Chapter Sixteen
S IXTEEN
I need to warn Bishop. The next room is empty, and I duck into it long enough to hear footfalls leaving my father’s office. They thankfully head in the other direction.
I continue down the hall, hoping it was Bishop’s voice I heard. My heart hammers, but I struggle to keep my wits about me.
Don’t think of what my father said, how he behaved. Don’t mourn for what he’s not—only remember what he is, and what he really thinks of me.
Don’t panic about the vicar. Warn Bishop, and he’ll find a temporary solution.
He can rush off for an emergency trip to London or something, delaying my father’s plan and giving Bishop time to resolve the issue.
If Bishop can end the threat against me, the clock will stop ticking.
My father might still want me to mate with Bishop, but he won’t have any excuse to force the matter.
There! A voice.
It’s two doors down. I swing into the adjoining room, where I can hide until Bishop is finished talking to…
The voice isn’t Bishop’s, and my mistake only proves my distraction.
I don’t know who’s speaking. I’ve formally been introduced to less than half the Pack.
“—running all over London looking for her niece,” the man says. “I could scarcely keep up. I was glad when Silas recalled me and sent Petey in my place.”
“The witch doesn’t know then?” This voice is vaguely familiar. I believe it’s a wolf that Bishop has been actively steering me past, a beefy young man who bears enough resemblance to Henry Cain for me to suspect it’s his son.
“She has no idea,” says the first man. “Stupid bitch. Thinks herself so high-and-mighty. Sending demands through every channel for Silas to release her niece, insisting she can handle any threat to the girl herself… without the sense to stop and question whether there’s a threat at all.”
My breath stops.
“Witches,” snorts another voice I don’t recognize.
“ Women, ” the young Cain says. “They’re like babies. Easily handled and easily fooled.”
“Not all women,” the first says. “Most know their limitations and don’t fool themselves into thinking they can compete with men.”
I don’t hear the rest. Blood pounds too hard in my ears.
I remember that first dinner, when my father had spoken of the threat against me… and Henry Cain had smirked.
It was all a ruse. That’s what these three are saying. There isn’t any threat against me. There never was.
Now Lenora is trying to find me, demanding my return, insisting she can protect me, and they’re laughing because she’s fallen for the trick. The person I actually need protection from is the one she’s trying to convince. My father.
My stomach churns. I’ve been a fool. A bloody fool. I’d been so angry and hurt that my aunt kept this secret from me, convinced it was simple prejudice against werewolves, never considering the possibility it was prejudice against one werewolf—with good reason.
I need to find Bishop and tell him he’s been misled. If there’s no threat against me, then his plan to end it is futile. He—
“Now, now,” the third one says. “We can’t really blame the poor woman. It was a very clever plan.”
The young Cain snorts. “Already trying to get in the Alpha-elect’s good graces?”
“No, I’m just saying it was clever. I know your father isn’t fond of Bishop, Harry, but the man has a brilliant mind. Brilliant and devious. You have to credit him that much.”
“True,” the first says. “We shouldn’t to be so quick to insult the witch. It was an excellent plan, and Bishop carried it off admirably.”
I can’t breathe. My chest has seized, my breath stopped, my vision blurring at the edges.
My mind whips back to that first dinner. When Henry smirked. Where he aimed that smirk. At Bishop.
There was no threat.
It was all a setup.
And Bishop was the one who set—
“Heard enough?” a voice rumbles behind me.
I spin to see Henry in the doorway, his lip already swelling from where Silas struck him.
“Oh!” I say. “I was looking for my father. Julius said he wanted—”
“You know where to find your father, girl. I smelled you in the waiting room and followed your trail. Heard something in there you didn’t like? Ran off to tell your sweet Bishop? Seems you’ve learned he’s not as sweet as you thought. Such a shame.”
“I—” I straighten. “I don’t know what you mean. If you think I overheard something, you’re mistaken. I don’t have a werewolf’s enhanced hearing.”
He grabs for me. I back up fast, only to smack into the wall.
“What are you going to do, girl?” Henry says. “Scream for Bishop? Even if he gave a damn, he’s away on business until this afternoon. You’re sneaking around for nothing.”
“I don’t know what—”
Henry grabs my arm. “Come on. You can tell your father what you didn’t hear.”
Henry hauls me to my father, who’s still in his office.
I don’t need to be dragged there—I have the sense to walk without fighting—but Henry drags me anyway, because he can.
He throws me into the office and tells my father the story: how he smelled me in the waiting room, knew what I’d overheard, and found me listening in on another conversation.
“She heard it all,” Henry says, his voice ripe with gloating. “She heard what we said, and then she heard a few of the boys talking about the threat against her, how—”
“I heard nothing,” I blurt, before I lose the chance to pretend. “Julius left me in the waiting room, and I got bored and wandered. I thought I heard Bishop. I stepped into a room, but it was empty. I was about to leave when Mr. Cain caught me.”
“She lies,” Henry says. “I found her in the room beside where Harry and two others were talking. She was right against the wall, listening.”
“And what were they saying?” My father’s voice is so low it sends a chill down my spine.
“No!” I say. “Please, Father. If they were discussing something that I wasn’t supposed to hear and Mr. Cain tells you what it is, then I’ll hear it.”
My father’s gaze fixes on mine, his blue eyes pure ice. “Was I talking to you?”
“N-no, sir, but—”
“Henry? What did she hear?”
The enforcer smirks at me. “That there wasn’t any threat in London. That Bishop set it all up.”
The floor seems to sway under me, and against my will, my gaze shoots to my father’s face, searching for a sign that this is a lie. That I misunderstood.
Because if this is true, then I’m alone. Tricked and lied to by my father. Tricked and lied to by Bishop. Two people who claimed to be protecting me. They lied to me. Betrayed me. Told me what I wanted to hear because, to them, I am nothing but a valuable womb.
I know what I’ll see on my father’s face, and it’s not confusion. It’s anger, his eyes narrowing as they turn on me.
“You couldn’t leave well enough alone,” he says. “Just like your mother.”
My breath catches, my blood running cold. “I—No, I… I don’t understand what Mr. Cain is saying. I know I’m under threat. Supernaturals broke into my home and tried to—”
He slaps me, the blow so hard I fly into the wall, and just when I think I’ve found my balance, his foot hooks mine and yanks, and I go down hard, pain radiating up my spine.
He snaps at Henry to leave, and the enforcer obeys with obvious reluctance.
Then my father waits, as if making sure Henry’s gone before he turns back to me.
“Stay there,” he says. “If you try to get up, I’ll put you down harder. If you scream, anyone who comes for you will pay the price.”
“I—”
“Shut your mouth and listen.” He looms over me.
“I told your aunt that you were in danger years ago, and she ignored me. Did she think I was going to stand by until you were stolen from her? That”—he knocks his foot beneath my stomach—“is mine. Mine to do with as I want. Mine to see filled as I want. Your sons are mine.”
He bends low enough for me to smell breakfast on his breath. “It was time for me to claim what’s mine. I should have been blessed with sons. Gods know, I tried. But when I was young, I was injured defending my father, and this is the price I paid—no sons and only one daughter.”
I open my mouth, only to quickly shut it. Rise, and he’ll hurt me. Speak, and he’ll hurt me. I’m not afraid of pain—I’d endure it to get free—but rising and speaking won’t help.
Listen to what he’s saying. Let every illusion be shattered so I won’t be fooled again.
“You’re going to marry Bishop Daniels,” Silas says. “You’re going to bear his sons. My grandsons. That’s where I’ll find my real heir. In your belly.”
My head shoots up. I can’t help it.
“Oh, is that a disappointment?” he says.
“Did you look forward to being an Alpha’s mate?
If something happened to me, Bishop would make a perfectly acceptable Alpha, but what I want from him is the same thing I want from you.
Valuable breeding stock. He’s a Danvers, whatever he might call himself.
A lineage older than our own, full of brilliant and ruthless wolves.
But an unstable stock, as I’ve said. Prone to one extreme or the other, brilliance or ruthlessness.
Bishop is the perfect blend of both, which means he’ll sire excellent sons. ”
That’s not how it works, especially if one of the family problems is madness, as he alluded to the other night. Just because it bypasses one generation doesn’t mean it can’t return in the next.
I keep my expression suitably cowed, which isn’t as hard as I’d like. I’m afraid, overwhelmed and adrift, and I don’t need to fake it.
“If you’re thinking of telling Bishop what I said, don’t bother,” my father says. “You’re tainted now. I only need to claim you’re lying, and he’ll believe it.”
He grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet.
“I don’t think you properly appreciated the kindness I’ve shown you so far, Daughter.
Your mother and aunt have spoiled you. But I’ll fix that.
You’re about to find yourself in far less pleasant accommodations, with far less pleasant guards.
Bishop wanted to show you kindness, and that’s one way to tame a filly, but sometimes, they need to be broken. ”
He drags me from the room.