“Don’t kill him. He’s not worth the effort.”
“He’s been giving you something harmful and he’s a wizard. You might say I have a serious problem with witches and wizards. It might be fair to say that, as a rule, I hate every last one of them.”
The women gasped and Molly, one of her few friends in the pack grabbed Scarlett’s arm. “You know this man?”
“He’s my mate.” Scarlett pretended she didn’t feel the pride at being able to say that.
Molly raised an eyebrow. “And he wants to keep you?”
“He does.”
Michael turned his head, still holding the wizard and looked at Molly. “I am just going to say this one more time and you can all tell whoever needs to hear it. Mates are determined by fate. I am more than thrilled with mine—I’m humbled and grateful—and anyone who suggests I might do anything to alter my circumstances is going to get pounded in the face. That goes for men and women. Am I clear?”
Silence filled the room until Todd spoke. “Crystal clear, Michael.”
Michael shook his head and Scarlett could feel the sudden amusement coming off him. “Thanks, Todd.”
Scarlett moved to the center of the room where Michael held the wizard off the ground. “Do you think it’s remotely possible that you are overreacting because you are hungry and tired?”
Flaring his nostrils, he stared at Joe. “No.”
She arched an eyebrow. Alright, he wasn’t going to be reasonable. She’d have to take a different approach. “If you kill him you won’t know why or how he convinced Nero to start drugging us. You won’t know what he drugged us with.”
“I’m not going to kill him before he tells me what I need to know.”
Joe’s feet dangled in the air. When he spoke, his voice sounded choked, as if he couldn’t get enough air. “Help me. He will kill me. The Kanes kill witches and wizards.”
Michael shook him so hard his teeth rattled. “We killed one witch. She was the one who cursed my family thirty years ago and her work made our Alpha, Tristan, try to kill his mate. And if you want to be accurate about it, Cullen Murphy killed her, not a Kane.”
“Everyone knows he’s the Alpha’s right hand man. No way did he do that without orders from a Kane.”
Michael walked with him over his head, pressing him against the back of the wall.
Scarlett didn’t turn around as the rest of the wolves they brought with them came down the stairs.
“You seem to know an awful lot of my family business.” Michael’s eyes turned wolf. “For the record, I ordered her killed. At that time, I was Alpha of Westervelt.”
In the way that she could see things when people spoke, Scarlett could see the scene almost as if she lived it herself. Michael had been stressed, beyond stressed—he was wiped out—his brother, Tristan, had returned to Westervelt with a mate. That had made all of them thrilled. Maybe it meant the curse was lifting. But Tristan still wouldn’t acknowledge he was Alpha.
Gasping, she could feel Michael’s pain as if it was her own. This had never happened with one of her visions before. She didn’t know why it was happening now. She blinked to try to clear it but couldn’t. No, Michael knew he wasn’t Alpha. Knew it like he knew his name or what color his wolf was. He didn’t want to be Alpha, had never wanted it, but he was determined to hold the pack together for Tristan. He would keep it in tact until his brother claimed it.
And he had. But he still felt so much shame. Why? She couldn’t understand. It wasn’t clear and the scene was changing. Ashlee, Tristan’s mate, with red hair and sad eyes, had dragged back a witch. They needed to kill her to get the curse off the island.
He never liked having to order a fatality. It felt dirty, wrong. It wasn’t the wolf way.
He liked to fight, to hunt, to challenge. Not to order one of his wolves to kill someone.
But for Tristan, their rightful Alpha, his little brother … he’d do anything.
She watched as he turned to Cullen and gave the order with a nod of his head. That quickly it was ordered, that quickly it was done.
Finally, Michael’s memory cleared from her mind and she was back in the basement watching him hold above his head the man who most likely had been poisoning her for most of her life.
She walked toward them. “Joe, the best thing you could do to reach my mate’s compassionate side right now would be for you to stop screaming for help. It’s not coming. Why don’t you try, instead, to tell him what you’ve been doing, why you’ve been doing it and anything else you think might be relevant.”
Joe stared at her. “Who gave you a backbone?”
Behind her she heard Molly growl, but it was nothing compared to Michael’s snarl.
Scarlett grabbed Michael’s arm. “It’s okay. His insults don’t hurt me. They’re just words.”
Real pain, to Scarlett, was a combination of the physical with the emotional. She could survive either of the two alone but combined, they beat her down.
“Let’s just say I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
Not when her mate could snap Joe’s neck anytime he felt like it.
She sighed. Maybe she should just back up and let Michael end this whole thing.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Okay, I’ll talk.”
Michael bared his teeth and as she watched urine slide down Joe’s pant leg through the opening at the bottom of his pants and onto the floor. Scarlett shuddered. The acrid smell wafted through the air and she wanted to gag. Disgusting.
She could see Michael’s teeth had elongated in his mouth. He was already starting to shift. Having never done it herself, she couldn’t identify with the sensation, but she’d heard that half-shifts were hard. That meant he held onto his human form by sheer will alone. Probably, he couldn’t be pushed much further without losing it.
Joe spoke. “When Nero heard what happened at Westervelt after Michael’s mother brought Angel here, he became convinced that his own females were going to revolt and try to take over the pack to protect themselves from the Westervelt fate. He hired me to keep the females weak. That’s what I’ve done. I was only following orders.”
Michael dropped him to the floor and Joe landed with an oomph and a groan.
Sticking his foot on top of him to keep him down, he finally spoke. “Where’s the antidote?”
“No antidote. It just wears off. They go through a withdrawal and then they’re clear of it. None of it is lethal, just things to keep them weak, to keep their wolves from gaining in strength.”
Michael removed his foot and whirled around. She turned in the direction that he looked.
The women that surrounded the scene had a mixture of horror and sadness on their faces. She felt the same pain. They’d lost so many females over the years. Strong, healthy women who had suddenly succumbed to bouts of illness or been struck down in fights with humans, which should have been impossible. Some had chosen the ritual suicide to end their lives.
Scarlett closed her eyes. She wanted to vomit and she wasn’t sure she could hold it in. Michael swept her up in his arms and she was engulfed in his now familiar scent, feeling safe and secure even as the world fell to pieces.
“One more thing, Joe. How did you convince mated men to throw over their women?”
Joe sighed. “That’s a little more complicated. That takes a curse.”
Michael growled. “I hate curses.”
Scarlett opened her eyes. Michael turned to the men in the room. “Well, gentlemen, he did this to your women even if he was ‘just following orders’. I suppose I’ll leave it to you to decide what to do with him. I’d listen to your wolves in this instance. I’m going to take my woman somewhere where she can start withdrawing. Anyone who wants to rest should come to Cole’s.”