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“My brother and I didn’t always despise each other.” The left corner of his mouth twitched up into a smile, and I gulped as his red eyes seemed to glint. “We were best friends, inseparable from the moment he was born. We did everything together. Our parents were… they tried their best. Or at least Ma did. Our father was a mean son of a bitch.”
I didn’t want to hear this. I knew where this was going; he was going to describe a typical abusive household, the norm for fallen-blood wolves.
“He communicated with his fists or insults, and Ma would take it. She claimed she was ‘protecting’ us,” he spat. “I think she was trying to make us cowards. She should have let us experience that. Maybe then, Terrell wouldn’t have ended up on the wrong side of town, sticking his dick where he shouldn’t have.”
I glared at his insult.
“We’d seen a lot of shit growing up, but nothing prepared us for that first transition. That first hot surge of bloodlust that hits you under a gorgeous, ripe moon.” He laughed a gnarled sound that sent unease, skittering along my spine. “I didn’t kill anyone during my first shift, but Terrell did.”
I swallowed. I didn’t want to hear this, but I was entranced. I was willing to soak up anything about my parents.
“He tore our daddy’s head right off,” Tyler drawled, grinning. “The old fuck didn’t even see him coming.”
Tyler shook his head, amused. “Ma bought us the biggest fucking cake we could eat and a tub of ice cream the size of my head. We celebrated. The Bastille pack was without an Alpha, and Terrell didn’t want to be a leader, so the title fell to me. At eighteen, I was running the Bastille pack—unlike what it is now, it ran like a well-oiled machine. We had land, homes, a community, money… we were fallen-blood wolves, but I’d worked hard to make us something our father couldn’t.”
My mouth dried. “Did no one care that he’d—”
“No,” Tyler interrupted. “We’re not held responsible for our actions during our very first shifts. They understand we usually have no control over our actions. But… I do think Terrell knew what he was doing.”
I sucked in a sharp breath.
“I think he always knew. And then, when he met your mother, it was… different. Even though he was my partner in crime—because that’s what he was supposed to be—I think that if at any time he wanted to, he could’ve become Alpha. He could’ve taken the position from me, and no one would’ve batted an eye despite everything I’d done for them.
“There was something…off about my little brother. Ma never paid me any mind when I tried to tell her, and even when I brought up your mother and how he was fucking some rich bastard's daughter, she ignored it—because he’d killed her husband and freed her from the curse of his abuse! It drove me crazy how much she idolized him!”
Easy,Sariel soothed when I moved toward Tyler at his outburst.Your wolf is getting antsy.
She’s annoyed.
Sariel reached for my fingers and squeezed them reassuringly.She’ll be good for a little longer until we figure out how to get out of here.
“I tried knocking him around the way our father used to. He told me I’d end up just like him if I tried it again.” Tyler chuckled. “The crazy bastard. He was our primary source of income; he owned Bastille Security, a cybersecurity firm, and we collected fifty percent of his profits for community development and shit. Your father was a genius on the computer. It wouldn’t have been fruitful to get rid of him….”
He trailed off, and I swallowed.
“The point is,” he glanced down at his lap, “we weren’t always like this, you know? Not right on the edge of madness. We were better… andyoucould help us be better again, Aria.”
The desperation and the hope in his words made my skin crawl. He stared at me like I was a glass of ice-cold water in the middle of the Sahara. He genuinely believed I could help them get better with my blood.
“Killing me isn’t going to make you sane, Tyler,” I said carefully. “The fact that you think so says enough about you.”
His brows furrowed, lips pursing into a hard line. His eyes were wild, too. “That’s not what the doctor said. He said you could fix this; give us a few more years… don’t you want to see the pack do better? Do you have no loyalty to your father’s pack? Not even your miserable grandmother? She lived on pack lands. You’ll even get to visit her grave—”
His ramblings became raucous until he was talking so fast spittle flew from his mouth. His grip on the chair that he sat on splintered the wood; he paused at the sound, and I flinched away.
“Don’t you see?” he begged. “You could fix this! Fix me! Fix the whole pack! We could be how we were again! Tell her, Azazel! Tell her what the doctor said!”
Our heads whipped in Azazel’s direction, and I saw disgust in his expression as he observed Tyler’s outburst before he carefully concealed it behind a nod.
“He’s right,” Azazel shrugged. “With your sacrifice, you can save them. Although we may not even have to kill you… we could just use a little of your blood, do a little research, maybe even create a drug.”
He’s feeding Tyler lies,Sariel pointed out.That’s how he’s got them working for him. He’s convinced them they can get better and that this isn’t the natural progression of a fallen-blood wolf’s life. The madness is inevitable.
Unless you meet your fated mate, hopefully,I mused.He’s so desperate to believe there’s still a chance that he’s choosing to forget what he is. It’s so sad.
And dangerous. As you can see, they’ve got us surrounded. We’re stuck here.
I didn’t notice the other wolves. Shit.
