I glanced up. “Hello,” I sighed. I could see two guys lurking a few hundred yards from us. Virginia smiled ruefully. “Welcome to my personal hell,” she said.
“You pretty much brought that on yourself,” I pointed out.
She stared down at the ground. “I know. And I’m sorry I got you in trouble with my brother. I should have told you the truth.” She glanced up at me. “He’s crazy about you, you know. I’ve never seen him act like this with anyone else.”
“He is?” I said, startled.
“Of course he is!” She looked amused. “How could you even question it? Well, I guess you don’t have anything to compare it to. He was always pretty casual with everyone else he dated. Didn’t care less if any other guys checked them out. With you, my God, if someone says how hot you are, he’s practically ready to Death Challenge them on the spot.”
“People say I’m hot?” I said, ridiculously pleased at that.
“Smokin’.”
“Do you…do you think he’d ever cheat on me?”
“No way,” she said fervently.
“There’s stuff that he isn’t telling me,” I said. “I don’t know what to think.”
“That’s typical Battle behavior,” she said. “If he’s not telling you something, it’s because he thinks he’s protecting you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “I guess I should go talk to him.” Maybe I should have cut Max some slack. Then again, he was hiding a frickin’ picture from me and taking mysterious phone calls that I wasn’t supposed to listen in on. I didn’t know what to think.
Heavy hearted, I got up and started walking back to the bridal house.
As I walked, I called my Aunt Prudence. Normally, I’d call Bess or Cowin, but given how much they hated Max, I didn’t think they were the best people to turn to for advice.
“Josephine! So good to hear from you. Are you all right?” she said.
“Prudence, is everyone in my family cursed to be treated horribly by men? Do we drive men to cheat?” I asked.
“Is your husband cheating on you?” she said, sounding concerned.
“I don’t know. There’s something he isn’t telling me,” I grumbled.
“Well, that doesn’t automatically mean cheating, does it?”
“With my history, it does. I mean look at me, Prudence, I’m a genetic weirdo. How many fat wolves do you know? It drove away every man who my mother ever loved.”
“Don’t you do that to yourself,” Prudence said fiercely. “You know what drove away every man your mother ever loved? Not her fat butt. It was her. She only went after men who were total losers, who treated her horribly from the beginning. I’m sorry to say this, because she’s your mother, but she’d meet men in bars, go home with them that night, and then get obsessed with them. She’d pick up married men and then wonder why they treated her badly. There were a few decent men who were interested in her, but she had no interest in them.”
“Oh,” I said, stunned. Looking back on it, I could see that she was right. I’d just let my mother spin it her own way – we’re fat, we’re different, nobody could ever love us.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t try harder to help you back then,” Prudence said.
“You always took me in, you always gave me food and shelter,” I said. “And you know what, I never really tried to make a home anywhere either. I think I just didn’t want to ask anyone else to take me in and risk being abandoned again, so I let myself float around from house to house.”
“You know that you can come back here any time,” she said. “We’d love to see you.”
“I appreciate that,” I said. “I will come to visit you.”
I needed to talk to Max, I realized. I needed to work this out. If he was really saying that he wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, I should at least give this some more time – if he still wanted me, that is.
As I walked, I heard rustling in the bushes, and then, to my shock, Corwin popped out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. “How did you even get here without being detected?”
“I used an herb spray that disguises my scent,” he said.
“You need to leave before someone sees you here. Max has had it with you, Corwin, there’s a good chance he’d kill you for being here.”
“I’m not leaving before I show you these.” He held out a sheaf of pictures to me.
My heart nearly stopped. It was Maxwell and a slim, pretty blonde, who might or might not have been Camille. In the picture, it looked a lot like Camille, although I couldn’t see her face. He had his arms around her, and her face was buried in his shoulder.
Chapter Thirteen
I struggled for breath, holding the pictures in my trembling hands. I’d suspected this all along, but now that I was looking at the proof, I couldn’t believe it. How could he have done this to me? How could I have been so completely wrong about him? What kind of cruel game had he been playing, begging me to stay and making me think he really wanted me?
Corwin looked around furtively. “I can get you out of here,” he said.
“Where’s Bess?” I choked out.
“She’s waiting for us in my car. Outside the compound, a few miles down the road.” He pulled a spray bottle from his pocket. “This has the herb essence that will disguise your scent. We’ll spray it on you, and then you can shift and we can run for it.”
I sprayed myself from head to toe.
I couldn’t believe this was happening. Corwin kept talking as I sprayed.
“He’s been doing this chick all along,” he said. “I saw them together in the woods outside of town. Having sex. That was the picture that I put on the windshield, by the way. I saw him pull the picture off the windshield and hide it. I am really, really sorry, Josephine, but he’s no good for you. You deserve a man who worships the ground you walk on.”
I flipped through the pictures, numb with shock. In the other pictures, I could see the woman’s face. The woman looked a lot like Camille. It wasn’t her, but it looked so much like her that they absolutely had to be related. The same little heart shaped mouth, the same arch to her eyebrows.
What did this mean? Maxwell had agreed to an arranged marriage with Camille. He did that while having an affair with one of her relatives? Did he do that so that he could keep seeing this girl, so he could invite all her family to come around and then sneak off and bang this chick?
But if that was the case, why not just marry this girl? Maybe she was already married, or…I flipped through the pictures. None of them showed Max having sex with her, they were just standing there talking. She looked agitated about something. The fact that he was now married to me, perhaps?
“Where’s the picture of them having sex?” I asked, feeling queasy. Did I really want to see that? Yes, I needed to know.
“I told you, I put it on the windshield of Max’s truck and then he ripped it up. We need to go,” Corwin insisted.
I glanced at the picture of her with her face buried in her shoulder, and I pictured them having sex in the woods. Max, with another woman, moaning her name as he climaxed. I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring down my face. I felt like Max had literally ripped my heart out of my chest, leaving an enormous, aching hole.
“Yes, we do,” I said, and I quickly stripped my clothes off and stuffed them in to my purse. Then I dropped the pictures on the ground and shifted.
We turned and ran into the woods. We ran for miles. Normally running through the woods is a joyous time for me; I love the feeling of the wind rushing through my fur, and the millions of glorious scents, and the song of every living creature. This time, everything went by me in a meaningless blur. We left the Timber Valley pack’s property, and began running by the side of the road.
Finally, we reached a car parked on the side of the road, and Corwin came to a stop, so I did too. We shifted back in to our human form. I didn’t see Bess sitting in the car.
“Where’s Bess?” I sai
d, puzzled.
“We don’t need Bess.”
Corwin stood there, naked, and I was horrified to realize that he had a massive erection now. He moved towards me, and I leaped back.
“What the hell?” I yelled. “What are you doing?”
“You know we were meant to be together,” he said, his eyes shining strangely.
“You’re in love with Bess!”
“I never loved Bess. It was always you. One stupid misunderstanding, and my pack was forcing me to marry that bitch and telling me that if I said no, they’d kick me out of the pack and I’d be a lone wolf.”
“I saw those love poems you wrote to her! You two were all over each other!” I protested.
“I wrote those poems for you. Beautiful eyes, shiny hair? All you. I never wanted to marry her. I got this call from my pack and they were all excited because their pack Alpha had called to say I could marry Bess. It was supposed to be some big honor. Because their pack is so special, and we’re scum. I tried to tell them I didn’t want to marry her, I wanted to marry you, and they shut me right down. Said I had no choice.”
“But you were all over Bess! All the time!”
“I wanted you to be jealous. To see that you should be with me.”
His eyes shone with a crazy light I’d never seen before. We were all alone in the middle of nowhere, and fear swelled up inside me, choking me. “Where is Bess? What have you done with her?” I screamed.
He pulled open the car door. He came out with a tranquilizer gun.
“I was afraid you might react like this,” he sighed. “It’s all right. You’ll learn to love me, in time.” As I turned to run, he shot me with the tranquilizer dart.
I woke up lying in the back seat of the car, bound hand and foot…and I could hear furious pounding and muffled sounds coming from the trunk. It sounded like a woman who’d been gagged and was trying to scream.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I yelled furiously. “Let Bess out! Let her out!”
“We need to get rid of her,” Corwin said dreamily from the front seat. “You and me. I’ll put the knife in your hand, and guide your hands. We’ll do it together.”
I struggled to shift, but I couldn’t. Whatever he’d sedated me with was too strong. I wouldn’t be able to shift until it wore off.
“You’re crazy! Let me go!” I screamed at Corwin.
“My mother used to say that to my father, all the time,” Corwin said. “He locked her up so that she could learn to love him, but he was weak and careless. She wouldn’t love him, and it made him sad, so he started drinking. I won’t do that. I’ll be vigilant all the time. I’ll always watch you, until you learn to love me.”
Corwin was crazy. His father had been crazy, and Corwin had clearly inherited the crazy genes. I’m sure that a childhood of watching his father keep his mother prisoner, and beat her, and also Corwin, hadn’t helped much either.
“Max won’t let that happen! He’ll find us!” I was terrified.
“He’s not coming for you. He’s fucking that other girl. He loves her. He doesn’t love you.” His voice had gone high and sing song, and every word was like a dagger to my heart.
We pulled off the main road, and the car began bumping and rocking over a dirt lane.
Finally we came to a halt. He climbed out of the car and walked to the back, and popped open the trunk. A minute later he came to haul me out of the car, and dumped me on the ground like a sack of potatoes. I still couldn’t shift; I gritted my teeth and cursed at him.
Bess lay on the ground, bound hand and foot. There was duct tape on her mouth. Tears streamed down her face, and I could see that her face was bruised, where Corwin had hit her.
Corwin reached into the front seat of the car, and pulled out a knife.
“No!” I screamed. “I’ll go with you! Leave her here! I love you, I swear, you don’t need to hurt her!”
He shook his head sadly. “No, you don’t. Not yet. You’re lying to me, and I’ll have to punish you for that later. I should mark up your face. That will also make sure that nobody but me ever loves you. Right now, we need to get rid of Bess. Then, it will just be you and me, sweetheart. It will be so beautiful. After I punish you, I’ll nurse you back to health. My daddy always did that for my mommy, but she never appreciated it, the ungrateful whore.” His face went from delighted to enraged in a split second.
“You called for help for your mother,” I pleaded. “You knew what he was doing to her was wrong.”
“No, I didn’t. He said I wasn’t really his, and he was going to kill me, so I just wanted to get out of the house until he wasn’t mad any more. The police found me, and they found out where I lived, and they went there and took my daddy away. Those bastards. Those bastards. Those bastards.” He was getting angrier and angrier, his eyes bulging out of his head.
Bess was sobbing so hard that her body was convulsing, and my heart broke for her. Loyal, kind Bess who’d been in love with Corwin since the first day she’d laid eyes on him. She’d been so happy when I told her about those love poems. She’d been even happier when her pack said she could marry him.
Suddenly, the forest was filled with the sound of snarling wolves. Max. I could scent Max. He’d come for me. Dozens of wolves were running towards us.
Corwin spun around frantically, raising the knife high. “Get away from us! She’s mine! You can’t have her, she’s mine, mine-urkkk-” his enraged scream ended on a gurgle, as a giant gray wolf leaped through the air and ripped his throat out.
With Corwin lying in the grass, blood bubbling from his throat, they shifted back to human form. One of the wolves was female. I gasped in shock. It was the woman who’d been in the picture with Max.
Chapter Fourteen
Max grabbed the knife that had fallen from Corwin’s grasp, and used it to slice the ropes off me. He pulled me to my feet. I fell against him, and he held me upright. My knees felt like jello.
His men freed Bess and helped her to her feet. “You came for me,” I said.
“Of course I came for you. Ever since Kray attacked you I’ve had guards watching you from a distance. They saw you run off with him, and they found those pictures that you dropped. I can explain.”
“Yes, please do. Who is she? I saw pictures of you with her! Corwin said you were having sex with her in the woods!” I said angrily.
“I most certainly was not having sex with him!” The blonde said indignantly. “I’m engaged!”
“Corwin also was apparently batshit crazy, so you might want to take what he told you with a grain of salt,” Max pointed out.
“Fair enough,” I grumbled. “But you were sneaking off to meet her, and you tried to hide that fact from me. Look at it from my perspective. Imagine I’m sneaking off to meet a hot guy, and taking his phone calls, and refusing to let you listen to the calls.”
As I said that, Max’s fur rippled and fangs thrust down. He clenched his fists, which had suddenly sprouted hair, and took a deep breath to steady himself.
“See?” I snapped. “You almost went wolf just from thinking about it.”
He nodded. “All right. I never actually lied, but I didn’t tell you everything. I couldn’t. Before I met you, I made a promise to that woman. No, don’t look at me like that, it’s not what you think. She’s Camille’s cousin, she’s a friend of mine from high school, and she really is engaged. I promised her I would help her save her cousin and help take down Kray, and I also promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone except Cody. There’s ears everywhere, Josephine. It was vital that Kray not know.”
I saw a couple of vans rumbling down the dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust as they came. “They’ll give us a ride back to the compound. I want you and your friend checked out at our clinic,” he said. “Let’s get her looked at, and then I’ll explain.”
Max sat next to me, and I sat next to Bess as we drove back, holding her hand. She stared off into the distance, her face puffy and swollen, her expression daze.
“Bess, he had me fooled, he had everyone fooled,” I said. “He was obviously just as crazy as his father. I’m really, really sorry that happened. The important thing is you’re still alive, and you will heal, and some day you’ll find someone who isn’t….ahhh…”
“A psycho who wants to kill me so he can kidnap my best friend?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Yeah. That,” I agreed. “That’s definitely what you’re looking for next time.”
She managed a smile through puffy, split lips. I hated Corwin so much at that moment that I wished I could bring him back to life just so I could kill him again, myself.
When we got to the clinic, I was surprised to see a dozen women and another dozen children, crowded into the waiting room. Many of them bore visible bruises. Some of the women had marks on their wrists as if they’d been exchanged. And several of them bore a strong family resemblance to Camille. Shifters in scrubs were hovering over them, taking vital signs, cleaning cuts.
“What is going on here?” I asked, astonished, as a nurse led Bess away to an examination room.
“They’re from Kray’s pack. Lucille, the woman that you saw me with, helped create a distraction so they’d be able to escape, and they came here seeking sanctuary.”
“But that means he’s going to…”
“Issue a death challenge. Yes. He already has. He’s called for the Council of Elders to bear witness. It’ll be the day after tomorrow.”
Chapter Fifteen
The thought of Max entering the Death Arena sent a wave of fear rushing through me. Still, I reminded myself, this was Kray. I’d seen Kray back down from two Challenges.
“You’ll win, won’t you? From what I’ve seen of him so far, he’s not that tough when he comes up against a real Alpha,” I said.
Max guided me over to a chair, and I collapsed into it. I was starting to feel better, although my legs still felt shaky.
“No, most of the time he isn’t. That’s why he always backs down when an Alpha challenges him, but then he’ll come back and issue a challenge later. That gives him enough time to take magic enhancing drugs, and enter the Death Arena when the drugs are at their peak,” Max said. “He has to time it perfectly, because the drugs only last for a few hours.”
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