Page 48 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

Andreas

Ihad no plan.

It had been more than twelve hours since I left Diana’s place, and in that time, I had done little more than try to formulate a plan for us to be together, but I still had nothing. I’d even tried talking to Mikeal about the situation but chickened out at the last second. I wasn’t sure how he would respond, and a part of me didn’t know if I could handle getting into another argument with my brother.

At this point, merging the packs was the only way I could think of keeping the people I loved safe. Without a marriage to seal the deal, there was no reason for anyone outside of the Vilks pack to pledge their loyalty to me. Sarafina was the key to me maintaining control over the larger pack, which was vital if I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly for the people I was in charge of leading.

The fact that I hadn’t come up with a way to have my cake and eat it, too, however, was driving me absolutely mad. It was well after dark, and Diana was supposed to arrive at any second. And I so desperately wanted to be able to give her a solution to our problem—a way for this all to work out in our favor.

I swore under my breath and continued to pace along the path where we had arranged to meet. After a while, I heard soft footsteps coming from the south, and I pushed my shoulders back and breathed out, trying to expel some of my anger so I wouldn’t accidentally take any of it out on the woman I loved. When I refilled my lungs, though, my stomach muscles tensed. It wasn’t Diana approaching. I would’ve known her smell from miles away.

It was Stanley Kingsley.

Even before the beam from my phone’s flashlight illuminated the older man’s face, I could tell he was mad. I could smell the sweat coming off him, and he was breathing heavily. This was a man on a mission.

“What are you doing here?” I growled. “This is private property. You’re trespassing, and if you don’t turn around and leave right now, I’m going to call the cops.”

“I don’t think you will,” Stanley said. His voice was rather calm compared to the rest of his demeanor.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“So what if I am?”

“I swear to god, I’ll do it. What the fuck do I have to lose?”

“A lot,” he said. I waited, barely holding back my anger or patience. Eventually, the man added. “Because if you call the cops, I’ll happily inform them that I have reason to believe you and your family know something about my son’s disappearance.”

I gawked. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Michael,” he said as if the name was supposed to mean something to me. “My son. You and your pack killed him all those years ago, didn’t you?”

Some of my frustration suddenly dissipated, and I let my shoulders drop. This man still posed a threat, but perhaps there was a chance I could talk him down. He was clearly very confused. “Listen,” I said in a low, soft voice. “I’m sorry to hear about your son’s disappearance. I vaguely recall a kid going missing back in the day, but I promise you, nobody in my family knows anything about him.”

“Well, that’s funny because he knew a whole lot about you.”

I furrowed my brow. “What does that mean?”

Stanley took another step forward. He had his hands in his pockets. “My son was onto you and your family. I used to think he was just going through a weird phase. You know how kids are. I was really into model trains when I was his age. He was into the occult. He listened to goth music and would exclusively watch horror movies, but I didn’t see the harm in all that. Until he started talking about beasts that lived in the forests around town.”

Oh no.

“That’s when my wife and I grew more concerned. We thought maybe Michael was suffering from some sort of mental health crisis. Was he having delusions? Hallucinations? He would just go on and on about these werewolves like they were so real—like he’d seen them with his own two eyes. No amount of arguing would make him realize how insane he sounded.”

I drew back a couple of steps, wanting to make sure that I could dart and block Stanley’s path toward the compound in case he decided to try and make a run for it.

“When Michael first disappeared,” Stanley went on. “My wife was the first to suggest that maybe he ran away. She thought I had been too hard on him, that I should’ve let him believe in whatever he wanted to instead of trying to get him to see the truth. That’s the same reason she eventually left me. She blamed me for all of it. For years, I agonized over trying to find out what really happened to Michael. I needed to know the truth. It was eating me up inside.”

He looked down at his feet and fell silent. I thought now might be my chance to make a connection, to show this man that he had no reason to suspect me or my family of harming an innocent child. We would never do something like that.

“I can understand what you’re going through. I’ve always been the one to look out for my little brother,” I said. “His name is actually similar to Michael, just pronounced a little differently. If anything ever happened to him, I?—”

“You’d what?” Stanley asked. “You’d seek revenge on the people you knew were responsible?”

Before I could respond, Stanley pulled a shiny little revolver out of his pocket and pointed it directly at me. I threw my hands in the air, one last-ditch effort to de-escalate the situation before things got really ugly. “Stanley,” I said. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

“Really? You think so?”

“We didn’t do anything to your son, and we’re not beasts. We’re not werewolves.” I laughed but knew right away it didn’t sound convincing. “That’s insane.”

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