Elijah screamed obscenities at me as I opened a bandage and wrapped it around his leg. It took two bandages before the blood no longer seeped through, by which point Elijah was panting as the pain subsided.
I held the last part of the bandage in place. "You plan on telling me now?"
"There's nothing you can do, that would make me tell you."
I raised my eyebrows in shock. "Nothing? Nothing at all? Oh, dear Elijah. Everyone breaks. Everyone. It's just a matter of stimulus and time. But I don't have the latter. So, one last chance."
"Go to hell, you fucking prick."
"We don't seem to have any pins for the bandage. It's not much use without one." I turned back to the glass. "Can we get a pin in here?"
"Turns out Hellequin's a pussy," Elijah sneered.
"No pins?" I said to the mirror. "That's okay, I've got one." I grabbed a six inch, but incredibly thin blade from the tray, and plunged it through the bandaged knee. "There we go, we can use that."
Elijah commenced screaming once more.
I grabbed the hilt of the blade and pushed it further, until the blade came out of the opposite side of the leg, cracking the bone as it moved. "Still think I'm a pussy?" I whispered.
Orange glyphs lit up across my arms as I started to heat the blade. Elijah bucked against the chair, trying to free himself, but within moments the smell of burnt flesh filled the room.
"Do you still consider me a fairy-tale you son-of-a-bitch? Where are my friends?" I remained calm as I spoke, never raising my voice.
The bandages ignited, bathing Elijah's leg in fire.
I stood back and let the smell engulf him, allowing the screams to echo around the room, before using air magic to put the flames out. Elijah's screams had become a whimper.
"Fuck—" he started.
He never got to finish his sentence; I drew the gun and put two rounds into the good knee and one in his shoulder. The explosion of noise bounced off the walls, as the silver bullets shattered bone, ensuring that, even if Matthew allowed Elijah to live, he'd be crippled for the rest of his life. Never able to run with the pack again. Almost a death sentence for a werewolf.
"I didn't want to do it," Elijah mumbled. "But they offered me so much. The pack. They offered me the pack."
"Who did?"
Elijah shook his head, weakly. "I don't know. I swear. They're from Avalon. I dealt with... with Reid and Peter. But it was Avalon who arranged for Neil to be broken out of jail. He was meant to take the fall just long enough for Peter to kill that LOA bitch, that's why we had him follow all of those women. Why we let him keep the pictures he took. We needed to make it look like he was back to his old ways. But Neil got caught and Peter started to get crazy. He wanted more barren, he wanted to send a message. And Reid just let it happen. He said that Peter would kill Olivia, hurt the LOA, and then go after Matthew. And then I'd be alpha until my boy was old enough to do it."
"Why do you hate Matthew so much?"
"I can't follow a queer."
"What?" I asked genuinely confused.
"He's a fag."
I kicked him in the chest so hard that it flipped him and the chair over onto his back. "You are the single most moronic werewolf I've ever met. What does his sexuality matter?"
Elijah coughed as I pulled the chair back to an upright position. "It's wrong. We should have a strong alpha, not someone who can't even give us a female alpha because he's too busy fucking men."
"I don't care about any of this. I only care about one thing. Where are Tommy and Kasey?"
"You won't get to them in time."
He had the audacity to smile, so I kicked the hilt of the blade where it jutted from his leg, making him cry out.
"LOA office," he whispered.
"What?" I asked, unsure if I'd heard him right.
"The LOA office in Winchester. Peter should be there right now, killing every single, fucking agent he can get his hands on."
Chapter 39
It took all of thirty seconds to confirm what Elijah had said, but we left him in the room for nearly an hour as Olivia, Sky, Matthew and I discussed our next move, all of us sitting in the living room of Elijah's grand home.
"What do you need from me?" Matthew asked.
"Your wolves," I said. "Whoever wants to fight, have them here in an hour."
Matthew walked off, phone in hand.
Olivia had stared at me intently since I'd left the basement, a flicker of anger the only emotion she'd even remotely shown.
"I'll leave you two to talk," Sky said. "I'm going to call my father and let him know what's going on. He may be able to convince Avalon to let him send more people to assist."
"Thanks," I said, as Sky left Olivia and me alone.
Instead of talking to me, Olivia walked out of the room, leaving the house by the front door, slamming it behind her. I left it for a minute, hoping she would calm down, before going after her. I found her stomping around to the side of the property, a look of thunder on her face.
"He's taken two people I love the most in the world, and now he has the people I'm meant to look out for. The phone lines are cut, and no one is answering their mobiles. There were maybe forty good people in that building and now they're probably dead. If I call Avalon they'll never even try to save Kasey and Tommy, nor their own people. They'll just flatten the whole place."
"It's going to be okay," I said.
"Fuck you," Olivia snapped, turning on me. "You lied to me. If I'd known that you were a fucking monster, I'd have never let you anywhere near my daughter."
"You're upset."
Olivia shoved me. "Upset? You're the fucking Bogeyman. My mum used to tell me that if I misbehaved the Hellequin would come for me."
I wasn't really sure how to respond to that. "I care about Tommy and Kasey, too."
"What the hell do you know about caring? You're a killer, that's all you ever were. What could you possibly know about loss? About having your soul ripped out at the possibility of losing the people you love the most."
Olivia turned to walk away. "Her name was Jane," I said, and Olivia stopped walking. "We were together for two years, married after a few months. I was happy. Genuinely happy. Even though she was human, and I knew I'd outlive her, I just wanted to enjoy the time that we had together.
"It all ended on a damp November morning in seventeen-eighty-two. I'd been away working for Avalon for a few months and had been eager to get home. I found her inside the house we'd shared. She'd been butchered. Her blood decorated our bedroom. She was naked and appeared to have been dead for several days. My rage was... terrifying. I buried Jane with my own hands; placing her near a field that we used to love going to. And then I burnt the house to the ground."
Olivia's shoulders sagged, but she didn't turn and face me.
"I hunted her killer for a year. I didn't care who I hurt to get the information I needed. I was so single-minded, so determined to have vengeance. Eventually, I discovered that her murderer had been part of the King's army; which had been going through the area.
"The killer was an officer by the name of Henry. No idea what his last name was, it didn't matter. He liked hurting women, and once he'd finished with them, he kept their hair as a souvenir. The rest of his squad had waited outside while he brutalised and murdered the woman I loved. No one had helped Jane and no one had tried to stop him.
"I discovered that they'd been on training manoeuvres the day of the murder, just their squad of thirty. And after all my searching, I found them and I killed them. They died in one night of blood and rage. All but one. I left Henry until last. I took him away to a secluded place and had my fill of vengeance. It took a week for him to die. And when he finally succumbed, I buried Hellequin with him."
The memory of Henry's blind and bloody form flashed in my mind, his pleas had long since silenced because I'd removed his tongue. I hadn't wanted information from him; I'd just wanted to make him suffer. Before he'd lost his ability to talk, he'd told me that someone had paid him to do it, but he never said who. No matter what I did to him, he took that secret to his grave. And after a few years of searching, I decided he'd been lying. Trying to prolong his life for a short time more, hoping for mercy where there was none to give.
"I no longer had the desire to go by that name," I continued, still talking to Olivia's back. "I no longer wanted to instil fear with a word. I hoped that the legend would die, but it didn't, it grew, became more... fanciful.
"You're right, I'm a killer. I've killed thousands, and very few of them have ever stained my conscience. I can go to a dark place and do whatever I need to. But for those I care about, those I love, I will move fucking mountains to keep them safe. And I care about Tommy and Kasey, whether you grant permission or not."
I turned to walk away.
"I'm sorry," Olivia said, and placed a hand on my bicep to turn me around, her tears flowing freely as we stood in silence. "Will you promise me that we'll get Tommy and Kasey back?" she asked.
"I promise." My words were spoken with utter conviction. "And no one will stand in our way."
Olivia stepped toward me. "They have my little girl," she said softly. "They have my princess." Olivia took another step and broke down in my arms. Her sobs continued against my chest and shoulder, quickly drenching my shirt. She collapsed herself in my arms, and I had to sit us down on the damp grass before we fell. I held her for a long time, until her cries of anguish brought Sky to check on us. She took one look at Olivia and me, and tears fell from her eyes.
Sky helped Olivia back to her feet, with more than a little struggle. "I'll take her to clean up," she told me.
"Thank you," I said as Olivia, let go of me.
"I'm so sorry," Olivia choked out. "I had no idea what you'd been through."
"Not many do," I said. "Go get yourself ready, we have a long night ahead of us."
Olivia straightened up. "What do you need?"
"Blueprints of the LOA building," I said. "We need to know what we're dealing with."
"Then you'll get them," Olivia told me. And with that Sky led her away.
I wasn't really sure what to do after that. I felt drained. I rarely talked about Jane. Very few people knew about her, even fewer than those who knew that I used to be Hellequin. But it had been the right thing to tell Olivia. I'd needed to regain her trust, and sometimes you can only do that by revealing out the things you most want to keep private.
I started walking through the expansive grounds that belonged to Elijah. Although I supposed that
used
to belong was probably the more accurate phrase. I had no idea what would happen to Elijah or his property after he'd confessed to being a traitor.
"Nathan," Matthew called out.
I turned to find him sat beneath a tree. The low hanging branches created shadows to partly obscure him, and I'd have never noticed his presence if he hadn't called for me.
I walked over and Matthew smiled at me, it was an easy expression and one of friendship. I exploded at him.
"This is your fault, you know," I snapped. "All of this shit that we're going through, it can be brought back to you."
Matthew stammered for a second, clearly not having expected me to go off at him.
"You created a situation where that stupid prick down in the basement got enough support to challenge you. If you hadn't done that, he would
never have
even thought about challenging you. Hell, the first time he mentioned it to someone, they would have shopped him straight to you."
Matthew got back to his feet, fire in his eyes. "How dare you insinuate that this is my fault? That this is something I could have avoided by not being gay."
"What the hell are you talking about? I don't give a shit what you are. This is to do with that fact that your sexuality is your weakness, because you're making it one."
"Fuck you," Matthew snapped.
"So, you're telling me it's not your weakness? Okay, where's your female alpha?"
Matthew recoiled like he'd been slapped. "I don't have one."
"Why?"
"Because I'm
gay
."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I would think it had everything to do with it. I'm not about to pretend that I'm something I'm not. Not so I can appease a bunch of assholes who would be against me no matter what I did."
"It's not about appeasing anyone; it's about having a strong pack. The female alpha is half of your rule. She deals with the female pack members, she backs you and keeps the pack strong. That's her job."
"I have Gordon to do those things."
"No matter how nice Gordon might look in drag, he's neither an alpha nor a woman."
"Nathan has a point," Gordon said from behind me. "My lack of a vagina does get in the way of dealing with the ladies."
"That's not what I meant," I said, exasperated.
Gordon laid a hand on my shoulder. "I was just joking." He turned to his alpha. "Nathan is right. You're missing a large part of your hierarchy by not having a female alpha. I've told you this several times."
Matthew placed one hand on Gordon's shoulder and Gordon covered it with his own and for the first time I realised something.
"You're together," I said. "That's why Elijah hated Gordon, too."
Matthew nodded. "I love this man, and I will not belittle that by bringing a woman into our house to pretend that we're something we're not."
"Then don't," I said. "Everyone in your pack probably knows you're gay, you're not trying to pretend otherwise. You don't have to fuck her, Matthew. You just have to bring her into your life and allow her to do the job a female alpha is meant to do. Without it, you're going to have more people using that as a way to hit you, making your sexuality your weakness."
"I pretended to be straight for centuries, always knowing I lived a lie. I will not go back to it."
"Then don't," I said. "But don't let your hang-ups cause something like this again. Yes, Peter would have found someone else to use, but probably not in your pack. Elijah would have been an annoying little shit instead of someone who arranged to bring you down so he could put himself into that position. Get a female alpha, someone you trust. You don't have to live with her or marry her, but you do have to have a woman in that position. Otherwise you might as well step aside and let someone else take over. Because sooner or later, another wolf is going to succeed where Elijah failed, and next time you might not catch it in time to stop it."