by Lizzy Ford
Chapter Twelve
I’m in and out of sleep the rest of the day. Ben is always present when I wake up. He never leaves my side, helps me out of bed when needed and brings me food twice. I’m pretty useless, even when it’s dark and he carries me outside to change into a wolf. All I do as a wolf is curl up in the grass and go right back to sleep.
It’s not until the next morning I start to feel stronger. The break in my leg is healed, even if my leg remains weak, and my wounds have begun to transition to scarring.
I’m also more than a little self-conscious about being so weak in front of anyone, especially him. I can’t shake the tiny voice of my father warning me I need to be careful. At least, until I know for certain he’s not the one posing a threat to the Community. But it’s hard to remain remotely wary, when I’m completely dependent upon him. If nothing else, I promise myself I’ll never be this vulnerable to anyone again when this is over.
The longer I’m with him, the more I struggle with what exactly I’m supposed to be doing. My job is to pass judgment on him, to determine his fate, and I’m no more prepared to do this in six days than I was when I started out. Whatever it is I’m supposed to learn or do or find out, I’m failing.
Ben is a complicated man. Tough, rough, intense and at times, scary – but very sweet in his own way. He seems to be a good leader for his people. I’m not yet convinced he’d make a good Community leader. His tactics for discipline are heavy handed. Perhaps that’s necessary with a clan that’s more animal than human, but the other clans are very different.
Cuddled against him, I dwell on my challenge of identifying a good leader. I can’t tell the difference between my wolf and me today. It’s been since the night I met Ryan that I’ve felt like I was one whole person instead of two. Is this a sign my intuition is stronger? Working with me instead of some sort of alien living in my body? It kept me alive the other night. Whether I want to call it my wolf or my instincts, I survived only because I trusted myself.
Not knowing my own self feels like another failure in this first trial.
I sigh. Mid-morning sunlight is creeping across the floor of his bedroom. Ben is quiet and has been since the night before last, when we argued. His tension is gone, for which I’m grateful. He’s easier to talk to when his wolf isn’t about to pounce on me.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I murmur.
“I’m where I need to be.”
It’s a completely Ben answer, spoken in a low growl that seems, on the surface, unfriendly. It’s simply Ben being Ben. He’s not fluffy or soft, and neither are his responses to anything or anyone.
The questions that have been building up over the past few days are at the tip of my tongue. He seems calm enough for me to venture asking them, so I start.
“Are you gonna tell me why you killed my great-great grandfather?”
“I did tell you. I drew the short straw.”
“Like you did with me for the first trial,” I snap.
“Yeah,” he says and then chuckles.
“I don’t understand what that means. My great-great grandfather’s death was planned by the Community? A hit? What?”
“It’s not for me to tell you that.”
“You killed him!” I roll onto my back so I can see his face.
“Look, there are rules for the three candidates, too,” he says with tried patience. "One of them is that I cannot tell you anything about any other clan, including yours. I can only discuss mine.”
“I haven’t seen these rules.”
“They’re in your book. You’ll get to them eventually.”
“That does me no good now.”
“Ask what you really want to know,” he advises.
I pause and study him. He’s brilliant at reading people. I’ll give him that. “How do you know I’m good and you totally missed your second running drugs under your nose?”
“That’s not what you want to know,” he growls. A flicker of wariness returns.
“It’s one of the things,” I retort.
“Sometimes, even I get comfortable. I don’t look for evil in the people around me all day, every day, and if someone’s served me well for say, a hundred years or more, I start to trust them. But you – a fucking Kingmaker with an attitude – you I wasn’t about to let catch me off guard with anything, no matter how much I love fucking you.”
I laugh. The answer is part resentment, part surprise, and every bit characteristic of the alpha who doesn’t like being questioned or challenged.
“Having you as a mate is not what I expected,” he adds. “I didn’t think it’d feel so real.”
“It’s only for a week.”
“Thank god for that.”
I don’t like that. At all. I can’t tell if he’s baiting me as he does sometimes or not, either. So I change the subject.
“I guess I want to know, if you killed one Kingmaker, how do I know you didn’t kill my father, too?” I ask.
“If I knew he poisoned your mind, I probably would have.”
“That’s not fair. You didn’t know him.”
“I met him twice. Once that night at the bar, and once several weeks before that when I petitioned him to become a candidate. My wolves voted it was time for us to make a run at the position of Community leader, and we garnered the support of three other clans, as required, to be presented to the Kingmaker.” Ben stops here, considering me.
I see … something in his eyes. “And?”
“Let’s just say I knew better than to let my guard down around him.”
“No. He was a good man. Jaded, maybe, but good.”
“So was Jenny at some point and look where she ended up.”
I look away, not sure what to do whenever I think about her and what happened. “No one likes the Kingmaker’s,” I mumble.
“Did you ever wonder why?”
“Because you’re all assholes!”
He laughs. “People hate villains not heroes. Which do you think your family is?”
I’m not remotely amused. “Answer my question, Ben. How do I know you didn’t kill two Kingmaker’s?”
“I would tell you, first of all. Second, I wasn’t among those drawing straws,” he replies.
I have the urge to check the Book of Secrets to see if more information is available. “This would be easier if that damn book cooperated!” I grumble.
“But much less like a trial.”
I eye him.
He’s smiling.
“You’re happy because your week is almost over. I’ve got two more,” I say.
“It’s been an interesting experience.” He rests his palm on my cheek. “If I’ve learned anything, I don’t think I want a mate.”
“Because I did such a poor job being a werewolf?”
“Because I want to be the Community leader. A mate would distract me. My focus can’t be divided, if I’m to be a leader. When I found out you were in danger, nothing else mattered. I would’ve let the Community crash and burn. Lesson learned: when I’m the Community leader, no mate.”
I’m starting to believe neither of us had any idea how deep this mate-thing runs. It’s exhausting and scary – and I’ve got two more supernaturals to go through this with. Will I want to curl up in their arms like I do Ben’s? Is it possible for me to fall for three men?
What if all three of them confuse me like he does? Do I choose a leader and a mate by flipping a coin? There has to be a better way of doing this. Maybe even one that lets me stay longer with someone, if I choose to, before being forced to make my ultimate decision.
“Why do I only have a month?” I ask.
He studies me. For a moment, I don’t think he’ll answer.
Ben lifts my arm from beneath the sheet to display the seven clan markings running down the inside of my forearm.
“Seven clans, three candidates, one Kingmaker,” he says, thumb rubbing the tattoo of my mother’s zombie clan. “All eleven clans are represented in your trial. I’m a pup
compared to most supernaturals, but according to oral tradition, this has never happened. A wolf has never been a candidate, either. There are a lot of firsts in your reign as Kingmaker.”
I glance at my arm. “Is there significance behind it?”
“I think so. But you’d have to ask the vampire clan. They’re the oldest, and they’re not telling the rest of us anything. Whatever it is, they seem to think something bad is going to happen by the time your trial is up.”
“What do you think they’re hiding?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I think the Kingmaker’s are hiding something, but I think the vampires have an idea of what it is.”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“I know. But you might at the end of this and refuse to share it, like your father did and his father did and every other fucking Kingmaker.”
Unease flutters through me. “That’s why they die so horribly. They’re hiding a secret from everyone?”
He shrugs. “According to my father, whatever it is your kind is hiding, it has to do with why my wolves are dying. There’s no other secret important enough for my father to break the werewolf code when he ordered me to participate in the murder of a Kingmaker.” The note of anger is back. “He led our people for six hundred years, one of the longest serving pack leaders. According to my uncles, he never once broke our code. After I killed the Kingmaker, I became pack leader the next full moon when my father committed suicide.”
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur. When I read that his father’s death occurred on a full moon, I assumed the worst. I didn’t think to check it against the date of my great-great grandfather’s death.
Ben would do anything for his wolves, even kill someone in cold blood. I almost ask if he’d kill me, if he drew this elusive short straw, but I kind of think I know the answer. When I’m no longer a wolf, I’m fair game.
That disturbs me. I didn’t want to feel this level of intimacy in the first place. Knowing it’ll be yanked away with the same abruptness now that I kind of like it leaves me rattled and feeling out of control.
I don’t want to be on the outside again, distrusted and hated by every supernatural, including Ben. Especially Ben.
How the fuck am I supposed to unravel this mystery when I can’t read the Book of Secrets? It shouldn’t keep secrets from me, the Kingmaker!
The newfound idea there’s some terrible secret the Kingmaker’s are keeping from the Community isn’t one I’ve considered.
There should be a list of questions I ask him, scenarios involving other clans he has to talk his way through, so I can see what kind of leader he’ll make. The moment my gaze falls to his strong features, this thought is gone.
The stir of desire has taken a backseat the past couple of days to my discomfort and fatigue. Gazing up at him, I’m feeling it again, the unnatural surge of need only Ben can soothe.
He can smell my arousal as easily as I can feel his hard cock. “You’re weak,” he says but lowers his head to mine and rests our cheeks together. His breath tickles my ear, and mine quickens in anticipation.
“I’m the daughter of a zombie,” I retort. “I’m tough to kill.”
“It is our last day and night together.”
“I don’t get a full week?” I ask a little too fast.
“Six days, one day off. Then it starts again. Another rule apparently no one told you.”
“I hate rules. And authority.” But not alphas. After Ben, I definitely don’t hate alphas.
“I’ll be gentle. There’s no moon tonight, though, so we can’t run together.”
“I bet we can think of something else to do,” I say innocently. “Checkers?”
“Fucking. Only. I want to enjoy my last night ever with a mate.”
I smile. Taking his face in my hands, my other questions fall away. Ben’s features are heavy and strong, his golden gaze intent and the palm of one hand skimming down my naked body to slide the sheet off me. My heart is racing already, my skin growing more sensitive as I await his touch.
I have the urge to push pause on this moment, because there’s a good chance it never happens again. I’ll never argue with my were-bitch, never experience Ben’s breathless intensity and incredible strength, never know this level of intimacy again.
My rugged, sexy wolf is all alpha, all mine, for one more day.
“When this is over, you can call if you ever need something,” he says, always aware of what I’m thinking.
“I won’t be a wolf.”
“You can be an honorary wolf.” His reluctance is clear, as if the throwaway title obligates him to rescue me whenever I get a flat tire or clog my drain. “Unless you uncover why my wolves are dying and refuse to tell me.”
My breath catches at the subtle change in his expression. Cunning and resolve replace his warmth. It’s moments like these when he scares me – and I kind of love it, even though some part of me acknowledges the true threat he poses.
“I wouldn’t keep something like that secret,” I whisper.
“For your sake, I hope not.”
This threat I can’t laugh off. Ben cares for me, but if I stand between him and saving his wolves, he will kill me. I don’t know what it is the Community thinks my family is hiding and why it’s worth murdering Kingmaker after Kingmaker for. But I hope with all my heart Ben is wrong about it’s pertaining to his wolves. I don’t want my father to be the bad guy.
“Shut up and fuck me,” I murmur and pull Ben’s face down to mine.
Ben complies and captures my lips with his. In seconds, I’m sliding away. This time, I don’t fight it. His kiss and touch are already gentler than any other time we’ve fucked, and my intuition assures me he won’t hurt me.
Not today, at least, and not while I’m still his mate.
Chapter Thirteen
I feel the difference the next morning, soon after leaving Ben’s house in the forest. I can barely see the tiniest details of the entire world ten yards in front of me let alone several hundred yards away, and his scent no longer winds through my nostrils. I smell him on my skin and in my clothes but not his body from where he sits beside me.
My dulled senses are somewhat of a relief when we hit the city, though I kind of miss them, too. Werewolves are aware of the world in a way no on else can be. It’s almost like being transported somewhere else completely, an alternate world where I’m fully awake for the first time in my life.
My inner wolf doesn’t feel completely gone. The sense of my intuition taking on its own form, even if it’s not as insistent as my were-bitch, remains. I’m different after the experience. Not much wiser than I was, to my frustration, but changed nonetheless.
“You’re obsessed with the Chesapeake Bay.” Ben is staring at the book he pulled from my backpack. The biographical tome about him my father wrote appears to be a normal, boring history book to any non-Kingmaker who tries to read it.
“Mine!” I take it back.
“I can’t get through that dry shit, and I went to twenty years of university.”
“Most people do it in four.”
He eyes me.
I laugh, delighted by his reaction. “Can you feel it?” I ask. “I’m different.”
“Yeah.” But his look remains searing, as if he hasn’t lost his desire.
I haven’t either, to be honest. I thought I would have when I returned to my normal self. I assumed I’d admire his sexiness without feeling the need to jump him every time our gazes meet. I’m sore from the hours of sex and in the last stages of healing from the horrible night when I killed Jenny.
How the fuck do I ever truly process that night anyway? I cried, but I’m afraid to talk about it with anyone, afraid to explore what I feel. In fact, I don’t know how to process anything that’s happened the past week I spent with Ben.
Clearing my throat, I start to zip up my book bag and pause. My eyes linger on the Book of Secrets. I’m dying to dive into it and see what else it says today it didn’t yesterday. Maybe the
re’s more about whatever secret my father kept.
“Can you read this?” I ask and hand the book to him.
Ben’s fingers run over the embossed title on the leather cover. I can read it on his features that he understand what he’s holding. “The Ultimate Guide to Medieval Woodwork,” he reads the title he sees aloud. Puzzled, he opens it and flips through the book. “It’s what? A lie? The Kingmaker’s Book of Secrets doesn’t exist?”
“It does.” I accept the book back. “But only I can read it.”
“And the Chesapeake Bay books? You were surrounded by them when I fucked you the first time. I’m assuming you aren’t obsessed with the Bay.”
“No,” I say with a smile. “Chesapeake Bay seems to be code for werewolf. All those books are about you and your clan.”
I don’t think he likes that. “How many are there?” he asks warily.
“Several dozen. Your entire history and biographies on every pack leader. The Book of Secrets is like a key to read them and contains a bunch of other useless information so far. I’m hoping that changes.”
“Magic books. Interesting.”
The car draws to a halt, and I glance out the window at the façade of my father’s row house. I tuck the book away. “You, uh, want to come up?” I keep my voice casual. I don’t know what makes me ask, except I’m still feeling the afterglow and nostalgia of our night and day in bed together.
“Yeah. But I won’t.”
My cheeks feel warm. “Okay. Well … thanks.” What else is there to say? I open the door.
Ben catches my forearm in his large hand, and I wait. “Don’t change.”
I meet his gaze, surprised. It’s even harder for me to read him now that I have no wolfy senses to guide me. I can’t guess what he’s thinking or feeling, and this saddens me. I miss the connection already, the sense of not being completely alone.
The tension remains between us, stretched taut and filled with promise.
“Don’t become like the rest of the Kingmaker’s,” he clarifies.
His insistence my family is the problem, and not the rest of the Community, is frustrating.