29 | Half-Blood

The house we pulled in front of was a grand Victorian style house, brown shingles covered the outside, seeming to climbs upwards to the asymmetrical roof. My eyes followed the stone path that lead to grand front porch and my eyes followed the lines of the house to the balcony right above that had a curved alcove tucked into it. Hanging plants seemed to frame and brighten the otherwise dreary grandness I saw. As someone who enjoyed and studied historical pieces of art - this home left me with a familiar feeling that I had been missing.

The front door to the house opened and a man stepped out. I couldn't make out much of his features from this distance, even with squinting my eyes. All I could make out was his impressive height and lean musculature. His hair was a salt and pepper color, cut into a military looking flat-top. I assumed from the power stance that this was the Alpha we had driven all this way to meet. My stomach fluttered as my anxiety spiked.

I really needed this to go well.

My car door opened and I let out a loud yelp. My hand rested over my racing heart as Cal leaned in and obstructed my view of the house and our host. His brow was arched and his lips were twisted up in a bemused smirk. I gave him a small glare, knowing he had enjoyed giving me that little scare, intentional or not.

I unbuckled and scooted to the edge of the seat. "Is there anything I should know before we go in here?"

Cal stepped back, making room for me. "Just be your normal charming self."

"Be serious," I said as I slipped out of the car, combing my fingers through my hair.

He closed the door behind me, surprising me again when he grabbed my hand as I dropped it to my side. I turned to look at him, keeping my hand where it was.

Cal tilted his head down to me and said in a soft voice, "You'll be fine as long as you remember we're guests here."

"And that they could tear me to shreds if they wanted. So best behavior. Got it."

He chuckled, pulling me along as he started walking. "Relax. I think you'll be surprised to find out some of us are actually quite hospitable."

"I'll believe that when I see it." I said in a low whisper.

The closer we got the porch more I felt like I was going to vomit. My grip on Cal's hand tightened as we ascended the stairs and came face to face with Alastair. The man was even taller up close, over six feet to be sure. His face was long and narrow, and marked with small scars. The most impressive being the one that slashed through his right eye, making his lid hang heavy. He looked stern and battle worn, a tested man.

Then Alastair smiled and the heaviness shattered. He lifted a hand toward us and said, "Welcome to my humble abode."

Cal reached out, shaking his hand an easy smile on his face. It was odd, and made him look younger - boyish. "Thanks for having us, sir."

Alastair glanced in my direction; his gaze curious as I took his hand next. "Yes, thank you."

"Well let's chat in the house," he said, eyes roaming to the street, which was lined with other beautiful homes. There were a few people milling about outdoors. "People around here can be quite nosy."

Stepping into the house was like stepping back in time. Dark, heavy wood covered the floor and bordered the walls and doorways. It gleamed under the light of the chandelier that hung at the center of the room. The smell of springtime, and the aged wood surrounded me. It tickled memories at the back of my mind – things that I had let myself forget about.

A chill skittered up my arm and that's when I noticed the absence of Cal's warmth. I snapped out of my head to realize I was alone in the foyer but voices drift to my ears from a nearby room. My feet whispered over the beautiful Persian rug as I followed the sound. I found Alastair and Cal in a formal sitting room, and they had added another person to our party.

A cop?

He is the first one to take notice of me. The urge to run hit me like a sucker punch. And that's how I knew he was one of them. They all instilled the same response in me, my brain understanding on some deep level the threat they presented – even if they looked as human as me. The others must have smelled my momentary fear because they turn to me – eyes flashing amber.

The cop's nostrils flared and he stood up quickly, looking toward Cal with narrowed eyes. "You brought a human into this house?"

"She's a half-blood," Cal corrected.

The cop's lip pulled up into a snarl as he glanced back to me. "Then you should have killed it."

I couldn't stop myself from reeling back at the intensity of his disgust and hostility. He had referred to me as an "it" as if I was less than. Not even worthy of the title of human. Cal let out an ominous growl from deep within his chest. His body shifting forward.

"Sit down, Officer Lahey and shut your mouth before you say something you can't take about."

I spun around my eyes going wide. It had been a long time since I'd seen her and yet she looked almost exactly as I remembered her. "Aunt Margery?"

She fixed me with her stern gaze, eyes taking in the whole of me. My body threatened to sink to the floor. Her presence brought my father to the forefront of my thoughts. The resemblance to him made my heart ache as if I had lost him yesterday. It was like I had to remember to breathe. My gaze followed her as she glided pass me without a word.

"This is a unique situation, Evan," Alastair said to the cop who lowered himself back down onto the love seat. He shot a glare at my Aunt as she sat down in a winged-back chair. "Callum Wolfe and the half-blood are my guests."

"The half-blood has a name," Aunt Margery said, the familiar condensing tone dripping from the words. Everyone turned to me at the comment and I stiffened, knowing that setting a good impression was paramount.

Alastair gave my aunt a pointed look, before turning back to me. "My apologies, Miss–"

"Just Lucinda is fine." I was going to throw up.

Cal gave me a reassuring smile, but it did nothing. When we were alone again, he would be lucky if I didn't strangle him with my bare hands for not telling me what I was walking in to. He must have read the look in my eyes because he cleared his throat and looked away.

"Lucinda, this is Officer Lahey. He's a member of my pack." Alastair waved a hand to the Evan who sat sullenly on the couch. "And he was the one who worked your father's case."

My brows shot up a bit as understanding dawned on me. Cal obviously intended for us to figure out if there was a connection between what was happening in Twin Peak and what happened in Sunnyvale.

"Callum said you might like to know more about what happened," he continued, looking a bit uncertain now because I had yet to say anything.

My gaze shifted to Cal for a moment, then back to Alastair. I nodded my head. "I would appreciate that. Thank you so much."

He nodded back, giving me a tight smile before turning to Cal. "Good. Then why don't you and I head to my office while Lucinda and Officer Lahey discuss her father's case."

I stiffened at the thought of being separated from Callum. Our eyes met across the room. It was strange – these moments, feeling as though we could communicate with each other without words. One look and I could decipher everything that he was thinking. Right now, he wanted me to stay in this room and get more answers while he pleaded our case to Alastair.

Trust me, his eyes screamed to me.

Don't let me down, I replied silently.

The tiny twitch of his lips was enough for me to concede with a roll of my eyes. I watched as Callum let Alastair lead him from the room, leaving me in the company of people I wasn't overly enthusiastic to be with. Officer Lahey hated me. And Aunt Margery had never acted impressed by me, even as a child.

"What are you doing here?" I asked my Aunt as the shock of her presence began to wear off.

She tipped her head back, blue eyes as cold as glaciers. "Alastair called to your uncle and told us you were coming with your Alpha, and what you were looking into. They both agreed that having me around might be helpful."

It was strange having someone else call Callum my Alpha. "I would have been fine on my own."

"That remains to be seen," she replied coolly. "We should all be thankful you found the favor of an Alpha."

I cleared my throat as I took a seat in the other winged back chair. Someone could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. My Aunt had always been my biggest critic, and that clearly had not changed.

"Well, you're here to talk about the case..." I prompted turning to Officer Lahey, trying to turn the conversation away from dangerous territory.

"Right," Officer Lahey pulled a file from a bag that had been resting near his feet. He placed it on the coffee table, flipping it open. The first thing was a picture of my father, smiling at the camera, standing before my childhood home with me in his arms. My chubby hands were clasping his face as I laughed. My heart clenched in my chest. Aunt Margery leaned forward and picked up the picture, looking it over with her cold gaze.

"My brother was always breaking the rules. But when he met your mother, he crossed a line that there was no coming back from. We all knew there was only one way his story was going to end," Aunt Margery said with a guarded look, dropping the photo of him back down on the table.

I stared down at the image, ignoring my Aunt's cryptic words. My father looked so young in the picture, not much older than I was now. I noticed a familiar mark on his forearm. "I've seen that tattoo before..."

"The omega's brand," Officer Lahey said, tapping his finger on the tattoo in question.

"Omega's?" I asked, looking up from the photo to meet his hardened stare. I couldn't help my curiosity being that August had the exact same one.

Officer Lahey leaned back into the couch. "Shifters who chose themselves over the pack—and therefore forfeit the rights and protections that come with being a member of a pack. It's a dangerous life to choose."

"That much is clear, Officer Lahey," Aunt Margery replied.

"Why would dad choose that?"

My Aunt let out a long breath, angling her body toward me. "Grady didn't have much of a choice. Our father found out about your mother, told him to break it off or leave."

"That's horrible," I said.

Aunt Margery's stared off, not looking at anyone or anything in the room. "But that was around the same time your mother discovered she was pregnant with you. He'd never leave her after that."

"Why not tell his father? maybe that would have changed things."

"The times were different then, Lucinda. Having half-blooded children was a crime. If he had said anything, they would have killed you and your mother," she replied rather matter of fact.

I was a crime?

It seemed silly to consider but the grim and sullen expressions in the room said otherwise. Plus, if that was true than my father had given up everything to protect me and my mother. My anger over his secrets felt petty when I was faced with the reality of everything else.

Officer Lahey scoffed, eyeing me across the coffee table.

My brows furrowed. "Why?"

"Because they're—"

"Quiet!" Aunt Margery snapped at Officer Lahey when he attempted to answer me.

"No—" I pressed, meeting officer Lahey's glare. "I want to know what you're talking about. I'm tired of being kept in the dark. If this is about what I am then I want to know."

"You're a ticking time bomb." His jaw clenched tight.

"I don't understand. I feel completely fine."

"Of course, you do. You're just a carrier of our mutation. It's sitting, right now, just beneath your skin like a hair trigger."

My Aunt gave a small sigh but said nothing to contradict what he had said.

"What do you mean?"

He leaned toward me, holding my gaze. "Our genetics don't co-exist well with your human genetics. Everything is a flip of the coin with your type, and both sides are tails. If you do shift at puberty like the rest of us, you usually lose control of the shift until finally you are unable to return to your human form. You remain trapped as a wolf—imagine that, your human intelligence stuck inside the wolf body forever. Forced to live as a beast."

That didn't sound like something that I wanted to do. I was thankful that nothing like that had happened to me.

"You might think yourself lucky because you never shifted, but that makes it worse. You see a bite or scratch from one of us in our wolf form seems to trip the change in half-bloods. But unlike those who shift at puberty, these half bloods become slaves to the blood lust of the creature. The thrill of the hunt and the taste of the kill becomes everything to them—until they are nothing but mindless beasts, driven mad by their own insatiable hunger."

My heart thundered against my chest. Fear wasn't a good enough word to describe the sensation slithering around under my skin. Suddenly, I understood why my father had gone out of his way to keep me away from this world. He was trying to protect me – maybe even protect them from what I might become.

I took a moment, deciding my words carefully. Though from the conversation and what Mary-Beth had shared, I felt like I could put the pieces together for myself. "So, what happened to my father?"

"He was helping Alpha Alastair hunt down a half-blood who had moved into the Sunnyvale area as a favor for the protection he had given." Officer Lahey pushed the rest of the file towards me, seeming uninterested in talking about the matter further.

"And the half-blood found him first?" I asked.

Neither of them said anything but I knew the answer. So, that was it. This whole time I had been afraid of Cal and the others but they weren't the problem.

"Well did you at least kill it?"

"Yes," Aunt Margery replied. "The beast is dead."

There was satisfaction at her response, but it didn't last long. Sure, my father's killer was dead but a murderer was still running rapid in Twin Peaks. I leaned forward and grabbed my father's case file. It read just like the case Tamara had pulled for us a couple of months back. The bodies completely torn to bits—a crime of passion or the rabid predator?

I was certain now though that our current killer had to be a Half-Blood.

That was the connection. All the signs pointed to it.

My stomach churned and I rubbed at my arms. Beneath my skin there was a monster, worse than anything I had yet to experience. In the end it seemed that the thing I should fear the most was myself, because I knew first-hand what was capable of.

________

A/N:

So does this explain some things?

How do you feel about Half-Bloods? Are you afraid of what Lucinda might be capable of?