Chapter Fourteen
~ Ajag ~
"He's Sy's father?"
I glanced at Rad when he asked that. I'd never told another living soul about Sy's parentage, so this was a big thing for me. I was terrified to say more, but if Rad was right, he and Val might be able to help me save Sy from a monster.
"Have you ever heard of a place called the Greenville Academy?"
"It's some fancy private academy for shifters in Maryland, isn't it?" Val asked.
"It is." I nodded. "It's funded by Payne and a bunch of his cronies. It caters to the shifter elite. It's also run like a military academy."
Val's eyebrows lifted. "A military academy?"
"The social elite send their pups there when they act out and don't behave like they believe shifters should and they pay through the nose for this privilege."
"What does this have to do with Payne being Sy's biological father?" Rad asked.
"At last count, nine of the students at Greenville Academy were all biological children of Elder Payne."
Val sat forward, his lifted eyebrows instantly snapping together as he frowned. "How can that be? Elder Payne isn't even mated."
"Well, as we all know, you don't need to be mated in order to have a kid. However, in Payne's case, he convinced women all over the United States that they were mates. He even bit them. Once they had a kid, he waited until they were five years old and then took custody or simply took the kid and then sent them to the academy to be trained to be the perfect little wolves, ones totally loyal to him."
Neither Val or Rad said anything for several minutes, both mulling over what I'd said until Rad asked, "How do you know this?"
"My mother was one of those women. Unfortunately for her, she was one of the smarter ones and figured out Payne's game early on."
"Why unfortunately?" Rad asked.
I swallowed tightly before answering, "Because he killed her."
"He killed her?"
I nodded. "Sy and I don't have the same father. Mine passed away when I was about ten years old. I was away at college when she met Payne and he convinced her that they were mates. After Sy was born, Payne moved on to his next victim, leaving my mom to deal with pregnancy and raising a kid all on her own."
"But you said—"
"The pups can't attend the academy until they are at least five years old. Payne's game plan is to show up for their fifth birthday and either pay off the mothers and take the kid, threaten them, or simply take the kid. Since he's on the council, he can squash any complaints filed against him."
"Sy is three," Rad insisted. "If what you are saying is true, Payne wouldn't even be coming for him for another two years."
True, but there was more to my story and it involved things Rad had no concept of. I wasn't sure whether he was going to be shocked or horrified when I shared the rest with him.
"I was happy for my mother when she told me she had found someone, but I wanted to know who he was so I started investigating him. That's how I knew about the Greenville Academy. When Sy was about ten months old, I took everything I had found on Payne to my mother. To say she was pissed is an understatement."
Val snorted. "Wouldn't you be?"
"Oh, I was plenty pissed, but not as much as my mother. She asked me to take Sy to the park while she called him and basically handed him his head. When I got back I..." Tears sprouted to my eyes. "I found my mother dead on the floor. She's been stabbed."
"How do you know it was Payne that did it?"
"Because he was still there."
Rad's eyes widened. "Did he hurt you?"
"Yes and no."
"Which is it?" Rad asked in a rather heated tone. "Either he hurt you or he didn't."
"He sold me to Brass."
I grunted when Rad's arm tightened around me.
"He sold you to Brass?"
"Like I said, he doesn't take the kids until they are at least five years old. He made a deal with Brass for him to take care of Sy until he was five. In exchange, Brass got me. Brass used Sy to keep me in line. If I acted out or refused an order, not only did he beat me, but he threatened to beat Sy."
Rad sucked in a shaky breath. "Did he ever touch Sy?"
"Only once," I replied. "It was right after that that we escaped."
Watching Brass hit my three year old brother would be forever etched in my mind. It was a horror that I never wanted to see again. It had been the main motivating factor for being on the run. I refused to ever allow my baby brother to be hit again.
"That's why you were so terrified of Brass."
"It's one of the reasons," I answered Rad. "I also knew that there was a strong possibility that Brass would tell Payne where we were, which is one of the reason why I knew we couldn't stay at the ranch very long."
"You think those men that wanted to search the ranch were sent by Payne?" Rad asked.
I nodded because I knew they were. "Is there any other reason a bunch of soldiers would come to search the ranch?"
"Since they have already tried to search the ranch, do you think it's safe for you and Sy to go back there?"
"I'm not sure any place is safe, Rad. Elder Payne has a lot of contacts. He also has a lot of power."
"That's one of the reasons I was undercover," Val pointed out. "Elder Ridge discovered that Payne was using council resources to search for a man he deemed a danger to shifters everywhere, one that had kidnapped a small child. He said he wanted to find the child and return him to his parents."
I snorted as I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I'll just bet he did."
"Why is Payne sending all these kids to a military academy?" Rad asked. "What's the point? If he's sleeping around and getting women pregnant, so what? It might be scandal material, but—"
"Every kid that is sent to Greenville Academy is a dire wolf."
"Holy shit," Rad gasped. "He's building a dire wolf army, one kid at a time."
"I suspect that the number of kids Elder Payne has out there is double if not triple the amount that is sent to the academy," I said. "Only the dire wolves are sent there. They are trained to be soldiers that are totally loyal to him."
I let out a little laugh. It was a bitter sound. "As a plan, it's a pretty good one, even if it will take him years to achieve it. The kids I know about at the academy are all varying ages, but it's not them I'm worried about. It's the ones that have already graduated from Greenville Academy that concern me. Where are they and what are they up to?"
Val rubbed his hands over his face before dropping them down to his thighs. "I need to report this to Elder Ridge."
"And what are you going to report?" I asked. "With the exception of my mother, what laws has he broken? And even then it's my word against his. I didn't actually see him kill my mother. I arrived afterward. He could swear on a stack of bibles that he just came to see his son and found my mother on the kitchen floor."
"Elder Ridge still needs to know about this," Val insisted. "If Payne is building a dire army, we need to stop him. He could take over the entire shifter world."
I was pretty sure that was his plan. I just refused to allow Sy to be a part of it. Sy might be a fire wolf, but he wasn't going to be forced to fight for a man with no morals.
"I have a question," Val stated. "How does Payne even know these kids are dire wolves? Until we transition, no one knows if they are a dire wolf or not?"
I shook my head. "I don't know, but he has some way to figure it out. At least, I think he does. Maybe he sends all of his kids to the academy, but the only ones that were there when I investigated were dire wolves."
I frowned as I thought about it and then shook my head again. "No, that doesn't make sense either. Those kids were all different ages, some too young to transition."
"How do you know they were dire wolves?" Rad asked.
"It was in their records." It had been hard as crap to find the records. I'd had to have a friend hack into their computer system to find what I needed.
Luckily, it had been a friend that was a shifter with a rebellious streak a mile wide. He had been so excited at the prospect of hacking the academy's system that he'd even rubbed his hands together and let out a maniacal laugh.
It had been creepy.
"Do you have proof of this?" Val asked.
"I could get it."
"I need to send that information to Elder Ridge along with my report. The more information that we have the better chance we'll have of building a case against Payne."
Val climbed to his feet and dusted his ass off. "I'm going to head back into town to make a few phone calls. If anyone shows up, head further up the road. It meets up with another road. If you take a right it'll take you to the highway."
"And if we take a left?" Rad asked.
"They will never find you."
"Isn't that what we want?" I asked.
Val shook his head. "Not like this. When I say they will never find you, I mean they won't even find your body. The road to the left leads into the badlands. You'll get lost and never find your way out."
Well, when you put it like that... "So, we turn right then."
"You turn right."
As soon as the sound of Val's motorcycle faded into the distance, Rad grabbed me, lifted me until his lap, and then wrapped his arms around me.
"You remember those papers I gave you before you left the ranch?"
I squinted for a moment, trying to remember. "The driver's license, birth certificates, and social security cards?"
"If we can get Elder Ridge on our side, we can register you and Sy with Ze'ev's pack under those identities. With Sy listed as your son, Payne would have to fight us in court to get him and you have some of the same DNA as Sy so even if he demanded a paternity test, we could fight that."
"Wouldn't a DNA test just show that we're brothers?"
"I'm not sure, but I know you have DNA in common. Hopefully it would be enough for us to argue that Sy is yours."
I'm not sure that would hold up in court.
"The important thing is to get you and Sy registered with the council as belonging to our pack," Rad continued. "If we do that under your assumed identity, and with Elder Ridge's help, Payne won't be able to get to you."
"Do you really think that will work?"
I had doubts.
A lot of doubts.
Huge doubts.
"It will never work." I drew in a shaky breath. "If Payne can't get Sy through legal means, he'll just take him."
"That's another reason we need to get you registered as belonging to our pack. Once you're there, if Payne tries anything, not only do we have the legal means to fight him, but there will be a lot of people there that will fight to the death to keep you and Sy safe."
It had been a long time since someone was willing to fight for me.
Maybe forever.