Chapter Twenty-Five
Aidan showed up in Killian’s bedroom the night before they left, appearing out of thin air and a whistle as Killian walked out from a shower with only a towel slung around his hips. Aidan stared intently at him with his hands tucked into tight black jeans. The sight of him and the annoyance at his ability to pop in whenever he pleased caused a growl to erupt from Killian’s throat even as he walked to the dresser to throw on a pair of sweats. The bastard had the balls to show up after downright refusing to help the pack and spouting some bullshit excuse.
“If you keep this up, I’m going to start thinking you have a thing for me,” Killian mumbled, pulling out a pair of black sweats and dropping his towel. If the Warlock had a problem with seeing his ass, he could leave the same way he arrived.
“Hardy har, Mr. Alpha.” Aidan’s voice dripped sarcasm before he let out a long sigh. “I didn’t come here to mess around. You have a serious problem.”
“Yeah, you are my serious problem.” Killian turned around to tell him to get the hell out but paused once he caught Aidan’s somber expression. A man with an expression of such genuine intensity who seemed to have a confident grin on his face even as a dagger flew toward him was not a good sign. He swallowed his sarcasm and clenched his hands.
“What is it?”
Aidan stepped forward to close the gap between them. “I don’t have a lot of time. Just being here is a significant risk to me, but I like Cat, and I appreciate your protectiveness of the pack, despite your shitty attitude. You need to take this.” He reached out an arm, his leather jacket crinkling with the movement.
Killian glanced down at the object in Aidan’s hand—a perfectly oval stone glowing with a subtle opalescent light. Its opaque exterior revealed some sort of swirling and constantly flowing liquid.
“What—” he started to ask, but Aidan didn’t give him the time to complete his question. He reached down and grasped Killian’s hand, dropping the stone into his palm.
“Stop asking questions I can’t answer. When you are desperate and need help, you take this stone and call for me. I’ll be there.”
When Killian continued to just stare at the stone, Aidan lowered his head to force Killian to make eye contact.
“Do it, Killian. Don’t let your pride get in the way. Realize the gift I’m giving you.” He stared with strong assertion behind his hazel eyes until Killian nodded. A loud whistle filled the air, and he was gone again.
Dumbfounded, Killian looked at the stone. What the hell was he supposed to do with that? Brushing off the Warlock’s words, he set it on the dresser and made his way to the door. Cat was probably sitting in her room reading or staring out her window lost in her own memories, and he was determined make her focus on other things…specifically him. When the loud whistle filled the room again, he braced himself for Aidan. The Warlock appeared directly in front of him and slapped his hands onto the bare skin of Killian’s shoulders.
“Oh, one more thing! Tell Cat to give the Faol Geal to whoever you meet at the cabin.”
“How the hell do you know we’re going to—”
“Dammit, Killian, stop asking questions! Just tell her to give it to the person. It won’t work.”
“The Faol Geal won’t work?” Killian asked, but Aidan was gone again. He really fucking hated that Warlock. Shaking his head in exasperation, he went in search of his little she-wolf. But he definitely took what the Warlock said to heart.
* * * *
The four Shifters sat inside another rental truck, parked on the road before the turnoff toward Cat’s childhood home. Snow covered the road in muddy slush, uncannily similar to the road she had crashed on the day before. She scanned the occupants of the vehicle and couldn’t help thinking she wouldn’t have anybody else fighting alongside her.
Finn listened with silent fervor as Killian spouted out his plan to bombard the cabin; Brian cracked his knuckles with his gaze on his lap, focusing in on his own methodical breathing. Jamie had been forced to stay behind with Mia, which he protested with vicious mumbling. The Second did not take well to being left behind, but Brian and Finn were uncompromising when it came to finding their wives. The argument had left Jamie with quite the attitude.
They were more than the usual pack, thanks to Killian’s determination to teach his family how to control themselves and fight. On the other side of the trees was an unknown enemy, and they had yet to practice their skills on anyone but themselves, yet they were willing to put their lives on the line for the ones they loved. And that meant something in a world full of lackluster loyalty.
“Do you understand, Cat?” Killian asked for the tenth time. He had gone over the plan repeatedly since they sat down in the airplane, and Cat was sure she had it memorized. She was going to go into the cabin alone with the amulet and scope out the area. Jamie had given them a spy camera, hidden in a necklace she wore dutifully around her neck. It would give Killian and the others the ability to see where everything was and how many people their enemy had within the small building. There was one thing she didn’t get.
“Why do I need to give him the necklace? Clearly it is something that shouldn’t just be handed over.”
Killian had told Cat she needed to give the Faol Geal to whoever she met, distracting the person enough for them to attack, but he refused to give a logical reason why. He sighed for the tenth time that day and laid his hand on Cat’s. “Just trust me.”
Cat was getting tired of that phrase. Why couldn’t he just tell her? His fingers squeezed hers tightly, and she looked up at him. The worry flecking his gaze echoed within her soul. The pack had never seen any real danger, making this the ultimate test of their abilities. But within his eyes was so much more than just a worry for the pack. It was worry for her, deeply rooted to the story of his past and his fear of its recurrence.
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips, her own trembling with restrained panic. This could have all been avoided if they had never gone searching. If she had just let her past go and continued on with her life, things could have gone a completely different way. The pack would all be sitting at the table, laughing because Cat had been forced to gulp down some disgusting wine Jessica brought. Or watching one of those cowboy films Jamie seemed to love so much.
Instead she looked at the man she loved, his amber eyes telling her he was as terrified as she was, and about to walk into unknown territory.
“I love you, Killian Stone. We’re going to get through this.” She touched his bottom lip with a fingertip, halting the words he attempted to speak. “And when we do, I want to hear about how amazing you think I am. For now, it’s open-ended, so we both have something to live for.”
Cat looked to the backseat, shot a quick nod of good-bye to the guys, and jumped out of the truck before Killian could call her back.
Her feet crunched and slid on the snow as it changed from slush to undisturbed powder, and she weaved in and out of the trees in a practiced fashion. She knew the way through the maze, every tree and rock a flash from her past. They reminded her of days racing as wolves with her parents, sneaking away to see Sullivan, and quiet moments of reflection.
Yet with every step she took, she couldn’t help thinking that the cabin was no longer a happy place. Too many disturbing occurrences in one location, no matter how happy it used to be, changed the outlook of the person experiencing it. When she broke through the trees to see the lonely shadow of the cabin, covered in a layer of fog and darkness, she couldn’t repress the shudder that shook her whole body. Now the cabin was nothing more than a nightmare for her.
Cat wrapped her arms around herself in a mock sense of support, knowing the people behind her and the people in front of her needed her strength. But all she could think of were Aidan’s words, warning her it might be better for her to not know the identity of the culprit.
The door drew closer, and she knew there was no turning back. The windows were dark and created a sense of emptiness in the home, and she had a momentary sense of dismay. Did she guess the wrong place? What if they weren’t even here? The creak of the porch beneath her echoed in the undisturbed silence. She sighed out a deep breath, sending a cloud of vapor in front of her. The now familiar scent of sulfur caused her stomach to boil and turn, and Cat reached for the doorknob. She was definitely in the right place. Before turning the icy metal handle, Cat looked up to the stars and silently begged whoever was looking down on them for success in their endeavors.
The last thing Cat expected when she stepped in was the emptiness. The cabin was still, just as they had left it the morning before, lacking the previous wild critters and destruction. Sullivan had cleaned out the burned wood from the fireplace and cleaned up the interior, leaving behind a house that could be a potential home. Someone had placed new glass in the windows, and she was sure Sullivan had to take some credit for that as well.
“Hello?” She spoke into the silence, her voice reverberating off the wooden walls.
The door to her right clicked open, hidden behind a bookshelf that had been carefully placed so many years before but was now shoved off to the side. A man stepped out from behind it as if he’d been waiting on her arrival, his short, thin form making its way through the shadows toward Cat.
A lantern held aloft by one hand clicked on, spilling golden light over the both of them. The man shook his slightly balding head. Thin strands of hair were pressed to the bare skin of his scalp with either grease or gel—she couldn’t tell which. Flashing crooked, yellowed teeth toward her in his version of a smile, he erupted in a high-pitched giggle.
“Ah, Miss Macintyre.” He spoke harshly, with a rough Scottish accent and a voice much too shrill for an average male. “So glad to see you’ve made it here…safely.”
She scoffed and stepped toward him but stopped short when the sullied stench of cinnamon blasted her senses. He was the one who’d murdered her parents. A small rodentlike man had wrecked everything in her home and destroyed her giant of a father. If it hadn’t been Killian’s rigorous training, her skyrocketing pulse and the red forming a hazy edge around her eyes would have led to an immediate shift to the land of no return. Instead, she clenched her hands, digging the nails Jessica had just recently manicured into the tender flesh of her palm. A gentle reminder that there was more at stake than murdering the weasel of a man, ripping off his head with her teeth in a violent rampage.
“Where are they?” she bit out through ragged breaths and clenched teeth.
His dark eyes gleamed in delight at her apparent misery, and she wanted nothing more than to dig her claws into his intestines.
“Your friends? They’re down there, of course.” He pointed a skeletal thumb over his shoulder toward the basement door. “With Quinn.”
“Quinn? Who the hell is that?” The words were like venom spitting out of her mouth, like she could attack him with just the sound of her voice.
“You’ll find out soon, lass.” He stepped aside so she could move toward the thick darkness of the door, into the basement that haunted her nightmares.
The way he stood off to the side, aloof and waiting for her to move, reminded her of a dark butler in a horror film. Whoever this Quinn person was, she seemed to be the top of the hierarchy for the operation. So with watchful eyes, Cat moved her shaking legs toward the door and the gentle glow of lights at the bottom of the staircase.
The weasel bumped the lantern into her back, and Cat realized she was standing frozen on the first step. The small space of the staircase closed in on her, suffocating and freezing her limbs. The screams. The slams. The silent panting of her own lungs seeking for the basic source of survival.
Push through it, Catrina, she scolded herself, dropping one leaden foot to the step below. Jessica. Kelly. Lia. They need you!
Her rubber-soled boots made the smallest of noises as they brushed each step to the door below. The same door that had been locked by her mother’s terrified fingers. She could see her teenage self shivering on the stone floor in front of her. It was dustier than it had been six years before, but the rugged cracks in the gray cobblestone were still the same. The same shelves graced the interior of the basement but lacked all the supplies her father had stockpiled for emergencies. A large cage was placed in a corner with two humans and two wolves inside it, separated from each other by a chain link divider. Kelly and Jessica huddled together in a corner completely nude, their clothes shredded on the floor beside them, staring with wild eyes at the wolves pacing the ground in front of them.
She flew to them, her body light with exhilaration that they were alive. They had pulses and were breathing, despite their current situation. But that meant hope, and Cat could do anything with hope. Hope was the strength behind the battles of old, and she was ready to tear a bitch apart.
“Kelly! Jessica!” she gasped, her fingers reaching through the cold metal of the cage.
They turned their heads simultaneously, barely able to focus on the woman who stood on the other side of the cage, waggling her fingers at them.
“Cat,” Jessica finally whispered. Her lips were cracked and dry and her eyes bloodshot. She let go of Kelly and crawled across the floor, her slender body barely able to hold itself up with the simple movement. “Oh my God, Cat. What are you doing here?”
Cat grabbed at Jessica’s hands, grateful for the simple connection, but noticed the unusual freezing temperature of her flesh. “Of course I came for you guys.” Cat scanned the cage, noticing one person missing. “Where is—”
“Catrina. It’s so nice to finally get to meet ya,” a woman said from behind Cat, with a Scottish burr that shouldn’t sound so beautiful on a female voice. It lacked all the roughness and haggardness that seemed cliché for a Scottish accent, but sounded lyrical and smooth.
Cat’s body froze, and Jessica’s expression filled with horror as her fingers dropped from Cat’s. She moved backward slowly, grabbing Kelly into an embrace again. The older woman seemed dazed, staring at the wolves like there was nothing and nobody else in the room. Cat swallowed back the fear, a constant reminder of weakness, and stood up slowly from her crouched position to turn toward the new visitor.
She was stunning. How could someone with such evil intentions be so damn beautiful? Her auburn locks fell in sensual waves to a tiny waist. She wore a white ruched blouse with a plunging neckline, and it was tucked professionally into pleated black trousers. She stood confident with her hands on her hips and a wide grin on her face like they were old friends. The smallest hint of wrinkles graced the area around her blue eyes.
“You must be Quinn,” Cat said, bracing her body in front of her pack and trying her best to ignore the snarling of the vicious wolves, who turned their attention toward Quinn.
“Yes,” she said simply, as if her very existence in the room didn’t mean the destruction of Cat’s happiness. She stepped forward with two clicks of her pointed black heels on the stone floor and opened her arms wide. “Though it would probably be best to just call me Aunt Quinn. Auntie is nice too—it has a ring to it, doon’t ya think?” She pursed her painted lips and dropped her arms.
Cat stood stunned. Aunt? This lady was a raving lunatic. Killian was right. Quinn let out a short laugh at the astonished look that graced Cat’s face.
“Oh really? Dear old Daddy didna tell ya about his beautiful older sister Quinn? Callan should really be ashamed of himself.” She motioned toward an armchair tucked in an alcove of the room, one Cat didn’t recognize and that had probably been brought down for the occasion. “Sit down, lass. I’m sure we have so much to catch up on.”
Cat moved forward, shaking her head in disbelief at the words coming out of the stranger’s mouth. “My dad would have told me if he had family.”
A delicate sigh released from Quinn, and she flashed Cat a look that screamed Really? before making her way to the chair in order to sit. “Honestly, would I make something ridiculous like that up?”
“But you—you…” The very confession couldn’t come from Cat’s lips, shock taking place of the fear in Cat’s body.
“Had him killed? Yes, well, that could have all been avoided if he had just listened to me in the first place. But he and that bitch mother of yours had to go into hiding like complete cowards,” Quinn said in disgust, looking at Cat with pure fury burning in her eyes.
“For the Faol Geal?” Cat whispered, unable to believe a family, much less a Shifter family, could do something so evil and hideous to their own. The sort of betrayal and insanity that must have gone through Quinn’s mind, the pain her father had gone through having such a nefarious sibling.
Quinn’s blue eyes glistened maliciously, and she licked her lips. “Ya have it?”
Cat fingered the rounded shape of the necklace in her pocket, hoping Killian knew what he was doing. If someone like this were able to control the Shifters and escalate their already volatile anger…
“Of course. I came for them, and they’re all I want. I didn’t want this stupid necklace in the first place,” Cat said with vehemence. “But where is Lia?”
Quinn’s gaze had followed the movement of Cat’s fingers on her jeans, but she looked back up at Cat’s face with triumph. “Ah, dear little Aurelia. She really has been such a help. She told me all about your girls’ day in town, and how it was the perfect opportunity to get some leverage for you.”
A movement to her right caused Cat to look over, only to see Lia was better off than anyone else in the room. She stood tall with pure evil glee behind her eyes and scoffed at Cat.
“Did you really think I was going to let you and Killian have a happy ever after? I worked my butt off for years trying to capture his attention, and then you two started making goo-goo eyes at each other. No way was I going to end up useless and unneeded in a pack again.”
Disgust turned Cat’s stomach over as she looked at the pair of women in front of her, unable to comprehend the minds of the twisted. Their vindictive nature was beyond any she had ever met. She reached in her pocket, pulling out the leather band and waving it in front of her.
“This is what you want, right?” she said, taunting Quinn with her object of desire. She lunged forward from the chair, but Cat backed up with it and shook her head. “Tell me everything. Then you can have it. I deserve to know why my parents died.”
Quinn growled, flashing her canines and tilting her head down in anger. For a second Cat thought the woman would charge her, but was surprised when Quinn shook her head and laughed softly.
“Right. Of course you do.” She sat back in her chair and cleared her throat awkwardly before she spoke, brushing away an invisible piece of lint from her black pants. “Since Cal didn’t tell you anything about me, I bet he didn’t tell you anything about how we grew up either.” She glanced questioningly over at Cat, who nodded in agreement. Behind her she could hear the growls of the wolves and quiet whimpers from Kelly and Jessica, still trapped within their cage—a nightmare for any Shifter to be in.
“Our parents, your grandparents, were filthy rich. Good ol’ Daddy owned a verra popular distillery in Scotland, so we were living a very lavish lifestyle. Mother really loved the high life and didn’t want anyone to ruin their image or fortune, including their wee daughter.” She motioned toward herself and let out a low laugh.
“But their daughter dearest fell in love with a boy on the wrong side of town, and they really didna like that. When we decided to get married, Daddy forked over enough money to get the boy a first-class plane ticket to America…for everyone in his family. That was a big deal for a family living paycheck to paycheck and with five little mouths to feed. Not to mention he was human, and that simply wasna allowed. No…we’re purebreds, Daddy used to say.
“Then Callan met Erica, and everything changed. They already had me to run the business, so Callan was allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted. So what happened? He married her. And to top it all off, they gave him the Faol Geal, which I obviously didn’t learn about until after they died. I didna even know the damn thing existed until I got hold of their will. Callan knew I knew, and had anticipated how I would react. He and Erica fell off the face of the earth. I searched everywhere for the two of them, but there were never any records I could find. Until…you.”
Quinn flicked her dark blue eyes to Cat, whose breath had suddenly stopped. Her throat constricted as a cold chill swept through her body. Until Cat?
“See, I was verra good friends with Ashley Porter. We met on one of her vacations here and instantly became friends. She decided to show me a picture of her son one day while we were at a fund-raiser together. A picture that happened to have you sitting next to him.”
Cat gasped. Sullivan Porter. Quinn had gotten hold of Cat’s parents because of one innocent picture Sullivan had jokingly taken. They had been sitting in the wildflowers just outside the abandoned hunting cabin watching the clouds move over their heads, when Sullivan lifted a phone in front of their faces to take a very candid and unappreciated picture. A simple gesture that led to the murder of her parents.
“I recognized you immediately. You are the absolute spitting image of Erica. It’s almost uncanny.” Quinn stood and walked past Cat, toward the two wolves in the cage behind her to kneel in front of their furious faces. “Don’t you think so, Cecelie? Anton?”
She spoke to the wild animals, who vibrated with restraint on the other side. They had silver eyes the same color as their fur, though the smaller one had a much blonder coloring. A sick feeling came to her stomach as she stared into their frenzied faces.
“Didna I introduce you? Oh how rude of me. Catrina, meet your grandparents, Cecelie and Anton Horn. They’re your mother’s parents,” Quinn said with nonchalance and shot Cat a sideways smile. “They had the misfortune of meeting me when I was a bit…enraged with my brother and Erica. They’ve been caged for quite a while, and I fear they may have lost it.” She circled a finger at her temple in the motion of craziness. “I’ve been meaning to put them out of their misery, but something about keeping them around has been quite…exhilarating.”
“You’re insane,” Cat whispered, more to herself than anyone else, but Quinn’s Shifter hearing picked up the words.
“Yeah, well, that’s all just a matter of opinion, isn’t it, dearie?” Quinn laughed and pointed to the small man standing guard at the door. “Right, Devon?”
He nodded and flashed her his crooked teeth again with a look of absolute reverence, and Cat noticed the flash of concealed disgust on her aunt’s face. Poor guy didn’t even realize he was being used. Lia continued to stand stoically off to the side, content to just let the show continue. Quinn moved forward a mere breath’s distance from Cat, searching Cat’s face with maniacal glee.
“Let me have it. Now.”
“How did you find me this time?” Cat rushed out, clenching the necklace tight in her fingers, unwilling to give away her only leverage until she had answers.
“Damn you, child, just give me the necklace!” Quinn hissed, looking down at the jade stone within Cat’s grasp.
“Just answer the question,” she retorted calmly, though her heart drummed at a rapid rate. When was Killian coming?
“There was a newspaper article. The one with you and the Alpha on it,” the woman screeched, spittle flying out of her mouth and causing Cat to step back.
“And what’s wrong with Jessica and Kelly? Why are they like that?”
“If I tell you, you’ll give me the necklace?”
Cat’s stomach dropped at the idea of giving an object of power over to Quinn, but she still murmured with a regretful voice, “Yes.”
“It’s a spell. The right money will buy anything, even the workings of a Witch, but it’ll wear off in a day or two.” Quinn closed the gap between them again, reaching out a thin hand and shaking it in front of Cat’s face. “Now hand it over!”
Knowing she had reached Quinn’s limit, Cat handed over the Faol Geal. The jade slipped from her fingers into Quinn’s, the heavy weight relinquished into the hands of a delusional woman. The flare of exultation in the woman’s eyes was disturbing to say the least, but Cat had other things to worry about. She reached over to the cage, intent on figuring out how to open it but finding a chain and lock looped around the door instead. She looked over helplessly at Devon, who jangled a set of keys in his hand and walked over.
“Once Quinn knows it works, you’ll get your little friends back,” he said in a singsong voice, but he stopped dead at the loud screech that erupted from the woman standing next to Cat.
“What is this?” Quinn screamed, her expression frantic. Her hands held the jade between her cupped palms with the leather strap looped around her neck. “Why the hell doesn’t it work?” She gawked at Cat with bitter accusation, her body shaking in convulsive rage.
Cat stared in confusion, unsure what to say but holding on to the metal of the cage, determined to get the two women out. Even without holding the Faol Geal, she could feel the humming sensation, so she knew it was the real one.
Good one, Killian. Leave me hanging. Now would be a great time to show up!
“It’s fake,” Quinn whispered, coming to her own conclusion. One that didn’t bode well for Cat. “You brought me a fake amulet, you evil, conniving bitch!” she screamed.
In a flurry of auburn hair and burning blue eyes, she lunged toward Cat and wrapped both hands around her throat, choking off Cat’s access to oxygen and shoving her back against the cage.
Well, doesn’t this seem familiar?