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‘You can’t prove that,’ he muttered finally.
‘I don’t need to prove it, I just need to call another general tourney and watch you slide back down the ranks. Boost supply has been permanently disrupted. You couldn’t get more if you tried.’
‘I don’t want anymore.’ He shuddered. ‘It was horrible.’ He met my eyes. ‘I didn’t want to take it, I swear. Mark made me. He said if I didn’t, he’d make sure something fatal happened to my dad when he fought him.’
I blew out a sharp breath. If Mark hadn’t already been dead, I’d have killed him myself. Okay – beat him up a little.
Vile,Esme spat.To threaten his family like that. Mark Oates did not know the meaning of pack.
No.I agreed.He did not.He’d left Cassie when they couldn’t have kids together and moved on to a younger model. He’d threatened the younger pups and he’d pissed on the elder tree. I was glad I hadn’t known him better. At least this investigation had helped me discover his character and a few issues within the pack. Now I could get on with doing some fence-mending.
I’m excellent at finding people’s common ground, and I’d frequently organised social events for my old firm. I was going to glue this pack back together if it killed me. And if I didn’t do a good job, then it very well might.
Chapter 24
Oncethedamhadbroken, Noah’s story poured out. Mark had cornered him, threatened him and plied him with Boost. Afterwards, when he was high as a kite, Mark had turned Noah lose on the pack’s tourney where the increase in his strength and speed had shot him to an undeserved ninth place.
After the tourney, Mark had cornered Noah and shown him a video he’d taken of Noah taking the drugs. He said that if Noah didn’t do as he ordered, he would tell Lord Samuel all about his terrible ‘drug habit’.
‘He was blackmailing you.’
‘Yeah,’ Noah said miserably. ‘At first it was small things. He made me go with him to a black tourney, just to watch, he said. It was horrible. You could see the fighters weren’t there willingly. He made me strip and parade around the tourney with nothing but a mask on, and he made me turn in front of the other patrons just for shits and giggles. He—’ Noah broke off, looking upset and angry in equal measure.
‘The next time he took me, he made me let a vampyr feed on me.’ He shuddered. ‘Then the next time I went out alone, I got set upon by the same vampyr and some of his mates – he’d got a taste for me apparently. Mark dealt with the vampyr attack and he got some compensation from them, but he kept it all. And I haven’t been attacked again since, but it…’ He trailed off. He didn’t need to finish the sentence; the attack had knocked his youthful confidence.
I sat next to him, resisting the urge to throw my arms around him. His teenage pride probably wouldn’t welcome a hug from me. ‘That’s horrible. I’m sorry.’
‘He was bragging to some wolves at the black tourney that I was his little sub-bitch, that I’d do anything he said. It was horrible. It wasn’t long after that that he made me go to the elder tree and piss on it. I don’t know why, but I got the impression he was deliberately trying to screw pack relations with the dryads. I got scared about what he’d make me do next, and I finally got up my nerve and told my parents. I’ve never seen my dad so angry – not at me, at Mark. Mum had to talk him down from challenging Mark then and there. My dad’s fourteenth, but he’s not in the same league and he would have died. Mark would have made sure he died.’
‘Mark was an asshole,’ I said before I could censor myself.
Noah grinned and the smile chased away the shadows in his eyes. ‘Yeah. He really was.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I went to Mark and told him that I was done, I wouldn’t do his bidding anymore. He said that if I wasn’t his entertainment then I’d be his nest egg and demanded monthly payments of £250 to keep quiet. It wasn’t much, so I agreed. Mum and Dad have been paying him for the last month or two.’
He looked up at me. ‘But neither of them would have hurt him. They were trying to gather evidence to have Mark kicked out. They would never have hurt him, that’s not who they are.’
I nodded. ‘Of course not. They’re not like Mark.’
‘No.’ He relaxed a little. ‘No one else in the pack is like Mark. With him gone, the atmosphere is much lighter. I know we’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
He looked down at his toes. ‘Are you going to take away my rank?’ he asked in a small voice.
‘I’m probably going to hold a general tourney soon,’ I admitted. ‘With Mark gone, things need a shuffle around. But the pack doesn’t need to find out about your Boost incident. Mark took advantage of you. As far as the rest of the pack are concerned, in the last tourney you just got lucky. We’ll see where you end up. You might surprise yourself.’
‘The truth is, I don’t want to be in the top thirteen. We’re supposed to be the pack’s first line of defence and I’m just not good enough.’
‘We’ll see,’ I said lightly. I squeezed his shoulder. ‘Thanks for telling me the truth.’
‘My mum thinks you’ll be good for the pack. She’s never wrong.’
‘She seems wise.’ I winked. ‘I like her already. You can go now.’
Noah left like a shot, closing the heavy door behind him. Our conversation had made my heart ache a little.
