by Mason Sabre
The water from the river lapped at Tom’s shoes. It would move higher, reaching the bank, ready to burrow away again at the earth. “We need to move him,” she said, glancing back to Cade. “Before the tide comes in.”
Cade nodded, then he called to Jon and Clay. “Bring a blanket. You will have to carry him.” He looked back to Gemma. “We’ll take him back to DSA.”
Something clanked in the trees just above Tom. Gemma’s hearing was better than Cade's. She was tiger, he was wolf. Their senses were heightened, but tigers always trumped wolves. She paused, hand resting on the tree where Tom leant. “Is someone else here?” She asked, aiming her question at Henry.
He stepped left.
“Don’t move,” Cade said, gun aimed fully again.
Henry let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. “I believe what you seek can be found at the foot of the black tree”
Cade frowned, and unease niggled at him. “Stay there …” He stepped closer to the bank where Henry was. His gun arm was raised, his finger on the trigger, again.
“Cade, please.” Every time she saw Cade aim that gun at Henry, something in her tightened. She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t lose either of them.
Cade shook his head. “He’s done something.”
“No …” She was looking the other way. To where the trees shaded everything from sight. There was something. She nodded to Jon and Clay as they came to her. They made their way around Cade, around Henry, keeping out of the way. “Have you got him?” she said to them. She couldn’t leave him. Not until he was safe in their hands. She’d never forgive herself. But she couldn’t leave Henry and Cade to each other, either.
“Yes.” Clay pushed in beside her, crouched down to hold Tom. “You take care of him,” she said. “Just because he is Human, you don’t fuck around. You treat him like he is the most important person in your life.”
Clay nodded, and only then did she let herself move and edge around to where the land cut away. She went to climb up, but Cade put his hand up.
“Wait,” he said.
“There’s something here.”
“Who is it?” His question was to Henry. He aimed his gun again. “Who?”
Henry gave no response, and Gemma pulled herself up onto the back of what looked like the remains of an old camper van that had sunk into the ground or been put there to act as a sturdy floor. She peered behind it. “Oh shit.”
Margaret.
She was bound in iron chains. They latched around her legs, her arms, her torso, but someone had put a heavy chain around her neck, her throat. Gemma dashed to her and pulled the first chain from around her neck. Her face was blooded, bruised. Blood ran down the side of her temple. Her lip was cut too.
“May I suggest that you leave her bonds in place,” Henry said. He’d pivoted in place, but didn’t move any closer. “The chains give you safety.”
“Why?” Gemma had taken the one off her neck. It hung heavy in her hands.
“If you grant her freedom, it will be your undoing.” He made a move then, moving closer to Gemma.
But Cade put himself in the way. “Stop.”
Henry didn’t stop. If anything, he moved more. “I mean you no harm.”
“Do not move,” Cade said, thrusting the gun toward him.
Henry reached a hand out, grabbed Cade’s arm. Cade fired, Henry ducked, twisted and got out of the way. The dart went wide, missing everyone and landing on the ground.
Henry let go of Cade and dashed past him to pick it up.
Cade fumbled in his pocket to reload, getting another dart out.
Gemma dropped the chains as an arm shot out to her. Margaret rose, dropping every piece of iron from her body.
“You fool,” she said. Something sounded loud and shrill in the air. It was coming from Margaret’s voice, but only other fae would have been able to tell what she was saying. She raised her hand and a fire crackled in her palm, a spinning ball of it.
“It was you?” Gemma said, trying to get out of the way. Trying to move, but her body felt too heavy. Margaret's words were too much as she muttered. They made her stay where she was. Her body wouldn’t listen to her. Her brain felt like it was about to pop inside her own head.
Margaret laughed. “It was all of us … Me, Trevor, Aaron …”
“You killed Jessica?”
She cocked her head to the side, shrugged. “I could take credit for all of that, but I was merely to tool for the job.” She nodded toward Aaron. “Just one more of you.” She aimed toward Gemma.
Cade clicked the dart into place, aimed and fired.
Henry leapt forward as Cade hit her dead centre of the chest. He hit down on the back of it. Plunging it into her ribs, through her chest, her bones and straight into her heart.
Chapter 43
Cade
Through all the chaos, all the concern for Tom and the death of Margaret, no one noticed the black Ford that had snuck its way into the parking space beside Cade’s car.
“Boss,” Clay called down. He and Jon had got Tom to the road now to safety. He was still out of it, but they opened Cade’s car and somehow pushed him inside, sat him up and elevated his arm.
Cade stepped out from the shadow of the trees and the strange trio he had found himself in. His chest tightened, his eyes went wide just for a second and raw fury roared through his veins threatening to set him on fire and make him explode. “Father,” he said. He shot a glance to Avery. “Go and help them with Tom.”
“I received a call from Auto-finder,” Trevor said. “Apparently something is wrong with the tracker on your mother’s vehicle.” He sniffed at the air, putting his head back to make a proper demonstration of it. Every muscle in Cade’s body tensed at the calmness of his father. He was like a cat, sly, luring. He would make anyone believe that this calmness about him … this controlled demeanour didn’t pose any threat, but Cade knew with unfortunate experience this was the worst time to underestimate his father.
Trevor walked over slowly to Cade’s car, then peered into it. “Hhhmm,” he said, making a sound deep in his throat. “Where are you taking him?”
“DSA,” Jon said, answering in a lower voice. He bowed his head to his alpha and stepped back like a good little soldier.
“Put him in your car and leave,” Trevor said.
“But I …” Both Clay and Jon turned to Cade. He was their boss. They were torn between the two powers of authority.
Cade gave them a nod, and then he looked back to Avery who seemed to be hovering on indecision. “Go with them. take him to DSA. Call his wife, Shelley Masters. Her details are in the address book on my desk. Send Clay or Jon to pick her up.” She would be a mess. Gemma would be a mess, but getting everyone out of there was perhaps the best thing he could do. “Tell them it’s on my authority he is to be given whatever care is needed. I’ll authorise it later.”
Clay and Jon moved fast and pulled a still unconscious Tom from Cade’s car to transfer him to one of theirs. Avery shot Cade one last, questioning look, but he needed to be out of there. He needed to be gone when Trevor blew his shit, and he sure would.
“Just see that Tom has everything he needs. There is no need for you be here now.”
When Avery, Clay and Jon left with Tom, Trevor unfastened the button at the centre of his jacket, the one button that was holding it closed. His shoes clicked against the ground as he walked. The shine on them was enough to give someone a decent reflection. He cleared his throat, but didn’t speak. He was the snake … the thing about to pop. He walked down by the side of the house, ignoring the Humans. They had gone inside, but they were at their windows, peering out, ready with their news for the morning papers to better solidify the Human hatred and fear of Others and what they could do … look what they did to themselves.
He didn’t go all the way over to Margaret, but he stopped enough so he could look at her. She was leaning against the tree again where Henry had originally tied her up. Still, Trevor said nothing. He walked wit
h the iciness of a man with no emotions, no feelings. He walked past Cade, his hands held behind his back. He walked all the way to the car and stopped just on the edge of the plastic sheet where Clay and Jon had dropped the door.
He went predatory still, and Cade was vaguely aware of Gemma moving behind him. She moved herself closer to Cade. So close behind him that her presence grew like a warmth that distracted him. “This should have been you,” Trevor said, his voice low, a fraction too calm.
Trevor’s hand shook as he turned himself around, almost like he was forcing himself to look away from Aaron’s body.
“Did you hear me?” he said, eyes pinning Cade with a look that was lethal and threatening. “This should have been you.”
His words slammed through Cade like an ice pick through the head that sliced all the way through his body, down his spine and into his gut where it exploded in a twist of raw emotion. He felt his face twitch, felt his wolf curl out his claws inside, coming alert at his master’s jolt of distress. But those words … that simple assault, was nothing anyone’s animal could fight against. Any last fragments of paternal love Cade felt for his father, shattered that instant and the chips fell away, trying to coat his heart in a protective shield.
He had known his father hated him. But with hate, there was always love. Cade hated Aaron. Hated who he was and what he had become, but he was still his brother, still pack, still the blood of his blood.
“If you think this promotes you to my second, you are gravely mistaken,” Trevor said, his voice a sharp blade against Cade’s chest. He stepped closer, his face cracking with the grief for Aaron, but Trevor used all his emotions like weapons, turning them into anger and lashing out. “You will never stand by my side. Tomorrow, you will denounce your claim.”
“That is all you care about?” Cade said. He didn’t shout, didn’t yell. “Your son lies dead behind you. The other one … and all you can think is what political move to make tomorrow? My brother is dead.” The last sentence shot from his throat with thorns attached, ripping themselves from him. He gasped in a breath, gathering himself.
“Do not act like you are upset about this.” Trevor turned, putting his back to his middle son. Cade stared at the back of his father’s neck, a further insult to his power as a wolf. To turn your back on someone who was clearly an enemy, was to say there was no fear.
Just as Cade was about to leave it, his father surprised him. He bowed his head, put his face into his hands and made a noise that sounded like a sob. Then he paused, stiffened. When he turned back toward Cade, he’d pulled a gun out.
“What are you doing?” Cade said, moving back instinctively, putting himself in the way of Gemma at the same time.
His father was trying to present such a controlled facade, but Cade could feel under it, feel the faint ripples that would bring fractures. He shook his head, slowly. “I should have killed you first,” he said. “They should have.”
“You are part of this?” he said, meaning Aaron and Margaret’s plight to punish the cross-breeders.
“No. But this comes from you. From you and her and that half-breed you keep. All of this.” He breathed in deeply. “It sickened your brother.” A pause, his eyes widened, gun raised. “It should have been you.” Then he pulled the trigger.
Cade twisted on instinct, moved away, slammed himself back into Gemma. She was pressed against his chest. The bullet hit him, catching him in the arm. The force made him spin, and he took Gemma down, but he pushed hard and pushed her away, so she fell back down the edge where they had found Tom.
Clutching his arm, he rolled and tried to push himself back to his feet, but his entire body tensed, his muscles went into a spasm and his neck felt like it would freeze where he was, cutting off his air. “Stop,” he tried to gasp out. He put his hand up, fought against the tiny teeth that ran through his blood now, hunting out his wolf in a similar way the silver nitrate had done to Danny.
He blinked hard. His vision turned into black jigsaw pieces. Gemma screamed somewhere behind him, but she was too far away from him to reach.
“I should have done this years ago,” Trevor spat. He was on Cade in a heartbeat. Cade couldn’t even lift his arm as his father dug his fingers into his hair and pulled his head up so they were face to face.
“Why didn’t you?” Cade spat back. His father’d had ample chances when Cade was growing up. Sometimes, the beatings he had taken from his father … he had wished for death. Wished that something inside him would just switch off so he could go, but he’d kept fighting. His spirit kept alive somehow. Now, as he stared into his father’s dark eyes, eyes that held no love, he realised that it was that very spirit his father hated the most.
Trevor brought the gun around, sweeping his arm in a dramatic manner that made time stand still. The gnawing in Cade’s blood stilled, as if he couldn’t feel the silver any more … his wolf silenced, but not sleeping, not hiding, not broken. No. He was waiting, hunting, a lone figure in the shadows.
A click. Trevor pulled the hammer back, pointed the nozzle at Cade’s chest.
“Do it,” Cade said. He ground his jaw, stared back at his father and didn’t default in holding his gaze. If his father was going to kill him, he wanted it to be, so he was staring him in the eyes when he pulled the trigger … so he was looking into the soul of his own child.
A tick twitched in Trevor’s jaw. “I never loved you,” he said.
In that instant, Cade’s wolf launched himself up and slammed into Cade inside, ignoring the silver, ignoring the pain it created as it invaded every single cell and hunted out the very thing that made him shifter … He roared, a roar so loud that it shook the earth around them. His eyes shifted, shades of midnight blue burst alive as the wolf demanded the control of Cade’s body. He raised his arm, brought it back down against his father and knocked him off him in one effective swoop.
Trevor rolled, slipped almost as his foot neared the edge where the middle of the ground got soft.
Cade rose, shook his head at his father and kicked the gun Trevor had dropped out of the way and toward the water’s edge. “You want to kill me, you do it properly. Not like a coward.”
Trevor scoffed, his lip twitching with that sinister laugh he had. “As you wish.” He pulled off his jacket. Tossed it to the ground close to the sunken van, and in the seconds he took to do that, his wolf had risen. He shone behind his eyes and coursed through his veins. He lunged, growling, screaming in a battle howl at his only son.
His father barrelled into him, hands and arms going around his waist, picking him up and then slamming him back to the ground. Cade lashed out, fisting his hand and smashing it right into Trevor’s face. The impact of it sent pain ricocheting along Cade’s arm, making the burn of the silver bigger, spreading. But he used that. The wolf in him pulled on that and used it to thrust himself forward, to push against his father.
Trevor hit him, smashing his fist into Cade’s side over and over and over until he couldn't anymore. Until all that was left was a frustrated growl and one last smash that brought a crack to echo inside Cade as his ribs buckled under the assault. They rolled together, though. Rolled into the dirt, coming off down the edge and slamming into the sand below.
Cade glimpsed Gemma. She was screaming, yelling, but the vampire had hold of her. He was holding her back. She kicked against him and thrashed to get out of his hold, but all he did was drag her back, drag her out of the path of the two fighting wolves.
Rolling away, Cade took a second to stay on his back and just breathe. He had to blink hard to see. His head pounded with the weight of a thousand bricks in it. But then his father was there, glaring down at him again. Trevor lifted his foot to bring it down against Cade’s chest, but Cade moved, and his father landed in the sand.
Trevor grabbed for his arm, pulled it back and then cracked it over the edge of the tree trunk that was there. It snapped with a sickening sound that seemed to echo in Cade’s mind. His wolf yelped hard, lifting his paw.
The loud sound of a shifting wolf shot out from Trevor. He was forcing his wolf, dragging him to come and fight with him. His face twisted and disfigured as he made his wolf come. Canines extended down and pushed his mouth open and making him seem like more of a monster as his face stopped between man and beast. He flexed out his hands then. His fingers turned to claws.
Cade tried to do the same, but one arm stiffened, going ramrod straight with the silver going through it, and the other sent sheering agony through him that tore a pain filled howl from his throat. The agony sliced all the way up along his body as the broken bones tried to move out of place. He couldn't shift, couldn't fight … his father had taken that from him.
“Can’t even shift,” his father spat, mocking him, his eyes the deep blue of his wolf now. “You are no child of mine,” he said, then he ran forward, arms out and clawed hands at the ready. His intent was clear in every movement. This was it. Live or die.
Cade moved backward, giving himself the extra fraction of a second to knock his father’s aim off. Trevor leapt into the air, his face twisted with so much hatred, so much loathing. Cade could hardly get out of the way when his father landed on him. He let out a yelp when Trevor’s claws sliced across his chest, splitting his flesh and blood spilt from the wounds, soaking his shirt.
Trevor smiled, a distorted smile mingled between man and wolf. He lifted his hand, pulled it back like he might backhand Cade across the face. But Cade pushed back, brought his arm up and his father lashed out, slashing through the air, through skin, through flesh, through life … across his son’s throat.
Cade gave a choking, death-throwing howl as he jammed his finger down and fired the gun he’d picked up when he fell. He fired the silver bullet into his father’s head.
Trevor fell back. Blood sprayed from his head. His eyes went wide with the shock of it, and he was caught between life and death, not realising it was over. He landed in the water and didn’t move.