Betrayal

GRAYSON

My only thoughts were of Belle and of getting back to her as soon as possible.

“Hello, Grayson,” someone said in the darkness.

For a second I thought it was Belle saying my name, as she was the only person allowed to call me that. But this voice didn’t give me the sparks that hers usually did. It couldn’t be her.

I turned quickly, only to see Adalee emerging slowly from the darkness, an odd smile on her face.

I raised an eyebrow. “What did you just call me?” My wolf came to the surface, growling at the disrespect we’d just received from her.

Her smile only grew. She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against a nearby tree. “Did I ever tell you where I grew up, Grayson?”

~So Adalee has a death wish?~ I crossed my arms and tilted my head.

~Okay, I’ll play along.~ “No, Adalee, I don’t think you did,” I said grimly.

“You know, it’s kind of a coincidence actually,” Adalee said, laughing slightly as she stepped away from the tree and approached me. “I grew up in Paris—right around the area that you just came from.”

I actually hadn’t known that, which was strange. I’d thought I knew everything about her when I asked her to become my beta. “You told me you were from Toronto,” I said.

“Tsk-tsk, Alpha. You really need to get to know your pack members better,” she said, coming to stand right in front of me.

“I moved to Toronto with my mom when I was eighteen. ~Le reste de ma vie j’ai passé à Paris avec mon père.~”

~The rest of my life I spent in Paris with my father,~ ~I thought quickly.

~So she speaks French.~ I was starting to think I didn’t know my beta half as well as I thought I did.

“You’re right. I didn’t know that,” I said, “because you didn’t tell me.” I stepped closer to her. “Why?”

She laughed softly. “Just you wait. I’m getting to that part.”

She looked me up and down slowly, as if she was sizing me up. “I actually think you met my dad while you were in Paris. He’s the beta of the pack there.”

My brows knit together. “That’s not possible. I barely left the hotel while I was in Paris. I was too busy taking care of your luna.”

“Carl Aude,” Adalee said. “My father’s name is Carl Aude. Ring a bell?”

I sucked in a quick breath. That was the name of Belle’s stepfather—the werewolf I had nearly killed.

“You’re telling me that your father, Carl, is the beta of one of the biggest packs in the world?”

“Was,” Adalee spat out bitterly. “He ~was~ the beta of one of the biggest packs in the world. But he’s not anymore. He had one encounter with you and your bitch mate—”

A growl ripped from my throat and I lunged for Adalee without a second thought, fully intending to remind her of her place. No one got to speak about my mate—their luna—like that. I was about to grab her throat and slam her into the tree behind her when she held up a hand and said, “Stop.”

Suddenly I was jerked backward and my feet stopped moving as if they’d been glued to the ground. A painful fire tingled up and down my legs.

“What the fuck?” I yelled. I looked at Adalee, who was just watching me with a smile on her face. “What the fuck did you do to me?”

“Quiet,” Adalee said, and my mouth immediately slammed shut as if someone else was controlling it.

~How the fuck is she doing this?~

“Jeez, you really have anger issues. You need to work on those.”

My wolf clawed at my mind, trying to get free, but it was no use. There was something holding me back from shifting, keeping me in my human form. My wolf growled in frustration.

Adalee cleared her throat. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, my father had one encounter with you and…well”—she paused and chuckled menacingly—“my darling stepsister…”

~Belle…~ ~I thought frantically.

“And the next thing you know, he was magically stripped of his position as beta and found beaten to a pulp in an alley.” Her expression darkened deeply, all humor leaving her voice as she spoke her next words: “And now he’s dead.”

I sucked in a breath. Carl was dead? That couldn’t be possible! I had sent some men to teach him a lesson, but I’d never ordered them to kill him. Belle had begged me to spare his life, and I had planned to keep my promise.

Another thought hit me: ~What about Belle’s mother?~

“Didn’t know that, huh?” Adalee said bitterly. “You sent your stupid little minions to beat him nearly to death and then didn’t bother to check up on him afterward. You just left him to die; you didn’t even care. And all for what? Because he hit your precious little mate? He died—was killed for one simple mistake.”

She shook her head. I could see tears forming in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away.

“And to think that I actually liked you,” she continued quietly. “I respected you. I trusted you as my alpha and wanted to work under you. It’s why I chose to be your beta. But you no longer deserve my respect. I never thought you were capable of doing what you did. You’re going to pay for it now,” she said, her tirade ending abruptly.

She circled me slowly. I was still defenseless, unable to move or open my mouth to speak. And it was pissing me off. She came to stand in front of me once more and grimaced when she looked at my face.

“There’s another thing you don’t know about me, Alpha.”

I raised my eyebrows at her questioningly. My wolf growled.

“Do you remember the day you appointed me as your beta?” she asked.

I thought about it. I should have remembered it. It was a very important decision—one that I hadn’t made lightly. But the harder I tried to remember that day, the more it seemed to slip from my memory. I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. I was still unable to talk.

Adalee sighed. “You may speak now. Just don’t interrupt me, and promise to listen quietly.”

My jaw slackened painfully.

“I don’t know how you’re fucking doing this, Adalee, but let me move my feet right now before I mind-link all of my pack warriors. You’re skating on extremely thin ice.”

She rolled her eyes. “Add ~terrible listener~ to the list of things wrong with you—along with ~murderer~ and ~egotistical asshole~,” she snapped.

I growled loudly.

“You can try mind-linking someone but no one will hear you. Go ahead and try,” she quipped.

It seemed like I had no other option if I wanted to get out of this situation. I reached into my mind and attempted to connect to Kyle, asking him for help. I tried again. And again. And again. I didn’t get a single answer.

I looked at Adalee. She stood there smirking at me.

“See? I’m right,” she said smugly. “Now, let’s get back to my question: do you remember the day you appointed me as your beta?”

I swallowed a vicious reply, instead opting to say, “No. I don’t remember that day.” I ground my teeth together. “Why can’t I remember that day, Adalee?”

Her smile only grew. “Oh, you’re about to find out just how little you really know about your beta.” She began circling me again. “See, I come from a very powerful line of”—she paused when she came to stand right behind me, and I could feel her breath on my ear—“vampires.”

I almost rolled my eyes. I didn’t know what she was up to, but I knew she was lying.

“I know you’re not a vampire. I’ve seen your wolf. I can smell your werewolf genes,” I said.

She stepped in front of me so that we were facing each other. “You think you know everything, don’t you, Grayson?”

“I’m only one-fourth vampire. The rest of me is all werewolf. You see, my father was half vampire. His mom was a werewolf and his dad was a vampire. And my mom was a werewolf. And they had me. Is this making sense now?”

I stared at her in shock. None of this was making any sense. “You’re telling me you’re a quarter vampire?” I asked.

I clenched my jaw and pushed myself as hard as I could, trying to move my legs forward, but nothing budged.

“Try all you want to move; it’s not going to work—at least not until I tell you you can,” she said, watching me struggle, looking pleased. “Yes, only a quarter of me is a vampire, meaning that my werewolf genes have almost completely taken over. I don’t drink blood; I don’t have a sensitivity to light; I don’t live with other vampires.

“The one thing I got from my father was these pretty pearly whites.” She pulled her top lip up and showed off her sharp white fangs that I’d never noticed before.

“Well, ~that~, and a very special ability that only ~my~ family has.” She smiled and looked down at my legs. “And I think you might already know what the ability is.”

She stepped closer to me so that our noses were almost touching. I growled.

“With just my voice, I can make you do whatever I want,” she said menacingly.

~That’s not possible,~ ~I thought. The only vampire family that had the ability to control people with their voices were the Mortars.

The royal vampire family.