Page 88 of Pack Ruin
I told the absolute truth. “Once you tell me what I need to know, I will make sure you get everything a man like you deserves.”
That was all it took. Before I could take another breath, Calvin Callaway, deposed Alpha and absolutely delusional idiot, started spilling his darkest secrets.
And they were dark indeed.
“You know about the Southern Conclave, the one forty years back? We used to call it the Betrayal, before everybody stopped talkin’ about it, and about the pack that started all that shit.” I nodded, knowing he meant the Western pack. He got up and grabbed a beer, and popped it. “Well, they was ‘sposed to be killed, right? We cut ‘em off, the rest of the packs did. Forbade ‘em to come back to Conclaves, forbade our shifters to go out there looking for mates, and vice versa. My uncle was the Alpha after that mess, and he told me all about it. It should have worked. It mostly did. But some of them sneaky fuckers came across the whole country, lookin’ for trouble.”
He went quiet, and I said, “Looking for mates?”
He swallowed, and the scent of menthol and sour laundry got stronger. Suddenly, I remembered where I’d smelled this before. Years ago, a rogue wolf had been caught skulking around behind the Mansion. Nobody had any idea how he’d gotten that close, but Father had captured him, and taken the rogue into the lower levels to do experiments.
It had smelled like this. Sour, putrid. Did my parents know Calvin Callaway was going feral? I focused on his story again, looking for more signs of madness.
“...was out with my pack huntin’ some rogues northwest of the compound, with my uncle. We heard somethin’ coming across the woods, a whole lot of wolves, and the rest of the Enforcers went after them. They were rogues, for sure, but they’d been chasin’ a girl.Well, a witch.”
I must have reacted, because he smirked at me. “You heard me. A witch, from the dead pack. Look at ya. You look as shocked as I felt when I found it out. Not that you should be, with that mama of yours, and her witchy fuckin’ ways.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Witchy ways?”
“You can’t think a low-class wolf like her got to where she is without some sorta dark magic, can ya?”
I almost choked. It had only been six years since I’d learned where my mother had come from before she mated with my father at an Eastern Conclave. Father had been drunk, and forgotten himself. How had this man known? “Low class?”
“Hard to forget, your mama, even if she don’t look much like she did back then. She was sweet, skinny, a dime a dozen on the outside. But that power—she had it even when she was a girl. It just oozes off her, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” I agreed, and wondered, not for the first time, when she’d learned to control it. Now, her power only showed when she wanted it to, though she stayed within our pack’s borders as much as possible for an Alpha Mate. “So you know she’s from Georgia. The St. Mary’s River Pack that was eradicated by rogues.”
He laughed for a long minute. “That’s what you heard? Boy, that may’ve been her pack before ‘rogues’”—he made quotation marks in the air—“killed them off. But the river has two sides, and your mama’s packlands spanned both.” He rubbed at his ragged beard. “Fuckin’ Florida. Not a damn good thing ever came outta that state.”
I felt something in the bond then, a sharp feeling that had to be fear. Intense fear, coming from Flor.
I ignored it for now. “Enough about my mother. What happened to the girl you found? The witch?”
Callaway grunted. “Speak of the devil and she may appear, eh? Well, that’s the truth.” He rubbed his chin. “I should’a known what Lily was when she popped up outta nowhere. One second, the forest was empty, and the next, she was running at me. Bitch threw herself at me. Lit up the bond with her dark magic, and before I knew what was happening, we were ruttin’ right there in the woods.” For a split second, the stench of him abated slightly. His bloodshot eyes softened, as he was caught in the memory. But then, the moment was gone.
“I nutted and bit her neck, but when she tried to bite me back, I smelled something. My uncle had warned me about the stink of magic, how it was like lightning and fire. He’d smelled it at the Betrayal. So I pushed off her, and looked down in her eyes. They weren’t regular. They were red and blue, fires blazing inside. She was a fuckin’ witch.”
“Is that why you hired Verbena Flock, from the coven, to sever your bond?”
He looked confused for a moment. “Verbena Flock?”
“The witch.”
He grunted. “Never could remember her name.” That was the truth, but the next words he said were a lie. “Sure. I needed to cut the bond.”
Sniffing the air, I stood. “Try again. You can’t lie your way out of here.”
His face went red, and he seemed to swell up, fur prickling over his skin in an odd wave, then subsiding. “Fine, ya little shit. I took Lily back to the compound and stuck her in my room. My uncle came draggin’ ass in an hour later, giving me shit for running off, bitching about how the rogues had killed his topEnforcers, and I could have made the difference. He tried to knock me around, but he couldn’t even look me in the eye.” He let out a short laugh. “For the first time in my life, he dropped his gaze. So I challenged him, right then and there. He died, and the Alpha power came to me.” He went silent.
“But you knew you couldn’t have a wolf from that pack as your mate,” I finished for him. “She was your true mate, and very powerful. So when you claimed her, her power came to you. That was why you were strong enough to defeat your uncle.” I fought to hide my disgust. “You claimed her, but instead of owning up to it, you hired a witch to sever your bond.” He twitched, and I knew I was almost right.“To sever the bond and kill her.”
Calvin hung his head. “There was no way they’d let me keep my spot with her at my side. I had to do it. It was the only way.”
I didn’t remark on the scent of deception this time. Something terrible was happening in my bond, and I couldn’t afford to show any weakness in front of this male.
“But it didn’t work,” he said, his tone bitter. “When it came time, Lily was already knocked up. The witch didn’t have the juice to sever the bond and kill both of ‘em, not without taking me out along with them. She got all worked up, made me promise all sorts of shit if she tried to just sever the bond anyway.”
I had exceptional control of my wolf, but hearing his mate spoken of this way was testing the limits. He longed to rip this male’s throat out for what he’d done. “What did you promise?”
