Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“So we’re going to cure lycanthropy?”
“No,” he says, not missing a beat. “Why would we do that? Turning into a wolf is fucking cool, my son. We are going to pass the gift on to a select few. The process is still in the testing stages, but there’s promise shown in animal trials.”
“You’ve managed to turn rats into rats? Or you’ve managed to turn rats into very small wolves?”
I shouldn’t mock him, but I do it because he annoys me. The little snotty comment about me being a brute was unnecessary. I am a stalker. I am in no way stupid.
What he says next makes me wonder if that’s actually true, however. I’ve missed his point over and over even as he laid it out before me.
“There are many uses for the affliction that causes so many of us to be unable to function. Regardless. We have not yet tried to give any human lycanthropy. Your mate is an ideal candidate. Then she could truly be your mate, and not the human equivalent of a body pillow you carry around.”
He is scathing with his metaphors.
I think about it. Even if it were possible, and safe, and if the process were far enough along that it wouldn’t endanger her life to undergo it, would Calista want to become a beast? Probably. At first. She’d want to be a wolf the same way a small kid wants to be a dinosaur. But she wouldn’t be able to really understand the decision she was making. And it would be painful. And possibly kill her. And I would have to stand by and let it happen though all I have ever wanted is for her to be happy and safe.
“There is no need to think about it,” my father says. “It is already being done.”
“But she just got here. How?”
My father sits back with a satisfied look. “There was no point wasting time. Better that this were done quickly.”
“Where is she? I’ll tear this fucking house apart if I have to,” I growl. “You better hope she has not been harmed.”
“You harmed her when you decided to play house with her, Gray,” my father says. “Besides. She’s been taken to a secure facility. You won’t be able to find her before the procedure is done.”
I have often wanted to punch my father in the face in my life. This is the first time I actually do it.
My fist makes perfect, beautiful contact with his nose and mouth. It probably hurts, but I’m beyond feeling. Some things are worth pain. This is one of them.
“Ungfh!”
He didn’t see it coming. He thought he could torture me forever and never experience the natural consequences of being a huge fucking asshole. He rocks back in his chair, and then the whole thing goes over, taking part of the tablecloth as he grabs at it to steady himself. An entire half-eaten banquet comes crashing down on my prone progenitor.
“What the hell is going on…”
Karl reappears through the side garden door. He’s holding a cigarette, the smoke curling up curiously into his face as he takes the sight in.
I expect my father to shift into his wolf form and do his level best to destroy me for this disrespect.
Instead, Orion Dulac does something I have only seen once or twice in my entire life.
He laughs.
He roars with amusement, standing up and brushing food from his shirt. The movement only serves to smear roulade sauce down his stomach. He is a mess, but he doesn’t seem to care in the slightest. The trickle of blood from the side of his mouth does not bother him either. He wipes it on the back of his sleeve, making more of a mess.
“I didn’t think you had that in you, boy,” he says, ruffling my hair as if I am a child. “Good for you.”
“You attacked our father?” I can’t tell if Karl is horrified, impressed, or wished he’d done it first.
Orion waves him off like an annoying fly.
“Karl, take that outside. It’s disgusting.”
“You want me to take Gray out?”
“The cigarette, idiot boy,” Orion booms.
Karl slinks out, clearly unsure what is happening to a long-established pack dynamic. I am the thirteenth son. I’m usually the one being shooed out of places and treated like an irrelevance.
I don’t care. I need to find my mate.
“Sit down,” Orion says. “She’ll be back in a few days, better than she was.”
“I’m not sitting down. I’m going to get her back.”
“Karl!” My father calls my brother back in. “Arrest your brother.”
Karl grins. “With pleasure.”
“Come near me and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Karl cracks his neck, leaning his head to the side as he does, and fixing me with a sadistic grin. “Go ahead and try, little brother.”
I hear my father laugh, and in an instant I am transported back to a childhood I’ve done my best to forget. Orion always liked to pit his pups against one another. According to him, it was his way of ensuring we were as strong as possible. I think he just enjoyed watching us hurt each other.