Blood Moon

by Kristy Centeno

  I toss an annoyed look his way. “And this isn’t my fault?”

  “For the record, I could have stopped you but I was curious as to whether or not you were right. Besides, I didn’t think the Gandillon were in the mine or anywhere near. I screwed up, too. As a Tracker, I can never let my guard down.”

  Movement down the hall to my left alerts us to visitors. We both fall silent as we listen to the sound of padding feet approaching fast. I lean against the rock wall behind me and pull my left knee up to my chest so that I can rest my forearm on it. My eyes, however, are watching carefully for the group of people strolling calmly toward us. We are about to have company and not the good kind.

  The first man makes himself known and I can’t say I’m at all surprised to see his ugly mug in this place.

  “Aren’t we one big happy family now?” Kenny saunters casually toward the bars of the confinement we’re in and sneers. “It has been a long day, hasn’t it?”

  “I knew it was you all along,” I hiss, my heart filling up with hate as I glare at the one responsible for my brother’s death. “It was so obvious.”

  “Did you? I believe it may have taken you a while to figure things out completely.”

  “You think of yourself as clever, but you made your share of mistakes along the way. It was thanks to those errors we presumed you had something to do with the Gandillon pack. We were right after all.”

  Kenny shrugs. “Well, I’d like to think my pack was far less likely to screw things up, but it’s bound to happen when you recruit unruly—untrained betas. Who knew Santo’s sloppy leftovers would cause so much trouble?”

  “Your Trackers weren’t careful either,” I shoot back.

  The tall wolf with golden eyes snarls at me from the other side of the iron bars.

  Kenny’s smirk disappears. “It would do you good to remember where you are, Rousseau. This is my neck of the woods and your family has no idea where you are. This means I can and will do whatever I please with the both of you. Show some respect to your superiors. Or you might end up like your twin.”

  In a fit of rage, I lunge for Kenny through the gaps between the bars. I manage to grab a fistful of his shirt, but he skitters back and pries my fingers open with the help of his two pet wolves who throw punches at me in effort to get me to release their leader. Unable to keep a hold of him any longer, I let go and watch as Kenny smooths the shredded pieces of his shirt back together.

  “Don’t you talk about Alexis, you sick son-of-a bitch. You better hope I don’t get out of here because when I do I’ll rip your limbs off one by one.”

  Kenny clears his throat nervously. “I can see Alexis is still a delicate subject.”

  “Don’t even mention him.” I grit my teeth in anger. “If you value your miserable life, you’ll never mention him again.”

  My threat has no effect on Kenny whatsoever. “Your brother made a huge mistake.”

  I reach for him again but he is too far away for me to get a hold of. “Shut your mouth!”

  Kyran, stop! He’s only goading you. Don’t give into his provocations.

  Gage is right but I don’t care. I don’t want this egotistic maniac to sully Alexis’ memory with some idiotic remark.

  “He took something from me I can never get back,” Kenny continues.

  “You’re a coward, Kenny. You hide behind your Trackers. You can’t fight your own battles.” My comments hit a nerve. I take note of the muscle in his jaw twitching slightly and know true pleasure as I rile his feathers.

  “What do you know?”

  “You’re a dumb bastard, Kenny. Did you really think that by getting rid of Alexis and me, Marjorie would turn to you? Even if we weren’t in the way, she’d never bother with you. She never did in the first place.”

  He lifts his chin, his eyes rounding as he stares at me. “I beg to differ. By removing all competition, my chances improve.”

  My fingers curl around the bars, which are spaced about six inches apart. “She has never looked at you and she never will. You’re a joke. An embarrassment.”

  “Degrade me all you want, Rousseau. But as imperfect as I may seem to you, I have gotten away with a lot more than you all know about.”

  Kenny motions for the wolves to his side to back off a bit. They move a few paces behind him, but close enough to keep him guarded. I’m not sure why they are even present. I can’t get out of this cage though given the chance, I’ll try my hardest to.

  “If you haven’t already guessed, my real name isn’t Kenny Marshall. That’s just an alias I developed to slip below the radar.” That stupid smirk of his reappears. “My name is Antoine Gandillon. I’m George Gandillon’s son.”

  Son of the werewolf who escaped being burned to death back in the 1500’s? Though I have suspected Kenny all along, I’m still taken aback by his parentage. I was not expecting him to be the son of the alpha we have been meticulously after for weeks.

  I force myself to bring my foul mood under control. Right now, I need all my wits about me. I can’t continue to lose it no matter how much I want to rip his heart straight out of his chest. Kenny gives me the impression of being the type of person who likes to talk. Who enjoys boasting of his achievements and if I can get him to say what he has been planning I might get the answers we need.

  “Why is your father after Marjorie?”

  Kenny scoffs. “My father? My old man is useless. He has so much power at his disposal but can’t bring himself to use it. He insists on keeping peace with the other packs, though he doesn’t particularly care much for humans after what they did to his family.”

  “It’s so nice of you to express yourself with such high regards when it comes your father. You rival your father over a position in the pack? You’re competing with him?” I recall the young beta back at home talking about a pull over power between father and son. Is this what he had referred to?

  Kenny barks out in laughter. “Rivalry? Well, if we have to put a label on it then yes, it describes our situation thoroughly. My father thinks me incapable of taking his place as alpha once he’s gone. I’m just trying to prove him wrong.”

  “Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn one way or the other what problems you two have. I see the apple doesn’t fall from the tree in any case. But where does Marjorie come in?”

  Gage pushes himself to his feet and takes a few steps forward. He is as curious to find out more as I am. If Kenny continues to tighten the rope around his neck, we just might have what we need to stop him once and for all.

  “What do you think I want, Kyran?” He looks at me determinedly. “You’re a smart wolf. You should be able to figure out what my goal is.”

  I think back on all the information we have gathered on the Gandillons during the past week and analyze each and every bit of it. For starters, Jack had been correct when he accused the leaders of hiding in plain sight. But the wolf also mentioned the Gandillons wanted to fuse the bloodlines. Kenny is in a bitter disagreement with his father over his rights as alpha and in an effort to prove he’s worthy of the position, he has killed, kidnapped, and turned many lives upside down to achieve his objectives. Only someone who is desperate—or calculating—will commit the worst of crimes in the name of what they think they are deserving of.

  Kenny—or Antoine—is no different. He wants power and to achieve it he must overthrow his father, which means he’s not as strong or capable as he believes himself to be. His desire to fuse the bloodlines must come from his wish to succeed in areas his father has not. For him to have access to Marjorie’s DNA would mean processing the ultimate weapon, capable of changing werewolf evolution as we know it.

  “You want to take from Marjorie what nature failed to give you in order to make up for your lack of strength, which you need to defeat your father. This entire ordeal you have put not only Marjorie, but our family through as well is so that you can destroy your father and ascend to the throne because you’re too incapable to fill his shoes.”

  Kenn
y’s expression is almost lethal. “Is that all you can come up with?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “You think your problem will be solved if you somehow manage to use Marjorie’s DNA in your favor, but you have failed to come to terms with several possibilities, which might end up being more than just a few inconvenient bumps in the road.” When he furrows his brow, I continue adding fuel to the fire by saying, “For starters, there are no guarantees any form of forced evolution will be possible. Second, how exactly would you use her bloodline to get ahead? No one has ever tested these theories and if they did at some point, they’re certainly not around to share the results. Besides, even if you managed to achieve some sort of miracle, do you really think your bloodline will be able to adapt the same way or even better than that of the Founding Fathers. You’re insane, if you think you’ll be the exception.”

  I can practically hear the wheels in his head spinning. “You bring up some valid points. You are smarter than I thought. But even if everything else fails, I may have something else up my sleeve.”

  My heart picks up speed. “Forget it. None of it matters. Whatever it is that you think will guarantee your position, none of it will work.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Rousseau. I have worked for far too long to assure my position is rightfully secured and I won’t allow banishment, or the likes of you to stop me. My father may be a little more forgiving of what humankind has done to ours, but I’m not as lenient. Even if Marjorie’s DNA fails to alter mine, she can always live alongside me as my mate and give birth to my children. I may not be as powerful but my bloodline will be.”

  Banishment? What did Kenny do to force his father to kick him out of the pack? For an alpha to cast aside a son is a rare thing in the werewolf world. It has happened before, but the action is taken as a means of a punishment after the son has committed a terrible act, which will or may bring dire consequences to the rest of the pack. Whatever it was, it must have been something much more horrifying than I can bring to thoughts. Then again, he has done appalling things in the past few weeks.

  I have heard of wolves doing some desperate things upon being thrown out of their pack, but this is insane. Kenny is out of his mind. To take things to this extent, it just doesn’t make sense. He must be much more disturbed than I ever thought he was.

  “If I have my way you will not get within ten feet of Marjorie,” I warn.

  He throws his head back and laughs. “Do you really think you can stop me? You’re stuck in here with no place to go. I have more than half my father’s pack on my side already. Once I get my hands on Marjorie’s DNA and use it to my advantage, no one will be able to stop me. Certainly, not you.” He turns his back to me, and takes three steps toward the corridor to my left, before I call out to him.

  “She’s well on her way to embracing the change for the first time already.”

  “I know all too well what’s going on with Marjorie. But you see,” he shifts slightly to his right so that he can look at me directly, “her DNA may still be viable even after the change. I intend to find out either way. Alexis may have put a dent on my plans, but they are not entirely ruined.”

  I grit my teeth to keep from shouting insults at him until my throat becomes raw.

  “Now, I have a question for you, Rousseau. How much do you trust your teammates? Do you think each and every one of them is trustworthy?”

  Succeeding in planting the seed of doubt in my head, he marches away, leaving me in shambles. So it’s true someone double-crossed us. I wasn’t completely out of it by thinking a person we trusted us has been feeding Kenny all kinds of information all along.

  “Shit!” I mutter in disgust.

  “Shut it!” Gage whispers behind me. I spin around to see what has him all riled up but he’s busy murmuring things I can’t make out as he sketches something on the rocks on the floor with a tiny pebble.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Come here and shut up for a moment. I need to concentrate.”

  I go down on one knee next to him and observe as he maps out an entire outline of what appears to be passageways and main exit points. After about a minute of going back and forth, he stops.

  “Damn it.” He tosses the pebble away in frustration.

  “What is it?” I study the makeshift blueprint, eying the exits I believe lead to someplace of importance.

  “As Kenny and his wolves were walking off, I was listening for the sound of their feet and claws to get a better view of every passage in and out of this place.”

  “How?” I’m astonished.

  “By the sounds echoing off the rocks. The two lower levels of this place is all rock. You see, when they travel through these passages, it’s easier to maintain a sense of where they are if I concentrate by listening to the sound of the claws scrapping against paved stones.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Basically, it’s like echolocation. Some species of bats and whales emit high-pitched sounds to identify where specific objects are or to locate prey. In this case, I used the sounds bouncing back from the stones to identify the layout of this place. This is all I could up with.” He points to the sketch on the flat surface of the cobblestone.

  “You can do that?” I’m flabbergasted. I have always known Tracker’s abilities surpass even those of lower class wolves, but what Gage described exceeds even my expectations.

  “Why do you think they call us Trackers?” He raises an eyebrow, suggesting perhaps I’m a bit slow when it comes to understanding the mechanics or the complexities of a werewolf Tracker. He might be right. “We can track in ways no other animal or even humans can.” He points to what resembles a hallway and says while lowering his voice to barely above a whisper, “Kenny and his wolves marched down a hallway leading to a set of stairs. There are two doors on each side of the hallway, which open to individual rooms. When it comes to what the rooms are used for I don’t know. They are both empty so we can only guess. But they continued up the stairs...” he pauses, looking up at the ceiling as if in deep thought briefly before turning his attention back to me, “...there are about ten stairs total. Those lead to the door to the floor above us, also constructed out of rock and cement. Once they shut the door, I lost the connection. This can mean one of two things. Either the floors have rugs or they headed through another door and traveled too far for me to continue using the echolocation system.”

  “So we should assume the hallway to our left does not lead to an exit?” I ask, shifting as movement to my right catches my attention.

  “No, it leads upstairs to...what I assume is a floor much like this one. But we can rule at least one corridor out. There are two more. If I hear any movement coming from either, I may be able to map out its exit and entry points.”

  “The floor above this one is much like a prison of sorts too, right?”

  Gage nods. “And for what I was able to gather in a few seconds, we are not the only prisoners here.”

  I blink, surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a woman and a child inside a room near the exit on the floor above us.”

  I’m not sure what to make of this. “Who else would Kenny bring here?” And for what purpose?

  I glance to my right and spot someone in the farthest corner of our prison. It’s the female I detected earlier.

  “Hard to say, but you and I both know Kenny doesn’t move a finger without thinking ahead of what he’s going to use it for.”

  I hear him clearly, but my gaze is locked on the solitary figure on the far corner of this damn enclosure. Unlike us, this figure is bound by the wrists and ankles in iron shackles sealed to the ground as if they were part of the original design. A dirty rag covers half her face.

  “Who—”

  I process the scent and am able to identify the female as an older werewolf. Her clothes are sullied with dirt and dried blood. Even though she is aware of us in the same enclosure, she has not tried to engage in conversation or even ac
knowledge us at all.

  “Whoever she is, she’s in the same boat as us,” I say, standing. I tread toward her with caution, followed by my older brother. A distance of about fifteen feet separate us, but we cover it quickly and soon we are both kneeling in front of the woman, who is quietly sitting with her back to the wall, head tipped forward.

  I know she’s alive because I detect the movement of her shoulders as she inhales and exhales and I can hear the steady beating of her heart, but had it not been for those tell-tale signs I could have mistaken her for dead.

  “Is she asleep?” Gage asks to my left.

  “I don’t know.” I reach out to touch her knee and she instantly recoils, the iron chains attached to her shackles clattering loudly as they scrape against the rocks on the floor. I snatch my hand back. “We’re not here to hurt you.”

  Gage and I exchange worried looks. What has been done to this woman to make her so fearful?

  “Who are you?” I try again, hoping she will respond.

  A long silence stretches between the three of us. It’s highly unlikely she will say anything given her condition. This woman is probably scared to death and I can only imagine what Kenny and his wolves have done to make her this way.

  A soft response. A few words I am unable to decipher.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Her head lifts. “You...are...him?” I can barely make out what she’s said. Her voice is low, tired, forced. “You’re...him?”

  I’m not really sure what to make of her reply. Who does she think I am?

  “Him?”

  “I have heard much about you.” Her voice comes out clearer now, stronger. With a lot more determination, as if she wants to be heard. “The pack continuously mentions your name. You have become quite a nuisance for them. For Antoine, specifically.”

  I turn my gaze to Gage, unsure of whether or not this woman even knows who I really am. Has she confused me with someone from her own pack?

  “I’m not sure who it is you’re referring to.”