Purity (23 page)

He blushed a deep red. “Get on out.”

Meg giggled. “That’s Micah. He takes us to use the bathroom.”

Rachel thumped my arm as we went outside, and I grinned at her.

Micah led us behind a tree, and Rachel said that was where we had to pee. It was humiliating, given that a group of strangers circled us the entire time. Micah tried to lead us back, but I brushed past him and strode right up to the one who appeared to be in charge, a muscular dark-haired man. He flinched with surprise when I approached.

“I want to see Vin,” I said. “Right now.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You do now, do you? All right, princess, let’s go see Vin.”

He made a face, and the men around him all laughed. He gripped my shoulder to lead me away. I didn’t recognise any of the people, but they all seemed to have a job to do: skinning small animals, watching us, chopping wood. The place practically bustled with life despite the relatively small numbers.

We passed tents and caravans, heading for a building that looked more like a converted barn. People formed groups and watched us walk. Some whispered while eyeing me with suspicion, while others gazed at me with something akin to pity.

I guessed Vin had been taking entire families. But there didn’t seem to be a pack, not like Nathan’s family. There were groups here and there, and people seemed more suspicious of the group closest to them than of me, judging by the evil looks they threw at each other.

“Watch yourself, lads,” the werewolf leading me shouted. “The werewolf killer is demanding an audience.”

People came from every direction to stare at me. Men and women alike glared at me. Children stared at me with wide, scared eyes as if I were the monster from their nightmares. Some laughed and others jeered, but I held my head up high, meeting their eyes with a challenge. That didn’t go down well, and the man holding on to me had to bark out a command to keep the werewolves away. I spotted Dar again, staring at me with darkness in his eyes, and I hoped the werewolf holding on to me could keep Dar away, too.

I was losing hope. Nathan’s pack hadn’t been able to find Vin, or even Meg and Rachel. How would they find
me
?

The werewolf led me up to the door of the small building, and when he knocked, the old woman who had cut my hair opened the door.

“What is this?” she asked, looking me over with disgust.

He spoke rapidly in French, but I couldn’t understand a word of it, despite Joey’s tutoring.

She grinned, and I had to force myself to remember I had faced down a werewolf before. I told myself I wasn’t scared.

It didn’t work. I was terrified.

She caught hold of what was left of my hair and pulled me inside. As the door slammed shut behind us, a feeling of dread sent sweat trickling down my spine. She dragged me into a room and shoved me forward. The room was dark, but as my eyes adjusted, I finally saw him. He sat in a ripped armchair. When his eyes met mine, he looked slightly confused for a couple of seconds.

“She wanted to see you,” the she-wolf said mockingly, and I got the impression it wasn’t me she was mocking. “So I brought her in for a visit.”

He rose to his feet, displaying a bare, muscled chest that only showed the mildest hint of his age. Seeing him sent me into a panic, and I struggled to get away. I didn’t want to look into those eyes anymore.

“Enough,” he called out as I squirmed. “Little interest in you.”

The woman stilled me easily in any case, and I stood there, panting, watching him warily. As if watching him could prevent anything—he could rip out my throat before I made it halfway across the room, and the darkness in his eyes had my knees wobbling with fear at that unwanted image.

He was handsome, despite his wild and rugged appearance. I imagined he had probably been a bit of a stud in his younger years, if he hadn’t scared everyone away with his craziness.

“So this is the next generation,” he said languidly, his eyes running over my appearance. “This is the one to bring the next Evans wolf into the world. Does my old friend Jakob approve?”

“Vincenzo,” the woman said. “Let me throw it back in its cage.”

“Get out, Martha!” he bellowed.

He ran his fingers through his shoulder-length grey hair as she hesitated, but one look in her direction had her running from the room, leaving me alone with the beast.

He paced, avoiding my gaze. I knew I would likely provoke him, but I needed to see him. I needed to see the person who had brought all of the trouble on us. He had sent wolves to scare me, to attack my father. He had destroyed all of us in some way. And there he was before me.

“My mate sometimes forgets to be obedient.” He held his arms close to himself. “The wolf knows too well who the mate is. Who the mate will always be.”

I stared at him, utterly baffled by his words.

“You’ve spent time with them? With Jakob and his family?”

I nodded, startled backward by his speed as he rushed at me. He put his arm around my waist, and I squeezed my eyes shut. But no pain came. I opened them again warily, surprised to see him sniffing me.

He released me. “You don’t smell like her. I hoped you might.”

I shivered, wondering what exactly was happening.

“What was she like when you knew her?”

“Who?”

“Lia!” he bellowed in my face.

I shrank from him.

He closed his eyes, took a step back, and nodded, his finger tapping his temple. “Lia. What. Was. She. Like?”

“Beautiful, until you killed her.” I didn’t know where I’d gotten the nerve to say that, but my words worked like a strike against him.

He flinched, horror colouring his expression. “I didn’t,” he whispered, shaking his head. “It wasn’t me. It could never be me.” He sat back in his chair, and his expression turned ugly. “But at least now he knows what it’s like. He can suffer as I did. His mate is gone, and he will never be whole again. Now he’ll understand what it was like for me when they ran, when he wouldn’t let her say goodbye. He couldn’t even give me that. He took her, but now he’ll know what it feels like to lose your heart.”

“You have a mate,” I said in a croaky voice. “That woman—”

“That woman is
nothing
. A name. The strongest female, so it made sense to try. The wolf won’t recognise her. Not anyone. Only Lia. The wolf has been dying for years, but now, now we’re fading because she’s gone for good. Except I can’t give up yet.”

“Lia and Jakob were soul mates.”

“No.” He sounded so distraught that I almost forgot he was the monster ruining my life. I almost pitied him in spite of myself. “She was mine. She was
my
mate.
I
found her first.
I
protected her.
I
saved her. I challenged the alpha to keep her safe when I knew
he
couldn’t. Jakob acted the hero, and she was loyal, but he stole her away from me.”

He raked at his arms with his fingernails, reminding me of how Nathan had described
Willow
.

“Did you know,” he said, closing in on me, “that I tried to turn her wolf to protect her? To keep her safe. Give her the strength to defend herself in case I wasn’t there. I did it because he didn’t have the balls, but he ruined it. He filled her head with nonsense and actually made her believe that I would try to hurt her. Me, whose heart she tore into pieces! As if I could ever hurt her. He only did it to steal her from
me
.”

“You can’t steal a person in that way. They have to
want
to be taken.”

“You child.” His voice trembled, but it was wild and hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in years. “You small-minded child. Do you know so little of the world? Of course you do. It took you too young, this curse of yours. The curse that ruined my life.”

“It’s gone. It’s over. No more curses. Lia’s dead because of this. Isn’t that enough? They don’t want your pack. They never have. Can’t you leave them be now? Can’t you leave all of us alone?”

He got up and prowled toward me. “It wasn’t my fault. I just wanted her with me again. I wanted to see if… to see if it was still there. Everything we felt before.”

“And now she’s dead,” I said bitterly.

He sank to his knees and stared at me, his eyes widening with either shock or madness. “I don’t care about anything else. I only ever wanted her. All of this has only ever been for her, but I’m surrounded by
beasts
. Beasts with no brains and heavy hands. Bad-blooded fools. I promised the pack so many things, and now
they
want to kill us for it.”

“They’re not murderers,” I said. “They won’t come in here and take anything from you. They don’t want it.”

He looked at me as if I were the one consumed by madness. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand, can you? The wolf who loses his mate is lost, is dying. He will do anything and everything, and nothing will ever be enough. I had to take another mate just to hold on to my control. Jakob has
nothing
now. He’s lost it all, and he won’t stop until he repays me. We’re all going to suffer for it.”

What would my death do to Nathan? I shuddered. “You could make peace. Byron… Byron would accept it. I know he would.”

He laughed humourlessly. “The son? After what happened to his brother?” He shook his head, his eyes losing the room and finding another place.

I shifted from one foot to the other, uncomfortable and terrified and confused. How was this man controlling our lives? He could barely control his own thoughts.

“Another mistake,” he barked. “I only wanted his wife with me to force Lia to come for her. But even when they died, even when their son died, Jakob never let her. If she had come to me, all of this could have been prevented. So no, I don’t believe the other son will be quick to forgive.”

“Byron’s sensible. He’s not like Jakob, but he’s in charge. He wants everyone to be safe. He wants this all to be over. You don’t have to keep going, keep making everything worse. Enough people have died. And for what? Lia would never want this. Deep down, you know this would make her hate you. She would never, ever want people to die because of her. It will destroy everything, stain the very memory of her if you let that happen. You can’t do that to her. If you ever loved her, truly loved her, you would stop this.”

He sat back in his chair, his eyes moving rapidly from side to side as if he were running through sequences of events, of possible endings to his story. “Maybe it would work. With you there, I could even—”

“Don’t listen to her,” Martha said from behind me. I hadn’t heard her come back in. “She’s spying on you for them. She would tell you anything to make you complacent. They want to kill us all, but we’ll die fighting, won’t we?”

“No,” I said. “There’s no need for anyone else to die.”

“It’s the only way, Vincenzo,” Martha whispered.

“Yes!” He stood and thumped his bare chest with his fist. “We will take them down with us before we kneel at that animal’s feet.”

I stared at the floor. There was nothing anyone could do. Both Vin and Jakob were mad and delusional. Both were suffering from grief and loss, and it meant nothing could ever end peacefully. We were all being sucked into a supernova of pain and anger, of sorrow that could never heal, and none of us could break free. Not until death cured the madness.

The madness was so infectious that I found myself laughing. My laughter became louder until even Vin looked freaked. I couldn’t stop, and when the tears finally came, they flooded out of my eyes with a power I didn’t think I had anymore.

Nathan

Our barking dogs woke me. All of them were going absolutely crazy, especially Cú. He had a new lease of life, and according to Jeremy, he had been leading the other dogs in the search for Perdita. Our family’s bond with the wolfhounds was often a tad spooky, but at the moment, I was glad of it.

When I heard Cú’s bark above the others, I raced outside to see a car speed away beyond the driveway.

I ran, shouting for my family, but the car was gone by the time I made it to the road. I stared after the speedily retreating vehicle until I caught a certain scent in the air. Following it, I found a box on the ground inside our garden wall. I lifted it onto the top of the wall and opened it.