Chapter5

#Chapter5

The kitchen was to the left, past the maze of doors, but rather than head towards it as I ordinarily would have, I tackled the stairs, breaching at the right-hand side and undergoing the workout that led me to the upper level. The sharp tang of lemonwood polish invaded my senses, but it was welcomed. Focusing on the citrus blend was almost enough to overpower the scent of death and decay that still lingered in my nostrils, despite the two-hour drive and the build-up of miles that now separated me from the Peccatorum. But it wasn't enough to ease the feeling of knives being twisted in my gut. Wasn't enough to mask Lady Vide's words, the way they went all broken record, resonating against the inside of my head like a wayward ping pong ball.

The hallway, a long stretch of corridor that split off into opposing wings, was unlit, desperately clinging to the light of the foyer. A tunnel effect miraged, the ends swallowed by an unyielding blackness. Taking to the right-wing, because the left-wing hadn't so much as seen the sole of a shoe in the past five years, I made my way halfway down the hall. Oak doors zigzagged from right to left, identical down to the engraved wolf head that branded the centre — just another way that the Ashers had flaunted their wealth. Five doors down from the mouth of the stairs was where I slowed to a stop, spinning to face the right-hand wall.

/"It's just a baby,/" I murmured to myself, blowing into my hands. The need for a shower was a persistent voice that jabbed away in the back of my mind, but it got squished into submission. The need to see the thing again, to try and regulate some sort of sanity overwhelmed the trivial desire. /"He's just a baby — pull it together, Grey./"

Except he wasn't a baby, and it didn't matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise. When the door swung inwards, I didn't look at the thing and see the chubby-cheeked toddler he had been when we had first found him. And it didn't even matter that the body he wore was only a couple of digits up from his original age; any shred of innocence that had clung to him had been wiped clean.

I wasn't sure what the fuck he was, but he wasn't innocent. Not in my books. He was dangerous. He was a threat. And it dawned on me that until I knew how to deal with him, I couldn't allow myself to believe otherwise. Mistaking beauty and softness for innocence had been a painful lesson. One that still lived on my skin, an eternal reminder. One that I had vowed never to make again.

/"You've got to be kidding me,/" I breathed, squeezing my eyes shut. It didn't help. The chaos that had disrupted the room was still waiting for me when they reopened.

Among the Lelux, tradition was everything. We were creatures of habit, stuck in our ways and bound by our laws. The elders of my pack, the older generations, saw it as a preservation of history; I saw it as little more than a noose being woven. Eventually, our ways would be our downfall.

Taking over Battleridge manor, as well as holding a claim to every other earthly possession that Malcolm Asher had once called his own, was part of one of said traditions: victor takes all. When a challenge was issued, the wolf that came out triumphant not only walked away with their lives, but with everything that once belonged to the wolf they had bested.

Defeating the previous Alpha had made Battleridge, his title, and all the green that had lined his bank account, mine. It raised a conflict of emotions. I loathed the walls in which I stood, but spite and hatred bound me to them more so than any sense of obligation.

Killing Asher had been more than just obtaining the ranking of Alpha. It had been personal. And watching his beloved family home falling into a forgotten state of ruin, rooms succumbing to time and dust, any traces of laughter and life chased from the halls, it brought a sadistic joy.

And yet, annoyance stirred within as I studied the mess that had blown apart the neatness of the quarters. For the best part of six years, everything had remained as it had, uninterrupted by anything besides the sunlight that occasionally fell through the curtains. The four-poster bed had always marked the centre point of the room, and the furniture stood solid, patiently waiting out the neglect. And whilst that hadn't much changed, the pristine image, hindered only by dust, had been blown apart.

The drapes no longer concealed the double windows, laying in tangles on the ground, and the draws had been yanked from the antique dresser in the far corner, they, along with their contents, strewn across the floor. If the bittersweet pinch that hit my nose was anything to go by, then the dark purple puddle that spread across the snowy carpet was blackcurrant juice. The theory was supported by the upturned beaker that lay a mere few feet away from the crime scene.

And that wasn't even the worst of it.

/"Sweet Goddess, give me patience,/" I murmured, /"Because if you give me strength, I'll kill it./"

As though fancying himself a bit of a Michelangelo, every available surface had become a canvas for a less than impressive masterpiece. Dark squiggles slashed through the Lincrusta wallpaper, up and down like a fluctuating heart rate monitor. Streaks cut through the thick fibres of the white carpet beneath my feet, all along the dark oak of the bedpost and the draws, and, most incriminating of all, all over the boy himself.

Strumming out a chorus of gentle snores that hit the air like sweet music, he remained blissfully ignorant to the glare and the sneer that were thrown at him like poison-soaked daggers. Which was probably for the best because if the kid started up on the babble-and-bullshit regime again, I would have been tempted to smack it.

Shutting the door behind me, the distance to the bed was closed in four long strides, sidestepping the frilly, maroon pillows that had been evicted from the king-sized mattress. A puff of settled grime formed a mushroom cloud as my weight crashed down on it. And then I watched.