Lone Wolf (The Westervelt Wolves, Book 8) (8 page)

He threw out his cigarette.
Dirty, human habit
. He might not be able to get cancer like the humans but he still wished he’d never smoked. Of course, if he thought he would live past the end of the week he’d make an effort to quit. Dying at any moment made stopping a ridiculous notion. Why bother? He’d be done with cigarettes when the reaper came for him.

Any day now
.

A van pulled up to the house with a bunch of men in it. His nose told him it contained five men but he counted only four exiting the vehicle. The four who were visible stumbled toward the house. Since he trusted his senses, he knew one of them had remained inside, in the driver’s seat. He sniffed the air again. Humans would think them drunk but Gabe knew better. They were
made
wolves. His father’s madness was displayed to the world via the abhorrent creatures Kendrick had dared to create.
Nothing like playing with the gods.

Gabe walked toward the van. If the creatures were real wolves they’d have smelled him, but Az, Gabriel’s brilliant science-minded brother, had determined the year before that the creatures could only scent a target if they’d been sent after that specific person. Otherwise they were basically dead men walking. Az knew this for sure since his wife had temporarily been a made wolf herself. His brothers had an unusual assortment of mates. Each woman had added to their lives in unforeseen ways that had ultimately kept the pack alive.

Gabriel would never know what his mating Carrie would have brought to the pack. He’d been denied that chance.

The
made
wolf who remained in the van sat in the driver’s seat staring straight ahead like a mechanical doll someone would have to turn on to work. His father had taken drug addicts, the mentally ill, and the enemies of his friends when he’d created his army of wolf creatures.

The gods had given the shifters the gift of living as both man and wolf, of combining their strength and always being together as one. Well, the gods had bestowed that miracle on him and he’d managed to screw it up. The
made
wolves, the ones who shouldn’t be, they had no joy in the shift, no inner wolf to take the journey with. Just angst, pain, and … nothingness.

A little nothingness didn’t sound so terrible to him at that very moment. But as, ironically, his father had once told him, he could fill up one of his hands with reality and the other with wishes and dreams that came through. One of them would fill up first and it never turned out to be wishes and dreams. They never accounted for much when all was said and done. Hard reality was where he had to exist.

“Hiya.”

He strode to the abomination in the driver’s seat and yanked him out the car. His brother Az always apologized to the pathetic creatures before he put them down. Gabriel had neither time for niceties nor any inclination to give them. The made wolf grunted for two seconds before Gabriel broke his neck. A crack sounded out, only to be absorbed into the noises of the busy street two blocks away.

The dead made wolf slumped onto the steering wheel, his neck arched to the side in a manner that made him look like a crash-test dummy after one of those car commercials meant to make humans drive more slowly. Gabe stared down at him.

When had he lost his compassion? Had it fled the day his wolf disappeared? Or had he never possessed any to begin with?

A flicker of something moved through his mind and he pushed it aside. There would be a reckoning for him. He believed in an afterlife, had seen too much not to, and judgment would follow him wherever he went. For now, there was a job to complete and no time for nagging worries or mistakes he couldn’t undo.

Besides, that creature had needed to die. He’d killed it for his own purpose, but that didn’t mean its death hadn’t been merciful, in a strange, screwed-up way.

Gabriel picked up the dead body and rubbed it against himself, trying hard not to gag as the pungent smell assaulted his wolf nose. The creature had basically been the walking dead. He certainly reeked like a corpse.

And now Gabriel had to make himself smell like one of them.

He rubbed himself against the dead man until he could smell the stink of the unnatural creature on his own skin. It would have to do. Unless his father himself opened the door, no one would know him, and he should be able to pass himself off, at least temporarily, as a made wolf until he found Kendrick.

With a hard shove, he pushed the dead body into the truck and closed the door. He hoped no one would notice until he’d well ensconced himself in the house. Not that luck had been on his side for four decades or so.

Hunching over like he’d seen the made wolves do before he killed them, he limped toward the house. The movement constituted less walking and more running while letting his right leg drag behind him for an extra second with every step.

“Well, this sucks.” He shook his head at the sound of his own voice. Did talking out loud to yourself signal insanity? If so, he’d definitely crossed into that realm.

He trudged forward until he got to the front door. The other made wolves hadn’t rung the bell, just turned the knob and walked in. Dad clearly didn’t care one bit about security. Why should he? Every year he lived he became more and more convinced of his own invulnerability. Not surprising considering that no one had managed to kill him, although many had tried.

That would end.
Shortly
.

He tried the handle, twisting it and felt a pang of relief in his chest when it opened without issue. Getting stuck on the front step didn’t factor into his plan. Not that he’d spent all that much time coming up with this potentially disastrous turn of events.

The door swung open into a long hallway. He looked right and left, taking a deep breath through his nose while he did and letting his senses fill in the blanks of his situation. There were thirty souls in the house but none of them in the center hall. His knees almost buckled and he had to grip the side of the door to stop from falling over.

Carrie
. He hadn’t anticipated how her scent would unnerve him. Flowers. She always brought the smell of roses with her everywhere she went, like she carried their essence in her blood. When they’d first made love and their souls had passed to each other, she’d been filled with color. The brightest, strongest reds, oranges, and yellows he’d ever seen. Gabe hadn’t known such shades existed.

But when his wolf had left he had taken Carrie’s colors with him. And everything beautiful in the world had vanished.

Every time he didn’t mention her, pretended to be unmated, neglected to inform his brother the Alpha that he had lost his wolf, he lied and betrayed the people he loved. They’d been searching for a sister they’d all forgotten until part of the spell had been undone. All except Gabriel. Angel, the sister only he knew about for forty years, had remained a vivid memory for him, the baby she’d been when she’d vanished. He could remember holding her when the sun set over the hills of Westervelt, of telling her how she’d grow to be royalty, and what that meant to the pack.

He’d never uttered a word to tell them where she’d been sent or who she looked like.

While he’d not helped his father’s men get onto the island, he would have if he’d been asked to. If he ever said no, his father would kill Carrie.
Painfully
. The one thing in the universe he couldn’t abide.

The exhaustion of trying to keep the pack alive and not betray the promise of compliance he’d made to his father had eaten at him. Whatever soul he’d once had didn’t exist inside him anymore. Kendrick had to die and he had to take care of it before his meager amount of decency vanished completely.

It might have taken him forty years to realize that the separation between Carrie and himself—the absolute destruction of their mating bond—would protect her from dying if he died, but better late than never.

Gabriel sniffed the air again. Carrie’s scent was all over the building, but she stood about twelve hundred feet away from him. He’d guess somewhere near the kitchen since her aroma mixed with the grotesque smell of ruined milk and burned bacon. Another inhale told him Kendrick didn’t currently reside in the building.

He’d hoped his dad would be home, but he’d have to make do. Gabriel would have to hide out and wait until the arrogant bastard returned. Ducking his head, he walked slowly in the opposite direction of Carrie’s scent. Killing Kendrick would be easy in comparison to facing Carrie again, in letting her see the disaster he’d become.

With determined strides he moved down the hallway. He’d find a closet and hide until he could end the never-ending torture that his life had become. Kendrick would face the abyss with him. Perhaps there would never be forgiveness for either of them.

Gabriel rounded the corner, looking for the right spot. He didn’t want to stick himself in a closet where someone might find him by accident. Hell, if Cullen ever found out he’d hid like some kind of untrained pup in a coat closet waiting for Kendrick, he’d never live it down. The pack’s enforcer could have taken out the whole house all by himself, rescued his girl, and gotten home in time to scare the pack’s youth into submission. Well, he could have before the pack had been all but destroyed. These days Cullen spent all of his time putting out fires and handling crisis.

“Hello, son.” Kendrick leaned against a wall staring straight at Gabriel like he’d been expecting him. Maybe he had.

Gabriel had always been told he resembled his father the most out of all of his brothers, and although neither Kendrick nor Gabe had aged a day in forty years, he could finally see that everyone had been right. All of these years he’d been blind to it. Gabe was the spitting image of the worst being he’d ever had the unfortunate luck of knowing.

They had the same shade of brown hair, the same dark eyes. Unlike Tristan, he hadn’t gotten their mother’s chin or hairline. All of it had come from Kendrick. Just like his dirty soul.

“Kendrick.” Gabe had been prepared for the end, but not this fast and not so incomplete. Nothing like leaving lots of dirty business behind him. “Didn’t smell you.”

“Were you under the impression, Gabriel, that the Westervelt pack was the only group with the tools to disguise smells? If you’ll recall, I used it way before you did.”

Gabriel nodded. “That’s right. Just one of those things you seem to be able to do.”

Kendrick shrugged. “I have a witch for a wife.”

“You have what?” Gabriel sucked in his breath. “When the fuck did that happen?”

“Not been around for a while, I see.” He waved his hand as if Gabe’s question held no merit.

Anger started at the bottom of his feet making its way up the back of his spine. In a moment he’d boil. His father had used the same gesture to dismiss him as a child. When he’d turned twelve, his wolf had helped him control his response to Kendrick. Now, left alone, he might do just what he’d done at eight and go right for the man’s throat.

In fact, that seemed like a good idea. A great one.

Gabriel started to call on his shift. He’d be more effective wearing his fur.

“Now, now, now, simmer down there, boy.” Kendrick stepped away from the wall. “Remember I have something that you want.”

Like he’d become some kind of witch himself, Kendrick snapped his fingers and Carrie appeared out of thin air. One second no one stood between Gabriel and his target, the next the one person in the universe he could not hurt stared up at him, her brown eyes wide and alarmed.

Carrie blinked rapidly. “What the…?”

She’d always had a husky voice. The intonation had made him hard as hell when they’d been younger. It had brought images of nighttime rolls in warm blankets filled with sultry laughter to pass the quiet hours. Now he couldn’t fathom the idea of sex, but seeing her would have brought him to his knees had Kendrick not been standing behind her.

“Gabriel.” She paled, which made her practically disappear considering that with her red hair, she had porcelain skin already almost too pale to take any real sunlight. “You shouldn’t be here. I can’t keep you safe if you’re here.”

He shook his head. Leave it to Carrie to think she had to take care of him. She’d always insisted he needed her help as much as she needed his.

She rushed forward and launched herself at him, her lips meeting his. They were soft and just as he remembered them. If only he could still be the shifter who had once been able to give her everything. He pushed her back a step, separating his lips from hers. Her eyes flared with hurt.

“I can’t have you here anymore. This has to stop.” He swallowed. The first words they’d said to each other in forty years and they held no romance, no discussion of the time or the agony they’d lived through. He couldn’t even give her the kiss she deserved beyond all things.

Her eyes widened and he saw her wolf dance inside them. The change would come quickly if she called it upon herself.

“There’s something wrong with you.” She reached out and rubbed her fingers against his shirt. “I can smell it.”

“Well, isn’t this sweet?” Kendrick yanked her back against him. “Good nose, daughter-in-law. There is something wrong with Gabriel. There has been for forty years. Frankly, and I don’t admit this easily, I’m impressed he’s still alive. There aren’t many who could live this long without their wolves. It’s the purity of your Kane blood.”

“How do you know that?” He couldn’t possibly have that information. No one had been told. His wolf wouldn’t have come and reported to Kendrick…

“Because I have him.”

“What?” His mind couldn’t process what his father said. It didn’t make any sense.

Carrie wrenched herself free from Kendrick. She grabbed his arms and shook him. “Run.” A second later, she shook him again. “Whatever he’s going to say is a lie. You know it. I know it. He’s evil. It’s not possible. He couldn’t have your wolf. Run.”

His father recaptured Carrie. She cried out when he grabbed her arm, squeezing it hard.

Gabriel couldn’t take his eyes off Kendrick. Normally he’d believe Carrie. But the only way Kendrick would know Gabe’s wolf had abandoned him was if his father had some sort of communication with Gabriel’s wolf.