Chapter 35

Winema keeps Charles, Isabella, and Jessie with her and Cliff in the VIP lounge. They all order dinner, on the house, so there must be a lot of negotiating ahead. Me and Cyn follow Randall back to the main room of the Moonshine, where we sit at the bar. Nobody looks at us, their faces shadowy and impossible to read.

Cyn nudges me with her elbow. “What’s going on?”

“Hell if I know.” I look at Randall. “Do you know what you’re doing next?”

His eyes look like embers in the darkness. “What we’re doing next,” he corrects. “You’re going to have to prove to Cliff that he should make you one of his own, a Zlatrovik, just like everybody else will. Or… well, there isn’t an or. Unless you’re happy with the idea of facing a really fucked-up justice system.”

I feel like I swallowed ice. “Me?”

He claps his hand on my shoulder and gives me a crooked smile. “I told Winema what happened, bloodborn. You’re part of the pack.”

Cyn finds my hand beneath the bar and grips it tight. “What if he doesn’t want that?”

Randall doesn’t even look at her. “He doesn’t belong with you.” His phone buzzes, and he digs it out of his pocket to read a text.

I stare blankly at the reflections in the polished wood of the bar. She doesn’t belong here, either. She can’t be part of this plan. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her, but they won’t let her get away and tell the police.

“What about Cyn?” I say.

Randall shuts his phone and slips it into his pocket. “I don’t know.”

Something in his voice tells me he’s lying, that he knows what the Zlatroviks do to humans who know too much.

Cyn leans across me to stare at Randall. “I can’t be your hostage forever. Right?”

He looks at her with dark, dark eyes. “We don’t need you anymore.”

What did that text say? Did Winema order him to hand Cyn over to the Zlatroviks? Take her to an alley and kill her himself?

“I can find my own way out.” Cyn stares boldly into his eyes. “If you let me go.”

“It’s not going to work like that,” Randall says.

I squeeze her hand tight. Don’t do anything reckless, Cyn.

“Brock,” she says, half-standing. “Let’s go.”

I can feel Cyn’s hand sweating in mine. She glances at me, a bright shard of hope in her eyes, full of maybes for me and her.

“Go?” Randall shakes his head and laughs, but it sounds fake. “Don’t try to play hero. You’re both going to get yourselves killed the moment you set foot in the street. Either by the police or, more likely, Cliff’s men.”

“But we joined their pack,” I say. “They wouldn’t kill us, they—”

“We haven’t earned their loyalty yet.” Randall glances at the time on his phone and growls. “Jesus, what’s taking so long?”

“What is?” I say, but he ignores me.

Cyn hesitates. “Brock, have you heard about these tests of loyalty?” Without waiting for my reply, she keeps talking. “The Zlatroviks are infamous. They’re going to make you murder one of their enemies. At the very least.”

I clench my jaw. “Yeah, I figured.”

“Finally,” Randall mutters.

A tall man in a black shirt sits on the barstool next to Cyn. He smiles for her eyes only, and his goatee makes him look devilish. He reeks with a sickly-sweet aroma, like faerie wine mixed with something burnt.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he says to her, like I’m not even there.

I press my fingernails into Cyn’s palm in warning.

“Sure,” she says.

My eyes snap to Cyn, and I see a slow smile bloom on her face. The wrongness of it twists my guts. She watches, smiling, as the stranger buys a bottle of faerie wine and pours her a glass of the green liquor himself.

“Cyn!” I say. “What do—”

“Please,” says the stranger.

He glances at me, and his eyes glitter like black glass. A drunken feeling clouds my head. My hand goes limp, and Cyn’s sweaty fingers slide past my skin.

Who is this stranger? He doesn’t smell like a wolf… more like Demon Dan. A faerie.

I swing my head toward Randall, my pulse throbbing in my temples. “Randall.”

He’s staring at Cyn with a carefully empty expression, but I can see pain sharpening his eyes. He was waiting for this.

Cyn lifts a glass of faerie wine to her lips. She drains it dry.

“Cynthia.” The word escapes me as a growl, cutting through the clouds in my head.

Randall catches my arm. “Brock,” he says in a low, intense voice. “Leave her alone. You have to let her go.”

“No,” I say, my own voice too loud in my ears. “Cynthia, stop.”

She glances at me, her eyes glossy and unfocused. “Try some, Brock! This stuff is… really good.” Her forehead hits the bar, and she giggles, her shoulders shaking. “Some more, please,” she slurs, her voice muffled.

She’s shitfaced already? Christ, faerie wine must be toxic.

“Brock.” Randall drags me away from the bar. “They’re helping her forget.”

“Forget what?”

“All of this. And then she can go home.”

My eyes burn. “What’s all of this?”

The words rattle from Randall’s mouth like bullets. “The kidnapping, the police, the pack, the faeries, everything. You have to let her go.”

I shake my head and try to step past him, but he blocks my way.

“Do it for her,” he whispers. “Not for yourself.”

“No!”

The faerie guy glances at us. “Would you like me to give him some wine, as well?”

To forget it all. To know nothing about the teeth that scarred me, the disease that took my brother away, the hate that fills my family’s eyes.

To start over. As a bloodborn. Alone. No, as a member of the Zlatrovik pack.

Without Cyn. Without Dad.

I wouldn’t be Brock anymore.

“I’m going to have to say no.” My voice shakes, but I’m looking Randall straight in the eye. “And you can’t take away Cynthia’s memories without asking her. You can’t force her to change, like you did to me.”

Randall looks at me as if he’s been betrayed by his own son. “Brock.”

“Sorry.” I shake my head. “Definitely fuck that shit.”

He tries to grab my shoulder, but I twist away and make it to the bar. I grab the bottle of faerie wine and hurl it against the wall. The crash attracts the attention of everybody in the Moonshine. Dozens of glowing eyes fix on me.

Randall snarls and sticks his face into mine. “Bloodborn! You’re out of line.”

I’m not even going to bother with his werewolf dominance games. I’m not even going to pretend I’m a part of his pack anymore.

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

Fangs unsheathe from Randall’s teeth. His hair pales to silver. “Brock, don’t do this.”

“It’s too late.”

I feint a lunge, then sidestep and barrel past him. Off-balance, Randall stumbles against a barstool and falls. I don’t look back, just get the hell out of that place with its stink of faerie wine and betrayal. Randall’s snarl echoes after me.

He’s going to hunt me down as the silver wolf. I’ve failed him as a bloodborn. Spurred on by adrenaline, I charge up the stairs, into the stock room, and out the back door. I slow only to unbuckle my belt and kick off my shoes. Then I’m running again, peeling off my shirt, stoking the anger inside me to speed the change. I stumble on twisting legs, then dive into the shape of a wolf, my paws hitting pavement.

Stronger, faster, I hurtle through the dark streets of Denver.

A howl splits the night. Rage, fear, and sadness twist together as the sound rises above the city. My ribs tighten, and I choke back an answering howl.

I have to find help for Cyn before it’s too late and she’s forgotten me forever. She might remember the old Brock, the guy she dated and dumped, but not the new Brock, the one she might love again.

Do it for her. Not for yourself.

Would it be a kindness to let her forget? To let her go?

Blindly, I run through the darkness. I don’t belong here anymore. I don’t belong anywhere, but I can’t stop moving, even though the people on the street gasp and shout and catcall as I sprint past them.

A woman screams, “Don’t let it bite me!” with no way of knowing that I won’t.

I’m the silver wolf now. Randall has made me in his image, and God, I hate it.

Then, as I run, I hear a girl’s trembling voice. Cyn? I veer down a street, paws thundering on the sidewalk, and spot a cop car pulled over beside a familiar sedan. Inside the car, a girl with long, dark hair cries as she speaks. I know her—I saw her in the meadow, that first day I saw the Bitterroot Pack all together.

From the back seat, a baby wails and a puppy howls. A werepuppy.

I slow to a trot and hide in the shadows.

Royle. The sight of him loosens a growl inside me, but I swallow it back.

“I won’t ask you again,” he says. “Step out of the car.”

“I can’t,” the girl says, her teeth bared, her voice ragged. Her fear sharpens into anger, and she sounds so much like Cyn it hurts. “I can’t leave them.”

Royle levels his gun at her face. “Open the door or I’ll end things now.”

The girl wipes her eyes and unlocks the door. Royle wrenches it open, hauls her out of the car, and forces her to the pavement. In the back seat, the werepuppy starts yipping and snarling. The baby cries so loud it goes hoarse.

“Let me go,” the girl cries. “I haven’t done anything!”

“It’s what you are, gick, not what you’ve done.”

I can’t fucking believe this. I’m going to rip a hole in this bastard. Police brutality won’t even come close to what I’m about to do.

Fangs bared, fur bristling, I step from the shadows.