Circle of Lies (Red Ridge Pack) (25 page)

“Okay, come on. Let’s go inside.”

I planted my feet. “Wait. What are you going to do, just go in there and tell them that my father is trying to kill them? They’re going to freak out. Aiden, listen to me. You can’t tell them my dad thinks they’re werewolves. For heaven’s sake!”

Aiden turned the knob and opened the door. “Yes, I can. I have to. They need to know.”

His parents were standing in the kitchen, chatting, but they caught sight of me and stopped what they were doing. Rushing toward us, Aiden’s mother asked, “What’s wrong? You both looked scared out of your minds.”

Aiden didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Where’s Alli?”

“Upstairs with Cade,” Mr. Wright replied. “What going on here?”

As if she’d heard the excitement, Alli hurried into the kitchen, Cade by her side. “Teagan, you’re here! Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Alli, take Teagan upstairs. I need to talk Mom and Dad.” Aiden turned to Cade and said, “You should stay.”

Alli motioned for me to follow her upstairs, not questioning her brother at all. It surprised me. Aiden let go of my hand and said, “Go. I’ll be up there in a minute.”

This was it. The moment I’d been dreading. After this, it really would be over with Aiden. And Alli. How could we go on after my father tried to kill them? I followed Alli without looking back, but the first of many tears fell down my face as we reached the top of the stairs.

Alli turned. “You mind telling me what happened down there?”

53.

Aiden

Alli took Teagan upstairs. As soon as she was out of sight, I turned to Cade and said, “Do you know anyone named Peter?”

“Peter who? No, why?” he replied.

“Teagan just told me that this guy Peter and her father…well, they think that we’re werewolves,” I said. Mom’s hands flew to her face, so I added, “It gets worse. They’re planning to come here and try to kill us.”

“How does she know? Does she believe him? You didn’t tell her, did you, Aiden?” Mom whispered.

“No, of course not,” I said, but from the look on everyone’s faces that wasn’t good enough. “I swear I didn’t. Why would I tell her now? Most sane people would sprint the other direction even if they loved me, and she’s already been avoiding me. Sorry about the ‘sane’ part, Dad, but it’s true.”

Dad nodded. Mom said, “I believe you, honey, I do. It’s just… They’re coming here?”

“That’s what she said. They tried to convince her that I was a werewolf. She thought they were just plain crazy. It wasn’t until she heard that guy Peter talking to himself about killing us that she knew he was dangerous. She came here right after.”

We all knew what we needed to do. We had to call Marcus. None of us really wanted to make that call, though.

Mom offered, and so did Cade. I said that I would do it. Teagan was my mate; I knew that for sure now. It had only taken a few seconds of having her in my arms for me to feel back to a hundred percent. I needed to be the one to tell Marcus, and there was no time to waste.

I made a call, and Marcus flew into our house five minutes later with Phillip and Luke not far behind. Our alpha looked every bit as angry and disgusted as he’d sounded on the phone.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Mom spoke first. “She’s upstairs with Alli. Marcus, she knows nothing. She thinks that her father and this Peter guy are deranged.”

“She’ll know the truth soon enough, at least she will if these idiots take one step on my estate.”

“What do you mean? What are you going to do?” I asked.

Marcus stopped and stared at me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. After a few seconds he turned to Phillip and said, “We need to call an emergency pack meeting. We need to do it fast. Get everyone here as soon as possible.”

“Here? Not at the lodge?” Phillip said.

“No, let’s do it here in case we need the girl,” Marcus said.

My chest tightened. I looked at Mom, and she mouthed, “It will be okay.”

Luke and his dad left, while Marcus paced back and forth in our living room. Turning, he asked, “Do we know when they will be here?”

“No. She came as soon as she heard anything,” Mom answered.

“We’ll just have to be ready then.” Marcus stopped pacing and pulled out his phone. We all stood and listened to his conversation, as we didn’t know what else to do. “Brian? Marcus. Listen, I’m going to need your expertise. Yeah, I know, but we have a situation here. There’s no other way. I’ll fill you in when you get here. How long? Okay, good.”

When he put his phone back in his pocket, Mom went over. “
Brian?
Is that necessary?”

“It is. Unless you would rather we expose ourselves,” Marcus said coldly. After one more look around the room, he left. He didn’t go far, though, just to the back porch. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was thinking.

“Who’s Brian?” I asked as soon as the back door shut.

“The Fixer,” Mom replied.

“What that hell does that mean?”

“Brian has some special skills. He’s called when, uh, when there’s a mess to clean up.”

“Stop being so damn cryptic. What does this guy do?” I asked. Cade was shaking his head, and I kept picturing fixers from television shows or books. They were not nice people.

“Okay, baby.” Mom said. “I’ll tell you. He makes things look like accidents, or like ordinary animal attacks.”

“So he kills people?” I said, incredulous.

“No, but if someone is killed, he destroys any evidence that would point to us.”

“If someone is ki—?”

Our conversation came to an abrupt halt as the back door swung opened. Marcus stormed inside, furious, and it was clear his fury was aimed at me. “If this pack is exposed, it will be on you. A human, Aiden? A fucking human? The pack will never accept you as their alpha now! You’ve ruined everything. You’ve ruined this pack, and you have ruined your future.”

I could feel blood rushing to my face. I was holding back rage with every ounce of control I could muster. If I changed now, this situation would go from bad to worse. Marcus would take it as a personal challenge. A physical one.

“Well, it’s my fucking future!” I said, yelling right back at him. “Isn’t it? This damned pack was never going to let me be the alpha anyway. Not with the elders, Cade, and my own freaking grandparents plotting to keep it from me.”

“What? No one’s plotting against you,” Cade interrupted.

“Bullshit. I heard you all in here the night I changed. Don’t start lying
and
scheming,” I snarled at him.

The room fell silent. We all just stood there glaring. I was livid, my hands shaking uncontrollably. Cade stood motionless, but he was obviously fuming as well.

“This isn’t helping, guys,” my mom said as she placed herself between us. “We have a situation here, and the pack is already starting to show up outside. We need to calm down and figure out how to handle this. We need to appear united, even if you two do want to rip each other’s heads off. Save it for a later date.”

“You’re right. This will have to wait,” Cade agreed, and it pissed me off even more that he could regain his calm so fast.

Marcus took one last look at us both. “Neither one of you deserves to take my place. Such a damned disappointment.” He turned and walked out of the house.

My dad spoke up, slightly calmer. “Whatever is going on here between the two of you needs to end, at least for a while; then we can sit down and work it all out. You need to get your heads on straight. If these guys are really coming to kill us, we need to stick together. My family is in danger. Both of you have someone to protect, too. If something were to happen to Alli or Teagan because you two couldn’t work together, how could you live with that?”

Teagan. Alli.
My father’s words brought me back to reality, focused me on what really mattered. Neither Cade nor I responded with words; all it took was one look and a nod and we both stood up. Together, we went outside to join the pack.

54.

Teagan

For well over an hour we were stuck in Alli’s room. I could tell she wanted to talk about what was going on with my father, but when I didn’t offer up any new intel, she politely made small-talk instead. Oddly enough, she didn’t laugh at being called a werewolf by my dad, but I didn’t bring it up again. I didn’t want her focusing on how stupid my family was.

Finally Mr. Wright knocked lightly on the door, poked his head in and said, “Alli, your mother wants both of you outside.”

Alli nodded, stood, and motioned for me to follow.

We made our way down the stairs and followed Mr. Wright out the back door. Huddled together around a table on the back porch stood a group of people deep in conversation, and my stomach twisted into knots upon seeing them. These people weren’t your average “business partners” as Alli once described them when she explained the odd living situation here. No, these people looked more like a tribe. A very strong and scary tribe. They were all tall, well built, and clearly physically powerful, but it was more than that. They all kind of looked alike. Everyone had olive-toned skin, dark hair and eyes, all except for Alli who stuck out like a sore thumb.

This wasn’t normal. I mean, they really
were
some kind strange cult, weren’t they? I’d half imagined it but this visual cue was shocking; it was as if they somehow all belonged to the same family. I hadn’t noticed it in school so much, but here, all together…

The word
pack
drifted into my mind, but I shook the thought away, refusing to believe anything Peter or my father had said. There was no such thing as a werewolf. And yet, it was more than apparent that something odd was taking place on this hidden tract of land.

Marcus Walker was clearly leading the discussion, two extremely burly men standing beside him. Next to them stood Aiden and Cade, and the rest of the group formed a semicircle nearby.

Aiden saw me standing there, and he took a step my way but was grabbed by Marcus and forced to stay right where he was. He shrugged his arm from Marcus’s grip but made no further attempt to move.

Alli and I hung back a bit, but I could still catch some of the conversation. From what I could gather, the group was preparing for the attack. They didn’t speak like any businessmen that I’d ever heard; they spoke of weapons and sneak attacks in the night, and of a man called The Fixer. Then Alli placed her hand of my shoulder and said, “It’s going to be okay. They know what they’re doing.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? They were used to having to defend themselves against insane werewolf hunters? None of this made any sense.

I leaned over and whispered, “What exactly are they doing?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure yet, but it sounds like they plan to find the intruders and interrogate them. They’ve called in someone to help, too. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’re your father will be fine.”

“Interrogate them?” I repeated. “Who are you people? This obviously isn’t a business meeting. I mean, look at them. This doesn’t look like a corporate—”

Alli patted me on the shoulder and replied, “We’ll talk about that later. Promise. Now I need to find out more. Stay here with my dad for a minute.” And with that, she walked away and joined the others.

Mr. Wright turned to me. “Maybe we should go back inside, let them finish up.” His expression was kind, and I supposed I had no better idea. I was just glad I hadn’t been tied up and thrown out of the estate for having been the bearer of bad news. I supposed it could still happen.

Reluctantly, I nodded my head. But as I turned to follow Mr. Wright inside, Marcus caught my eye. From that intense glare, I knew I wasn’t welcome there. He didn’t have to say it. Nor did he have to say that it was all my fault that this was happening.

55.

Peter

Peter opened the trunk of his car and began to pull out the huge duffle bags he’d been filling with his own personal arsenal. He wanted members of his team to be able to protect themselves, as they needed to kill each and every werewolf on the property. Only total victory was acceptable.

“What the hell kind of fight are we looking at?” William asked, seeing a semi-automatic handgun Peter pulled from one of the bags.

“I don’t know. That’s why I have this baby. We really don’t know what kind of cult this is, what they’re capable of, or how deep Teagan is involved. They might have weapons of their own. We think they do. Many groups like this do. They’ll probably fight us for her,” Peter explained.

The group looked at each other and then at James. Peter held his breath until James nodded.

“She took off this afternoon with that boy. I called her and told her to come home, but she said they wouldn’t let her leave. That’s why we have to do this now, tonight. If we don’t get to her before it’s too late, I’m afraid she’ll be lost to me forever. I don’t think I could take losing another member of my family.”

William shook his head in sympathy and reached for one of the smaller weapons on the table. “Don’t worry, James. We’ll get her back.”

One of the other men spoke up. “She’s still a minor, right? Shouldn’t we involve the authorities?”

Peter was quick to answer. “No. Not yet anyway. We don’t have any proof they’ve done anything illegal. The cops will just say it’s a case of a teenage girl wanting to be with her boyfriend, and they won’t do anything without evidence. By then these cultists will know we’re on to them and it will be too late. Let’s just go in there and get her back. If we’re met with resistance or threatened, we’ll have our proof we can take to the police. And if we’re
really
threatened, we’ll be ready. That’s why I’m helping you guys protect yourselves.”

Peter had no intention of involving any authorities, of course. Government bodies were slow and stupid, and they’d be hindered by all sorts of rules and regulations. He intended to march onto this property and kill the werewolves there. It was total victory or nothing. Collateral damage would be part of the equation.

He and James quickly shared their reconnaissance with the rest of the team: the pictures, the maps, a description of Aiden. They were going to take two 4x4 vehicles, and they all needed to know the route just in case.