Wolves’ Bane (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

The Truth

“You’re being ridiculous, Andy,” Cal said for the third time as he paced in front of Kelly’s bed. “There’s no reason for you to come to the battle. Kelly needs you here with her.”

Andrew’s arms were loosely crossed, no sign of his rising anger. Cal knew it was there, could see it in his eyes, but his tone, his body language, all presented the image of calm.

“Your judgment is compromised, Cal. I can’t explain this to you any simpler than I already have. I am coming with the team. You’re no longer trustworthy with regards to the mission. Now, we can talk about this for another twenty minutes or you can just accept what I am saying. Either way, I am coming.”

Cal rested his hands on the baseboard of the bed, his knuckles whitening with the pressure. “I don’t need backup. I will do what I have to do.”

Andrew pursed his lips and shook his head. “You say that you will, but when the time comes, I don’t think your body will obey you. You’ve formed too much of an attachment to her. Just as I feared, you’ve fallen in love with her.”

Cal scoffed but didn’t dare speak. Andrew was right of course. He had fallen, and fallen hard for Morgan. The thought of living his life without her was too much for him to bear.

“There’s no other way, Cal.” Andrew eyes softened with pity as he glanced from Cal to Kelly and then back to Cal. “We all have to make sacrifices. If she betrays the Order, she will have to die.”

“I thought that if I got close to her, if we loved each other, maybe she wouldn’t be susceptible. Maybe she could beat Lazarus.”

“Why? Because of your love for one another?” Andrew’s face twisted into a sneer. “Do you really believe that?”

Cal shrugged as he pushed himself away from the bed to resume his pacing. “Yes. I thought the idea had some merit. If she loves me, then she might be able to fend off his seductive trap.”

“Yeah, or she’ll twist the knife in your heart even worse.” Andrew’s tone was bitter.

Cal jerked his gaze to meet Andrew’s. “No, I can’t believe that.”

“What you’re telling me is that if she does succumb, you’re going to fall apart. Which is why I need to be there.”

“So that you can kill her when she fails.”

Andrew nodded. “It’s your job, your duty to deal with this, but if you can’t, or won’t, then someone else will have to. If Morgan betrays the Order, then she will have to die.”

There was a gasp from the door and both men froze. Cal slowly turned to find Morgan standing partially in the room, her hand still on the doorknob.

“I-I-I thought I would come and get y-y-you,” she stammered, her lips quivering. “And then I heard you talking. I heard my name. I didn’t realize…”

Cal moved toward her and she let him wrap his arms around her, crushing her to his chest as she broke down and sobbed. He shot an angry glare over her head at Andrew.

“I’m sorry, Cal, but it’s best that she knows,” Andrew said.

Cal glared for a moment longer, then pulled Morgan’s face away from his chest. “We have to talk.”

Morgan’s eyes swam with tears and she nodded, wiping at her nose. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

By the time they got back to their room, Morgan had gone from crying to seething. Cal could tell by the rigid way she held her shoulders and the fact that she refused to make eye contact with him. She was pissed, and he dreaded the conversation to come.

He closed the door behind them. She didn’t wait for him to completely turn to face her before she slammed her open palm across his cheek, knocking him back a step. His eyes watered instantly as the shock and sting of the slap resonated through his skull. Her eyes blazed with anger, her fists clenched as if she wanted to reel up and knock him flat on his back. And she had every right to.

“I’m sorry you found out that way, Morgan.” Cal moved toward her, his hands out in an attempt to touch her, but she backed away from him, one step for each of his.

“Explain yourself, Cal.” She raised her hand up to halt his movement. “And don’t even think about touching me.”

He scanned her face. Anger was burning brightly, as well as something else—something in the way that she looked from him to the door. His heart clenched. “Oh, god, Morgan, please don’t be scared of me.”

Morgan narrowed her eyes as she snapped them back to his. “Don’t be scared?” she scoffed. “I just walked in on two men, two warriors, talking about killing me! How could I not be scared?”

He raised his hand to rub his jaw, the sting of her slap still burning “You’re right. It was horrible timing that you walked in when you did, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that I should have told you all of this before today.”

Cal motioned for her to sit on the bed to which she gave a curt shake of her head. He sighed and seated himself, covering his eyes with his hand for a moment. When he looked back up at her, she was once again glancing toward the door. He reached out and snagged her hand, attempting to sooth her with a touch, but she yanked it away, her expression one of surprise as she crossed her arms.

“Seriously, Cal, I’m going to give you one more minute before I take off out of here. I’m feeling pretty vulnerable right now so you’d better explain yourself quick.”

“If it turns out that you are Lazarus’s bride, what do you think he’s going to do to you if…if you fail to kill him in battle?”

Morgan frowned, clearly not following his line of thinking. “I don’t know, have sex with me against my will, try to get his heir.”

Cal shook his head sadly. “No, not against your will. If you’re his bride, and you fail to kill him in battle it’ll be because you don’t want to kill him. It’ll be because you’d rather be with him than me. Everything you feel for me, you will feel for him. Loyalty, devotion, lust.”

Morgan’s eyebrows shot halfway up her forehead, and she raised her hand to her mouth. “That’s disgusting.”

“But true.” He nodded, grimly. “One offspring is all he needs. And if you are a Huntress born with the bride gene that Lazarus so covets, you will be able to give him one.” He watched as her anger seemed to slip away and her arms fell to her sides. He reached out again and captured her hand, pulling her down to sit next to him. “If you succumb to his seduction, you will do whatever he wants you to do. You will willingly, gladly, mate with him and bear his child. It has been foretold that a child from such a union would be the perfect weapon against all of Lazarus’s enemies, including humans. We can’t let that happen, Morgan.”

“So you’d have to kill me.” Her tone was deflated, all of her anger seemingly gone.

He clenched her hand tighter, not liking actually having to admit it aloud to her. “If he succeeds and you fall victim, then yes, I have taken a vow to never let that happen.”

She turned to him, her eyes swimming with fresh tears. “Isn’t there a way to prevent this from happening?”

He nodded as he brushed away a stray hair from her face. “Yes, you can defeat him. You can make sure to plant that dagger in his heart.”

She smiled sadly. “But Andrew doesn’t think I’ll succeed, right? That’s why he’s coming, because he knows that you’ll hesitate when I fail, that you won’t be able to kill me.”

Cal wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck and brought her to rest against his chest. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Morgan. I wasn’t expecting to. In fact, Andrew ordered me not to, but I did anyway. How could I not? You’re my Huntress, you’re my perfect match. I love everything about you, and I can’t live without you. To kill you would be like killing a part of myself. I don’t think I can willingly do that. But I can’t bear the thought of him touching you either. My loyalty to the Order screams for me to prevent that from happening at all costs. Because of our bond, I don’t know what will happen if you fail to kill Lazarus.”

“Is that why you tried to break the bond?”

He sucked in a deep breath and then released it in a powerful sigh. “Yeah, that’s why.” He didn’t want to tell her about his father and mother’s tragedy, didn’t want to undermine the small bit of confidence that she had left. And he certainly did not want to tell her about Kelly’s prophecy.

She will betray the Order.

He shook his head as he stroked his fingers through her hair, easing away the tie that bound it together so that it cascaded down around her face. “But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t break the bond.” He pulled her up to face him, and his heart broke to see how shattered she looked. He used his thumb to wipe away a tear as it slid down her cheek. “I believe that what you said the other night is true, Morgan.”

She frowned at him, her lips opening to speak, but he stopped her with a finger laid gently on her bottom lip.

“You said that being with you, loving you, making love to you, would give you strength against Lazarus, would help you beat his thrall. And I believe that to be true. The more I love you, the more strength you will have against him.”

Morgan’s eyes swam with tears again, but he could see she wanted to believe his words.

“I love you, Morgan,” Cal whispered as he moved his finger and replaced it with a kiss.

There was a moment of hesitation when she didn’t respond to his touch, and his heart twisted with the thought that he might have lost her. But then she kissed him back, slowly at first, building in intensity until her hands were wrapped in his hair and her breath came out in heavy pants.

They made love quickly, passionately, their hands stroking, their lips tasting, their bodies melding until they both shattered with orgasms.

When they were done and he moved to cradle Morgan in his arms as he liked, she pulled away, rose from the bed and wrapped a blanket around her body. Staring down at him, her eyes were filled with pain and hurt.

“I do love you, Cal, but until this is over, I don’t want you touching me again. It hurts too much to know that your loyalty to the Order is stronger than your loyalty to me.” She raised her hand for him to stay quiet. “It is, don’t try to argue. You said you would kill me, and I believe that if I betray the Order, you will. I don’t blame you for that. I wouldn’t want to live with myself if I birthed a monster because my mind was taken over by Lazarus. What I do blame you for is putting the Order first. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t dare.”

“Morgan,” he pleaded as he pushed himself up, determined to get her into his arms again.

But the glare she gave him stopped him cold. “Don’t make me despise you, Cal. Please, don’t say anything that will hurt me more than you already have.”

He slumped back, his mind reeling at her words as he watched her go into the bathroom and shut the door against him. He thought he had fixed things. How foolish to believe that he could repair such colossal damage with only a few words.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Separation

I insisted on training alone over the next two days. I didn’t want the constant reminder of Cal’s impending betrayal and worse, his pitiful eyes staring at me, begging me to forgive him. He had made his choice. The Order came first.

The worst part was that now I saw it as inevitable, the idea that I would fail was so firmly stuck in my mind that I couldn’t shake my doubt. Even though Cal had said I was ready, I didn’t feel ready anymore. I felt lost and terrified and alone.

As I was transitioning from the treadmill to the punching bag, wrapping my hands in tape to protect them, Lance strolled into the gym. His quick glance at the door told me that he hadn’t expected to find me there alone.

“Don’t look so scared, Lance. I’m not going to bite.”

Lance gave me a lopsided grin as he rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Where’s Cal?”

I shrugged as I continued to wrap the tape, winding it along my wrist and crisscrossing over my knuckles. “Don’t know.”

“Oh.” He pointed toward the door. “Do you want me to leave?”

I bit my bottom lip as I glanced at him, my eyes narrowing. “You knew too, right? About Cal having to kill me if I fail to kill Lazarus?”

Lance’s face blanched, but he boldly met my glare. “Yeah, I knew. All of the Hunters know, and we all took the same vow. When word spread that you might be Lazarus’s bride, we all understood what that meant.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and shifted my eyes to my hands, busying myself to keep the tears at bay, suddenly feeling the cutting edge of betrayal again. I was marked for death all right, and it was by the people I’d grown to trust and care about.

Lance took a step toward me but froze when I snapped my gaze up to him. “You’re all a bunch of assholes.”

Lance nodded. “Yeah, you’ve got that right. We’re a bunch of lemmings. Bound to the Order, committed to doing whatever we must to push forward our agenda, even at the cost of what we hold most dear. Stupid fucking assholes, if you ask me.”

Startled by his admission, I lost some of the anger burning through me. “What? You don’t agree? Aren’t you betraying the Order by even thinking against them?”

Lance shrugged as he moved toward the treadmill I’d just vacated. “I’ve never been one to follow all of the rules. I’m a bit of a rogue.” He winked, disarming me even more. “I don’t agree with the choices that are being made. I wouldn’t do it myself, kill a Huntress. But I understand for someone like Cal, why he thinks he must.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? It’s okay for him to kill me because he has a special reason to?”

Lance shook his head as he punched in the speed and track he wanted to run, then started with a slow jog. He glanced over at me. “All he has ever known has been this place. He’s been drilled—”

“Brainwashed.”

“Fine, brainwashed, into believing that the Order comes first. He’s torn right now, a mess. On the one hand, he has this sense of duty, of loyalty, to the Order because it’s been his life, and on the other hand, he has you. Someone who he’s unexpectedly developed feelings for. Strong feelings.” He glanced away for a moment and when he looked back at me, his expression was grim. “His mother was a bride of Lazarus. The last one before you.”

I gasped as I raised my hand to cover my mouth.

“She betrayed the Order and succumbed to Lazarus’s thrall. His father killed her for it. That’s why he’s so fucked up over this. It’s shitty luck that you have a link to the king but he carries this legacy on his back—this expectation that because his father made the ultimate sacrifice, so should he.”

Sorrow for Cal and what he must have gone through to lose his own mother that way cascaded over me.

Lance sighed. “He doesn’t believe you’ll fail. He has such faith in you that he thinks you can’t possibly lose. There are others who think the opposite, but Cal believes in you. He loves you, and it’s tearing him up to know that he’s hurt you.”

I lowered my hand and shook my head. “Did he send you in here to talk to me?”

Lance chuckled as he tapped the buttons, increasing his speed to a faster jog. “No, he’s told me in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t want me talking to you about this. But like I said, I don’t tend to follow orders very well.”

Lance angled his face away from me, focusing on his run. I finished wrapping my hands and turned toward the punching bag, landing a few hard jabs before looking back at him. “This doesn’t change anything.”

Lance glanced toward me, his head bobbing with his long strides, a cocky smile on his lips. “No, I wouldn’t imagine so. But at least it’s got you thinking.”

I blew out an exasperated breath then began working on beating the shit out of the punching bag and envisioning that I was taking my anger out on all those who deserved it. Jimmy, Lazarus, Andrew—but for some reason, I couldn’t conjure an image of Cal. What Lance had said
had
gotten me thinking. If he’d grown up believing he must obey the Order for the sake of meeting some kind of standard set by his father, I could see how difficult it would be to undo that in a few weeks. And his faith in me certainly spoke volumes given that kind of upbringing. Maybe I
would
succeed at beating Lazarus. I focused on that thought as I pummeled the bag, my sense of foreboding rocketing away with each strike.