Page 65 of Wolf Marked

Eva let out a long sigh before speaking. Pain etched across her features. “Jerrick always had harder, more aggressive tactics when it came to certain things. He’s impatient.” She glanced over her shoulder, as if she was expecting him to pop out of the shadows at any moment. When she confirmed they were still alone, she turned back to Erec. “You were an independent and rambunctious little boy.” She smiled briefly, as if remembering something Erec couldn’t. “You didn’t like to be told what to do.”

Curious, he waited, listening.

“Jerrick was always so hard on you. I never understood why. You were just a child. A baby still…” She sniffed. “He’s had this dream ever since I’ve met him, and no one was going to slow him down or hold him back from it. No one.”

“Not even his own son.” Erec finished her thought, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone.

She shook her head. “No…no one. He hates disobedience of any kind. One night, he snapped. I couldn’t control him that time. He made the pack leave you alone in the woods. He wouldn’t let me take you back. I tried—”

So he had been abandoned, forced to survive most of his life thinking his parents were dead, all because Jerrick had lost his temper? Erec ground his teeth until pain shot up his jaw to his temples. If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t believe a person could be so cruel and cold-hearted, but Jerrick wasn’t a normal man. He was psychotic.

“I snuck away the next morning to find you, but by then, you were gone.” Eva’s voice shook. “I blamed myself for years. I still blame myself…” She walked over to the cage and pressed her face between the bars. She reached out a hand toward him and smiled. “But you’re alive. I can’t believe you’re here again.”

“In a cage,” Erec replied drily, only staring at her stretched-out fingers, “as Jerrick’s prisoner.”

Her arm fell to her side, and her smile vanished. “I know. I’m trying to convince him to let you out. After he found you in Mikel’s pack, it took me some time to get him to agree to keep you alive and bring you back here. Now, he wants you to rule the pack by his side. As his son.”

“And that’s a good thing?” he snapped. “I will not help him hurt or murder another innocent soul.”

“You can’t keep fighting him, Erec!” Her voice shook as it rose. “He’s too powerful. Please. Just do what he says. I don’t want to lose you again.”

“I’m going to stop him. I have to. Whatever that means I have to do, I don’t care.”

Eva pressed her lips together as a tear slid down her cheek. For a few breaths, she said nothing, only stared at him. Then her voice lowered but stayed just as urgent. “What if I can promise you the woman won’t be touched? The one with the red hair? What if I can get Jerrick to allow her into our pack, so that you can save her from the curse and be together?”

Erec’s heart plummeted. She’d seen Astrid. She knew she had been here.

“You love her,” Eva continued against his silence. “Your father has a different idea about the curse, but I know it takes true love to break it.”

“Don’t call him that,” Erec growled, his anger spiking immediately. “He’s not my father.”

Eva’s gaze locked with his, silently pleading with him. “I know she’s the one for you. If I can get Jerrick to promise to leave her unharmed, will you let this animosity go?”

He was about to shoot back a rejection, but Astrid’s face floated into his thoughts, making him pause. He had a chance to save her from the Blue Moon and from Jerrick’s next attack. They could be together again, safe from Jerrick’s destruction.

At what cost? The death of her family and the pack that took him in? He couldn’t agree to this. But if he didn’t, Eva could go back and tell Jerrick that Astrid had been here. He might move up his plans to take out the west-side pack.

Astrid wouldn’t want the life Eva was suggesting. He knew her well enough to be sure she’d rather die fighting for her people than take the selfish way out. And so would he.

“If you want to help me, let me out of this cage, so I can survive the Blue Moon and save her, too. Let me go.”

“I-I can’t…” she whispered after a long moment. “You know I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” he replied with more force. “Jerrick wouldn’t know it was you. We can make it look like I escaped on my own.”

She said nothing, but fear widened her eyes.

“If you want to truly help me, let me go,” Erec said.

“You don’t know Jerrick.” She glanced over her shoulder again to the shadows. “You don’t know what he’s capable of. He’ll know. He always knows.”

Any hope Erec had of escaping in time was quickly slipping away. Jerrick had too much power over his mate. It seemed Eva wasn’t going to be of any help to him.

“Please, Erec,” she begged. “Can we just be a family again?”

She was offering him what he had always wanted—a mother and a father and a home—but instead of hope, the word brought the image of Mikel into his thoughts, followed by the gruesome memory of Jerrick snapping his neck and laughing manically.

Fury exploded inside him. He’d had a father. Maybe not by blood, but Mikel had always been there and had given Erec a steady place to stay whenever he was tired of running from his insecurities. Mikel had believed in him, even when he had given up on himself.

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