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Cal’s laughter wrapped around me.
“Did you think I was fucking stupid? I know what you can do—how you can fight. I wasn’t going to take any chances. You’re not getting out of here. The room is hexed, and the magic is stronger than yours. If you’d just waited for me to tell you, like I was going to, you would have saved yourself the trouble.” He laughed. “That was amusing, though.”
I groaned and turned my head away, composing myself.
“You’re here so that Braxton will come after you,” Cal continued. “I know you’re bound to him—I can feel his magic all over you—so it’s simple. You’re bait, and when he’s here, you’re both going to die.”
Fear made my heart beat faster, but I didn’t let it show on my face.
Cal laughed. “I can hear your heart beating faster and faster. You put up a good fight, little rabbit, but it’s not going to help you.” He came to me again, and I stood up quickly before he could reach me so that I could fight him off if I had to. I didn’t want to have a disadvantage, being on the ground when he came at me to do something.
Cal looked me up and down, and there was hunger in his eyes. If he did something to me…
“It’s a pity you’ll have to die,” he said. “Power like yours… you could really be an asset.”
“Then why kill me?” I asked. Could I try to win him over?
“Because if I’m going to be alpha, I don’t need something that can take out my men the way you took out the panther shifter, and the way you fought my beasts last night.”
“You can’t be alpha,” I blurted out. “You’re not nearly as powerful as Braxton.”
Cal’s smile slipped from his lips, and he was suddenly angry.
“Fuck you,” he spat. He took a deep breath, reeling in his anger. “You’re right, though. I’m not strong enough to take him down alone, which is why I got some help. I went to Niam himself and cut a deal.”
Blood drained from my face. Niam, the demon who’d hunted Braxton since the moment his former alpha had saved him and taken him away.
“You cut a deal with the devil?”
Cal laughed. “Such a nice way of putting it. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?”
My heart sank. That was what had happened last night. It wasn’t just Cal who’d attacked Braxton, it was Cal who’d led the demon to Braxton so that he could finish the job and fulfill his promise. Cal had just intercepted an age-old promise, a threat, and now it was all coming to a head. I turned my eyes to Cal.
“How can you do this?” I asked. “How can you turn on your own brother?”
Cal scowled. “Braxton wasnevermy brother. My dad took in that pathetic cretin when he couldn’t fend for himself and pushed me aside, passing on the mantle to him rather than me. Hauser was always a bleeding heart, and it put his pack in jeopardy. But all that ends now.”
I bit my cheek. Cal had a lot of hatred and no mercy. It made him dangerous.
“The last thing you should know,” Cal continued his speech, “is that if you do get out of here somehow, you won’t get far. My fae put a tracker spell on you, so wherever you go, we’ll find you. Do you hear me? You can run, little rabbit, but you can’t hide.”
He turned around and walked to the door, leaving me in the cold, empty room alone.
“Is this really how you want to become the alpha of this territory?” I blurted out. “Do you really think that’s the way you’ll gain respect?”
Cal looked surprised before he burst out laughing.
“Why do people think it’s about respect? Fuck respect. I can rule with fear, and that works just fine with me. That’s what’s wrong with the world—people actually give a shit what other people think about them, and that cuts them at the knees. If people think I’m a dick, it’s because I probably am, and if they won’t respect me, then fuck them. I’ll give them a reason to fear me, and that’s just as good. In fact, in a lot of cases, it’s better. That’s what Dad never understood. Respect is hard to earn and gets you nothing in the end, but fear makes them all jump when you snap your fingers, and I’m just getting warmed up.”
He turned around, leaving the room, and he slammed the door shut with a bang that felt like it rocked through my whole body. I jerked before I sank down into the darkness.
I wasn’t going to get out of here. I couldn’t—the whole place had been hexed. Even if I did, I couldn’t go back home.
Home.
That was how I’d started seeing Braxton and the cabin—the cabin that had burned down. My heart ached for what Braxton had lost, and what he would have to lose now that I couldn’t go back. If I went back there, it would lead them right to him. As if the monsters and demon hunting Braxton wasn’t enough, his own brother had betrayed him, too.
Not that it mattered if I didn’t go back to him. Braxton would come after me to save me, and then Cal was going to kill us both.
