil teaming up with evil.
Are you prepared?
His wolf jarred him back to the present. Yes, he knew what his canine half asked him. Was he ready to fight his father?
This is the gift, isn’t it? This was the way he could
save Westervelt.
His wolf nodded.
This is the moment you’ve always known would come.
The white light would come, he would shift, and they would fight. He would not let Kendrick walk out of here with any ability to continue to attack his home in Maine.
Kendrick was injured. Rex might actually be able to kill him. And if not? His heart hurt at the thought. He’d be destroying Elizabeth’s life. Shit.
Why couldn’t this have happened
before I met her?
His wolf sighed.
Because it didn’t
.
“You know, I never would have found you, Rex. I had no idea you weren’t festering on the island with your brothers. But then your little friend over there called and let us know where you were.”
His father’s words blew over him like a cold wind dousing the flames in his soul.
Elizabeth had called them? He turned to look at her. She’d stopped struggling in Charra’s arms, her face pale. But it was her eyes that told him all he needed to know. Guilt. Yes, Elizabeth had done this.
His mate had betrayed him.
Chapter Twelve
The two wolves tore into each other. Elizabeth wished she were the fainting type because she would love to lose consciousness as she watched Rex, in his black wolf form, take a hit from whom she thought, from his conversation, was his father’s extended claws. Rex wasn’t as big as Kendrick, whose name she remembered from Rex talking about him, but he looked to be just as strong.
She couldn’t believe any of this was happening. The look in Rex’s eyes before he’d shifted had told her all she needed to know. He believed she had done this to him. And he wasn’t wrong. Not when it came down to it.
In a million years, she couldn’t have predicted Kendrick Kane would show up. She’d never seen him before in her life. Why would she have thought Drea would be in contact with him? She swallowed. On the other hand, she shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe evil simply attracted evil.
The wolves growled and snarled as they tore into each other. A piece of black fur torn from Rex’s body, flew across the room, and she cried out.
“I think you like wolf-boy.” Charra spoke in her ear, a whisper of evil traveling throughout Elizabeth’s spine. “Killing him will be so much better knowing the pain it will cause you.”
“You’re not going to kill him.” Liz spoke through clenched teeth. Her jaw ached and every bone in her body felt brittle. Any sudden movements and she feared her body might snap apart from the tension.
“Want to bet? Mom is going to let us take our turn hurting him before we destroy you.”
Elizabeth would never count Rex out of a fight. She could feel his fierce determination in her soul where it had settled when they had mated. If she ever got the chance, she would study whatever spell it was that bound mates together the way it did.
Now that she had him inside of her, she was never letting him go.
Well, if he was still speaking to her when this was over…
The door swung open to the hotel room with a bang. Next to her, Penny squealed.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. Only one thing ever made the twins happy and it was seeing their mother. Drea must have arrived.
“Enough, Kendrick. If you keep that up, you’ll kill him, and you promised me we would use him first.”
Kendrick grunted as he shifted back into his human form. Elizabeth flinched at the sight of his naked body. She hadn’t minded looking at Rex during his changes, but his father in the nude was not something she ever wanted to see. Evil seemed to radiate through his skin, like an infection which could be caught if she wasn’t careful. He made her want to go bathe in disinfectant.
Kendrick shook his head. “Whatever you want, my love.” What? Elizabeth swallowed back a shriek as Rex lunged at his father, teeth bared, and was slammed back against the wall.
Drea laughed. “Other witches might not be able to handle him, but he’ll never be able to beat me.”
Rex lay still against the wall, eyes closed, unmoving. Elizabeth struggled in Charra’s arms. Penny grabbed onto her, and between the two of them Liz knew she’d never be able to break away. Still, it didn’t stop her from trying. Her love was on the floor, maybe dead, and she wasn’t going to leave him there alone. Not while she had breath in her body.
“He’s not dead.” Drea addressed her directly. “Just stunned. He’ll stay frozen until we can get him back home to play with him. Although, I think it’s just adorable you’ve developed feelings for the Kane runt. Not that I blame you, mind you. I’ve been in love with a Kane my entire life.”
If Elizabeth could have growled, she would have. “You’re not his mate.”
“Oh, but I am. And I always have been. Right, Kendrick?” He nodded. “It’s right. And Rex isn’t a Kane. Not my son. His mother briefly woke up from her spell and had him with her actual mate. Of course, I had to kill the son-of-a-bitch. Couldn’t let him going around telling people what we had done. Anyone with a brain could have seen he wasn’t mine. Looks just like his mother, which I suppose confused people. Same dark hair, dark eyes.”
Elizabeth wanted to point out Kendrick had those same features, but he was still talking, and she wasn’t given the chance to interrupt as Charra kicked her in the shin to stop her. It hurt and she promised she’d get the other woman back just as soon as she got the chance.
“You don’t have to tell her anything, Kendrick. She’s just our slave. Her whole family is under our control. She takes care of my girls.” Kendrick sniffed the air. “She’s mated with Rex. I can smell it all over both of them.”
Drea raised a brown eyebrow. “Really? How fascinating. Bring them both back to the mansion. Maybe we’ll perform some tests.”
Mansion? Elizabeth had no time to contemplate what she’d just been told. Drea pointed at her, and she had one second to realize she’d just been attacked by a spell before everything went black around her.
* * * *
“Drea hit you pretty hard with her spell. You’ve been out for hours.” Her mother’s words penetrated her happy haze and she sat up fast, making the world spin for a few seconds before it finally righted itself. “Hours? Where is Rex? What have they done to him?”
Rex?
She called out telepathically and got no response. Her heart picked up in terror.
It didn’t have to mean anything. He’d ignored her in the hotel room too. Her mate thought she’d betrayed him, which was true. Only not in exactly the way he believed.
“The wolf? I haven’t seen him. Everyone is abuzz about the fact he’s here. But we’ve been locked up with you and he was not brought here.”
“Damn it.” That was not the answer she wanted.
“Elizabeth, language, please.”
She looked down sheepishly at her mother’s rebuke. Apparently, no matter how old she got, her mother would have the ability to make her feel like a child. “Sorry.” Her mother laughed. “I suppose if there was ever time for swearing, it’s now. By the way, not to bring up a bad topic, but you are looking less … distorted than you did when you left.”
“Really?” She touched her face. She’d never been able to see herself cursed. The back of her neck tingled in the strange way it had been doing since she’d mated with Randolph. “More like myself?”
“Exactly. Not quite there yet, but closer.”
Elizabeth stood up, needing to move. “It must have to do with the mating. Where are the others?”