Page 17 of Bred Mate
There’s a much longer pause now. I wonder if Gray knows. I wonder if he cares. They don’t seem to be particularly sentimental, this family. If someone had one of my brothers, I’d go absolutely mad getting them back. I’d pay anything, if I had money. Or I’d kill anyone who dared touch them. It’s different for these people. They seem to operate entirely independently, like they don’t need or want each other.
“Probably,” he says finally. “I wasn’t there. But I can tell you this, Karl’s been wounded in ways I can’t describe, and most people can’t understand. Which is why I’m telling you for a third time: run away.”
He disconnects the call and I am left in that weird silence that always seems to follow a conversation. The silence that wasn’t there when you started, but seems very heavy once the call is over.
I am caught between wanting to go back to the forest and check in on my brothers, and keeping on asking questions. I still need money, and it’s obvious Gray isn’t going to send me any. So I guess I may as well keep calling.
My next call is to Orion Dulac.
I’m nervous making this call. Orion is a legend. He’s also already left us at the mercy of developers by selling the forest in the first place, so I need to be especially firm with him now. I need to put the fear of fucking God into him, so he gives me what I want. This is starting to get messy in ways I didn’t want.
The phone rings for long enough to make me nervous, then gets answered roughly by an older voice who has absolutely no patience for what is happening.
“Karl?”
“Not Karl,” I say. “Karl’s kidnapper.”
“Oh,” he says. “Sorry, not interested.”
He hangs up.
I call back.
The call doesn’t get answered the second time. Goes to voicemail.
I call a third time.
“What?”
I was going to ask him why he didn’t care about the fact that I took his kid hostage, but I don’t really care why, and that’s not a question that’s going to get me anything. So instead, I ask the one that’s been burning in my brain.
“Why did you hit him with an axe?”
“He was a little shit,” Orion answers roughly. “He deserved it.”
“Looks like you fucked up his eye.”
“He seems to do alright with the one he has.”
“Sure, but I’m planning on carving the good one out and sending it as proof I’ve got him. Do you reckon you’d recognize his eye if I did that?”
“Who the Hades is this?”
“I’m the woman who is going to take fifty million dollars off you to make up for what you did when you sold my home.”
Orion Dulac hangs up on me for a second time.
I don’t call him back. Alright, so, nobody in Karl’s family is going to pay money for him. My first gambit failed, and now my second one has too. I start the car and turn it back toward home. I’m frustrated. Felt like a solid plan taking Karl. I figured he’d pay up, or someone else would. I guess nobody is coming for him.
I feel a little sad for him to be honest, but the point wasn’t to work him out. It was to get some money, and we’re no closer to that. I’m letting my family down, and I hate it.
I park, and I make the run to the house. It’s deep in the night now, and I’m enjoying the effects of the moon. I make the run in animal form, holding my clothes in my mouth as I go. I like being my animal self. I like the fact it means I don’t really have to think.
When I get back to the house, I dress quickly and go in to check on everything.
And that’s when things go from bad to worse.
The chair I left Karl in is empty. The silver is on the floor. I don’t know where the hell Karl is, but the pit in my stomach and the immediate sense of dread tells me that I’ve fucked up in a way I won’t recover from easily.
