Hours Earlier

Hailey’s P. O. V

When we left the rental this morning, I was wearing a brave face. I didn’t want Ari or even Tim to second guess the decision to let me tag along, now when I had the chance to get answers to the questions I’d been asking my whole life.

But now, so close to my answers, my stomach was in vicious knots of apprehension and twinges of guilt.

Kirstin directed us to Clark’s house.

‘Unless he invites you himself, nobody is allowed near his house without prior notice except for emergencies.’ Her voice shook with emotion as she briefed us through the mind link.

I wanted to reach out a hand to her, but we needed to avoid making unnecessary rustles from the flower bushes we were crouched in.

‘His room is on the top floor. Luna Tiffany doesn’t always sleep in the same bed, but she’s always home, so you’ll need to figure out how to deal with her.’ She checked the time on her phone, ‘I have to go drop the hostages at the pack house while everyone’s occupied with the challenge but I’ll be back.

She looked back at the house before us, her eyes stony and damp at once, ‘Unfortunately, I know for a fact that most of his furniture is made of wood and that he’s got a soundproof basement, so you know what to do. Good luck, and don’t get caught.’

Tim and I nodded as she put on the invisibility necklace Ari had left us. Before long, she was out of sight and already making her way back to the van we’d parked blocks away. Then, it was just my mate and I in the bushes.

My father’s duplex loomed before us. It was a large house that, from the outside, looked like it had many rooms, surrounded by an expansive lawn filled with flowers and the occasional statue. I was sure one of them was a life-sized figure of the man’s wolf, standing tall with its fangs bared.

My heart sped up with the anticipation of what we were about to do, and I clutched the box with the wolvesbane drugs and syringes to my chest.

‘Are you ready, Sunshine?’ Tim’s voice in my mind echoed with the same concern his eyes held as he looked at me.

I nodded, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’

He reached out to squeeze my hand, ‘I’ll give you the signal to move in and drug the Luna. You’ll need to move quickly, okay Sunshine?’

‘Okay.’

He nodded once and brought my hand to his lips. Then he was gone, racing to the house before his approaching scent would compromise his element of surprise. The harsh creaking of wood met my ears as his urgent, ‘Now!’ rang in my head.

Heart in my throat, my feet carried me to the house. I followed Tim’s lead and slipped into the window he’d entered though. I found myself in a rustic living room alone with a blonde woman bearing a striking resemblance to Brittany, bound to a chair by the wood of a now partially deformed table. I had no time to think as my hands fumbled with the box to retrieve the syringe and jab it in her neck.

The drug acted fast and her terrified eyes fluttered closed within seconds.

Sounds of movement reached me as I rushed to find Tim, bounding up the stairs three at a time. I found them in the study, books strewn about everywhere. In the middle of the room was the man that sired me, locked in the bent and twisted floorboards.

My hands shook and I swapped out the anaesthetic wolvesbane syringe for the plain wolvesbane one. His green eyes narrowed and he jerked his head about as I approached. It wasn’t till Tim moved some more boards around to hold his head in place that I was able to inject him.

I scurried back to Tim’s side as soon as I was done. Ari wanted him lucid and as close to his full strength as possible, but we still needed to block his connection to the mind link, so the injection was necessary. This meant that he was still full of rage and had no inhibitions about trying to let us know just how he felt as Tim moved him to the basement.

It wasn’t hard to find. I walked ahead to find the steps near the back of the house. A chill ran through me I descended them first to find a wide space with a bed, a chair with metal straps built into it, a table laden with all sorts of tools, and some chains bolted to the ground.

Tim brought Clark down after me, levelling the steps so he could slide the man to the ground before returning them to their original form and descending them himself. He manipulated the wood panelling to place Clark in the chair. Even when Clark had been strapped to it, Tim still didn’t let up on the wooden tendrils that bound him.

Clark, aware of the soundproofing in his own basement, stopped yelling and instead switched to fluently cursing us out with more expletives than I’d heard in my life. Eventually, after several minutes of failing to get a rise out of us, he somewhat calmed down and settled for glaring daggers at us.

I took a deep breath, my nose filling with his scent, “I need to talk to him.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Tim looked at me, his expression grim and knowing, “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“Do you want me here?” He asked.

Did I? I was about to get the answers I’d been begging for my whole life. I had no idea what to expect, but the thought of not having him here to ground me made me nod my head, “Yes, please…”

Clark burst into laughter, “Oh young love.” He droned, “Better hurry it up, girl. Because once I get free, I’m going to make the both of you watch each other suffer.”

I could feel Tim vibrate with anger next to me, but he remained silent, leaving the space for me to talk. From Clark’s perspective, we were two strangers that had infiltrated his home, but the cruelty in his voice was so gleeful that there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that he’d derive pleasure from whatever suffering he’d cook up for us.

I couldn’t even imagine being on the receiving end of this for nearly sixteen years.

I took a small step towards him, “Do you recognize me?”

“How am I supposed to recognize you, girl?” He scoffed, but he couldn’t hide the spark of contemplation that appeared on his face a second later, or the way his brows furrowed the longer he looked at me.

After he’d been silent for a while, he uttered a stony, “Don’t tell me that woman went and had a child…”

“Two. She had two.”

He laughed and looked to the sky, “Another set of fucking twins, huh?”

I braved another step, “So you do recognize me, and you remember my mother.”

He shrugged, “So what if I do? It’s not every day you see a human wandering the halls of the Royal Palace, acting all high and mighty like she’s not in the presence of creatures far superior.”

A human?

I frowned.

Mom’s turn in the Seer Cycle fell in the Werewolves’ time, which is why she had been in the Palace at all. With how useful Seers were, I assumed anyone frequenting the Palace would have been aware of her status.

“Why did you do it though? If you saw her as a weak human who didn’t know her place, why sleep with her at all?”

His eyes locked with mine, disgust at the memory twisting his features, “Because La Luna was foolish enough to make her my mate. I suppose I wanted to try her out before rejecting her.”

I staggered back, barely registering Tim’s steadying hands on my shoulders, “What…?”

His cruel laugh echoed in my skull, “Oh, your mommy didn’t tell you? Not only was she some big-headed human in a place she didn’t belong, but was somehow my mate too. Me! She didn’t know her place and was all too excited to get into bed with me. It would have been almost wrong not to have her.” He spat on the ground and ran his disgusted eyes over me, “But now I’ve got two half-breed bastards running around with my blood. I thought I was finally free of being tied to your kind when that other whore’s child went and died, but of course two popped up in her place.”

My body shook as white-hot anger coursed through me. For the first time in my life, I fully understood the depth of my mother’s hatred of him.

And worse yet, it went even beyond that.

All the dysfunction surrounding mates and power in this pack originated from the man sitting before me, with his infuriating self-importance and twisted worldview. After fully accepting Tim, I’d come to wonder how anyone could even want to be apart from their mates, but of course, all the rejections and backstabbing that had taken place over the last few years would occur. How could it not when this was their leader and supposed role model? When this was their ‘Alpha’?

“My mother isn’t just a human.”

He rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

“She’s a Seer, a Supernatural Seer.”

His eyes widened, and I watched as all the possibilities and scenarios of what could have been ran through his mind.

If power was what he craved, I would make him realise just how much power being mated to the Seer of their generation would have given him. All the inside knowledge he could have had, all the added favour he could have curried with the Royals through my mom, all the gifts he could have used from Keily and I.

All of it lost to his pride.

His mind went exactly where I wanted it to, and the thoughts of what he’d let slip through his fingers enraged him, “She was the Royal Seer and the bitch said nothing?!”

My hand moved faster than my brain, and I slapped him across the face, “Do not call her that.”

He gaped at me, his mind struggling to comprehend that I would dare strike him, “You half-breed bi-augh!” His words cut off in a yelp as the wood around him tightened.

I turned to look at Tim, the fingers of his outstretched hand closing in slowly as his face twisted with fury, “You’ve got too much fucking mouth for someone in your position right now.” He growled.

“You won’t hurt me,” Clark wheezed, “if you were going to, you would have done it by now.”

Tim maintained his hold for a few more seconds, then abruptly released it. Clark’s gasps for air bled into another cruel laugh.

“I don’t think you went through all this trouble just to ask a few questions.” He gave us a toothy grin, “You and your little mate should have stayed away, because bastard daughter or not, I’ll show you how we deal with intruders here. Since you’re obviously too weak to actually hurt me, I’ll suggest you leave now so you can get a head start before we start hunting you.”

“I’ll pass.” Tim retorted, “I already spent five years running from you after your minions failed to kill me when I found out the truth of what you did to my pack. I plan to live out the rest of my life in peace with my mate.” He wrapped an arm around me, and I blushed as he drew me into his chest.

In the face of the entity he’d spent years fearing, he was openly displaying his love for me without a care in the world. My heart swelled with pride at the fear he’d overcome and love for the man he’d become.

Clark scoffed, “Of course, a stupid, inept mate for a half-breed bastard. You’ll die together.”

I expected Tim’s anger to flare up again, but he only smirked, “By the way, you’ve still got three illegitimate daughters, not two.”

“What are you talking about?”

An all too familiar scent reached me, and I was torn between breaking into a grin and grimacing at the knot of apprehension forming in my stomach.

“And you were right earlier, I won’t hurt you.” Tim continued as soft footsteps padded down the steps and walked up behind us, “But she will.”