Danny above
Julius POV
He lied to me; I can't believe that Danny lied. When he called, Natasha decided to dispatch patrols outside the territory to wait for him; she was right not to trust him.
He lied to me, to the pack. He was hiding Terry Nightingale and even helped him attack our pack warriors. Drake howls in my mind; I feel the sting of betrayal in his soul. I haven't felt him so strong in years. Danny lied to me; he lied to me, he lied...
Danny hasn't uttered a word during the ride back into the packhouse. Preston is furious; I can feel it. Chen and Natasha, it's hard to say. And I? I want to cry because of helplessness and betrayal.
When we sit again in the library, Danny in the middle, we all surround him. I can't shake off the feeling that this will be a trail.
"How long have you known about Terry?" Natasha breaks the silence.
"Since the first time I saw him. He begged me not to tell you, and later, he and Mae told me about her mate and the girls. Terry isn't a threat to the pack. I promise you that." he begs, and I feel my anger only rising because he is pleading for him, for this fucking killer and beast, whose hands are red because of the blood of our people.
"How did you know it was him?"
I can't even look in his direction; I can't let myself see his tears; I can't forgive him this, no matter what.
"Terry... Terry is an older brother of my adoptive mother. I was also born in Nightingale's clan but not in the main family."
I gasp; I haven't expected that. Danny, as a hunter, how the hell is it possible?
"I need more details, Danny," says Natasha in a neutral voice, but I have known her long enough to know she will not show him any mercy.
"I was born in the clan, but I was never trained. Ten years ago, when hunters' clans were slaughtered, David Nightingale, Terry's uncle, managed to take me and run away. We went to his niece, Celia Nightingale, who was living with her daughter, Kathy, close to the Black Moon pack in hiding from her family and the clan. But soon, we all were captured by Black Moon warriors and taken to their pack. There, it turned out that Celia and Hank, Beta of Black Moon, are true mates, and Kathy was his daughter."
Another gasp from everybody, for sure; I haven't seen it coming.
"Hank wanted to look after Celia, their daughter, and me. It took some time, but we managed to build a family and..."
"You lied to Brandon," Preston shouts. "You hid from him that you are..."
"No, I'm not a hunter; my father is the Beta of Black Moon; that's what he said; that's what his Alpha said," Danny says. I see hurt on his face.
But Preston keeps screaming about traitors, ungrateful bastards, and that all hunters should be five feet under!
"I think you should leave Preston, for now; it's not the problem of elders of the pack," Natasha finally stops his outburst, and furious Preston storms out.
"Coming back to Terry," Chen says, and Danny sighs.
"In the beginning, Terry wanted to rescue his sister from the Black Moon Pack because he thought we were prisoners. He managed to kidnap both my parents but ultimately decided to let them go and helped to save Alpha Mikkeli and his warriors. He secured the money to let people who survived our clan's massacre start new lives, not as hunters, and risked his life to give my parents and Black Moon warriors time to escape. After that, he only let us know that he was still alive and disappeared. To this day, he hasn't contacted my mother again. I met him here by pure coincidence."
"And now, what happened today?" Natasha asks.
"He wanted to secure more ammunition because he needed to keep the girls safe, but he got in trouble and needed to ask me for help."
"And the girls?"
"I don't know for sure. They are rogues; they don't want to live in a pack. Terry found them and took care of them."
"Anything else?"
"When Terry was buying his weapons, his dealer told him he was also making deals with rogues. In the warehouse, there was a prepared shipment to here, to one of the already closed medical stations in the town. Terry said it was the blood, human blood."
Natasha looks confused, and so am I. No matter how much you believe in legends, werewolves don't use human blood in anything. We don't eat humans nor drink their blood; we also can't use their blood for transfusion.
"Okay, Danny, you will be punished. No matter the circumstances, you didn't report the possible threat to the pack again. I sentence you for whipping, 30 strikes, and it will happen in an hour. Now you will wait in the next room. I have to talk with Julius and Chen."
Danny nods and leaves, but Alyssa enters the library. Natasha sighs and says:
"You mindlinked me that you need to tell me something, speak."
"I knew about Mae and Anthony; I was also involved in Alpha Anthony's death."
Fuck, I can't believe it! What else will we find out today?
"Have you known about Terry?"
"No, not until recently. I found out when Mae asked for scent suppressants for girls."
Alpha closes her eyes and motions for her to leave; Alyssa bows and does so.
"Fuck!" Natasha punches the wall." It turns out I have no control over my own pack; it seems like everyone thinks they can keep secrets from the Alpha!"
I sigh heavily; I try not to think that Danny will be whipped and that he lied to me.
"What do you think we should do?" she asks.
"Terry Nightingale is a problem, but the fact he's been here for ten years and nothing has happened is undeniable. And that's Terry Peterson we are talking about, the same man we are used to drinking with every Saturday," says Chen. "But the girls are another problem. Pearl is the one we have seen on the posters the rogues had. Someone with no pure intentions is looking for her, that's for sure."
I don't comment; I had a confrontation with one of the girls. I would never imagine that such a strong wolf is, in reality, the 12-year-old girl, that is for sure.
"I don't care," I say. "Terry Nightingale is a cold-blooded murderer and for sure can't be trusted, but he also shouldn't be treated lightly. And as long as he stays surrounded by humans, we can't attack him openly, no matter what."
"And we shouldn't take his threats lightly. I don't want anybody to speak about that; I don't want the word to spread. We may have a hunter, but nobody has to know it's the Terry Nightingale. And about the girls, we can't just attack them unprovoked, plus this shipment. I don't want to chase him away from here, at least not yet." Natasha says.
"I agree; that way, we will be able to watch him. And attacking him isn't the best idea; we would have to get rid of Mae, the girls, and Danny. We don't want that." Chen adds.
I gulp. Nobody will touch Danny; I won't allow it.
"For now, I don't want any of you to speak about Alyssa's involvement; I need to think about it for some time."
I move my wheelchair to the packhouse's porch, feeling so stupid. I would never think that Danny could deceive me that much. And Terry, a guy I thought was my friend. Well, for sure, he shouldn't be underestimated ever again. He is a very smart killer, and monsters like that don't change no matter what.
Danny POV
I saw in his eyes confusion and hurt the moment I chose to help Terry during the fight, first in Drake's eyes and later in Julius's eyes. He doesn't understand why I chose what I chose, that is for sure.
When the warrior took me in front of the packhouse and told me to take off my shirt, I was already crying, not because of humiliation or punishment that was to come, but because Julius looked at me totally without any emotions.
Natasha informed the pack about Terry being the hunter but gave the Alpha Command that everybody is forbidden to touch him unless it's to protect himself. Nobody can, despite those who already know, find out that Terry is the Terry Nightingale.
I heard the gasps when I took off my shirt; I have many scars on my back, not after Brandon but after my father. The first strike didn't make me scream, but I kept crying; neither the next nor the next made me scream, but I was crying. But not because of the pain but because of Julius's face, which was empty when he was looking at me.
Now, I sit in the pack's infirmary, and Alyssa takes care of my wounds.
"Don't worry too much. Both Natasha and Julius will get over it, but they will need some time." she says, "I also told them that I knew, so my whipping will probably come."
"I've never asked how you know about Mae. I understood that everything Anthony had done was always after the closed door."
"And every time he hurt her, he needed somebody to help her get better, to take care of her cuts and broken bones and suicide attempts, and I have already been a pack doctor. He used his Alpha Command to make me silent. I've never understood why he chose to trap Mae in here when she hated him that much. I loved him once; we were dating until he met her."
"Were you jealous?" I ask; she sighs:
"At the beginning, yes, until he called me to take care of her for the first time. That's when I understood how lucky I was to get away."
"Do you think he changed like that because of the rotten bond, because she didn't love him?"
"No, he made a choice; he used the bond to torture her. She was just very unlucky to be the mate of a bad man because that is what Anthony was, even though he was hiding it for so many years."
She puts the bandages on my back and helps me dress.
Walking toward my house, I see how some of the pack members look at me. As soon as I left Natasha's library, Preston was screaming in the packhouse that I was the liar and that my biological parents were hunters. And now the rumor is around, and they for sure feel deceived. It will take them time to get used to it.
Julius is waiting for me on the porch of my house; as much as I'm afraid of this conversation, I'm so happy I can speak with him.
"You lied to me, Danny," he says calmly, too calmly, in my opinion." You lied to me about something so important!"
"I'm sorry, I just couldn't..."
"Like with Madison? You lied to me about her, Terry, and your parents!"
"I didn't lie about my parents!" I scream at him. "I'm not a hunter!"
He punches the door to the house, and I move away from him.
"And I didn't lie. I kept quiet; I've never lied!" I scream, but I feel my voice breaking.
"And you think that justifies it! About what else are you keeping quiet, Danny!"
I gulp, tears in my eyes again, I want to tell him everything, but I know I can't. He is right; I still have things I can't tell him about. He looks at me furiously. I don't know what he wants from me; I don't have anything that I can give him.
"I'm sorry, Julius, I really am," I say.
"That's not enough, Danny, that's not enough. I don't want you near Trist or me," he says
"I did it to..."
"To protect me!" he interrupts me. "That's no excuse! You deceived me; you were looking into my eyes and kept quiet; you endangered the pack!
"Please, Julius, please!" I take a step in his direction and grab him by his arm, but he pushes me to the floor and starts moving away in his wheelchair.
I want to stop him, and I want to hold him close to me and beg him not to go. I want something I will never have.
I walk into the house and go into my work room; I sit in front of the empty canvas and start working. With every movement of my paintbrush, I cry harder, yet I can't stop, no matter what.
But I don't get left alone because Natasha knocks on my door very late. I let her in when she says she wants to discuss Ivory and Pearl.
"I don't intend to force you, but are you sure they are safe with Terry? I can simply accept that the guy famous for his hatred toward werewolves is suddenly so concerned about them," she says as I give her a cup of hot tea.
"Terry cares about them very much; I know it's hard to believe, but he doesn't kill anymore," I say.
"What else can you tell me because? I'm sure you didn't tell me everything."
Her stern look makes me turn my eyes away, and I can feel her Alpha's dominance.
"I will not tell you their names or from where they came, but their father is an Alpha, and their mother is dead because of him. He wanted a male heir, but their mother failed him, so he started cheating, and she died because of suffering and grief. He became unstable after that, but recently, something happened, and one of them attacked her father and ran away with her sister."
"You don't know what?"
"No, they refuse to say. Terry wanted to send them here or to Black Moon, but they hate the idea of the pack; we've tried to convince them, for now, in vain."
"And the fact that their father is probably looking for them unofficially suggests something fishy," Natasha sighs as I nod; we both take a sip of our tea.
"Will you leave Terry alone?" I ask shyly, and she sighs again:
"I may hate the guy and think about him as a monster, but I don't take life simply because I hate somebody. I need a reason; the Hunters' Alliance ten years ago was destroyed because they were killing our kind. Now, Terry has done nothing directly to my pack. And he has Mae on his side after what she's been through... Well, now I finally understand why Thomas never wanted to be an Alpha and didn't talk about his brother with me. But I can't underestimate Terry; he is a powerful opponent."
"I'm so sorry I failed you, Alpha."
She smiles a bit sadly:
"I can't blame you entirely; after all, he is a family, so it's not like I don't understand you. But understanding and justifying are two different things. Danny, don't lie to me ever again. Next time, I won't be so understanding."
I gulp as she walks to my door.
Drake doesn't come to see me this evening or the next and the next.