Wolves’ Bane (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

The Scholars

Cal popped open one of the hidden hatch doorways located in the library that would take him to the underground world of the scholars. He didn’t like going down there—none of the Hunters did. Why would they? It was a reminder of what could happen if one of them lost their Huntress. The rest of their mortal years would be spent aging and eventually dying, rarely venturing topside, focusing solely on decoding the texts. A shudder ran through him at the thought. Some Hunters actually placed the scholars on a pedestal—an honored rank to be achieved at a tremendous cost. The scholars called the shots, their time spent analyzing the texts gave them a position of power over the Hunters. Up until Kelly came, they were the only ones who could find the Huntresses, so the Hunters had deferred to their expertise in many of their decisions.

Of the twelve remaining scholars all had lost their Huntresses before they had actually bonded, so they didn’t know the pain of finding and then losing their soul mate. All except one, that was. Luther, Cal’s father. He was the only one who’d had a Huntress, had bonded with her, had a child with her, and then had lived to tell about her death at his hand.

Cal moved down the dimly lit walkway that would take him into the scholar’s den and living quarters. It wasn’t a dreary place, although whenever he came down here, his mood always shifted to a melancholy state. The atmosphere of the interior was updated to suit the needs of the time. Satellite TV, a games room, training facility, all of the amenities scholars of any age would enjoy. But even with all of that, the place just reeked of loneliness and longing. He shuddered again at the thought of soon joining their ranks, doomed to spend the rest of his life shut up in the basement of the only home he’d ever known, cut off from the world, and all by his own doing.

Cal rounded the corner that would take him to the den where the scholars spent their time decoding the texts. He knew he’d find his father there. The old man was constantly working, forever trying to find answers. Perhaps he was searching for some measure of forgiveness as well, Cal didn’t know. He tended to avoid speaking with the man at all costs. He had, after all, killed Cal’s mother—a mother Cal only dimly remembered, but certainly missed, like a hole in his soul that had never been repaired. At least until he’d bonded with Morgan.

Yeah, and you’re about to rip that hole right open again and stuff it full of self-loathing and anguish.

“Caleb!” A booming voice echoed behind him as a strong hand landed with a thump on his shoulder. “So nice of you to come down and visit.”

Cal turned. “Stephen, how are you?”

Stephen was the latest of the Hunters to lose his Huntress, which made him the youngest of the scholars at only twenty-seven. It was a blow to their ranks to have lost such a young Hunter, but fate had given him his Huntress, and Lazarus had taken her away only five years ago.

“Doing well.” Stephen adjusted his glasses and ran a hand through his long brown curls. “You know.” He waved his hand around him. “It is what it is.” His face brightened in the next instant as a wide smile broke on his face. “I’ve heard that you found your Huntress.”

Cal nodded as he darted his eyes around Stephen, searching the dimly lit depths of the den for his father. “Yep.”

“And you bonded with her?”

“Yep.”

“What’s she like?”

Cal swiveled his gaze back to Stephen and caught such a look of longing and curiosity in the man’s eyes that he had to look away again. “She’s great, more than great, but I really need to talk to Luther. Do you know where he is?”

Stephen pointed toward the other end of the room, his face scrunched into a frown. “Yeah, he’s over there, nose buried in the texts as usual.” He leaned in close and whispered, “What do you want to speak to him for?”

Cal met Stephen’s eyes once again. “I’ve just got some questions for him. Would you mind giving us a few minutes alone?”

Stephen shrugged. “Sure, of course.” He moved around Cal to the door and paused. “You should stop by the dining hall before you leave. Chat with some of the other men. They’d probably like that.”

Cal forced a smile. “I can’t stay too long tonight, but I’ll come back soon, okay?”

Stephen nodded. “Sure, sure, Cal. It was nice seeing you anyway.”

Cal nodded and moved toward the back of the den, barely making out a human form among the stacks of old leather books and various scatterings of paper.

“Luther?” Cal squinted in the limited light, not sure if the old man was bent over a text reading or if he was bent over and asleep.
Or dead maybe?
“Father?”

The old man’s head jerked up. Cal hadn’t actually seen him in a number of years and was surprised by how much he had aged in that time. Gnarled hands, bent and withered body, long yellowing beard—he looked ninety years old when really he wasn’t a day over fifty-five.

He stared at Cal with cold dark eyes but didn’t say anything. They’d never shared the loving bond one would expect between father and son. Cal had been raised by the other Hunters, many of the men acting as more of a father than he’d ever know from his actual dad.

“Father? How are you?”

Luther narrowed his eyes and nodded. “You’ve just bonded with your Huntress.”

It sounded more like an accusation than a fact. Cal merely nodded as he pulled a chair out from the table and seated himself across from Luther, not sure where to start or how to approach a topic that was so taboo among their kind.

“What is it you want, Caleb?” His tone was harsh, cold and hostile, his glare enough to tell Cal how unwanted he truly was.

Cal cleared his throat, suddenly wishing he had something to drink. “I came down here to ask you a few questions about your Huntress. About Mother.”

Luther flinched at the words. He raised a wrinkled hand, curling it into a fist to lie on the table. “I have nothing to say on the matter.”

Cal sucked in a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. As much as he was loath to be there, this man was the only one Cal could speak to about Morgan, the only one who had the answers he needed. “Father, I know that it’s not the easiest subject for you to discuss. It isn’t exactly a conversation I covet, but I need some guidance.” He laid his hands on the table. “I’ve come down here to speak with you because I need your help.”

Luther’s bushy brows rose, which Cal took to be a positive sign. At least the old guy was listening to him.

“I have bonded with my Huntress, but we have a problem.”

“She’s his bride, isn’t she?” Luther’s words were hardly audible, a whisper escaping his lips.

A chill ran through Cal as he nodded. “We don’t know for sure but we have our suspicions.”

Hissing a long breath, Luther pushed himself back in his chair. “I’m sorry to hear that, Caleb. It is a terrible burden to carry.”

Cal nodded. “The Oracle has portended some tragic events to come.”

“She will die.” Tears sparkled in the old man’s dark eyes and Cal knew at that moment that he wasn’t the only one who had a hole in his heart where his Mother used to be. “You’ll have to kill her.”

Cal gulped down the lump in his throat and nodded. “She will betray us—that has been foretold.”

Luther shook his head and laid his finger down on the book in front of him. “It isn’t written here.”

Cal frowned as he gazed down at the text. He couldn’t decipher the meaning of any of the words there, but he recognized the inscriptions. He’d seen the texts before, watched as they wrote themselves—the language and the code difficult to master even for the most experienced of the scholars. “No, the Oracle has decreed it will be so. My Huntress will betray us.”

Luther nodded as he laid his shaking hand down, his palm flat on the page in front of him. “That is a truly unfortunate thing. I would not wish it on anyone, let alone my son. I am sorry, Caleb.”

Cal fidgeted in his seat, wanting so badly to get the hell out of there, hating the intimacy of their conversation—hating the pity he felt rolling off his father. He gulped down a rising lump of bile. “How did you do it? How could you kill your Huntress, my mother?”

Luther turned his palm upward and shrugged. “There is only one way.”

“I won’t know how to do it if you don’t tell me. I can’t separate myself from her. I’ve tried but she’s under my skin. She’s in my heart. I want to be with her constantly. I can’t get enough of her.”

Luther nodded, his eyes soft, his lips downturned. “You must break the bond with her.”

Cal sat back. “What?”

“You must break your bond with her in order to rid yourself of those feelings.” He sighed as he closed the book in front of him, causing a cloud of dust to rise. “You must sleep with another—that’s the only way. If you betray her with another woman, the bond will break and you’ll stop feeling that connection—that need. It will make it easier for you to do what you must do.”

Of course, so simple. Destroy the link by betraying her in the flesh. Basically, his father was admitting to adultery and the idea of it made Cal’s stomach roil with disgust. “What about her powers? Did breaking the bond make her weak?”

Luther raised his gnarled hands slightly as if to indicate indifference. “Physically, no. Her powers remained. She had strength, magic, all her training intact.”

“Emotionally?” Cal gulped his revulsion at the idea.

“She will be…” He paused, wiped his mouth. “Distraught, perhaps slightly disoriented, as you will be. It passes with time.”

Cal raised his hand to cover his mouth, hiding his look of horror.

“I pity you, boy. It would be best if you fall on your sword after it is done. Otherwise, you’ll live the most horrid life. The guilt is more than I can bear some days, even with the bond severed.”

Cal pushed his chair back. “You regret it, then?” He choked back his next words, unable to ask Luther if he truly regretted murdering Cal’s mother and condemning him to the stigma of being the only son of a Huntress killer.

Cal’s father ran his hand along the leather binding of the text, his eyes trailing his finger’s movement. He shook his head. “No, I did my duty to the Order. The sight of her lips on that beast’s mouth was all I needed. She was not fit to be a Huntress. She was not fit to be my mate.” An edge of anger lined his words. “You’ll know as soon as she sees him. If she is truly his bride, you’ll know right away. My advice to you is to make the killing blow then. Don’t wait. It only gets more painful the longer you wait. Your mother betrayed us and she paid for it with her life. Her death had honor and I do not regret bringing her that honor.”

Cal flinched at the words, not liking the connection his mind was making to his mate, imagining Morgan’s lips meeting Lazarus’s. “And if we’re wrong? If she isn’t his?”

Luther shrugged. “Then he’ll kill her anyway. Be merciful, because if you aren’t, Lazarus will use her ruthlessly. Only his bride can get close enough to wound him—you know that.” Luther raised his eyes to meet Cal’s. “You must break the bond so that you don’t fail, Caleb. If she betrays the Order, she deserves to die.”

Cal nodded, his lips clenched tightly as a sickening feeling rolled over him. “I’ll do what I must do.”

His father nodded as he shifted his eyes back down to the texts. “You’ll do your duty.”

Cal grimaced, not liking the old man’s command, but not being able to deny it either. Without another word, he left the den and quickly made his way out of the underground. He needed to get some distance from the eerie catacombs, at least while he still could.

Because before long, you’ll be down there for good and there will be plenty of father-son bonding time,
he thought bitterly as he closed the hatch, locking away the scholars and ridding his mind of their doomed existence—for the time being anyway.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Broken

I felt like crap. Not the flu or cold kind of crap, but the emotional stress kind of crap. My body yearned for Cal and yet my mind fought that craving every step of the way. He wanted me, but he didn’t. He cared for me and yet didn’t. I was confused and hurt and most of all, just wished it could be easier. Why was I doomed to such a sucky love life? Why couldn’t Cal just set aside whatever ridiculous reason was behind him being so fearful of loving me? I couldn’t understand, and wondering about it made me conjure up the millions of faults he must have found in me in our short time together to make him want to behave in such a deplorable way.

I ran on the treadmill, drowning my thoughts in another punishing uphill climb. I’d woken up feeling emotionally drained, but had forced myself to come to the training room where Lance waited for me, as usual.

And there was the other issue for me, Lance. He was behaving exactly as I would want Cal to behave. Courteous and patient, caring and strong. He listened to me, guided me, and most importantly, laughed with me.
Why couldn’t he be my Hunter?
I wiped my brow with my sleeve. I shifted my eyes to him as he jabbed and punched at one of the hanging heavy bags. It would be so much easier with Lance. And yet…

I sighed.

And yet, I just didn’t feel the same thing around Lance. He didn’t make my heart speed up and my stomach drop with excitement. He didn’t have me waiting on every word or smoldering under every glance. Even when Cal was being a dick, I still wanted him. My body ached for his touch, and I was burning up with want. Giving up a night with Cal had been torture. It had taken everything in my power to keep myself from flinging the door open after I’d slammed it in his face, wanting so badly to chase him down and fly into his arms.

But I hadn’t. Instead, I’d spent a wakeful night tossing and turning and wondering where Cal was. When my eyes finally drifted closed, I zoomed straight into dreadful nightmares of Jimmy and blood, death and violence. Nightmares that I knew would disappear if I were cuddled in Cal’s arms.

I sighed again as I punched the stop button with my finger. I’d run the equivalent of ten miles, and I felt quite done with it.

“Had enough?” Lance asked as he laid his hand on the punching bag to stop its movement. “Want to do some grappling or maybe try out a few of the other weapons?”