by May, W. J.
I shook my hand, pretty sure he’d broken a finger.
“You don’t stand a chance against me. As a Grollic or human.” He snarled and then shoved me down against the stairs. Flexing his large biceps, he pulled a gun out from behind him, jamming the barrel against my forehead. “Get up and walk!”
Panic thrashed through me. In snippets, I tried to think of what to say to stop him. If I managed to speak in the language to control the Grollics, would it work on him in human form? My legs shaking, I still found the courage to stand. Terror hadn’t frozen me to the spot, although it should have. I realized my mistake now. I should never have trusted a Grollic. In my experience, they were all terrible monsters. Not one was worth saving. Anger burned inside. I clenched my fists and started marching in the direction he pointed – toward the cemetery. I knew I wasn’t invincible; that a gun would kill me, but at that point, I was hoping for options to show up as I went. Staying still or resisting would only get me killed faster.
He stayed close to me, the gun pressing into my back, right behind my heart. “Stop!” he barked when we reached Rebekah’s gravestone.
I froze. The anger I had felt just a moment before had liquefied to fear as we walked through the rows of marble stones. I needed the anger back. It was the only way I could try to control him the way the wolf book had taught me.
Marcus’ hand squeezed my shoulder. He shoved me down to my knees.
The barrel of the gun now pressed against the base of my skull.
I shut my eyes tight. “Please d—”
The gun flew away from my temple as Marcus stumbled away from me. He rolled on the ground and crouched, ready to pounce.
“Stay away from her!” A voice hissed.
My head swiveled toward the sound. Not Michael. I turned around, still on my knees.
Robert.
A very angry looking, yellow eyed Robert.
Marcus laughed. “Buddy!” He straightened. “I was wondering when you would get here. You want to finish it yourself?”
“What’re you doing, Marcus?” Robert glared at him. “I thought—”
“You thought wrong.” Marcus took a step forward, his body rigid with anger. He jabbed a finger at me. “That bitch needs to die. She’ll destroy all of us.”
“I’m your acting Alpha and I’m telling you to stand down.” Robert’s eyes never left Marcus.
“And I’m telling you, you’re wrong. Think of the law.” Marcus studied Robert’s eyes, chest heaving, as if he was waiting for some change. When he realized that Robert wasn’t going to change his view, he charged.
The sound of bone impacting bone made me cringe. They wrestled back and forth in front of me, blood flowing freely from punches and flinging into the air, to land on the gravestones around me. I wedged myself tight against Rebekah’s stone, trying to understand what was going on. Robert was fighting for me? Why?
“I’ll kill you too.” Marcus had gained ground, and had managed to throw Robert to the ground. The back of his head hit an upraised stone, breaking a piece of it off. His eyes went out of focus, switching from yellow back to hazel. He was still alive, but dazed.
Marcus grabbed the chunk of marble and held it high over his head. “You’re just like her. Weak.”
Robert gritted his teeth, filling up with some kind of energy that came out of nowhere, his eyes burning like fire. “My mother was never weak!” He threw Marcus off of him and attacked, his body starting to shift into wolf form.
Marcus rolled out of the way and began shifting as well.
“Don’t change!” I shouted my hands pushing straight out in front of me, trying to will them to stop.
They both froze and looked at me with bewildered animal eyes – like a deer in headlights.
Marcus recovered faster than Robert, racing toward him like a football player ready to tackle his opponent. Robert reached for something on the ground by him and held it close to him as Marcus jumped.
I jerked and covered my ears as the gunshot echoed in the nearly silent cemetery.
Red wetness began to cover Marcus’ back. He rolled off of Robert, clutching his chest. “W-Why?” His eyes faded back to their human blue. “I’m your pack, your brother.”
“We are brothers.” Robert got up, gun still trained on Marcus. He moved close to me, protectively standing in front. He fired the gun again and Marcus’s head fell back, his eyes staring vacantly up at the sky. “But you’re not my blood.”
Chapter 16
I stared at Robert, unable or unwilling to comprehend what he had just done. It sunk in slowly. “You killed him.”
“I know.” Robert slipped the gun into the back of his jeans. “He was going to kill you… and me as well.”
“Why? He said he wanted to help me.”
Robert gave me a strange look. “He lied.”
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know about you, but I have to leave.”
“I mean, about the body?”
“Leave it. The others will be here soon and can deal with it.” He turned to go, paused and turned around. “I just saved you. Can you turn off that voo-doo spell you shouted that stopped me from shifting?”
“Pardon?” I felt like I’d been hit on the head.
“You spoke some weird command or something. I can’t shift now. If I’ve gotta run, I need to protect myself.”
“I don’t know what I did.” Then I remembered, I’d yelled at them to stop. I leaned back against my mother’s stone for support. I’d done it again. Spoken Grollic.
“Can you hurry it up?”
“I don’t know to take it off.”
Robert began to pace. “You’re joking! I just broke the one law we were commanded to follow! I’m so fucked!”
“I’ll figure it out. Give me a sec.” I tried to think of something to undo the words. “Forget what I said,” I tried.
“Forget what? You didn’t say anything.” Robert stopped pacing and waited.
“Was that in English?”
“Yeah.” He grabbed me by my elbow and began moving out of the cemetery, toward the Jeep. “You don’t know how to use it, do you?” He lowered his voice, “Keep walking, fast.”
A car drove past and parked near the other end of the cemetery.
“I kinda only just figured out I could do it.” I held my purse tight, feeling the need to protect the Wolf Book inside. “Are you my brother?”
He nodded curtly. “I’m the sixth. You’re the seventh.”
“Oh.” I had no idea what that meant, but at the moment it seemed better to leave than the try to figure it out.
“Rouge!” Michael’s shout brought me out of my stupor.
I pushed past Robert and ran toward the sound. Michael stood by the Jeep, his face etched in worry. “You okay?” He scowled at Robert.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“There’s a tracker on the Jeep. When you didn’t come back, I checked it.” He opened the passenger door. “Get inside.”
“Wait.” I knew what he planned to do. “Rob saved me. He just killed Marcus.”
Michael hesitated a moment. Then looked to Robert for confirmation.
“Yeah.” Robert walked up and stopped in front of me, his hands crossing over his chest. “Now can you fix me?”
Michael and Robert glanced toward the cemetery at the same time.
“Get in,” Michael commanded. He pulled the passenger seat forward and I crawled into the back. “You, too,” he said to Robert before racing around to the driver’s side.
Robert complied. Michael revved the engine and did a fast U-turn. We drove in silence as he raced away from the church.
“You can drop me off here.” Robert tapped the window.
“No.” Michael focused on the road in front of him. “You’ve just given yourself a death wish by choosing Rouge over your pack.”
“I know.” Robert glanced back at me. “Can you fix me now?”
“What are you talking about?
” Michael asked.
“I somehow commanded Robert and Marcus to stop shifting.”
Michael smirked. “You did the wolf-thing again?”
“Apparently.”
He glanced in the review mirror and winked at me, then his face turned serious. “Looks like you’re coming with us, Rob.”
“Excuse me?”
“You can’t stay here. They’ll kill you.” Michael ignored the and-you-won’t questioning look Rob gave him. “You can’t shift so you’re vulnerable. Until Rouge can change you back, you need protection. I owe you that for saving her.”
Rob scowled at us. “It sounds more like I’m your prisoner.” At least he didn’t try to argue or jump out of the fast moving Jeep.
“I hope you don’t need anything from your apartment. We can’t go back there.”
“I don’t.” Rob rubbed his forehead. “We leaving for good?”
Michael nodded. “Just need to grab our stuff from the hotel.” He pulled into the hotel parking lot. “I’ll run in and grab it. You guys wait here.” He was out of the Jeep before either of us could protest.
Rob waited till Michael disappeared through the front doors. “Are you with him?”
I nodded, trying and failing, to avoid seeing the disgusted look on his face. It made me angry. What right did he have to be disgusted of me and who I chose to be with? “You know you’re lousy at hiding your feelings. You should work on that.”
“So are you.” He frowned and then grinned. “You look like mom.”
“Rebekah?” Wind seemed to rush by my ears.
“Yeah, mom.”
“She’s not my mother.” I looked out the window, wishing Michael would hurry. “She might have given birth to me, but she dumped me off and left me.” I shot him a quick glance. “She obviously didn’t do that to you.”
“Jamie, you—”
“My name is Rouge.”
He waved a hand in the air. “Whatever. You were Jamie when I knew you.”
I hesitated. “You knew me?”
“I was four when you were born.”
“Then why did Rebekah try to get rid me, change her mind and then change it again? Sounds pretty flighty to me.”
“She had to.”
Michael came out of the hotel with our stuff, stopping me from asking Robert why. Michael tossed the suitcases, my backpack and his laptop in the back of the Jeep. He slammed the back door and then jumped into the driver’s seat. “All set. Anywhere else we need to stop?”
Rob spoke up, “In Grand Island, I’ve got something I need to pick up.”
A thought occurred to me. “Have you had to run before?”
“A few times.” Robert shrugged. “But I’ve always come back.” He paused a moment, staring out the window with a sadness I didn’t understand at the time. “This time….well, I can’t now. Not ever.”
Michael paid the toll over the Grand Island Bridge, but he didn’t miss a beat in the conversation. “Why’d you have to run? You’re the Alpha of this pack here, aren’t you?”
“I was,” Robert corrected. “But I did have to run. My mother refused, but after she died, I left whenever he came back.” He glanced at me. “Always looking for you. He had the whole pack compelled to get you if you ever showed up. He preferred you alive, but dead would suffice as well.”
“Who?” Michael and I asked at the same time.
“Bentos, of course.”
Chapter 17
I gasped.
Michael nearly drove the Jeep off the road, swerving just in time, and getting a loud honk from a trucker’s horn.
“Bentos?” I whispered, glancing at Michael to see if he was okay.
“Yeah,” Robert sighed. “Son of a bitch is our father.”
That floored me. I felt the blood drain from my face, my fingers went numb and my heart stuttered.
“What?” I’d figured he was a great grandfather or something. “How can he still be alive?”
“There’s only one person who can kill him.” Robert shook his head. “Don’t you guys know any of this?” He pointed to the upcoming exit. “This is where I need to grab my stuff. Michael, you know about Bentos, right?”
“I know more than Rouge does.” That caught me by surprise, but I tucked it away for the moment.
“Bentos killed Michael and his sister.” I blurted out, receiving a dirty look from Michael in the rearview mirror. Obviously, he felt that now was not the time to spill secrets.
Robert laughed, slapping his knee. “Seriously? You’re one of the twins? The twins?”
“Apparently so. Didn’t realize we were famous among the Grollics.” Michael said, waiting at the light. “Where do we go? Left? Right?”
“Right. See the Topps grocery store? There’s a shop right beside it.” Robert unclicked his seatbelt. “I’ll be right back.” He hopped out of the Jeep and jogged inside the small office. It looked like a packing or shipping company.
“Do you believe him?” Michael asked me quietly.
I rested my hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his own. “I do,” I said.
“I don’t trust him completely, but… I do too.” He straightened when Robert came out of the store. “He’s going to be able to answer a lot of questions you have.”
“Do you believe Bentos is still alive?” I couldn’t bring myself to ask what he thought of Bentos possibly being my father.
“I do. For years I wanted to kill him myself. He disappeared about fifteen years ago; just up and vanished. Now I’m starting to wonder if it was because of you.”
Robert opened the door, tossed a knapsack on the seat beside me and clicked himself in. “Let’s go. Tony, in the shop, said the pack is looking for me. We need to get out of here.”
Michael pulled into a parking spot.
“I said—”
Michael turned on him, his eyes starting to glow blue. The mood in the Jeep reached all new levels of tenseness. “I know what you said, but get this; I’m not your pack. You’re not my leader. You don’t boss me around. You’re in this vehicle because you saved Rouge, because she wants you here. The moment she says otherwise, you’re gone.”
“Robert nodded his understanding, his face set in stone, eyes fixed on Michael’s but not glowing Grollic yellow. Not yet. “Trust is earned. It’s a two way street. I’m not here for you. If I had the choice, you’d be lying beside Marcus. You’re here because of Rouge.”
“Can we just get out of this hell hole?” I interrupted them. The last thing we needed was a male showdown in the Jeep with a whole pack of Grollics on their way to rip us to shreds.
Neither spoke, but Michael pulled out of the parking space and headed back to the highway. It was quiet for a long time.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Rob, you said only one person can kill Bentos. Do you know who it is?”
He nodded. “You really don’t know anything, do you?” He sighed. “I’m Bento’s sixth child. It was believed that only the male’s carried the Grollic gene. I don’t know if evolution changed it, our environment or if it’s been different all along and nobody knew, but you’re Bento’s daughter. His seventh child. The Seventh Mark.” He pulled his shirt collar down, revealing his birthmark. It was darker than any of the others I had ever seen. “Only you can kill Bentos – and he wants you dead.
Impossible. Right? “Why?” I whispered.
“He controls the Grollics. Now you control the Grollics. Mom pretended you died in childbirth. When Bentos finally believed her, he left. She went and got you and named you Jamie. Benjamin is the name that’s supposed to stop the curse from happening. Bentos means Benjamin, so Mom named you Jamie to try and stop the curse. It obviously didn’t work.”
“Why’d she get rid of me if she wanted to keep me?”
“Bentos came back. He would have killed you if he knew you were alive. She gave you away to protect you. When I heard about the incident on the west coast, I figured it was you.” He turned in his seat, the highway light
s flashing against his amber eyes, making them look yellow. “I knew you’d come back here. What I don’t know is how you learned to compel the Grollics.”
I reached for my purse and pulled out the Wolf Book. “I found this.” I tossed it in his lap.
Robert lurched away from it, as if the leather burned him. He pushed it away. “Where the hell did you find it?”
“At a used book store.”
Michael spoke, his eyes still on the dark highway in front of him. “It found its way to her. Do you know what it is?”
“I remember Bentos used to carry it around with him. He freaked and tore the town apart when he lost it. I always thought my Mom had stolen it and that was what got her killed.”
I leaned over the seat and picked it up. “It’s mine now.”
“You know the cover’s made out of Grollic skin, right?” Robert shuddered.
I didn’t flinch. The fact didn’t even phase me for some strange reason.
“Can you read it?” Michael asked.
“Hell, no!” Robert shook his head. “Do you know what’s inside it?”
“It’s Bento’s journal.”
“That’s no journal! That’s a spell book! His spell book. Nobody but Bentos can read it!”
“Not exactly,” I said.
My eyes met Michael’s in the rear view mirror.
The book slipped from my hands and fell on the seat beside me as my brain finally started to absorb all the information I’d gained in the last hour.
I had a mother who hid me to protect me? A brother I’d just compelled to stop being a Grollic? My father was alive and wanted me dead?
I was part Grollic and now a witch?
Everything had just become a lot more complicated.
~The End~
Compelled
Book 4 in the Hidden Secrets Saga - Coming out 2015
Note from the Author;
I hope you enjoyed reading Marked By Destiny. If you have a moment to post a review to let others know about the story, I would greatly appreciate it! I love hearing from my fans so feel free to send me a message on Facebook or by email so we can chat!