Marked by Destiny (16 page)

Someone beat Rebekah?

“Rob’s going to come after you. He wants you
dead.” He gave me the once over. “Maybe Rebekah stuck around
because she was waiting for you.”

“I doubt it.” I checked my watch. I didn’t
like where this conversation was going. “Look. I need to get going.
Michael’s going to start worrying. We’re leaving. I promise we
won’t come back. I won’t tick off your alpha anymore.” I started
for the Jeep.

Marcus’ hand came up and blocked my chest.
“You’re not going anywhere.”

I pushed his arm away. “Don’t.” I reached in
my purse and pulled out the taser-thing.

He laughed and kicked it out of my hand
before I could even find the on-switch. It flew in the air in a
perfect arc and landed down the sidewalk, shattering into about
fifty pieces.

I shook my hand, pretty sure he’d broken a
finger.

“You don’t stand a chance against me. As a
Grollic or human.” He snarled and then shoved me down against the
stairs. Flexing his large biceps, he pulled a gun out from behind
him, jamming the barrel against my forehead. “Get up and walk!”

Panic thrashed through me. In snippets, I
tried to think of what to say to stop him. If I managed to speak in
the language to control the Grollics, would it work on him in human
form? My legs shaking, I still found the courage to stand. Terror
hadn’t frozen me to the spot, although it should have. I realized
my mistake now. I should never have trusted a Grollic. In my
experience, they were all terrible monsters. Not one was worth
saving. Anger burned inside. I clenched my fists and started
marching in the direction he pointed – toward the cemetery. I knew
I wasn’t invincible; that a gun would kill me, but at that point, I
was hoping for options to show up as I went. Staying still or
resisting would only get me killed faster.

He stayed close to me, the gun pressing into
my back, right behind my heart. “Stop!” he barked when we reached
Rebekah’s gravestone.

I froze. The anger I had felt just a moment
before had liquefied to fear as we walked through the rows of
marble stones. I needed the anger back. It was the only way I could
try to control him the way the wolf book had taught me.

Marcus’ hand squeezed my shoulder. He shoved
me down to my knees.

The barrel of the gun now pressed against the
base of my skull.

I shut my eyes tight. “Please d—”

The gun flew away from my temple as Marcus
stumbled away from me. He rolled on the ground and crouched, ready
to pounce.

“Stay away from her!” A voice hissed.

My head swiveled toward the sound. Not
Michael. I turned around, still on my knees.

Robert
.

A very angry looking, yellow eyed Robert.

Marcus laughed. “Buddy!” He straightened. “I
was wondering when you would get here. You want to finish it
yourself?”

“What’re you doing, Marcus?” Robert glared at
him. “I thought—”

“You thought wrong.” Marcus took a step
forward, his body rigid with anger. He jabbed a finger at me. “That
bitch needs to die. She’ll destroy all of us.”

“I’m your acting Alpha and I’m telling you to
stand down.” Robert’s eyes never left Marcus.

“And I’m telling you, you’re wrong. Think of
the law.” Marcus studied Robert’s eyes, chest heaving, as if he was
waiting for some change. When he realized that Robert wasn’t going
to change his view, he charged.

The sound of bone impacting bone made me
cringe. They wrestled back and forth in front of me, blood flowing
freely from punches and flinging into the air, to land on the
gravestones around me. I wedged myself tight against Rebekah’s
stone, trying to understand what was going on. Robert was fighting
for me? Why?

“I’ll kill you too.” Marcus had gained
ground, and had managed to throw Robert to the ground. The back of
his head hit an upraised stone, breaking a piece of it off. His
eyes went out of focus, switching from yellow back to hazel. He was
still alive, but dazed.

Marcus grabbed the chunk of marble and
held it high over his head. “You’re just like
her
.
Weak.”

Robert gritted his teeth, filling up with
some kind of energy that came out of nowhere, his eyes burning like
fire. “My mother was never weak!” He threw Marcus off of him and
attacked, his body starting to shift into wolf form.

Marcus rolled out of the way and began
shifting as well.

“Don’t change!” I shouted my hands pushing
straight out in front of me, trying to will them to stop.

They both froze and looked at me with
bewildered animal eyes – like a deer in headlights.

Marcus recovered faster than Robert, racing
toward him like a football player ready to tackle his opponent.
Robert reached for something on the ground by him and held it close
to him as Marcus jumped.

I jerked and covered my ears as the gunshot
echoed in the nearly silent cemetery.

Red wetness began to cover Marcus’ back. He
rolled off of Robert, clutching his chest. “W-Why?” His eyes faded
back to their human blue. “I’m your pack, your brother.”

“We are brothers.” Robert got up, gun still
trained on Marcus. He moved close to me, protectively standing in
front. He fired the gun again and Marcus’s head fell back, his eyes
staring vacantly up at the sky. “But you’re not my blood.”

Chapter 16

I stared at Robert, unable or unwilling to
comprehend what he had just done. It sunk in slowly. “You killed
him.”

“I know.” Robert slipped the gun into the
back of his jeans. “He was going to kill you… and me as well.”

“Why? He said he wanted to help me.”

Robert gave me a strange look. “He lied.”

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know about you, but I have to
leave.”

“I mean, about the body?”

“Leave it. The others will be here soon and
can deal with it.” He turned to go, paused and turned around. “I
just saved you. Can you turn off that voo-doo spell you shouted
that stopped me from shifting?”

“Pardon?” I felt like I’d been hit on the
head.

“You spoke some weird command or something. I
can’t shift now. If I’ve gotta run, I need to protect myself.”

“I don’t know what I did.” Then I remembered,
I’d yelled at them to stop. I leaned back against my mother’s stone
for support. I’d done it again. Spoken Grollic.

“Can you hurry it up?”

“I don’t know to take it off.”

Robert began to pace. “You’re joking! I just
broke the one law we were commanded to follow! I’m so fucked!”

“I’ll figure it out. Give me a sec.” I tried
to think of something to undo the words. “Forget what I said,” I
tried.

“Forget what? You didn’t say anything.”
Robert stopped pacing and waited.

“Was that in English?”

“Yeah.” He grabbed me by my elbow and began
moving out of the cemetery, toward the Jeep. “You don’t know how to
use it, do you?” He lowered his voice, “Keep walking, fast.”

A car drove past and parked near the other
end of the cemetery.

“I kinda only just figured out I could do
it.” I held my purse tight, feeling the need to protect the Wolf
Book inside. “Are you my brother?”

He nodded curtly. “I’m the sixth. You’re the
seventh.”

“Oh.” I had no idea what that meant, but at
the moment it seemed better to leave than the try to figure it
out.

“Rouge!” Michael’s shout brought me out of my
stupor.

I pushed past Robert and ran toward the
sound. Michael stood by the Jeep, his face etched in worry. “You
okay?” He scowled at Robert.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“There’s a tracker on the Jeep. When you
didn’t come back, I checked it.” He opened the passenger door. “Get
inside.”

“Wait.” I knew what he planned to do. “Rob
saved me. He just killed Marcus.”

Michael hesitated a moment. Then looked to
Robert for confirmation.

“Yeah.” Robert walked up and stopped in front
of me, his hands crossing over his chest. “Now can you fix me?”

Michael and Robert glanced toward the
cemetery at the same time.

“Get in,” Michael commanded. He pulled the
passenger seat forward and I crawled into the back. “You, too,” he
said to Robert before racing around to the driver’s side.

Robert complied. Michael revved the engine
and did a fast U-turn. We drove in silence as he raced away from
the church.

“You can drop me off here.” Robert tapped the
window.

“No.” Michael focused on the road in front of
him. “You’ve just given yourself a death wish by choosing Rouge
over your pack.”

“I know.” Robert glanced back at me. “Can you
fix me now?”

“What are you talking about?” Michael
asked.

“I somehow commanded Robert and Marcus to
stop shifting.”

Michael smirked. “You did the wolf-thing
again?”

“Apparently.”

He glanced in the review mirror and winked at
me, then his face turned serious. “Looks like you’re coming with
us, Rob.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t stay here. They’ll kill you.”
Michael ignored the and-you-won’t questioning look Rob gave him.
“You can’t shift so you’re vulnerable. Until Rouge can change you
back, you need protection. I owe you that for saving her.”

Rob scowled at us. “It sounds more like I’m
your prisoner.” At least he didn’t try to argue or jump out of the
fast moving Jeep.

“I hope you don’t need anything from your
apartment. We can’t go back there.”

“I don’t.” Rob rubbed his forehead. “We
leaving for good?”

Michael nodded. “Just need to grab our stuff
from the hotel.” He pulled into the hotel parking lot. “I’ll run in
and grab it. You guys wait here.” He was out of the Jeep before
either of us could protest.

Rob waited till Michael disappeared
through the front doors. “Are you
with
him?”

I nodded, trying and failing, to avoid seeing
the disgusted look on his face. It made me angry. What right did he
have to be disgusted of me and who I chose to be with? “You know
you’re lousy at hiding your feelings. You should work on that.”

“So are you.” He frowned and then grinned.
“You look like mom.”

“Rebekah?” Wind seemed to rush by my
ears.

“Yeah, mom.”

“She’s not my mother.” I looked out the
window, wishing Michael would hurry. “She might have given birth to
me, but she dumped me off and left me.” I shot him a quick glance.
“She obviously didn’t do that to you.”

“Jamie, you—”

“My name is Rouge.”

He waved a hand in the air. “Whatever. You
were Jamie when I knew you.”

I hesitated. “You knew me?”

“I was four when you were born.”

“Then why did Rebekah try to get rid me,
change her mind and then change it again? Sounds pretty flighty to
me.”

“She had to.”

Michael came out of the hotel with our stuff,
stopping me from asking Robert why. Michael tossed the suitcases,
my backpack and his laptop in the back of the Jeep. He slammed the
back door and then jumped into the driver’s seat. “All set.
Anywhere else we need to stop?”

Rob spoke up, “In Grand Island, I’ve got
something I need to pick up.”

A thought occurred to me. “Have you had to
run before?”

“A few times.” Robert shrugged. “But I’ve
always come back.” He paused a moment, staring out the window with
a sadness I didn’t understand at the time. “This time….well, I
can’t now. Not ever.”

Michael paid the toll over the Grand Island
Bridge, but he didn’t miss a beat in the conversation. “Why’d you
have to run? You’re the Alpha of this pack here, aren’t you?”

“I was,” Robert corrected. “But I did have to
run. My mother refused, but after she died, I left whenever he came
back.” He glanced at me. “Always looking for you. He had the whole
pack compelled to get you if you ever showed up. He preferred you
alive, but dead would suffice as well.”

“Who?” Michael and I asked at the same
time.

“Bentos, of course.”

Chapter 17

I gasped.

Michael nearly drove the Jeep off the road,
swerving just in time, and getting a loud honk from a trucker’s
horn.

“Bentos?” I whispered, glancing at Michael to
see if he was okay.

“Yeah,” Robert sighed. “Son of a bitch is our
father.”

That floored me. I felt the blood drain from
my face, my fingers went numb and my heart stuttered.

“What?” I’d figured he was a great
grandfather or something. “How can he still be alive?”

“There’s only one person who can kill him.”
Robert shook his head. “Don’t you guys know any of this?” He
pointed to the upcoming exit. “This is where I need to grab my
stuff. Michael, you know about Bentos, right?”

“I know more than Rouge does.” That caught me
by surprise, but I tucked it away for the moment.

“Bentos killed Michael and his sister.” I
blurted out, receiving a dirty look from Michael in the rearview
mirror. Obviously, he felt that now was not the time to spill
secrets.

Robert laughed, slapping his knee.
“Seriously?
You’re
one of
the twins? The twins?”

“Apparently so. Didn’t realize we were famous
among the Grollics.” Michael said, waiting at the light. “Where do
we go? Left? Right?”

“Right. See the Topps grocery store? There’s
a shop right beside it.” Robert unclicked his seatbelt. “I’ll be
right back.” He hopped out of the Jeep and jogged inside the small
office. It looked like a packing or shipping company.

“Do you believe him?” Michael asked me
quietly.

I rested my hand on his shoulder. He covered
it with his own. “I do,” I said.

“I don’t trust him completely, but… I do
too.” He straightened when Robert came out of the store. “He’s
going to be able to answer a lot of questions you have.”