15. Kane
“What the fuck does that mean?” Jagger fumes as his temper flares again, and likely flooding his system with the same toxins that Storm removed.
“Now that the Wolfsbane is out of him,” she explains, “I can feel the energy around him, and I can feel his aura, but I can’t see it, which is concerning.”
“Why is that?” Dad asks, pulling her eyes from where they snapped from Jagger to his.
Pushing away from Trez, she stands, taking the soaked cloth off Trez’s abdomen along with her crystal necklace, and then snatches the other towel off the floor. Glancing at me, she asks, “Do you want me to toss these?”
“Please,” I say, and follow with, “Thank you.” The remnants of the poison would wash out of the material, but I’d rather throw the towels away than be reminded of what they were used for.
After placing the towels in the trash, she walks back over. Sitting on the end of the other couch, she slips the long chain over her head and pulls her strands of hair from beneath it.
Tilting my head, I give her my undivided attention while Trez is still passed out.
“What do you smell?” Her warm eyes go from me to look toward my dad and then to Jag. “Any of you. What can you scent besides the lingering Wolfsbane?”
“I’m practically sitting in this shit with him,” Jagger tells her. “All I smell is poison burning the inside of my nose. It’s almost enough to make me run outside to inhale fresh air, but my wolf doesn’t want me to move.”
Dad’s eyes pinch together, his stare fully on where Trez lies on the couch with his head in Jagger’s lap.
“There’s something heavier within him, but…” Dad trails off.
“But what?” I ask, wanting to know what he can scent that Jagger nor I can.
Sure, he was alpha longer than I’ve been. My father is more experienced than me, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay with knowing less than him. I was born to be the alpha. I’ve known for as long as my earliest memory that I’d be alpha one day. That doesn’t mean I recognize that there are and have been better alphas than me. I just don’t like that fact.
“It’s always been part of them,” he informs me. “From the first day you brought them to meet Eli and me, Kate and Trez had such an overpowering scent of their pack that it made Eli nauseous. I wanted them out of the pack at first because, although it didn’t make me sick to my stomach, I didn’t like it. It made me remember things I wish I could forget. Things I wish had never happened.”
“Then why did you let them stay?” I ask curiously.
“We’re getting off-topic,” Storm interjects. “Look deeper than their overpowering Silver scent. Their Marked Crest. Of course, their scent is overpowering. What else do you smell?”
“Earth,” Dad responds almost immediately. “And…”
“Darkness,” Storm adds when he trails off like he can’t pinpoint exactly what he can smell on Trez.
“Are you saying Trez has evil within him?” I ask, forcing the question past my lips and unable to fathom it at the same time.
Jagger growls a warning that vibrates off the walls at my suggestion.
“In him? No,” Storm confirms, her eyes darting to Jag and then back to me. “On him? Yes. He’s cloaked in more dark magic than any Marked Crest wolf I’ve ever met. It’s what hides his aura from me. Makes me wonder if his sister is shrouded as thickly as he is.”
“Are all Marked Crest wolves fueled by dark magic?” Dad questions the same thought filtering through my head.
“Not so much fueled as they’re cursed with it,” she answers. “How else would a false alpha control a pack of wolves without magic being involved?”
“False alpha?” the three of us ask in unison.
She cocks her head to the side as her eyes move between us. “Why do I get the feeling none of you know how Richard Everhart became alpha of the Marked Crest wolves?”
I’m about to admit I don’t know when my dad opens his mouth, but before words pass his lips, movement on the couch pulls my attention back to Trez. His face contorts as if he’s in agony.
“What’s wrong?” Jagger questions urgently.
“Trez,” I call out, and almost immediately, his eyelids pop open.
For a heartbeat, he holds my stare, but whatever pain lingers isn’t letting go easily. He bolts up, then jumps off the couch and away from Jagger, but falls to his denim-clad knees.
“Fuck. Fuck, it burns.”
His arm lifts, his palm meeting the flesh between his shoulder blades, and that’s when I see it. That goddamned tattoo. Trez’s claws extract, piercing his skin, digging into his flesh like he’s trying to rip the pain out.
“Jesus,” Storm says as a rumble leaves my throat, forcing all eyes to turn toward me.
“What is it?” Jagger asks, concerned but also weariness in his tone, questioning the anger noted in the growl that left my mouth.
“That fucking tattoo.” I throw up my hands, the heat from Kate and my argument coming back to me. “Kate has the same one. Hers is a bit faded, though. The black in his was gray on her. It’s what made me blow up. It’s why she’s gone. I lost my shit when I saw the silver wolf on her back.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jag says the same time Dad says, “What tattoo?”
“Trez doesn’t have tattoos,” Jagger adds.
“Except the one between his shoulder blades.” Are they fucking blind? It’s right there for the whole world to see.
“I don’t have a tattoo.” Trez grits his teeth. “What happened with my sister? Where is she?”
“Okay, you fucking liar.” I shake my head and flip my eyes to Jagger and then to my Dad. “Have both of your visions fucked up in the last few minutes? It’s not small, so what the fuck?” I ask, ignoring Trez’s mention of Kate.
“They can’t see it,” Storm answers.
“I’m sorry?” I ask, knowing that’s not possible.
“It’s not a tattoo, Kane.” The line between Storm’s eyebrows deepens. “The question is, how can you see it?”
“With my eyes, the same as you.”
“Fuck!” Trez yells in agony. “Why won’t he stop?” His eyes focus on the ceiling.
Glancing down, Storm steps next to Trez. “Put your claws away, please, and give me your hand.” Trez is reluctant, his eyes going from Storm’s to Jag’s, where he remains on the couch; only now, both of Jagger’s feet are on the floor, and he’s facing Trez and Storm. “Trust me.”
Slowly, he reaches up to her. She takes his hand in both of hers and closes her eyes. Her lips move, but no sound leaves her mouth as she says a spell.
Trez’s body goes from coiled to relaxed within seconds, a harsh breath leaving his open mouth.
“Whatever the fuck you did, thank you,” he says, gratitude genuine in his voice.
“I’m not able to take the effects of the mark away fully. I flooded your system with coolant, so to speak. The pain will come back if she keeps calling you home. You have an hour of relief at the most,” Storm tells him, but I haven’t a clue what she means or who she’s talking about.
Storm steps away from him, her eyes snapping to mine, then my dad’s, and finally back to me.
“I can see the marked crest because it was placed on him by a witch from my coven. The only person outside my coven that can see it is the shifter’s alpha. It doesn’t make sense, Kane, unless . . .” she trails off, her eyes flicking to Trez once again.
“Unless what?” my father asks, the demand in his tone so palpable Storm swallows as she stares between him and me.
“You mentioned Kate having the same mark.” Storm’s head tilts. “You have two missing wolves, Kane. So, unless you have other missing wolves I don’t know about, Trez is one of them.”
“He’s not,” I growl.
“You are his alpha. If you see the mark, and you saw the same one on Kate too, you are, in fact, their alpha, Kane,” she argues, her tone more assertive than it’s ever been before.
“He’s my son.”
“Stop. Everyone, fucking stop.” I roll my head, looking at the side of my dad’s face. His eyes are wide. They’re on Trez, taking all of him in. “Dad, he is not your son. You said it yourself, you tested them.”
“You aren’t shocked,” Dad says to Trez, ignoring my statement. “You knew.”
Trez remains seated on the carpet, not saying a word, just staring at me.
“How can he be my mate if I can’t feel the pull of the bond?” Jagger asks, his question aimed at Storm, and all I can think is why the hell is he questioning a non-shifter on shifter shit. She’s a witch. A good witch in every way. She is skilled in her own right, but she isn’t one of us. She doesn’t have a fated mate like we do. It’s different for them.
“It would be covered by the sheer magic that’s rooted into the marrow of his bones,” Storm tells him, then she looks my way, sadness in her stare. “You don’t know why Richard Everhart’s pack is called the Marked Crest, do you?”
I shake my head.
She looks at my father. “Do you, Dante?”
“No. I don’t recall any significance to their pack name.”
“Trez?” she questions.
He shakes his head too.
“Richard isn’t a true alpha. He’s only an alpha by the magic bestowed upon him in the form of a crest. The shimmering silver wolf on his hand isn’t a tattoo. It’s a mark given to him by a powerful witch that disappeared over a century ago.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I spit out while Storm continues.
“The way he controls his shifters is by the same crest on them too, but Trez’s mark is surrounded by circular runes. The more rings the crest is encased in and the thicker the circles are, the more magic it takes to control the wolf. It’s the only way he could make them submit to him. Otherwise, they wouldn’t. He’s too weak to be an alpha.”
“None of that explains why you believe I’m their alpha or that Trez and Kate are our missing mates,” I say to her.
“You are their alpha. It’s a fact whether you believe me or not. Only the shifter’s alpha can see the mark. And since you saw it on Kate and now Trez, that means you’re their alpha, Kane. The magic in the rune can also glamor whomever it’s been placed on. The appearance we see may not be what Trez looks like, or the magic could have altered him forever. Salem is that powerful. Not as powerful as the witch that made Richard an alpha, but she’s close.”
“Then remove it. You want me to believe Trez is my brother, then take it the fuck off and let me see myself,” I demand.
“How about you slow your fucking roll, Kane, and tell me why Kate isn’t here.” Trez jumps to his feet, the color in his skin finally turning back to his normal complexion. “What did you do to make her leave? I specifically told her to come here. She would have waited for me. What did you do?” he repeats.
“What happened between Kate and me is between us. Stay the fuck out of it.”
Part of me is embarrassed by the way I acted toward Kate. She didn’t deserve my anger or for me to snap at her over a tattoo or a crest if what Storm says is true. The other part is still trying to catch up with everything Storm laid at my feet.
There’s no way my mate and brother have been coming here every year and none of us knew it was them. I can’t fathom it. It’s impossible.
“You’ve been under my nose this whole time,” Dad mumbles, his eyes wide, still on Trez. “And you knew. Why didn’t you say something? Come to me? Tell me?”
“I didn’t know when we were here.” Trez runs a hand through his hair. “I still didn’t know for sure. A few weeks ago, I overheard something I wasn’t supposed to hear.”
“What did you mean by, you told Kate to come here? She mentioned that but never explained. She told us you went for a run and never returned. Then Richard told the pack a hunter killed you. How exactly did you tell Kate to come here? Because nothing that either of you has told me is adding up.”
“That’s a me and Kate thing. It doesn’t concern you,” he snarls as his jaw locks.
“If we’ve ever been real friends, then you will tell me, and you’ll tell me right fucking now.”
“You can talk to her in your head,” Dad states, and as soon as his words fully penetrate, a cold shiver runs down my spine.
They’re celestial twins.
Trez is my brother.
And Kate…
What the fuck have I done?