Chapter Notes: Caleb's POV
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- '. . .but now the rains weep 'o'er his hall, with no one there to hear.'-
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I didn't know what to expect when Gray's alpha arrived at the den. The moment the car with tinted windows pulled up the drive, my wolf presented me with two options: the first, allow him to take over completely—mind and body—so that he could kill him before he even had the chance the pull the keys out of the ignition. The second, he would allow me to keep control of his reins long enough to hear the pure blood out, and then he would kill the wolf.
Clearly, the pure blood's death was the only thing that he wanted.
And for good reason.
This was a wolf that had commanded his pack to watch, terrorize, and attack our pack and our mate. Giving in to his request for blood would have shown our pack that I had not forgotten what he and his pack had done. But no matter how much hatred we both harboured for him, it was nothing in comparison to the amount of love we had for Ava-Rain.
Killing an alpha and starting a war with pure bloods would jeopardize her safety, the very thing we were trying to ensure by having this meeting. It wasn't right nor was it fair, but, as I stood rooted in place on top of the steps and watched as the car shut off and the driver's side door open, I presented my wolf with a third option—our only option: we would ask our questions, we would listen to his answers, we would let him go, and then we would bring our mate home.
We just could not afford to have it go any other way.
Gray, who had already arrived but stayed outside to wait for his father's arrival, walked over to greet him. His head lowered when he stopped in front of him, and I could faintly see his mouth moving while his gaze was directed to the ground. His father placed a hand on his shoulder and said something back to Gray. Whether it was his alpha's words or the physical contact that had given him the okay to lift his head and look up, I couldn't say. But the entire interaction itself reminded me of something I was all too familiar with: how hard life was as a son of an alpha.
The elder turned to face me, while the younger remained still. Again, Gray's mouth moved, and I could only assume that he was informing his father about who I was. Chase and Kane stood on either side of me while the rest of the pack was scattered on the stone steps, but not once did his eyes break away from me to look at any of them or take in his surroundings. They remained only on me. There was no tell, no sign on his face nor look in his eye that I could use as proof to back up my suspicions, but I knew how hard he was debating whether it would be worth it for him to do more than just look.
He was an heir of the yellow, after all.
It was only when he moved and started to walk towards the steps that Gray turned around and followed, maintaining a pace that kept him at his alpha's side. They barely spared a glance at each of my deltas as they passed them by on their way up the steps. When they finally reached the top, Gray did somewhat acknowledge Kane and Chase, while his father looked directly at me with the same blue eyes he had passed on to his son. Gray was tall, but his father stood a few inches taller. His short hair was a lighter shade of brown with a slight wave, but, in the face, they were spitting images of each other.
"You're late," I wasted no time breaking the ice.
"Traffic," his deep voice replied. Thin lips spread into a smirk that lasted only for a second before they retracted back into their natural position to complete the disinterested look on his face.
"Caleb," Gray spoke, "this is my father and our pack's alpha, Jax."
There was no need for Gray to continue with the introductions. After watching us for months, it was impossible for his father to not already know who I was.
"I would offer a handshake, but I doubt you would accept it."
"You'd be correct," I agreed.
Just like myself, Jax was an alpha. The title alone demanded respect between wolves, regardless of the blood that ran through our veins. But the limits of my respect would not extend any further than allowing him onto my territory and into my home, and listening to what he had to say.
"The rest of your pack?" I looked at Gray.
"They're somewhere safe," Jax responded before Gray could.
Like I'm sure he expected, my eyes retreated back to him. But instead of giving him what he really wanted—submission—I gave him something else instead: a challenge. "Harrison, Stryder, and Tommy, will you do a quick perimeter check?"
"Caleb," Gray quickly intervened, "he's telling the truth. It's only him and I here."
"And we're just supposed to take his word for it?"
"Take my word for it."
The dynamics of their relationship—father and son or alpha and beta—probably prohibited Gray from offering any further explanation. But I could see the plead in his eyes for me to trust that what he said was the truth. It was the same look he had when he asked us to place Jennifer under our protection.
Saying no more, with a final look at both of them, I turned around and walked inside of the house. Footsteps followed my lead as I made my way towards the library, where all of our pack meetings were held.
We were half way there when, from behind, Jax spoke.
"Your human is not here?"
Even though he posed it as a question, something inside of me told me that he already knew the answer. And it was for that reason alone that I ignored him and continued walking.
When we arrived at the library, I opened the door to allow them inside of the brightly lit room. Kane and Chase stayed behind with me while Jax and Gray entered, only to stop after walking no more than ten feet inside of the room. Once my deltas shuffled in after them, the three of us entered last.
Walking towards the couch in the middle of the room, I gestured for the two to take a seat. Instead of looking to see if they accepted the offer or not, I walked past it and over to the desk at the other end of the room, my betas still close behind me. Turning and resting against it, I gave a quick sweep over my deltas as they moved into position to form a half circle barrier around the two pure bloods, who had taken my offer and were seated on the couch. My boys weren't too close to them that they invaded their space, but not too far away for the two to make themselves comfortable or believe that letting their guard down would be a good idea. Once we were all settled into the library, I wasted no time and addressed Jax.
"First things first," I waited for his eyes to meet mine and then continued, "why did you agree to come here?"
"My son asked," was his quick response.
"Your son also told us that you and your pack were trying to leave town as quickly as possible. If that were the case, why turn around just to come back?"
That time, there was a pause in place of a response. Instead, his gaze intensified as it remained trained in my direction. As it had been consistently doing so since the moment he arrived, his face remained impenetrable by not allowing any emotion to infiltrate through. Then, and only then, did he speak.
"You need me, not the other way around. Let's be clear about that."
Pushing away from the desk, I took a few steps that put me in front of Kane and Chase. "Forgive me for being a little cautious, but it's that fact alone that can't help but make me wonder why. What makes a pure blood care about the needs of a mixed blood? Especially one from a pack that you stalked for months?"
"Grayson told me what you did for him. Taking in the human girl—"
"His mate," I corrected. "Then you must know that I didn't do it out of the kindness of my heart. I did it because it was the only way to have a sit down with you, and had you not agreed, your son's mate would be. . .well, not my problem. So, again, why did you agree to come?"
"I guess you can call it a 'paying it forward' of some sorts. I couldn't give a damn about my son's unfortunate circumstance, but I once had a secret that somebody helped me protect."
Internally, my wolf and I both scoffed. He hardly struck me as the sentimental type.
"And if it's the why that you seek, then in order to get there, we're going to have to first go back to the who, the what, the where, the when, and the how."
"Okay. I pick 'who'. Tell me who the hell is behind all of this."
"It's my story," his tone was laced with irritation. "You don't get to pick how I tell it."
Even with the distance between us, from across the room I could feel the intensity that radiated off of him and grew with each second that passed. This display was no different than the one he had just shown when he felt obliged to remind me that I needed him and not vice versa. It wasn't so much a flaunt of power, but an assertion of dominance. An innate desire—need—that inhabited every alpha: submission.
The meaning of that very word varied from wolf to wolf. Some wanted you to shut your mouth to let them speak and only answer when spoken to. Others wanted to see you on your knees, head lowered with your eyes averted to the ground.
Jax was neither.
I knew this, saw it so clearly, because it was that intensity, that distinct look that lingered in the eyes, that reminded me of my father. An alpha that had ruled in a similar manner.
Jax's power came from fear, and he satiated that desire that burned within him by feeding on it. Hell, his own son made a deal with us to keep his mate safe from being murdered by his alpha father. Jax knew what was at stake for me if this didn't go down the way that I wanted. He knew what I had to lose. He had been watching us for a while, so he sure as hell knew what I would be willing to do for my pack and my mate. And with a parched throat and a desperate need for his thirst to be quenched, he was probably hoping that I would beg.
But I wasn't going to give him what he wanted. He may have preyed upon fear—thrived off of it—to manipulate others into submission, but he wasn't immune to the emotion. He came without his pack because he had most likely placed them somewhere safe. He kept Gray by his side, not because he was his beta but because he was his son. And if he was only doing this because he felt reminiscent over a past debt, then it must have meant that his past and that debt still haunted him to this day.
So, no, I wasn't going to submit.
"Gray," I said but kept my eyes on his father, "I think we're done here."
Without the need of a command, my deltas started to make their way towards the pure bloods, undoubtedly to show them out.
For the second time that evening, Jax smirked. But, unlike the first time, there was no amusement hidden within his lips. In his eyes, however, there was a flicker of. . .something. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and if I didn't know any better I'd say it looked an awful lot like admiration. But it had disappeared just as quickly as it appeared, so I couldn't say for sure what I had seen.
"First," he said, stilling my deltas, "we'll start with the when. If you want to know how we got to this very moment, then I'm going to have to start there."
My wolf whispered that his giving in had come far too easily and I agreed. But I couldn't dwell on the sudden change, not if it only brought us closer to the answers that we needed and only he could provide. Getting those answers was all that mattered.
With a single nod to my deltas, they all retreated back to their previous spots in the room. Arms crossed, I waited for him to continue.
"A long time ago, before I became an alpha and was just a beta, before Grayson was born, I had a secret that I needed to protect at all costs. A secret that, if revealed, would have put many lives at risk. After years of hiding it from my then alpha and our entire pack, things started to shift. And when the dynamics in the pack began to change, I knew that my secret was at risk of coming to light. The only way that I could stop that from happening was by asking an old friend for help.
"You see, because of this friend's status in our world, he had the power and means to help, and agreed to do so on the condition that if a day were to come when he needed something, I would return the favour. Decades went by; during that time, I had Grayson but lost his mother, and when my alpha met his demise, I became the next alpha of our pack. My secret remained hidden, until one day the threat of it being exposed appeared yet again. If that were to happen this time, I ran the risk of losing more than I had before. I would have lost everything. So, again, I had to rely on this friend, and one favour owed became two. And it wasn't until recently that this friend came to collect."
Gray had told us of his suspicions that somebody was holding something over his father's head. This must have been it; his secret, whatever it was.
"This friend, are they from The Council?"
"He is, yes."
Gray had suspected as much because—and he was right—no wolf other than one from The Council had that type of power to command an entire pack of pure bloods to do something so beneath them.
"What's his name?"
"Cyrus."
The name did not ring any bells, not that I thought it would. Like I already told Gray, I didn't know anybody from The Council, which is why it made no sense as to why someone from it was so invested in me, my pack and my mate.
"And he sent you here months ago to watch us?"
"That was the first favour he wanted to collect on. He told us to watch your pack and report back on anything that. . .didn't fit. As you know, The Council has been investigating claims of mixed bloods taking humans as mates. So, my pack did what we were told and we watched. There was nothing out of the ordinary, no humans other than some girl who hung around one of your deltas."
The same girl that ended up being mated to his son, he purposefully left out.
"Week after week, we reported that there was nothing strange going on. After months went by, my pack began to get restless. And the night that I was going to Cyrus that we were done was the very night your mate walked into that club."
"You told him about her?"
Even though I already knew the answer, I wanted to hear him say it, to admit that everything from that moment onward had been a direct result of this one action.
"I had to," he replied, void of any emotion. "Just like I had to send that T&D after her the very next day."
A blinding rage took over my body, and before I knew it I was being restrained by my betas while trying to lunge at him. Hearing him admit to his role in sending a wolf to kill Ava-Rain, mixed with the lack of remorse, guilt or any emotion at all, had me seething and my wolf wanting blood.
But it was seeing Gray stand in front of his father—to protect the same man that would kill his mate as easily as he tried to kill mine—that further fuelled my anger. Because he knew—after feigning ignorance—what his father had tried to do to my mate and still had the audacity to ask me to protect his.
"She's a human!" I yelled, still struggling to break out of Kane and Chase's hold. "She's my mate! What kind of Council member puts out a hit on an innocent?"
"He wanted her gone. That's all that we were told. I wasn't exactly in a position to ask why, and he didn't willingly share his reasons either."
"But you did it anyway! You chose to do it! You. Why?"
"Because I had no other choice!" He yelled back, rose to his feet and pushed Gray to the side with his arm.
"We all have a choice! That girl that you sent a T&D to kill is my mate! You may not have known it then, but you still continued to watch us and sent Gray to attack her again."
"'By any means necessary'. That was our orders. It wasn't until that second attack and afterwards that we realized there was a very high possibility that she was, in fact, your true mate."
"Well, thank Luna she didn't die before you figured that out." Shrugging both Kane and Chase off, I raised my hands in surrender to show them both that I wasn't going to attack. Even if he deserved it.
Had my anger subsided? Certainly not. But what good would killing Jax in the spur of the moment have done? Yes, it would have been satisfying, but one minute of satisfaction could easily turn into a life time of regrets. And deep down, no matter how much anger I held towards him, the one that I was most angry at was myself. He may have made that one choice to tell this Cyrus guy about Ava-Rain, but it was also my one choice to talk to her that put the target on her back.
"I took these new discoveries to him, and he refused to believe the reports. Actually, I think it may have even went beyond his belief because he didn't care whether or not she was your mate. That's when I knew that this went beyond just claims, beyond just wanting your mate out of the picture. He really and truly wanted your mate gone."
Jax had gone through the when, the what, the where, the who and the how, but I needed to know the why.
"You did all of this because of some secret? Dragged your pack into this because of some damned secret that they don't even know about? How important was it to you that you were willing to do the bidding of one wolf?"
"I own up to what I did. And you may not want to hear it, but I would do it all over again if I had to. I don't know why Cyrus is obsessed with you and your mate. Really, I don't. But if you want to know so badly, then maybe you should ask your parents."
"My parents?" I certainly wasn't expecting that to come out of his mouth. "What the hell do they have to do with this?"
"That damned secret of mine? The one that I had to protect at all costs? It was kept hidden in this very house."
"What are you talking about?"
"My secret was my child. One that had grown alongside you, trained with you and earned a spot in your pack until you sentenced her to live a life as a lone wolf. The child I had with my true mate, a mixed blood."
Angelie.
"Dad, what are you saying? That this whole time I've had a sister that I didn't even know about?"
"If it makes you feel any better, she doesn't know about you or I, either. She was never suppose to know, not even my name."
"Did mom know?"
Jax's revelation was a shock to me as much as it was a shock to Gray, but I couldn't focus on his reaction or feelings. Not when I was finding it hard to digest the revelation myself.
Angelie was his secret? The same Angelie we had just let go? That was. . .impossible.
The girl that I had grown up with?
The girl that you knew was an heir of the three and in hiding.
The girl who never knew who her parents were?
You knew her mother was a mixed blood and her father a pure blood.
"I'm sure you know how things would have turned out if my alpha had known about her. I did what I had to do to protect her. Cyrus brought her here and placed her under your family's protection. You may not know him, but your parents certainly do."
I refused to believe that. This den had always been a safe haven for wolves. Just because this wolf brought Angelie here all those years ago, didn't mean that my parents personally knew this Cyrus.
Right?
"You don't believe it," he remarked and took a step forward. "You don't believe that your parents are capable of knowing someone like him? Someone that wanted your mate dead?"
My parents couldn't possibly know the wolf that was hell bent on trying to kill my mate. There was no way.
But that wasn't what he was really asking.
"My parents have nothing to do with you trying to kill my mate. Who the hell are you to come in here and imply that my parents are helping this wolf try and kill her?"
"We often refuse to see the things that are right in front of our eyes."
"You know nothing about them—"
"Maybe not. I don't know them personally nor do they know me, but I know Cyrus. I know that he's somebody that you only go to if you're willing to compromise your values, sacrifice your morals and sell your soul. He's a mixed blood that you'd swear was a pure blood just by how ruthless, cunning, and immoral he is. And if your parents know him, it begs the question, what have they done? What secret did they need to protect?"
My parents, who kept my identity hidden from The Council and everybody outside of our pack.
My parents, who slaughtered an entire pack to keep it hidden.
My parents, who were the ones that took care of Emmy Grace's body after she was murdered by Angelie.
A million thoughts and scenarios raced through my mind in the matter of milliseconds until something inside of me clicked into place, like a final piece of a puzzle. But the picture still felt incomplete.
"How did you know?" I demanded. "You were on your way to leave town, but you came back. It wasn't just about paying it forward or whatever bullshit you said earlier. Risk your life just to tell me your secret? No, that can't be the reason."
He had said it himself that he had no regrets for what he and his pack had done to mine. He was willing to do to Ava-Rain and Jennifer what he did not want to happen to Angelie. It was that dark and twisted love that made you see any and everyone as expendable if they were deemed as a threat to your child. As someone who was the driving force behind that same twisted love that my parents had for me, I knew it well. I knew how far they were willing to go to protect me.
He just told us what he was willing to do, how far he was willing to go, but not how far he had already gone.
"When I found out that Angelie had killed some human that hung around you and your pack, Cyrus helped cover it up. In return for not dragging Angelie to The Council, where she probably would have been killed, I found myself owing him yet again."
"What was the second favour?"
"This. Telling you everything."
"That's what he wanted you to do? Told you to do?" I didn't understand.
"He wanted me to come here and tell you everything in order to keep you here. More specifically, to keep you here and away from her. The perfect distraction."
My heart dropped.
"What did you say? What the hell did you just say?"
"Dad, what are you talking about?" Grayson looked just as confused by his father's words, but there was no time to dwell on whether or not his reaction was genuine.
"You don't think a man like Cyrus isn't always two steps ahead? That he didn't already know that your mate wouldn't be here? He knows everything. He knows you and what you'd do to keep her safe. Knew that you'd never keep her here while I was around."
And there it was. That look in his eye, that thirst to see my fear.
"We always had the impression that if I didn't deliver, then he'd find someone that would."
"What did you do?" Gray yelled and grabbed his father by the collar of his shirt. "Jennifer is there! What did you do?"
"Who?" I questioned, my heart racing a mile a minute, pumping nothing but dread through my veins.
"A hunter," a smug smile spread on his face. "Can you imagine that? Somebody who is suppose to protect humans. Well, other than that, I don't know much. I was never given a name, nor have I met her. Our interactions were only through the phone. Cyrus instructed me to tell her everything I knew about you, your pack and your human. Once I did that, that was the end of our communication with one another."
A hunter? Not only was that outrageous, it was unbelievable. Killing a human went against everything that a hunter believed in, and every code they lived by. I searched through his eyes, scanned his body language and facial expressions for any sign of dishonesty, but only came up short.
Panic soon invaded my body, its ice-cold caress flowed through my veins right along with the dread.
The only hunters we knew were the Hellands, and they pretty much kept to themselves. It had to have been a lone hunter, with no ties to a family or group of their own.
"Chase, Kane, were there any other hunters that were to accompany the Hellands at the cottage?"
"No," Chase replied, "they told us it was going to be just their immediate family. Kasey, her parents and her brother. The grandparents were headed south somewhere—"
"Shit," Kane cut him off and ran a hand through his hair. "Before you and Ava-Rain came down, I asked Kasey if being down two hunters would impact their ability to protect her. She told me not to worry, but, just in case, she was waiting to hear back from a trusted hunter that had been watching over Ava-Rain's grandmother. I must have forgotten to tell you. Caleb—shit, Caleb, I screwed up."
Regret was not something that Kane felt often, but it was obvious that he was beating himself up for not being more thorough. And how could I blame him for not doing what I, too, had failed to do.
"It's fine, Kane" I assured him, even if neither of us believed it. "Jumping to conclusions isn't going to help us. There's only one way to confirm if this hunter is currently with the Hellands or not."
"Chase—"
"I'm already on it," he said and brushed past me, phone already pulled out and pressed against his ear as he made his way towards the door.
But it wasn't enough. There was no guarantee that he'd be able to get into contact with the Hellands.
I had to go. We had to get to the cottage as quickly as possible.
"Kane, we need to go. Now."
"Chase and I will ride behind you. Harrison and Tommy, pair up! Stryder, Rickon and Declan, you three are together."
"No, Rickon and Declan, head over to Ava-Rain's grandmother's house and immediately report back anything you find out."
My deltas quickly exited the room, Kane and I both not too far behind them.
As I walked past Gray, he caught my arm. "I'm coming, too," he said, despite me shrugging him off.
"Like hell you are!" Kane shouted back. "As if you knew nothing about this—"
"I didn't know! I swear to you," his eyes turned on me, "The T&D, a sister I never knew existed, I didn't know any of it, Caleb. And I had no idea about the hunter, either. You think I'd have done any of this knowing that my mate is there?"
"Grayson, it had to be done—"
"Shut up!" He yelled at his father, then turned back to face me. "Please, let me go with you. Let me help."
"Caleb, we need to go!" Kane urged from the doorway.
"Please."
"Look at you, begging to a mixed blood—"
Pushing past Gray to get to his father, my hands wasted no time grabbing him by the neck and squeezing his throat. "If anything happens to my mate," my hands tightened, "it's your head that this mixed blood is coming for first! So go run, go hide, but while you do, I hope you'll remember this moment. Remember this look of hate and rage in my eyes. Remember the feel of my hands wrapped around your neck. But, most of all, I hope you'll remember the lack of mercy you showed my mate because when I find you—and I will—I promise to pay it back tenfold."
* * *
Ava-Rain was fine.
She was okay.
I'd know it if she wasn't.
I had been telling myself this throughout the entire drive. While the sun was setting off in the background, while ignoring red lights and speed limits, while every single one of my calls were unable to get through to her phone, I repeated those three sentences to myself, both verbally and mentally. Not to convince myself but to speak it into existence.
There was some sort of power in that shit, wasn't there?
But after what seemed like the hundredth phone call attempt, I was truly losing it. Slamming my hand against the wheel when I was met with the dreaded automated voice and dropped call yet again, that was when doubt started to work its way inside of my mind.
Although he remained surprisingly calm, my wolf was on high alert and remained close to the forefront. His seemingly relaxed state was not a sign of his lack of concern over our mate, but a sign of him trying to be for me what he had always been: my protector. He worked hard in striking down my negative thoughts and mauling each and every worst case scenario that attacked my mind. But because it was being fuelled by the uncontrollable blue, the yellow showed no signs of backing down. And, if need be—if he saw no other choice—he would not wait for my call before forcing me into handing over complete control.
So, I had no other choice but to get it together. To repeat those three sentences over and over again. To keep driving. To focus on what was in my control, on what I could do as opposed to what I could not.
And what I could do was call my parents.
With my fingers pressed against the phone screen, I dialled my father's number.
I didn't want to believe what Jax had said when it came to them, but how could I deny it? I knew better than anybody what my parents were capable of. But killing my mate? That had to have been one line they weren't willing to cross.
When the ringing stopped and my father's voice came onto the line, out of reflex, my grip on the steering wheel tightened.
"Caleb? What's—"
"Is mom there with you?" I cut him off.
"She is. Why?"
"Put me on speaker."
"Hold on," I heard some rustling before his voice came back on the line, "okay, you're on speaker."
"Caleb, is everything alright?" Though her voice was distant, it was hard to ignore the concern in my mother's tone.
"I'm going to ask you both a question and I need you to answer with only the truth. Do you understand? I want the truth."
"Caleb, what's going on? Where are you—"
"Do you understand?" I repeated.
"What's your question?" My father asked.
"Who is Cyrus?"
The line immediately went silent. I didn't need any further confirmation that not only had they heard the name before but that they knew exactly who he was.
"Where did you hear that name?" He questioned.
"Where do you think? Gray's father had a lot to say. You curious? Should I list out everything he told me for you two? Don't bother pretending like your surprised, though, because he made it very clear that you both are a lot more involved in this than any of us knew."
"What do you mean?"
"Are you saying this wolf knows us?" My father added.
"His name is Jax, and it turns out Angelie is his daughter. You know, the kid you hid in our den and raised alongside me? He told us all about her being his dirty little secret that someone helped him keep. That person is apparently the same person behind all of this—the threat against my pack, the attacks on Ava-Rain. It was all this Cyrus' doing.
"Now, I don't know who the hell this wolf is, so you can imagine how confused I am trying to find logic in a completely illogical situation. Why is somebody that I don't know so invested in me? Tell me who he is."
"Caleb, Cyrus is—"
"Be quiet, Moira," my father cut her off. "Cyrus is a Council member that your mother and I have known for a long time."
"Jax made it very clear that he's the type of wolf you go to with secrets. Does he know? What I am?"
"Yes. He kept your identity a secret from The Council and—"
"Why would he agree to that?"
Keeping that type of secret was a lot more risky than a secret child created between a pure blood father and a mixed blood mother. Even riskier than covering up a murdered human by a wolf. What was in it for him, and why was he so adamant of keeping this secret to the point where he'd kill my own mate to protect it?
"What did you do for him in return?"
"Nothing," my father replied flatly. "Like I said, he's an old but good friend. He kept our secret and promised to do what he could to help us protect it. To protect you."
"By any means necessary? Did you draw any lines when he agreed?"
I had to know. Needed to know.
"What are you accusing us of?"
"You told him that I'm an heir of the four. You slaughtered Tommy's entire family and pack, not something that could easily be covered up without help. You went to him when you needed to cover up Emmy Grace's murder. You go to him when you need something taken care of, don't you? Did you know this whole time that he was behind the attacks on Ava-Rain, or did you. . .is he only doing what you asked him to do?"
Having a human mate put my identity at risk of being exposed. Having a human mate, who was best friends with a hunter from a family of hunters made that risk much bigger. Throughout my entire life, my parents had always done what they wanted and justified their actions by deeming them a necessary evil. And the one thing that Jax reminded me of earlier was that parents, who are willing to do anything to protect their children, feel no remorse, no guilt, and no empathy for those they hurt in the process.
"That's ridiculous. The fact that you would even ask us that is outrageous, Caleb. We didn't ask him to do anything other than help us keep your identity a secret from The Council."
But to what extent?
No matter the cost?
"Don't lie to me. Hiding things, keeping things from me, is lying. Just tell me the truth."
"You've got questions, fine. But this is not something to discuss over the phone. Are you still at the den? Your mother and I are on our way back—"
"Don't bother—"
"Now's not the time to be dramatic—"
"—because we're currently on the way to the Helland cottage after being told that your 'old but good friend' sent a hunter to kill Ava-Rain."
Just saying the words out loud, hearing them come from my own mouth, made this whole situation that much more real. As if everything from the moment Jax revealed his plan and every moment that followed was nothing more than a dream and I was only just beginning to wake up.
Thinking I had done everything right was a dream.
Thinking I could ensure Ava-Rain's safety was a dream.
Promising her that I would always protect her was a dream.
Reality was being forced to see that I had not done everything right. To see that I had not ensured my own mate's safety. To see that protecting Ava-Rain had been a broken promise.
"What?" My mother's surprise resonated through the phone. "A hunter. . .to attack Ava-Rain? That can't be true—"
"I pray to Luna that it's not, but I saw the look in Jax's eyes, and it was enough to convinced me that he wasn't lying."
"We'll meet you there," my father said.
I opened my mouth to protest; I was still undecided whether or not I could trust my parents. There was obviously a lot that they had kept from me, and a lot that they were still not telling me. But there was no telling what to expect once we arrived at the Helland cottage. Getting to Ava-Rain before something terrible could happen was the only thing that mattered, and if I had to fight—to kill—in order to do so, then I would need all the back up I could get.
"I'll text you the address—"
I was cut off by my phone beeping, and when I glanced at the screen I saw that there was an incoming call from Rickon.
"I've got a call coming in, hold on a minute." I quickly told my parents before accepting Rickon's call. "Rickon, were you and Declan able to—"
"Caleb," he interrupted, "you need to get to Ava-Rain as quickly as possible!"
It was rare for Rickon to sound anything other than carefree, so hearing the seriousness in his tone told me right away that something was wrong.
"Rickon, are you and Declan okay? Are you at Gladys' house?"
"We're fine, and yes, we're here. It was bad, Caleb. Really bad. We had to break down the door to get in, and we found Ava-Rain's grandmother tied up in the living room. She had been like that for days, she said. The hunter that was posted outside of her home to watch her, she said it was her. And I hate to say it, but that means—"
"She's with the Hellands."
She was already as close to Ava-Rain as she could get.
"But, Caleb, that's not all. Ava-Rain's grandmother's been saying some stuff. Crazy stuff. I don't know if it's just delirium from being without food or water for days, but she's been saying things about Ava-Rain."
"What did she say, Rickon?"
"She said. . .Caleb, she said that this hunter is going to put Ava-Rain down because she's an heir of the four."