Her Billionaire, Her Wolf(49)

The man on the other side of the phone call replied with a shaken voice, “I know...I know. But our hands are tied until tomorrow morning. They tell me eight a.m. at the latest.”

Braze could hear the fear in the man’s voice and it sickened him. All weakness was disgusting. Especially now, when it mattered most.

“Tomorrow morning is not good enough. I am going to her...right now.”

The lawyer stuttered something then found his words.

“But, the police, sir...they will stop you before you even get past the front desk.”

A smile slipped onto Braze’s lips and there was no humor in it. Rather, it was a promise of violence and ruin to anyone who got in his way.

“Let them try,” he growled before stabbing the button that ended the phone call.

The huge man stood up and walked to the plate glass windows that made up the office’s walls on all sides.

The city was beneath him. All of it, including the people punier than the smallest ants, was beneath him, yet here he was powerless to free Sara from their system. But only if he played according to men’s rules. Rules meant to corral the weak.

Then like a whisper that tickled along his spine, Braze heard someone speak.

The weakness is yours.

It had been for so short a time, but he had always known that it had merely been but a respite and not a reprieve.

With a voice that echoed through corridors of death and dust covered bones, the voice spoke again.

I warned you. And now she has made you weak...divided.

Braze brought his hands to his head, knowing it would do no good. Covering his ears would not shut out the voice that came from within.

“You lied to me, father. Clement is alive. You knew it all along.”

Silence followed, but Braze knew the presence had not left him. He could feel it crawling in his skin, slipping along the twisted lines of the tattoos upon his body.

It was necessary, Braze, said the voice at last.

He would have been a distraction to you. And, now despite all my efforts, all my sacrifices, you have chosen the same path of weakness. The woman has left you open for a blood letting, and you allow it. Despite all that I have taught you.

Braze growled.

“There is no use in trying to divert me from the subject. You lied about Clement. Which begs the question...what else you have kept from me?”

He forced his hands down from his head, then seized his shirt and ripped it open. Buttons scattered to the floor while upon his chest black patterns and figures crawled and twisted.

“What other lies have you told, Father?”

Braze’s voice twisted in bitterness as he continued.

“What else have you hidden from me with all your scheming?”

Silence...boy. You are not yet the wolf that I was. You go too far in your reproach.

Can you deny that I have been right at every turn? Can you deny that I made the ultimate sacrifice to bring our kind into the modern world of men and that because of me, we are not far from becoming alpha of them all?

My choices were never easy ones. Not for your mother, nor for your brother.

But, I made them. It was necessary. No less necessary than the research I carried out the world over, turning over the least rock to winnow out rare arcane knowledge that would allow us to tie our souls together for all time.

You were not the one who slipped his head into the noose and kicked the chair out from under himself.

I knew fear in that moment, but I mastered it in the name of our cause. And as the runes upon your body held fast to my spirit, doors opened upon patterns and prophecy that are ours for the taking.

The company has flourished ever since. You have flourished ever since.

Where is the deception in that, my son? You who willingly took the writing of long dead languages upon your very skin. You did so with your eyes wide open.

Braze trembled with the truth in his father’s words. He had allowed it. Accepted it.

But how he had come to hate it.

“Leave me be. I am going to her and will bring her back here. She will be my mate, father, whether you will it or no.”

In his mind, Braze heard the grumbling of a hoary throat. A growl issuing from the jawbone of a long dead beast that sifted into dry, ash covered laughter.

And this, too, was necessary. While we argue, the woman has been taken by a minion of the would-be usurpers.

Braze froze, then said, “What did you just say?”

She has fallen into the hands of the vampires, Braze, and has passed beyond your reach.

Will you now, at last, accept the futility of this pursuit and come back to your true purpose?

He understood, then. His father had never been so long-winded. Only this time he had charmed Braze into listening while Sara was spirited away by the enemy.

Braze bowed his head in apparent defeat, then said, “Yet another lesson for me from my wise father. He who would see the world ruled by wolves and was willing to take his own life in exchange for the power of seeing just enough of the future that we prosper upon every choice we make. We have traded fang and claw for board rooms and committees, all in a bid for a dominance undreamed of by our wild forebears.