Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50954 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
The ancient vampire lunged at her from the door. He was upon her in less than a second, two sets of fangs at her throat. She heard the howl of a wolf in pain, and then she heard no more.
21
Also two years later…
For two long years, Maddox and Will had been besieged in their home. Two years of home delivery and staring out the window, two years of constant companionship which both deepened their connection and frayed it at times. Will felt a new sense of peace and maturity, locked away from the world, no longer having to compare himself to normal people. He and Maddox were in a dark little world of their own.
The entire altercation with Gideon seemed like it had been a lifetime ago, when one summer’s evening a rapping at the rear windows that overlooked the alley brought both Will and Maddox to the upstairs window.
When they looked down, they saw Gideon, the Maker. He was naked from the waist up, and in his left hand he had the throat of a young man thoroughly clasped. Will didn’t recognize the captive, though there was something faintly familiar about him.
“Oh no,” Maddox murmured.
Will wasn’t worried. Or interested, really. So Gideon had a snack. So what.
“What do you want, asshole?” He shouted the question down at the maker. Gideon’s siege was tedious, and Will was ready for it to be over. He used a treadmill to exercise, but he could really have done with a run.
“You have avoided my wrath in the short term, but I have been at work while the two of you have wasted your lives on crude intimacies.”
Gideon waved the young man by the back of his neck in a motion that was not unlike a beast waving its prey.
“This is Captain Candy’s son, “Gideon said. “Her youngest son. Your brother, William.”
Will was absolutely confused. “I don’t have a brother. Candy’s not my mom.”
“Ah, but she is, or rather, was,” Gideon said. “How enjoyable for me to be the one to break that to you after all your impertinent taunting. The woman you know as Captain Candy is your mother. Your blood runs through his veins.”
“What?” Will screwed up his face in confusion. “That would mean I’ve known my real mom for like years, and nobody ever told me.”
“Yes, it would, like, mean that,” Gideon smiled broadly. “Oh yes, let them sink in, all the implications of such a deep betrayal. While you think about that, let me tell you what’s going to happen next. At midnight, Carter here will be eighteen. And then I will kill him.”
“Let me fucking go, freak!” Carter wriggled in Gideon’s grasp. He did look a little like Will, Will supposed. He had blond hair, which really threw the whole vibe off, and he didn’t have any of the wolf about him, but he did have faintly similar features. It was sort of like looking into a pissed off mirror who’d been crying badly.
Will was confused and angry. He looked at Maddox, but Maddox wasn’t looking at him. Maddox was worried about someone else.
“What have you done to Candy?” Maddox asked the question grimly.
“I killed her first, in front of the boy. Well, second. First, I killed his father. You see, I didn’t want there to be any tearful mother-son reunions. I wanted William to know that his chance to know his mother was forever gone, that those closest to him denied him that closure while he had the chance. And now, this boy will die in his stead.”
Carter was sobbing, tears running down his face. He looked young, too young to be dragged into this, but Gideon didn’t care about age. All Gideon cared about was cruel and brutal revenge for imagined slights.
“Joke’s on you,” Will said. “Because I never cared who the fuck my mother was. Candy was a cop and no friend of mine, and I don’t know that kid from any other. So. Go ahead. Kill him.”
With that, he shut the window and pulled the curtains. He looked Maddox dead in the eye.
“Did you know she was my mother?”
“Yes. But…”
Will’s jaw clenched. Waves of betrayal crashed over him, and with them, a cold rage like no other. Maddox was the first person in his life he had ever truly trusted. And Maddox had lied to him about one of the most fundamental parts of himself. The weight of the lie nearly crushed him with a hundred implications all at once.
“You knew and you kept it from me? Why?”
“I did not want you to be destabilized. Ivan had already made your life hell. I thought you could do without the drama of a maternal reunion. I thought there would be time for that later. She did try to tell you, once. I told her not to.”
“You are a real fucking piece of work, you know that?” Will was angry. Angrier than he had been in a long time. The kind of angry that clouds the senses and makes good judgement quite impossible. The betrayal and the loss he felt were too much for him to process rationally, so he became precisely what Maddox had feared all along — impulsive, aggressive, and reckless.