Chapter 45: A Monster's Mad Design

Will is hurt. I don’t know how I know, but I’m sure of it.

Ash doesn’t sense Will, but she hears the gunshot as clearly as I do. Her eyes lock with mine, wide and horrified.

“Stay with Margo,” I tell her as I wipe my hands on my shirt, trying not to think about the streaks of blood on the fabric. My aunt will be fine. She has to be.

“But, Jane-”

There’s no time. I don’t let her finish.

“Protect Lady Silver, Ash. That’s not a request.”

The order spills out of me instinctively, my tone commanding and foreign to my own ears. Will needs me. I’m not going to stand around and argue. My fingers curl around the bone hilt of the curved dagger in my boot, and I unsheathe it in one swift motion.

“I’ll meet you on the lowest level of the manor. If you can’t find the entrance to the medical wing, contact Marcus. Get out. Get help. Get to safety.”

Ash presses her lips shut and gives me a curt nod.

“Understood,” she says, but I’m already out the door.

As I rush through the various halls and floors of the mansion, I picture Will’s hand mine. I imagine his steps beside me, his words encouraging and guiding me to him.

Save your strength, little wolf. Don’t panic. Run. Stop behind that wall. Check your surroundings. Breathe. Keep going. Run. Careful, princess. Listen. Go down the first flight of stairs. Stop. Look around. Run.

The manor is too large, too quiet. Even as I hurry through it, a small part of me can’t help but wonder how my aunt lived here for so many years, alone save for guards and servants. My chest tightens at the notion that this was the only home Will ever knew growing up. The rooms are empty as I pass them. Kade must have taken out Margo’s servants, or perhaps he had his mercenaries do it for him. I make my way down two stories when the smell of blood hits me again, but it’s not my aunt’s this time.

I pant and pray and pull at that invisible chord in my heart. I need to reach him. I need to get to him now.

I hurl myself down a corridor, stopping to lean against the railing of the mezzanine. One more floor to go, and I’ll reach the manor’s main hall. I would have kept going, but then I saw the scarlet splattered on the hall beneath me.

I go rigid. From where I stand on the balcony, I can see the chandelier’s light bouncing off the crimson pool of blood on the level below me. My grip tightens on the railing, and I feel my world turning upside down.

No sign of Will.

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

Any sliver of practical thinking and reason that remained in my mind goes out the window at the sight of all that blood. My wolf claws at my insides like a caged beast, desperate to get out and go to my mate.

“Will!” I call out his name, my voice cracking.

No answer. That bond between us is tight and still. Silent.

I whirl around, ready to run down the last flight of stairs, and keep searching, but something stops me. Perhaps if I weren’t already exhausted from running to Silver Manor from the detective agency and then rushing up and down the mansion’s massive halls, I would have seen him sooner. Maybe if my emotions weren’t prone to clouding my judgment, I would have noticed the smell or heard his breathing. But I hadn’t been looking for Kade.

“Careful, Jane. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” he says, stepping out of the shadows and blocking my path.

The patronizing concern in Kade’s voice makes my stomach churn. I take an unsteady step backward, but I’m already pressed against the edge railing. I guess when you can’t fly, you fight.

“Is that any way to speak to the future Luna?” I snap at him, jutting my chin up slightly as I stare back at him.

The grip on my dagger tightens as I survey my wretched fiancé, my blood running cold as my eyes land on the gun in his hand.

“You misunderstand me, my dear. I wouldn’t threaten you,” he says, casually lowering the gun. “I’m just warning you.”

“Was slitting my aunt’s throat just a warning blow to you?” I curse at him.

“No, that was simply the best way to remove an obstacle,” Kade says slowly as if explaining something to a child. “Lady Margo served as a placeholder on the throne until I was ready to take it, but she was too paranoid, too uncertain. Once the truth got out, she wasn’t going to support our marriage and hand over the title of Alpha King. So, I got rid of her.”

Past tense. He thinks she’s dead. He doesn’t know that Margo is still alive. Barely. At least, that’s something.

“There will be no marriage, Kade,” I say, my words dripping with venom. “Not now, not ever.”

He frowns, seeming genuinely disappointed, and I see madness flickering in his black eyes.

“Now, now; let’s not be unreasonable,” he says impatiently. “I admit I lost my temper a few times.”

“‘Lost your temper?’ You killed your own parents, you psychopath!”

“They betrayed me first, Jane,” he says, taking a step towards me. “All I ever wanted was to be Alpha, but they had doubts. They worried about my ‘violent nature’ because they didn’t understand true strength. My parents were considering naming my worthless little brother the Blackwood heir. I just did what had to be done.”

I’d suspected as much back at the detective agency, but hearing him say it… hearing him justify it and talk about it so plainly makes me sick.

“I didn’t want to kill them. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But if no one else was willing to make the necessary sacrifices, I would,” he goes on, seemingly oblivious to my disgust. “But I’m not a villain, Jane. I tried to be good. Killing my family brought me no pleasure, and I even spared my younger brother after he survived. He was supposed to die in that crash along with our parents, but the little shit miraculously made it out alive. If I’d known my baby brother would cause so much trouble down the line, I would have finished him off then and there. But I tried to be merciful, and now look where it got me,” Kade says, motioning around with an exasperated shrug.

“You’re insane,” I breathe out, my voice trembling.

My desperation to find Will becomes so intense that it’s almost painful. What has Kade done to him?

So much weakness,” Kade says softly, almost regretfully. “I tried to have mercy, but then your parents started to have doubts. You were finally old enough to take a mate, but they were reconsidering the engagement. Don’t you understand, dear Jane? You were promised to me, but they were going to deprive me of what is rightfully mine. I couldn’t allow that.”

I have no words.

Killing his parents, murdering my own; suddenly, none of it is a theory or a horrible conspiracy anymore. It’s all true. The monster is real, and he’s standing right in front of me.

“I’ll never be yours,” I say at last.

Despite Kade’s efforts, I’ve made it this far. By the grace of the moon, Will and I are still alive.

The youngest remaining heirs of our line. Survivors. Miracles. Mates. The bond between us is the destiny we chose, the fate we will both fight for.

“That’s what young William told me as well…” Kade says, and his smile makes my skin crawl. “…Before I killed him.”