Wild Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary Book 4)

Filling in one of the most powerful Fae in the country about our less than legal enterprises and the pure carnage which had led us to this point had been something of a force of will. I knew Max least of the former Heirs – though perhaps that was for the best as I had slept with two of the others and him being Sin’s brother could have been a whole lot more awkward if he’d been a part of that particular night of debauchery. But it also meant that it was a hell of a lot more difficult for me to guess how he might react to some of the more illegal details of our journey to this place, so I’d focused as much as possible on the heinous crimes Vard was responsible for.

To his credit, Max had listened patiently, looking every bit the well-groomed politician he’d been raised to become as he took in each fact, weighed and measured it and seemed to take notes despite not actually putting pen to paper or anything of the sort. But I got the feeling there wasn’t a single piece of the story which he hadn’t taken in in its entirety.

“So, obviously now there are two things left to achieve,” Max said once we’d finished regaling him with the details where we sat clustered around my Aunt Bianca’s dining table, a silencing bubble keeping the story between myself, Ethan, Roary, Cain, Sin and Max alone. I hadn’t even wanted Hastings here for it because I knew there were parts of this that he not only didn’t know but which would likely end up further scarring his more delicate mind if he was forced to endure the full details of them. He’d been distracted easily enough in the company of the pack after I’d reminded them once again of how gallantly he’d saved my life.

“Which are?” I asked, leaning back in my chair while Ethan and Roary leaned forward on either side of me, tension spiking around us as we awaited this assessment.

“We need to get Roary’s Lion back then kill Vard, Benjamin Acrux and any other motherfucker who knows about this shit. Every piece of research, every scrap of evidence that anyone ever did about Order extraction and exchanging needs to be eliminated. The idea of this getting out into the hands of any evil bastard who might want to take advantage of it is completely unacceptable.”

The entire room seemed to exhale, tension sweeping out the open windows and billowing away across the vineyards beyond as if snatched on the hands of the wind itself.

Ethan grinned darkly, leaning back and slinging his arm around my chair while Roary sagged forward in what was clearly a mixture of relief and fear. Because we might all be agreed on the fact that we had to reclaim his Lion, but we were all too aware that returning it to him might not be simple – if it was even possible at all.

“Can you get the FIB off of our backs, brother?” Sin asked from where he was sitting on the counter beside the window, his feet in the sink, three lemons bobbing about his ankles in the water he’d run to soak them in. His new pet Crow-thing was fluttering about in there too taking a bath.

Max tensed at the fraternal pet name, glancing at Sin and then back to me like he didn’t even know where to begin unearthing that can of worms. Hell, I didn’t know either. He was a grown man who had thought himself to have no brothers until a few hours ago but was now being told that not only did he have one, but that he had an older brother, the ramifications of which would have been truly world-shattering a few chaotic years ago, but now…

Well, between the way Solaria was currently being ruled and the fact that I couldn’t think of a single person less suited to leadership on a grand scale than Sin Wilder, I wasn’t sure it made a difference at all. At least not in the wider sense of the word. But for the two of them? Sin had been alone his entire life, abandoned by his mother, hating and resenting both her and whatever stranger had sired him, only to find out that the man who shared his blood never would have given him up had he known about him and that his mother too had been robbed of the chance to love and raise him – or even remember him while she lived. Not only that, but the woman responsible for tearing him away from the family he should have rightfully claimed was long past the point of revenge, her life having been thoroughly destroyed in the events of the war which had played out while he was incarcerated far beneath the ground.

Max blew out a low breath. “Let me make some calls. I can lay a false trail, have the FIB hunting the four of you elsewhere. Everyone thinks you’re dead already anyway,” he added, bobbing his chin at Cain who blinked in surprise.

“Dead?” he questioned.

“Sure,” Max said. “You and that Jack Hastings guy I saw chasing a couple of Wolves up the stairs when I arrived. The FIB spoke out about it last night claiming the likelihood was that the two of you had been murdered once you were no longer needed as hostages for the escape. It’s the most likely scenario I suppose – I doubt they’d ever guess that you’d actually fallen for an inmate and helped her esca-”

“I didn’t help with shit,” Cain growled. “I just…couldn’t let her die.”

I met his ruinous gaze while that declaration sat between us all like a bloody heart laid bare on the table, an offering if ever he’d give one.

“And I’m grateful for that,” Roary said roughly.

Max cleared his throat then swept a hand over his face. “This is fucking messy,” he grunted.

“Messy is my favourite flavour, little bro,” Sin put in and I snorted.

Max straightened. “Alright…I think I need to make a few calls and then-”

“They’ll send me back,” Sin said darkly. “You call up your prissy friends and tell them any of this and they’ll all say the same thing; that I’m bad to the bone, rotten to the core, corrupted all the way to my roots and that no matter how handsome I am, I can’t be left free.”

“You’re a convicted murderer,” Max muttered and I tensed, expecting Sin to leap at him, for lemons and water to fly everywhere and for Aunt Bianca’s prized kitchen to fall prey to their collision, but instead a deep intensity fell over my Incubus and he replied in a low purr.

“Tell me, Maximus, how many Fae did you kill in that pretty little war you fought while I was rotting away underground like some forgotten turnip?”

“My name is Max. Just Ma-”

“Answer me!” Sin roared and Crow-thing squawked, leaping up onto the counter beside the sink.

I pushed to my feet, preparing to get between them even as Ethan, Roary and Cain stood, clearly planning to move in front of me in turn.

“Fine.” Max held a hand out to us, asking us to stay out of it and I slowly lowered myself. If anyone understood the delicate and often combustible dance of family politics, then it was me. “You wanna know how many Fae I killed in the war? Well I can’t answer you. It was utter bloodshed, brutal and horrifying in every way. I blasted my power across the battlefield in ferocious arcs and I couldn’t possibly have kept track of my kills even if I’d tried.”

“And can you tell me that every Fae who died by your hand deserved it, kitten?” Sin asked him. “Are you certain they were all rotten fruit? Hateful and evil in every way? Can you be sure that none of them were just caught up on the wrong side of that battle? Or maybe even forced to fight against you for fear of what might happen if they didn’t?”

Max swallowed thickly but said nothing. A chill crept through the room, the horrors of war seeped over us, thickening the air and making me shiver as the screams I was usually so good at keeping at bay found their way closer. Sin’s accusations could just as easily have been made at me. I fought in that war too. I tore out throats and blasted magic across the battlefield with wild abandon, caring only that those I killed fought for Lionel Acrux against me. Their reasons for joining his ranks hadn’t mattered at the time. Only victory had.

“Because I can name every kill of mine if you’d like me to,” Sin went on, the only one of us who seemed wholly unaffected by the horrors which had permeated the room and with a shudder I realised that I was feeling what Max was. His Siren Order gifts were slipping from him, his own memories and feelings about the war now spilling into the air itself until it threatened to choke us all. “I can tell you what made them bad, bad Fae. I can list off their crimes and tell you their stories and I’m certain even you would have to agree that their deaths were well earned.”

“Stop it,” I growled, my eyes on Max who blinked at me in surprise as he realised it, clearly having expected my berating to be aimed at Sin. “None of us need to feel your shit. We have our own demons to haunt us.”

It took him another moment to take in what I’d meant and with a suddenness that felt like a rubber band snapping against the air, the cold horror of the war abandoned us, his emotions pulled tightly under his grasp once more and the balmy summer breeze washed around us again.

“Alright,” Max sighed. “I get it. I won’t speak to anyone other than making that call to lay the false trail for the FIB. But you aren’t the only Fae who want Vard dead.”

“He is dead,” I pointed out. “If you think that they would want you to let them know he lives after they finally got to move on, after they were able to find solace in the knowledge of him parting ways with this world then go ahead and tell them. But you know better than I do if it would cause more harm than good.”

If the others were confused by my declaration they didn’t ask for more details on who I was referring to. Max clearly understood who I meant though and he nodded slowly, seeming to agree with me that Vard was best left dead in theory until we could make it the truth.

“Fine,” he said. “I won’t tell anyone else about any of this – for now. But if it gets out of hand-”

“It won’t,” I assured him. “But if we’re all agreed, I think we should go now. We have a location and every moment wasted is another where my mate suffers without his Lion.”

“We can’t go yet,” Cain said, surprising us all and I looked to him with a frown.

“Why not?”

“Because Roary is about as useless as a lemon in a prison riot,” he growled.

“Hey,” Sin barked while Max looked utterly confused and Roary scowled.

“He needs to get in touch with his Vampire. It doesn’t matter if he wants it or not. It doesn’t even matter if he won’t be a Vampire for much longer. He needs to be able to use his speed and his strength to his full capabilities or he will just be a liability when we go after Vard and Benjamin and I’m not risking them getting away from us again.”

I softened at the raw pain in his voice, knowing that this was as personal for him as it was for Roary.

“So what do you suggest?” I asked him.

His eyes flashed with darkness, reminding me that he was no law-abiding guard. “That we go to the Hellion Hunt.”