#Chapter4
In the moonlight, Jonathan Aztec was something to behold: his powerful shoulders seemed to carry the waning gibbous, and the night seemed to offer him a wide berth, stabs of illumination spilling from the porch of the shadow-kissed manor, cascading around him like a second skin. He was waiting, head tilted up at the sky, flesh drinking in light, adopting a subtle glow. He was waiting for me, and it was only once the Huracan Spyder convertible trudged to a stop in the centre of the courtyard, ignoring the entrance to the dead space that was a garage, that he yanked his gaze away from the heavens.
Our eyes held. Darkness was a cloak that stole away at the small hours of the morning, but between the bright glare of my headlights and the aid of the moon, it was as though we were face to face. As though he was right there in front of me. And then he started walking, his large frame splicing a path with a grace that double-bladed itself with caution.
Killing the engine, I stepped out, pocketing the keys. The teeth that rode the back of the wind were razor-sharp, ravenously tearing at the areas of exposed flesh, burning deep into my cheeks. Hands curling into tight balls, nails biting into the fleshy banks of my palm, I met my Beta halfway.
/"How did it go?/" were the first words out of his mouth. Up close, he looked less magnificent than he had from afar. Exhaustion oozed from him like a weeping sore. His shoulders fell into a sag as pulled the navy cargo jacket tighter around his mesomorphic physique, and dark rings needled beneath the gunmetal blue of his eyes.
/"Like finger foods at a cannibal barbeque,/" I muttered. His head cocked. A dark brow lifted. Then a crooked smile split his roguishly handsome face.
/"I can't tell if that's good or bad./" He spared a glance behind him, taking a moment to survey the eyesore that was Battleridge manor — a whitestoned, architectural monument that had been inhabited by the Northridge pack Alpha and their family for generations. /"But I'm glad you're back. Did . . . she help?/"
Well, it left me with a stinker of a headache, ice in my veins and an all-consuming sense of doom, but hey, I now knew a fraction more than I did before I sought out the soul-leeching revenant.
You know what, scratch that. I wasn't so sure she'd even told me anything of relevance. She had spoken a lot, sure, but had she actually said anything?
Boom-a-doom-boom. The banging inside my head kicked up the pace, the mere thought of her enough to push towards a migraine.
/"Does she ever?/" I muttered. A grimace was the answer. Few Lelux encountered the Vidua. Even less made it back to tell the tale. Elders, the few that still believed, had taken to warning their cubs against pursuing her in a misguided quest for knowledge. Jonathan was part of the minority that had ignored their deterrents and returned with both health and sanity; he knew better than anybody of the cost and the hazards faced. /"For now, the boy stays./"
Which left a taste as pleasant as battery acid in my mouth. But with no alternatives, what was a man to do?
/"I had a feeling you were going to say that./" His hand ragged across his mouth, nails bristling against the thin trickle of stubble that darkened his square jaw. It made him look older. Made the seriousness that often anchored his composition all the more prominent. /"Do —/"
/"It's been a long night,/" I cut him off. /"Go home. I have no further use for you right now./"
Faltering, torn between protesting and accepting, his yapper snapped shut, lips thinning into a tight slash, before he gave a curt nod. /"I got the kid to — /"
/"I don't care./" Unless his next words were 'I got the kid to disappear, never to darken your doorway again', then all my fucks to give had diminished. Not that there had been an abundance of them to begin with. /"Now piss off./"
Rank may have deemed him my second, but that wasn't to be mistaken for the image of friendship. Our history may have stretched back years before I had swooped in and taken over his previous Alpha's pack as my own, but that didn't make us pals. He seemed to forget that at times. Or maybe he was masochistic and got off on the constant reminders and belittlement. I wasn't sure which; caring would have been required to determine which.
His car, a beat down, A-class Merc, was abandoned just outside the high rise metal gates that secured the property. Battlerigde was a fortress in its own right, caged in by eight-foot walls and kitted out with a state-of-the-art security system, and although he had the codes for the gate, sometimes, if I knew in advance that he was coming, I'd change them. Just for shits and giggles. Just because I was convinced that if I pushed him hard enough, the resentment towards me would outweigh any fidelity he thought he had — it was a sadistic paradox, testing his devotion just to prove there was no such thing as true loyalty.
But the bastard was nothing if not stubborn, and in the six years I had reigned, he had done nothing but try to disprove that theory.
I watched him leave. Watched as his silhouette blended in with the shadows. Until the long stretch of courtyard stole him from view and the sound of the gate churning open and the sound of his engine firing up hit the stillness of the air. Listened until the crunching of his tires against the gravelled path became too mineute for even my unnatural hearing.
It was said that home was where the heart was — did that make me homeless or heartless? The interior of the manor was swindled in elegance, every forgotten, dust-gathering room or hallway still emitting the snobbish, 'I'm better than everyone' display of wealth and sophistication, and the taint of all those that had come before me still haunted the grounds. The foyer greeted me upon entry. The overhead detail of lights blared, brushing over the porcelain tiles like a lake of broken glass, and the grand staircase, a double-jointed fixture that had steps arcing out and scaling opposing sides of the room until the mouths met in a central point, seemed to beckon me.