Page 6 of The Sacred Wolf

Two young males with fiery red hair stood guard on either side of the elevators, keeping their smooth faces pleasantly blank just in case I was a curious human who’d wandered in off the street. I paused at the edge of the rubber mat, letting the echo of the slamming doors fade away before I stepped confidently onto the chess board. The guards tensed, noses twitching as they read my pheromones, and then their eyes widened with alarm.

Stay calm. You belong here.

Tell them that…

You tell them.

While I didn’t know the name of the brawny older brother with the neatly combed hair, I recognized the lean one with the messy locks as Atlas from my elementary tutoring pack. I actually had a semi-fond memory of the two of us building a sand castle together as pups on Orchard Beach before our tutor made him knock it down as punishment for playing with a female instead of wrestling and racing and tormenting small sea creatures with all the other males. But judging from the muscles rippling under the security guard costume covering his shiftskin, puberty had led to conformity.

I removed my sunglasses, letting the legs snap together in the stunned silence before I clipped them onto my shirt collar. Both brothers raked their bulging eyes up and down my scandalous T-shirt and jeans and then glanced at each other, mouths slightly ajar. I rolled my eyes. There was nothing remotely sexual about my clothing—even the high-waisted jeans were far less form-fitting than a shiftskin—but these males were making me feel like Sandy showing up in leather at the end of Grease.

“My father.” I crossed my arms over the collection of movie fonts scrawled across my chest and tilted my head. “Where is he?”

The older brother could only flutter his speechless lips, but Atlas somehow found the strength to point over his head. Relief washed over me like a cool rain, but I couldn’t let it show that I’d ever doubted Father’s survival. I gave Atlas a polite nod and then strode across the chess board like a queen who could go wherever the hell she wanted.

Not like.

We’ll see.

When I reached the elevator, I realized a single finger pointing at the ceiling was not enough information to go on, so I turned to Atlas. “Can you be more specific?”

“Your room.” His freckled Adam’s apple bobbed. “Or so I’ve heard.”

My eyebrows shot up in spite of my determination to appear non-plussed. I’d assumed Kiana would have already taken the penthouse for herself, but I wondered why she’d chosen my old room for Father rather than her own. Perhaps it was simply a matter of mine already being empty, but I couldn’t help feeling like it must have been some form of punishment for him taking my side on the bridge that night.

“Thank you.” I offered Atlas a friendly smile, which was an extremely un-Alpha thing for me to do, but I didn’t care. Add it to the long list of things I’d change in this backward borough if I ever staked my claim.

His boyish face flushed with embarrassment the same way my assigned assistant Ruby’s did any time I showed her gratitude back home in—I felt my own face flush and quickly turned away, missing the up button with my first flustered jab and poking the wall instead. When had I started thinking of Manhattan as home instead? I had no intention of mating with Sebastian unless he dropped all the boorish Alphahole business, and maybe not even then, so there really wasn’t anything there for me except Evan, and if I returned to the Bronx, he would obviously come with.

“Allow me, Your Grace.” Atlas leaned in to press the button, and a chill swept down my spine. In Manhattan, I was always having to remind Ruby not to use such silly honorifics, but no one had ever directed one my way in the Bronx—only at Kiana. Either Atlas had missed the memo about how Alpha Spares were treated, or…

He knows.

Chapter Four

The elevator doors whooshed open, and I all but jumped inside. My heart thudded in my ears as I mashed the button for my old floor several times in a row, willing the doors to close on the meaningful look Atlas was lasering into my soul. Finally, the slabs of metal obeyed and rumbled shut, but not before I caught a glimpse of Atlas’ brother shooting him a scathing glare.

They both know.

I pressed my shoulder blades and sweaty palms against the vibrating wall as the elevator began its ascent. I hadn’t known what to expect from this visit, but it hadn’t been that. Had my father undermined Kiana right off the bat, or had one of the other three wolves on the bridge that night squealed? Cerys, Willa, and Blaze had all fled the scene while Kiana and I were with Leto, but Cerys was Kiana’s helpmaid, and Willa was her personal bodyguard, so… that left Blaze as the most likely snitch.

A new fear gripped my hammering heart. What if Kiana knew and had punished him for it? He had five motherless pups to care for. Pups I would be caring for as his mate if Sebastian hadn’t saved—A second flush filled my cheeks, this one burning quite a bit hotter than the last. That was sooo not what happened that day. Sebastian had treated my sister and me like objects to be traded, and the only reason he’d stopped was because he’d overheard me telling Kiana that he wasn’t an object. Otherwise, we’d be approaching our one-month anniversary just because he said so, and that wasn’t heroic. That was gross.

So was being betrothed to a male your father’s age.

Well, yeah, but…

There wasn’t time to unpack all of the reasons why being the hotter of two unwanted suitors didn’t make Sebastian my savior or to keep worrying about what might have happened to Blaze. The elevator dinged and jolted to a stomach-dropping stop. A moment later, I found myself staring at the awful oil painting Damian had gifted Kiana on our sixteenth birthday. For months, I believed that she’d only hung the massive gold-framed canvas in our shared hallway to torment me, but later that year on Wolfmoon Eve, when we were returning to our rooms after the feast, she had tipsily blurted the truth—she didn’t like being alone with it at night.

Neither did I. Stepping out of the elevator, I paused to study the giant gory scene I’d always hurried past without making eye contact no matter what time of day. It looked like something Quentin Tarantino would paint if he’d been unlucky enough to be born as a shifter who couldn’t make films, and frankly, I’d never much cared for his body of work due to all the bodies that piled up. Just like in Damian’s work.

There must have been nearly a hundred human corpses littering the dark, dismal canvas in various stages of disembowelment and dismemberment. A number of dead wolves lay among them, all with their throats torn out in violent splashes of crimson, but for the most part, our kind appeared to be winning whatever battle from the Old Stories the disgusting image depicted. I’d missed Damian’s explanation for the unsettling gift because I’d been too busy trying to run away from home, and since I couldn’t admit that to anyone, I’d never been able to ask any questions.

Funny how I couldn’t place it on my own though. I remembered every story I’d ever seen or heard, but I couldn’t recall any big shifter battles taking place around an old stone castle at the edge of a small lake… more of a pond, really. Nor could I remember any stories about Halo the Moon God coming down to fight alongside his sons, but who else could the bearded man standing in front of the castle with his arms outstretched over two identical gray wolves be? I squinted at the armored god, equally horrified and bemused. Had Damian created this story from scratch? Was he making… fan art?

“Well, well, well,” a familiar female voice came from my end of the hallway. “Maybe you do have it in you, after all.”

My head snapped toward Cerys, my sister’s helpmaid. She stood outside my apartment door in the drabbest version of the shapeless skirt and tunic Bronx females always wore unless they were serving in the guard. The last time we met, she had bitten my wolf on the cheek, and I had buried my fangs in her shoulder. She hadn’t given me much choice, but I wasn’t proud of it. Kiana had no business bringing her helpmaid to a meeting she’d always intended to turn into a battle. Doing so had most likely been a tactical move to foster a false sense of security.

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