But that was where Kendrick was wrong. His entire existence was filled with Summer. It didn’t matter what Kendrick did to him. He had Summer’s soul within his. He would always have her and even if Kendrick killed him, he would find her again in the next life. However, there was no way in hell he would bring up Summer to Kendrick right now.
“Okay, Kendrick. What would you have me to do to continue to earn your goodwill?”
Kendrick raised an eyebrow at him. An annoying trait that Cullen realized all of the Kanes did. It had always driven him crazy. “Come now Cullen…are you still going to pretend you came here to join me, then betray me?”
Cullen’s mouth dropped open.
“Yes, Cullen, you have a traitor in your midst. I know the whole plan your mate came up with last night.” Kendrick crossed his arm over his chest, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “Good news travels fast.”
Cullen’s pulse pounded in his neck, he could feel his blood pressure rising and he wanted to scream.
Do you need me? He was glad to hear his wolf’s voice.
Immensely, but I can’t shift on this table.
“Well, Kendrick, you certainly went through a huge amount of trouble to capture me. We were on our way down to you. You could have saved yourself the manpower and waited ‘til Gabriel and I got here.”
Kendrick’s face looked indulgent. Cullen wanted to spit on him. If the man got any closer, he just might let himself give into that impulse.
Kendrick shrugged. “I left Gabriel. Besides, he’ll be dead soon. I have no use for the dead.”
Cullen closed his eyes. “Hell Kendrick, he’s your son, how can you talk about him like that? How can you do the things you’ve done to your family?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Cullen. I am your Alpha.”
“Not anymore. You’re nothing to me.”
Kendrick’s eyes turned wolf, his voice low he stalked to the table. “I am your Alpha.”
“You’re nothing. Your son Tristan is my Alpha. He is a worthy man and someday when you and I are both long dead, his son Braden will be the Alpha of the pack. Your days of having anything to do with Westervelt are over, old man.”
Kendrick still looked like he was thirty but by the way his eyebrows narrowed and he stroked the bottom of his chin Cullen could see the insult stung. His former Alpha’s face tightened in anger before he suppressed it.
“You have made a tactical error, my friend.”
Cullen snorted at Kendrick’s use of that phrase. They were not friends. “What’s that?”
“You assume I wanted you. You were just a bonus. You’re a pawn. You always have been.”
Cullen’s heart slammed against his ribcage as he realized the implication behind Kendrick’s words. “Summer? Why would you want Summer other than to torment me?”
“So full of yourself. So sure of your own worth. Do you think I went to all of this trouble to acquire you? I could have had you any time I wanted you. You’ve spent years stalking me and hiding outside my gates. A snap of my fingers and you are brought inside to me any time I feel like it.”
Cullen strained against his bonds. “I’ll ask it again, Kendrick. What do you want with Summer?”
“So attached already?” Kendrick laughed. “And you’ve only been mated for one day. Wow. I found the whole mating thing to be overrated. But fine, I’ll play nice, since you’re strapped to that table and not going anywhere. The Morrison family was always filled with visionaries. They have the gift of sight. Tristan’s mate’s abilities are impressive, but not on par with her mother’s. That is, until Victoria married that human and wrecked her natural talent. So disgusting what some wolves will do. I thought perhaps my grandchildren had inherited the gift but I worried that Tristan’s weakness would have destroyed it. But then I heard about Summer.”
I’m going to kill him.
Cullen and his wolf were for once in complete agreement. Just hearing the sick bastard say her name made him want to explode.
“I can see how this bothers you, Cullen. Such a pity you’ve grown so weak. But don’t worry, I will fix that.”
“Why do you think Summer is a seer? She doesn’t have the gift.” He could always lie with the best of them. He just hoped he was good enough at it this time.
Kendrick shook his head. His brown eyes, the same as his sons’ but cold and far crueler, glared at Cullen. “She’s had it for years. My sources tell me that even as a child she would say and do weird things. Sometimes she knew things she shouldn’t.”
“You’ve been checking on her? What, did you send people to her hometown to ask questions like some kind of newspaper reporter? Ha. You really have reached new levels of pathetic. Tell me, Kendrick, why do you need the spies and seers? Can’t find the missing women either, can you?”
Kendrick pounded his fists on the table and Cullen felt it vibrate beneath him. “I will find those women first if I have to torture your mate every day for the next sixty years, until she dies from old age. I will leave you strapped to this table for the entirety of the process where you can watch. You’ll feel it every time she screams. I’ll let her heal just enough that the next round of torture causes her more pain and there won’t be anything you can do about it. By the time I’m finished you’ll both be praying for death.”
Cullen could see Kendrick was losing control. “You must be desperate to have called back the Demons. You could never control them and I’m not going to eliminate the problem for you this time.”
“The demons and I have an understanding.”
“An understanding? Have you lost whatever brain cells you have left? You don’t have an understanding with those creatures. They destroy everything. That’s what they do. That’s all they do.” Cullen could hear the frantic edge to his voice. Why was he even bothering to reason with Kendrick? The day the man had turned the pack over to be cursed by a witch Kendrick had proven himself to be completely insane. But Cullen wanted him mad and distracted. Anything that might give him an edge over his former Alpha. Anger would make him careless and flawed. In those circumstances, Cullen might be able to escape. It was a long shot but it went against everything in Cullen to give up. Especially when it came to protecting Summer.
Kendrick shrugged. “Then let the demons destroy the humans. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Like I said before, the dead don’t interest me.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised. You destroyed your own people.” Now maybe he’d get an answer from Kendrick as to why and how he could have done what he did thirty-three years earlier. How he could have betrayed them all to Claudius, turned them over to the witches’ curse, and betrayed them all in the worst possible way. Maybe he’d finally be able to understand how a man he’d considered his friend, mentor, and leader could have been so completely different than he seemed.
“I tried to give the pack everything. I came to them, I told them of my glorious plans that would finally give us power and allow us to come out of the shadows and the life of hiding ourselves away from human hunters and human judgment. But you all scoffed. As I recall, you objected with the loudest dissenters, my friend.”
Cullen roared. “You wanted to turn us over to be experimented on by some lunatic. I didn’t see you lining up to be poked with his needles and fed his drugs.”
“I offered all of you more power than you could ever imagine.”
Cullen slammed his palms on the top of the table, the only movement his restraints would allow him. He could feel the sweat trickle down his bare flesh. “We never wanted power. Our wolves, our healthy wolves, don’t want those things. For the first time in a century, we had place where no one bothered us. Our island was our sanctuary and your mate had to send the women from it in the middle of the night. They fled and we may never see them again, but I can guarantee you something, Kendrick Kane, your son, the one you tried to keep from finding his strength, is stronger than you ever were or ever could hope to be. Tristan will never allow you to find those women. He’ll burn you down to the ground first.” Cullen pulled on his restraints. “Why do you even want the women?”