Chapter 2 Connall
Connall
The party rages on two floors away, like Connall’s not upstairs dismantling an empire.
Normally, he’d be out there, fielding demands from his employer. But not tonight. Behind him, a file transfer pings complete, signaling the end of Patrick Carnell’s empire, scattering everything he’s built over his sixty-year reign of terror to the winds.
Swiping a hand through his hair, Connall straightens his shoulders and takes one last look around the sparsely furnished room he’d occupied for the past six months.
Neat, sterile. Like every other room he’d survived in: a place to sleep, never to stay.
It had been a place like any other over the past seventeen years—a prison with a wide-open door.
A discreet buzz from his phone on the nightstand shows a text from Beau, his best friend and partner in crime:
9:00 PM Beau
Your cousin + 3 mates are here
He looks even hotter when he’s mad
…
You sure he’s not single?
Patrick’s son, Gideon, is here? And sure—he’s “single,” if that means a bonded pack and a baby on board.
Connall had been sure his employer’s son would have declined Patrick’s invitation to attend the gala tonight. Even though it was in his honor, his cousin hadn’t spent more than twenty minutes in his father’s company since he’d escaped the organized crime life at age ten.
Connall had sent the invitations himself, but he hadn’t expected him to actually show.
Especially given that his father had murdered his alpha two days ago. Packs without a leader don’t recover overnight. They certainly weren’t attending high society parties, dressed to the nines.
It’s added an entirely new layer to Connall’s own plans. He’d best get down there and figure out how to get Gideon and his mates back out the front door.
9:01 PM Con
Better not if you want to keep your dick
The little one is scrappy
Wherever Beau is, he’s probably laughing his ass off, as “the little one” weighs a buck-twenty even with the pregnancy, and Beau is more than twice that.
9:03 PM Beau
Which one?
But also: rude
Moving into position
…
Beau pauses, and the ellipses appear and then disappear while he types and then erases his words.
9:04 PM Beau
You better get out here
The circus is coming to town
“That cannot be good,” Connall mutters under his breath. He slips the phone into his back pocket without responding. Beau doesn’t need Connall harping on safety or distracting him from the very dangerous job he’s about to do.
Closing and locking his bedroom door, Connall makes his way through the kitchen, where the caterers are busy filling trays and the industrial dishwashers hum quietly in the background. It makes it possible for him to hear that the loud din from the gala’s party guests has also faded to a low hum.
He doesn’t spare the workers another thought as he exits through the glass doors to the pool deck—right into the middle of the crowd pouring out of the ballroom’s terrace doors, flowing like a tide toward the vast expanse of the lawn.
In the distance, Connall can see Patrick’s guards setting up tiki torches in a wide circle. They cast eerie shadows on the distant castle walls as the guests gather around.
Fuck. This wasn’t part of the plan.
Patrick was supposed to go to bed publicly and socially humiliated, not light up the fucking lawn.
Connall grits his teeth, holding back a surge of rage. Holding it down is as familiar as his morning cup of Volcanica coffee—and equally as bitter.
Every moment since he’d been forced into a life of servitude after his parents’ murder had been filled with plans for vengeance, not the searing-hot fire of grief, but the cold, hard burning of hatred for their murderer.
It was what kept Connall going through those earliest years, before Beau had arrived—when he had finally given him hope that they could get out together on the other side.
Regular doses of pain as a motivator and deterrent had unlocked a desperate need for order and predictability, which in turn built on an already rock-solid talent for organization, planning, and—surprisingly—strategy.
With a natural gift for understanding people and finance, Connall had started bleeding Patrick’s coffers dry at twenty-one.
Bit by bit, he’d siphoned off nearly half a billion dollars in ill-gotten gains.
He’d dreamed of sailing away over the horizon when Patrick could no longer hold Connall’s last remaining loved one hostage. That dream would finally come to fruition tonight.
Tonight, when Patrick finally realized the thing he wanted most in the world was nothing but the fever dream of a crumbling tyrant—when the silence settled in, and he understood his son wasn’t coming home to rule his empire—Connall would be there to put him out of everyone’s misery.
But Gideon Carnell was here, dammit—ready to unravel Connall’s hard-won plans. And yet, an unexpected thrill creeps down Connall’s spine at the thought. Beneath the annoyance, a glimmer of curiosity sparks.
Gideon has turned out to be a wild card. An unexpected flip of the coin. An anomaly.
Always two steps ahead, nothing really surprises him anymore. But this? This is new.
A ripple of sound moves across the lawn, followed by a sharp gasp from the crowd. Then a roar that lifts the hairs on Connall’s arms. That sounded big.
Connall takes off at a run, dodging a wave of party goers who aren’t hiding their speedy departure, fleeing into the dark like rats scurrying from a sinking ship.
When he finally reaches the circle of light in the center of the lawn, behind a few more desperate or rabid hangers-on, he realizes he isn’t going to get his long-awaited final revenge.
Gideon Carnell is going to do it for him.
Father and son are locked in a battle, fangs bared and claws out.
Patrick is tall and lean, the kind of thin that speaks of obsession. His white suit pants are already soaked with blood.
By comparison, his son—broad-shouldered and unbearably handsome—wears a shirt as black as his father’s soul. Hardly winded, there is no doubt this is Gideon’s fight, but he hasn’t gone in for the kill.
It should have been easy, given that Patrick couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag despite his thirst for violence. Connall can see fifty ways Gideon could have ended this—he’s imagined doing every single one.
But aside from his right arm hanging uselessly against his side, there are only superficial cuts to Patrick’s face and sides. He’s wounded, staggering, his face contorted in a rictus of pain—but these are not deadly blows.
Is Gideon toying with him? Dragging it out for amusement?
No. Gideon’s face is set in grim lines—determined, but…reluctant at the same time.
Why?
Stumbling, Patrick swipes his good arm out in an attempt to hold his son off.
“Son, what about the prophecy? You’re meant to lead,” he whines.
The laugh that leaves his cousin’s lips is dark.
“You and your stupid fucking prophecy. Do you think any one of those poor Oracles would tell you the truth? Or all of it? Knowing how batshit crazy you are? Who are you to think you deserve divine knowledge?”
Ah, yes. That infernal prophecy.
Patrick has always been obsessed with that stupid prophecy for as long as Connall has been in service. Countless hours spent listening to his jailer carry on and on, enough that Connall could quote the damn thing in his sleep.
It all boiled down to Gideon Carnell being the next Were Messiah. Born under the Hunter’s Moon, destined to rule. Patrick had twisted it into a blueprint for domination, never mind if the Goddess actually said any of it.
It’s been foundational to every step Patrick Carnell has ever made.
Every decision in his pursuit of ruling the Were world was undercut by a mysterious phrase.
Connall knows for a fact that every time an Oracle had left his home on their own two feet—and not rolled up in a ruined carpet—they’d worn a smirk.
No, Gideon was right: they hadn’t gifted the deluded fucker with all of the truth.
The shocked look on Patrick’s face reveals he’d never considered the idea that someone might withhold information—that they might lie to save themselves, or better yet, to make him the fool in his own court.
“You’re wrong, Allistair. They told me the truth, every time. You were born under the Hunter’s Moon. You’re meant to be King. To rule at my side. You. It has to be you. You are my mate’s son. It has to be you,” he says faintly.
Gideon advances at his father’s mention of his mother, backing him across the yard.
“So pathetic. You’ve hardly given me a fight at all. How can you possibly be the leader of anything?”
That strikes a nerve. Gideon might not know his father is insane, but Connall sure as hell does.
“How dare you speak to me like that? I killed your beloved leader. Me. I hope he suffered, for all the trouble he’s caused me.” Patrick punctuates the statement with a crazy giggle.
Gideon rolls his eyes, his pitying laugh echoing through the yard. He lands a hard push to Patrick’s chest, forcing him back.
“He’s not dead, you fool. Do you think I’d have waited for an embossed invitation to find you if he were? He is my alpha, and he is more of a man than you could ever hope to be.”
There it is again—the fleeting tinge of surprise…and relief that Gideon will not know the feeling of loss that Connall’s mother had felt when Patrick had shot his father dead.
“No, no, no. He’s dead. The prophecy said he had to die…paradox in carmine.” The old man howls in anger. “He kept you from me.”
“He lives!” Gideon shouts. “It was you. You kept me from you. You and your psychopathic, narcissistic cruelty and delusions. You. And now, I’m going to put you out of everyone’s misery. Look at them—look!”
Gideon swings his arm out in an arc to encompass what’s left of the crowd.