Chapter 4: Blood and Betrayal
The Marsh Medical Clinic sat on the edge of Silver Ridge's downtown district, a converted Victorian house that had been serving the community for three generations. I parked across the street, my enhanced senses immediately picking up the wrongness saturating the air around the building.
Too many scents. Too many heartbeats for a late-night medical emergency.
I pulled out my phone and texted Marcus: Something's not right. If you don't hear from me in an hour, assume the worst.
The front door was unlocked, which should have been my first warning. I stepped into the familiar waiting room with its outdated magazines and children's toys scattered across a worn carpet. The scent hit me immediately—fear, adrenaline, and underneath it all, the metallic tang of spilled blood.
"Dr. Marsh?" I called out, my hand instinctively moving to my service weapon.
"In the back room, Luna." Elena's voice came from the direction of her office, but something in the tone made my wolf bristle with warning.
I moved through the clinic with predatory silence, noting details that would have been invisible to human senses. Fresh footprints in the carpet—at least four different people had been here recently. The acrid smell of silver burning werewolf skin lingered near the examination rooms. And somewhere deeper in the building, I could hear the rapid, panicked breathing of someone trying very hard to stay quiet.
The back room door was ajar. Through the gap, I could see Elena sitting at her desk, her usually perfect silver hair disheveled, her hands shaking as she pretended to review medical files.
"Elena?" I pushed the door open, keeping my weapon ready.
She looked up with eyes wide with terror and guilt. "Luna, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
That's when I noticed the silver chains wrapped around her wrists, burning red welts into her skin. My father stepped out from behind the door, his face grim with the weight of terrible choices.
"Dad?" The word came out as a whisper.
"Luna, I need you to put your weapon down and sit."
"What's going on?"
"Someone wants to meet with you. Someone who's been waiting a very long time for you to come home."
The scent hit me then—wild, predatory, and achingly familiar. Alpha musk mixed with something else, something that made my wolf want to submit and run in equal measure. Kane Silverton emerged from the shadows of the adjoining room, no longer hiding his supernatural nature behind human pretense.
In full Alpha mode, Kane was magnificent and terrifying. Taller than his human form, his eyes glowing amber in the dim light, his presence filling the room with an authority that made every instinct I had scream both danger and desire.
"Hello, Luna." His voice carried harmonics that resonated in my bones. "Welcome home."
"Kane." I kept my weapon trained on him, though we both knew bullets wouldn't stop an Alpha in full power. "Let Elena go. Whatever this is about, it's between us."
"Is it?" He moved closer, and I felt the pull of pack hierarchy trying to drag me into submission. "Because from where I stand, it looks like you've been sharing pack secrets with humans."
"I haven't told Marcus anything that could hurt the pack."
"Haven't you?" Kane's smile revealed canines longer and sharper than any human's. "You've been rolling around in his scent for hours. Do you think I can't smell him on you?"
Heat flooded my cheeks, but I kept my weapon steady. "My personal life isn't pack business."
"Everything about you is pack business, Luna. You're the last unmated daughter of a founding bloodline. Your genetics are too valuable to waste on a human."
"I don't belong to the pack anymore. I left, remember?"
"You ran away," Kane corrected, taking another step closer. "Like a frightened pup. But you're not a pup anymore, are you?"
The Alpha pull was getting stronger, making it hard to think clearly. My wolf was responding to his power, recognizing him as a potential mate despite everything my human mind was screaming in protest.
"What do you want, Kane?"
"I want what was promised to me fifteen years ago. Before you ran away and took my property with you."
"Property?" The word snapped me back to full alertness.
"The artifact, Luna. The one your father hid from the pack before you left. The one that could change everything for our kind."
I looked at my father, seeing guilt and fear warring in his expression. "Dad, what is he talking about?"
"Luna," Elena spoke for the first time since Kane's arrival, her voice weak from the silver poisoning, "your father didn't just help you leave Silver Ridge. He stole something that belonged to all of us."
"The Moonstone of the First Pack," Kane said, his eyes never leaving mine. "A relic that amplifies werewolf abilities and can force transformations in humans. Hidden away for generations until your father decided to play protector."
"I was protecting my daughter," Robert said firmly. "I knew what you'd do with that kind of power."
"What I'd do is strengthen our bloodline. Create more werewolves. Take our rightful place as the apex predators we were meant to be."
The pieces were falling into place now. "The murders," I said. "You're killing the founding families to flush out anyone who might know where the artifact is hidden."
"I'm eliminating the weak," Kane corrected. "Those who would rather hide than embrace their true nature."
"And if they don't know where it is?"
Kane shrugged. "Then they die having served their purpose. Fear is an excellent motivator."
Elena made a small sound of pain as the silver burned deeper into her wrists. "Luna, he's already killed the Morrison and Hartwell elders. The Chen boy was just a bonus—wrong place, wrong time."
"But you know where it is, don't you, Luna?" Kane was close enough now that I could feel the heat radiating from his body. "Your father told you before you left. He made sure his precious daughter had all the family secrets."
I did know. The location had been burned into my memory the night I left Silver Ridge, insurance against a day that might never come. But I also knew what Kane would do with that kind of power, and it would mean the end of any hope for peaceful coexistence between humans and werewolves.
"Even if I knew," I said carefully, "what makes you think I'd tell you?"
Kane's smile turned predatory. "Because if you don't, I'm going to start with your new boyfriend. Then Dr. Marsh. Then every human in Silver Ridge until someone tells me what I want to know."
My finger tightened on the trigger, but Kane was already moving with inhuman speed. He knocked the gun from my hand and slammed me against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.
"You smell like him," he growled, his face inches from mine. "Like his sweat and his desire and his pathetic human need. It makes me want to hunt him down and tear his throat out just to cleanse your scent."
"Touch him and I'll kill you myself."
"Will you? Because right now you're responding to me whether you want to or not. Your pupils are dilated, your heartbeat is elevated, and I can smell your arousal despite your pretty words of defiance."
He wasn't wrong. The Alpha pull was affecting me on a level deeper than conscious thought, awakening instincts I'd spent fifteen years suppressing.
"That's biology, not choice."
"Biology is choice, Luna. It's the only choice that matters." His hand traced the line of my throat, and I hated how my body responded to the touch. "You can fight it all you want, but you know what you are. What we could be together."
"A monster."
"The future of our species."
Kane stepped back, giving me room to breathe and think clearly again. "I'm going to give you twenty-four hours to decide, Luna. Bring me the artifact, and your human lives. Refuse, and I start killing everyone you've ever cared about, starting with the detective who thinks he understands what you are."
"You're bluffing."
Kane picked up a manila folder from Elena's desk and tossed it to me. Inside were photographs—Marcus leaving his apartment that morning, Marcus at the crime scenes, Marcus kissing me in the hotel parking lot.
"I've been watching you both since you arrived. I know where he lives, where he works, where he goes for coffee every morning. How long do you think he'll last against a pack of wolves who want him dead?"
My blood turned to ice. "Kane—"
"Twenty-four hours, Luna. Meet me at the old silver mine at moonrise tomorrow night. Come alone, bring the artifact, and we can discuss terms. Bring backup or refuse to come, and Detective Stone dies in ways that will make the founding family murders look merciful."
He was at the window before I could respond, moving with liquid grace despite his size.
"Oh, and Luna?" He paused with one foot on the windowsill. "Your father will be staying with me until tomorrow night. As insurance."
Kane disappeared into the darkness, taking my father with him. I rushed to Elena's side, carefully removing the silver chains from her wrists.
"I'm sorry," she whispered as I bandaged her burns. "He said he'd kill my grandchildren if I didn't help lure you here."
"It's okay. We'll figure this out."
But as I helped Elena to her feet, my phone buzzed with a text from Marcus: Three more bodies found. All founding family members. All killed within the last hour.
I stared at the message, realizing with growing horror that Kane hadn't been bluffing about anything.
He'd been giving me a demonstration.