Chapter 6 #2
The more she ate, the worse I felt about our upcoming meeting.
The only reason why she would gobble protein in bulk was if she anticipated requiring extra energy for a fight or as fuel to heal injuries.
Clearly, she expected her punishment to be severe.
Me? I wasn’t sure what price Dad—or Mercer—would put on my disobedience, but I was sure I would pay it in blood. Even if it wasn’t my own.
“Last chance.” As I watched the road sign for the driveway flash past, I mashed the end button on my last phone call. “You could get out here.”
“I can’t hear you over the music.”
For the past ten minutes, I had been listening to her chew. “What music?”
Dialing the radio up full blast, she mouthed, “This music.”
We didn’t make it halfway up the drive before six men on four wheelers peeled out of the surrounding woods to escort the SUV up to the main house. Mercer wasn’t among them. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
No sooner had Sloane thrown the SUV into park than the front door to the house where I grew up was thrown wide open, and Dad marched out with his wolf glowing in his eyes.
Mercer exited behind him in a huff as if Dad had run the whole way here and he was out of breath from the sprint due to his injuries.
Normally, he would have healed from the wounds Sloane and I dealt him within hours, but silver meant recovery would be slow and painful for him. I wished Mercer hadn’t left me no choice but to hurt him to get my point across, but I wasn’t sorry I had defended my friend.
“Whatever happens, happens.” Sloane bobbed a shoulder. “Don’t get your ass kicked trying to save mine.”
Two men yanked open her door, and she raised her hands to show she was unarmed. They dragged her out by her wrists, throwing her to the gravel drive on her stomach. One of them planted a boot on her spine to pin her while Mercer prowled over to open my door.
“I want proof of life.” I kept my face neutral, my voice calm. “Where are Tara and the others?”
“Go talk to your dad.” He offered me a hand down. “He’ll answer all your questions.”
“I somehow doubt that.” I ignored his offer and got out on my own. “I want Sloane with me.”
“Your friend broke pack law, and she must be punished in accordance with our rules.” His eyes glowed as his wolf peered out at me, the warning clear. “You should worry about yourself, Anie.”
A girl never forgets the first time a man threatens her, and Mercer had never so much as toed the line when it came to me. For him to cross it, he must not fear reprisals from my father. Probably not a great indicator of how this meeting was scheduled to go. For Sloane or for me.
Wary of my reception, I didn’t let my worries show as I strode to Dad and waited for him to set the tone.
The crack of his palm across my cheek didn’t hurt half as much as it shocked me.
He hit me.
My dad struck me.
He had never raised a hand to me in my life. Sure, he let others do it. But him? No. Not once. Until now.
Guess Mercer wasn’t the only one crossing lines where I was concerned today.
“Do you have no loyalty to your pack? To your family? To me?” Dad twitched as his wolf prowled beneath his skin. “How could you attack Mercer? Not only that, you used silver.”
“He attacked Sloane, and I defended her.”
“I see,” he growled, dark hairs sprouting down his arms. “Mercer, you have your orders.”
I whirled in time to watch him kick the side of Sloane’s head like he was punting a football.
“What are you doing?” I charged after him. “Get away from her.”
“Get back here.” Dad clamped a hand over my upper arm, dragging me away. “You wanted to talk? Let’s talk.” No matter how deep I dug in my heels, I didn’t stand a chance against his brute strength. “Zoe, no interruptions.”
Zoe, who had thrown a rock through the front window of GSG and then raised the alarm, going so far as to cut herself and invent an attacker, granting Dad the excuse he needed to dispatch Mercer to fetch me home to him.
Clearly, she had been rewarded for betraying me, since she was stationed at Dad’s side.
Violence thickening the air, Zoe ducked her head and affixed her eyes to his shoes. “Yes, sir.”
Hard fingers biting into my skin, he marched me into the house and straight to his office, where he flung me into the chair across the desk from his imposing wingback that had always reminded me of a throne.
Fitting, since the pack had always called me his princess.
Cheek smarting, I folded my hands in my lap like a good little girl. “The Walshes told me—”
“They filled your head with nonsense, and you believed them. I thought I raised you to be smarter than that. They’ll say anything—do anything—to win you to their side.”
Hoping to gain a clearer picture, I played along. “To what end?”
“You’re a Sartori. My daughter. They could force an alliance with the pack in exchange for your safety.”
Had the outline of his hand not tingled on my cheek, I might have laughed at his self-importance.
“They’re dragons. Dragons. Do they really need an alliance with us or anyone else?”
That he didn’t even blink confirmed he had already known what they were and hadn’t told me.
“Have you seen them shift? Any of them? Even once?” He drummed his fingers, his nails elongating, on his desktop. “Have you seen an actual dragon at any point during your time with them?”
“No,” I said slowly, debating how much to tell him and deciding less was more.
“Then how do you know they’re telling the truth?”
A lifetime of self-doubt and insecurities swamped me, nibbling away at my earlier bravado.
I didn’t know the Walshes were dragons. And, yes, okay, fine.
I might be lending them credibility based on their ability to summon flame into their palms. Which other factions, witches and fae among them, could do as well.
Even then, as much as it left me questioning my own sanity, I trusted Rían.
And Fayne. Liam too, in areas excluding those pertaining to me and my future.
But, unless I wanted Dad’s head to blast off like a bottle rocket, I couldn’t very well tell him that.
“You want to believe them. It’s understandable.
I can only imagine they preyed upon your insecurities as a latent.
” He leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled at his chin.
“Help me make sense of this betrayal, Peanut. You’re my daughter.
I raised you, provided for you, loved you.
I haven’t asked much of you. I understand your contributions to the pack are hindered by your latency.
That’s why I fully supported you moving to Brentwood to start your own business and carve your own path. ”
Uncertainty knocked on the door of my memories, tricking me into reexamining the past to determine if things had been as bad as I recalled, or if I was a spoiled child acting out as so many packmates claimed.
No.
I wasn’t falling for his revisionist history. He wasn’t getting in my head that easy. I knew the truth.
I had begged to go. I had been suffocating here.
Then the house fell into my lap like an answered prayer.
I’d papered the walls with posters of faraway places I wanted to visit after I moved out.
I had considered relocating to the East Coast to attend college too.
But I flushed those dreams down the toilet the second a deed was put in my hands.
I hadn’t questioned that the house just so happened to be in the next town over, in neutral territory, where I could live and work without igniting messy conflict with our neighbors.
Before I lost my nerve, I lifted my chin to meet his feral gaze. “Are you my father?”
“How can you sit there—” bone popped in his hand as a paw took shape, “—and ask me that?”
Never had I pushed him, on anything, but I couldn’t let this go. “The Walshes believe I’m like them.”
“A dragon?” His voice distorted as his jaw elongated to grotesque proportions. “And you’re so desperate that you believe them?”
Hands on my lap, I debated sliding them into my pocket for my claws. That the thought had popped into my head told me how terrified I was of his slipping control over his beast. “Why are you so upset?”
Aside from the occasional flare up, Dad kept his temper leashed. Or at least he had around me.
The throb in my cheek was a reminder he was unstable, and if he shifted in this mood, he could kill me.
“You’re asking if you’re my daughter, and you want to know why I’m—?”
A long howl poured from his throat as his sinew cracked and muscles twisted, his bones breaking and his dominant wolf clawing for freedom. Saliva strung his jaws, and his chest heaved as he sucked down air.
Running from a predator was never a good idea.
Neither was sitting politely across the desk from one while it finished shifting and lunged for my throat.
Slowly, lowering my head in a submissive pose, I stood and backed toward the door.
Alphas shifted faster than the average wolf, but without him using magic to boost his speed, I had precious minutes to escape the room that could quickly become my grave.
Had Dad decided to make the change, it would be another story, but his fury had made the call for him, and his wolf would come out chomping.
Sure, the dad I knew would regret tearing me limb from limb after he regained control. This version of him? I wasn’t as sure, and I wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
One hand behind my back, I fumbled for the doorknob, twisting it hard and exiting fast before slamming it shut again. The wooden barrier wouldn’t do much to protect me from him, but it was something.
“Where do you think you’re going?” The sentinel to the left of the door gripped my arm and twisted it parallel with my spine. “We have orders not to let you leave that room until the alpha says otherwise.”
“Too bad.” I stomped his instep, using his surprise I would fight back to break free. “I’m out of here.”
The thing about being a latent was everyone underestimated me. Packmates bought into the fiction I was basically human, and I encouraged that, but I was on equal footing with almost any shifter in their human form. I had the same senses, reflexes, and strength unless they involved their animal.
“Ana.” Zoe lifted her hands in a beseeching gesture as she stepped away from her post on the right side. “You’re only going to make things worse for yourself and for Sloane.”
“Dad has lost control of his wolf,” I warned her, already fleeing down the hall.
An indrawn breath conveyed her shock, and the scent of her fear stained the air.
Sloane. I had to find Sloane. Before Mercer took a bite out of her.
Wood exploded behind me as the office door shattered, and I picked up speed.
One of two things happened when an alpha lost control.
The pack subdued them. Or the pack joined them.
And Sartoris? They were joiners.