Chapter Fifteen
“Ma, I’m home!” she called out, heading toward the kitchen. “You won’t believe the afternoon I’ve had,” she said. When she stepped into the cottage’s kitchen she froze.
Keran and Nicol lay on the ground by the table, and Hunter’s Ma and Dad were on the ground between where the kids lay and her uncle stood.
All four of them were unconscious. Everything in her screamed to run to the kids, but the way her uncle just stood there, kept her feet from moving. “What have you done?”
He smiled, as if her entire family wasn’t on the ground. “What you forced me to do.” He looked down at the children. “It’s just a bit of knock out gas. Completely untraceable. You’re here just in time to see them go.” He set a cell phone down on the counter.
“Why? The accounts have been changed! If you kill them, you won’t get a thing.”
“You are correct. If I kill them, I won’t get anything.
However, if I kill them, the money goes to you.
If I kill you, everything comes to me. I’m still listed as your Guardian and Beneficiary,” he explained calmly, as if discussing the weather.
“You were so worried about them, you forgot to update your own account.”
She took a step forward, towards the kids. “You don’t think five murders would be suspicious?”
Her uncle heaved a great sigh. “An unfortunate feral attack. So tragic, especially given how close we are to the warrior estate.”
“What are you going to do bite us to death?” she asked.
“No, but he will.” Her uncle looked toward the family room.
His assistant Bryson stepped forward, a grey wolf at his side.
Her uncle continued. “The way their canines rend and tear, very similar to a feral attack.” His eyes began to take on a fanatical look. “If you agree to marry me and transfer the money, I’ll spare you. We can be happy together.”
Kiera felt her stomach roll. In that instant, she knew he was insane. In what world would she let him kill her siblings and her mate’s parents, then marry him? “We’re related! And I have a mate.”
“He is an animal! He doesn’t deserve you!” her uncle screamed.
She had to keep him talking.
“I thought you said it would be a waste for me to mate a witch,” she said, softly. Trying to appear non-threatening.
“It would be a waste for you to mate anyone but me.”
She looked at him and knew beyond a shadow of doubt he had killed her parents.
“Why did you kill them?” she asked, not even waiting for his confirmation.
He smiled. “So smart. You do take after me in that way.”
She felt bile rising. He was so proud to say she took after him, but looked at her as if he wanted to devour her.
“Your mother told me no, too,” he said, looking lost. “They mated and I was going to kill your father, but then they had you, and you looked just like her. I knew you were meant to be mine.”
“So you killed them?”
“Of course. I had you and no longer needed your mother, she was tainted by your father.” His face twisted in scorn. “Your father had his suspicions. He thought I wouldn’t find out that he was planning on moving you all to Lycaonia. If I hadn’t acted when I did, I would have never seen you again.”
“How?” she choked out the word.
“Money. Bryson searched the human system and found a habitual drunk driver. He had stage four stomach cancer. His treatments ate through his family’s savings, and they would be left with nothing after he was gone. I offered him a deal, crash into your parents and I would pay his widow.”
“It’s why the toxicology report came back clean.”
“Very good. He was so nervous about what he was going to do, he didn’t drink for fear of messing up. He was smart enough to dump an entire bottle of rum all over himself and the seat, I’ll give him that.”
“Sir, it’s best we finish before Hunter returns,” Bryson advised.
No! Keep talking! She thought.
“Kiera what do you choose?” her uncle asked.
She walked toward him slowly, her hand reached out. “Uncle, I don’t want to die.”
Triumph filled his eyes. “Come here, dear.”
When she passed Bryson, she fell to one side, grabbing his hand. With fear fueling her attempt, she pulled his magic from him. Next to them the wolf trembled, then growled low in it’s throat.”
“Bryson, control that beast!”
Bryson stepped back, ashen faced. “I can’t sir.”
Kiera hurried toward her uncle. “Save me!” she threw herself at him and grabbed him with her other hand. Red threads. She knew what these were now. She pulled until there was nothing left.
Gasping, he clutched at his chest. “What have you done to me?”
“Nothing… yet.”
She looked to the wolf. Can it understand me?
The wolf looked at her, then stopped growling. Bryson’s earth magic tied him to animals? Was he like her? She looked at her Uncle, then Bryson.
Kill them.
The wolf lunged, going for Bryson first. It slammed into him with its full body weight and ripped his throat out.
Her uncle screamed and ran. The wolf bolted past her.
From the foyer she heard another scream and a gurgling noise.
Moments later the wolf appeared in the doorway looking proud, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
The silence felt surreal. They were dead. She had killed them. She knelt down and pulled Keran and Nicol into her arms. “Wake up! Please wake up,” she begged.
Her left hand still glowed a brilliant shade of red. Not knowing what else to do, she pointed her hand to the ceiling and released the power. Above her, a bolt of pure magic exploded thru the roof and into the evening sky, bathing everything in crimson.
She scooted and dragged Keran and Nicol with her over to where Ma lay. She reached out and shook her shoulder. “Please, wake up.”
In less than a minute she heard heavy footsteps running toward her. Hunter entered the room first.
She looked up, tears streaking down her face. “Hunter,” she whispered brokenly.
He took in the bloody body to one side, the docile wolf, his mate holding their kids in her arms crying next to his parents’ bodies. “Tell me they’re okay,” he pleaded.
She sniffled. “Knocked out, I think. That’s what he said.”
Hunter dropped down next to her, his hands checking first Keran, then Nicol. When he saw their chests rising and falling, he turned to his parents. Seeing that they too were breathing, he pulled Kiera and the kids into his arms.
Behind them, Caiden had taken control. “Get Heath here,” he ordered.
“Kiera, what do you know about the wolf?” Zev asked.
“He helped,” she said, then began crying. “I made him help.”
Zev reached out a hand. The wolf sniffed it and his ears flattened. Zev released a low growl of his own, and the wolf lay down on the kitchen floor, resting his chin on his paws. “He’s fine,” he confirmed.
Aiden and Konstantine carefully rolled Ma and Dad over on to their backs.
Behind them, Kiera heard Meryn arguing with someone. “Don’t tell me no. It’s clearly not dangerous with warriors running around.”
“Holy shit, is that a real wolf?” Meryn asked, stepping into the kitchen.
Kiera nodded. “I think so.” She wiped her nose. “I know what else you forgot.”
Meryn tilted her head.
“We never updated my accounts at the bank.”
Around the room, the men all inhaled in surprise.
Kiera continued. “His plan was to kill the kids, their money comes to me, then kill me.” She laughed harshly. “He did give me the option of marrying him and transferring the money for our happily-ever-after.”
The men as one froze and turned to look at her.
“I beg your pardon?” Konstantine asked.
Hunter immediately began to check her from head to toe, rubbing his cheek across every inch of skin he could see.
Meryn’s face was scrunched up in disgust. “He did off your parents.”
Kiera wiped the never-ending stream of tears from her cheeks. “Paid off a drunk driver. It’s why the toxicology report was clear.”
“Did he say why he needed the money?” Meryn asked.
“No.”
Hunter pulled out his phone, and hit connect.
“Hunter?” a male voice that Kiera didn’t recognize called out.
“We’re in the city, you could have called us directly,” Augustus said. “You didn’t need to use the emergency chat line.”
“Ma, Dad and the kids were attacked. I need you home,” Hunter said, numbly.
“Hunter, is Aiden there?” the male asked.
Aiden stepped forward. “Graham, permission for leave granted. Grab your parents and Ewan and get here.”
And just like that, the lines disconnected.
Aiden pulled out his phone and made a call. “Darian, I need you to grab the Armstrongs from Lycaonia, Hunter’s family was attacked.”
“On it,” was the simple reply, as the King of the Fae, didn’t question for a moment helping out a fellow unit warrior.
Meryn waddled over to where Bryson’s body lay between the kitchen and the family room, Ryuu right behind her. She reached down and pulled a necklace from his body.
It wasn’t immediate, but after a few moments the sweet smell of decay filled the room.
She turned the necklace over in her hands. “It’s different than the others we’ve seen. The beads aren’t the same.”
Aiden took it from her and examined it closely. “You’re right.”
“Usually am,” she replied.
“Make way,” Heath yelled, coming into the kitchen. He looked at Hunter’s dazed expression and knew better than asking him to move. He carefully lifted Keran’s hand in his own. Both began to glow a faint blue color. Keran’s eyes fluttered.
Heath nodded in satisfaction. “If it’s just the gas, they should be fine.
” He moved quickly from Keran to Nicol, then to Hunter’s parents.
His parents didn’t wake. Heath pushed back Myra’s hair to reveal a bruise at her temple and blood at the base of her neck.
Johann was the same. “Looks like they may have fought the gas and the perpetrators to protect the kids,” Heath said.
“I want to stay the night with them, to keep them under observation.”
Hunter nodded. “Whatever you need.”
Currently Nicol was wrapped around Hunter’s neck and Keran sat in Kiera’s lap.
“Dad, will grandma and grandpa be okay?” Nicol asked, in a timorous voice.