Beast Within (Loup-Garou Series Book 3) Read online

  He waited for that to set in and felt the thrill of victory when Katey unlocked the door and let him in. Dustin stepped inside and hung his thumbs through his pant loops, hoping to seem casual and non-threatening.

  Katey stood in the middle of the room with her arms folded and face hardened, but he knew she was putting on a show. The redness in her eyes was testament enough to that. Instead of scrutinizing her too closely, Dustin let his gaze wander around the room.

  Since Katey had moved in, she gave the room her own personal touch. It was obvious a teenager lived here and it was evident she did not share in Logan’s obsessive tidiness. School books were opened face up on the floor with a smattering of papers all around. One would have wondered if she even used the desk at all. Clothes were slung over her footboard and the back of her desk chair while the bed was unmade.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place,” Dustin said. “It’s so chic.”

  He looked at Katey for any response, but she stared at him coldly, obviously replaying what he had said downstairs to keep her anger boiling.

  “Do I have to pry the words out of you?” he asked, then put on his best imitation of a female’s voice. “’I’m so sorry, Dustin. I shouldn’t have been so rude at the dinner table and made everyone nauseous with my angst.’”

  “This has nothing to do with angst,” she snapped. “This whole thing isn’t right.”

  Dustin blew out his cheeks and realized humor was not going to crack her defenses at all. “He’s the alpha, Katey. His word is law.”

  “But why is he this strict about it? I don’t understand why he’s keeping us under house arrest when we can handle ourselves as loups-garous.”

  Dustin shook his head in disbelief. She still had so much to learn. “Do you realize how dangerous hunters are?”

  Katey shrugged and lowered her glare. “They can’t be more dangerous than a vampire. Vampires are strong like us and have silver bullets, but hunters only have silver bullets. I get they’re supposed to be these super soldiers or something, but we didn’t go this extreme the last time a vampire was close by.”

  “Vampires may match us in strength,” Dustin replied, “but hunters have the determination. Darren wasn’t kidding the other day. They want to see us totally wiped out, more than the vamps do and little is going to change their mind.”

  “Can’t anyone reason with a hunter?” she asked, looking at him with a renewed righteous vigor. “We can make them see that we’re not hurting anyone and that they need to go hunt down Erik and Gregory and loups-garous like them that really do some damage.”

  As much as he disliked the rougarous and those who believed in the same distorted views of how loups-garous and humans should coexist, Dustin couldn’t help but envision the twisted and mangled bodies of the loups-garous who had fallen prey to the hunters centuries ago. Their faces forever etched in his memory.

  “I wouldn’t wish a hunter upon any of our kind,” he whispered. “There’s no reasoning with them. They’re brutal and don’t follow any code of ethics like real soldiers do. They don’t see us as humans, or even animals. We’re beasts. We’re monsters that need to be exterminated. We’re alien to them, and they don’t see anything wrong with torturing us or giving us a slow and painful death. They’ll even justify killing humans who know us to get any bit of information about where we are.”

  Katey’s lips parted, and a cold bucket of water had been dumped over the fire in her eyes. “Has Lily ever been here?”

  Dustin peered at her curiously. He had seen Katey and Lily talk in the halls before, but he hadn’t realized they were close enough for Katey to care about her. “Forrest’s lady? I don’t think so.”

  “Would they kidnap her if they wanted to?” she questioned urgently, taking a step closer and letting her arms drop to her sides. The vulnerable look in her eyes would have broken his heart if he hadn’t steeled himself before entering the room.

  “As I said, they would justify their actions as long as it benefited their mission to kill us.”

  “How do you know they’ll do that?” she probed. “Killing humans, I mean. Is that just a rumor?”

  Dustin could see how badly she wanted all of what he said to be lies, but this was too serious a matter to ever lie about. If she were to ever fully comprehend their situation, he had to tell her the whole truth. “No.” He paused, wondering if he should even touch on the sacred ground he was about to trample through. “It happened to Darren. That’s another reason why he’s so strict.”

  Without a doubt, he’d get an earful from Darren for sharing his past with Katey without prior permission. Perhaps, given the circumstances, he would understand.

  Katey gasped and mutely begged for an explanation.

  Dustin began to slowly pace around the room, his eyes fixed on his path so he wouldn’t accidentally step on anything. “Imagine a world where superstitions were the religion of the day. Neighbors were suspicious of one another, and the testimony of attention-greedy children was valid in a legal court. Hermits and men of medicine are suspected of being witches. Books on how to kill and identify vampires were printed and sold out of the local book shops. Public hangings of demon worshipers were the main event of the week, and the stench of burning human flesh hung in the air after a witch was burned. It was the golden age of monster hunters, and everyone was qualified to point out a witch, a vampire, or a werewolf.

  “This was the world Darren had to grow up in. When he changed for the first time, his village in England cast him out. They called him a witch and claimed him to be cursed. He fled to France where the persecution was no better. Paranoia doesn’t begin to describe what our kind felt. Any given day, our kind were being arrested and put on trial for wild accusations. Sometimes, a loup-garou was executed for the crime of witchcraft, but not for what he might have truly been guilty of.

  “Darren found a friend and mentor in John. His training began, and he learned how to integrate into society so he wouldn’t be suspected. He didn’t hold power, he kept no close friends and made no enemies. Still, it was like walking on eggshells.”

  Katey’s eyebrows rose. “I had no idea.”

  Dustin held up a hand. “Let me finish,” he said as he stepped over a pile of dirty shirts. “Just before I met up with him, Darren found a woman who accepted who he truly was and they married. They had a daughter. She was about six years old when I let Darren take me on as a student. I was fresh from Ireland and had suffered a similar judgment as he did.

  “One day, we were out training. When we came back to his cottage, it was burning. His wife’s body was inside. He rushed in to try and save her, but she had already been killed by a knife to the back. We found the body of his daughter a short distance away in the woods with a bullet in her chest.”

  Katey wrapped her arms around her stomach and her face blanched. “Darren must have been devastated.”

  “He was. He’s never married since then. He vowed he would never be so careless with the ones he cared about. Then, he came to America, and he witnessed the destruction of Devia. He’s seen the hunters destroy too many lives to just sit idly by while this threat comes to Crestucky. If he seems a little too harsh or unfeeling, it’s because he cares about this pack and the safety of everyone in this town. On some level, he may think it’s his responsibility to keep everyone alive. That’s why we all need to be in agreement and make sure he doesn’t go crazy during the next month or so while we try to get through this. That includes doing as he says without arguing because it will only make him crankier.”

  Dustin watched Katey, looking for any sign of understanding, but she had turned inward and contemplative. There was not much else he could do or say to tip the scales in his favor. She would just need to let it all sink in. Perhaps then they could breathe a little easier, knowing she wouldn’t start a fight every time Darren made a decision.

  He turned to leave, but froze when she spoke.

  “Do you believe there are hunters here?” Katey asked
in an almost indistinguishable whisper, so soft he barely even heard her.

  When he looked back, Katey had her finger held up to her lips, signaling to him that she didn’t want anyone else to hear this conversation. And she was right to want that. He wanted to tell her the hunters were truly here and they were a real threat. However, he had just outpoured so much truth that he couldn’t taint it all with a little white lie.

  He had already told Ben what he learned from Jacob during the evacuation. There had been no other sign of the presence of a hunter in Crestucky beyond what Logan reported. Darren knew this too, but of course, he was taking no chances. They kept this report from Logan, knowing it would make him doubt himself and his abilities. He didn’t deserve the blame for forcing families to abandon their homes without probable cause.

  “Beyond what Logan saw,” Dustin replied in just as muted a voice as Katey’s, “we haven’t heard of any other hunters in the area. That doesn’t mean they’re not there, though.”

  Katey turned pensive and somehow, Dustin expected her to be surprised or upset. She appeared neither.

  “I am sorry for the way I spoke to you downstairs,” Dustin said in his normal volume. “I had no right to accuse you of not being a true loup-garou. You’ve been a fine loup-garou—for a pup. And an even more remarkable woman for what you’ve had to go through. We will continue your training when this is over, I promise.”

  Katey’s expression softened and her shoulders slumped a little as her defenses fell. Dustin felt a little more confident that he had minutely restored their friendship, but from the way she refused to look at him, he knew he still had a long way to go to regain her trust.

  “I’ll have Logan bring up the rest of your dinner that you didn’t finish,” he said. “I’m sure everyone else is done eating by now and you’d rather be alone.” Dustin walked to the open bedroom door. “If I don’t see you before you go to bed, I hope you sleep well.”

  “Why don’t you sing anymore?” she asked suddenly.

  The question puzzled him and he turned to give her a perturbed look. “What are you smoking?”

  He saw the corners of Katey’s lips twitch with a restrained smile. “Ben told me you used to sing a lot, but I haven’t heard you sing at all. Why did you stop?”

  Dustin was going to wring Ben’s neck when he got back downstairs, but the comment made him think. It was true he hadn’t belted out one of his favorite Irish drinking songs in a while. “I’m too busy making sure you and Logan don’t put us all into an early grave. I have no time for singing.”

  “Well, make sure I’m around next time you do.”

  Dustin rolled his eyes and left the bedroom. She hadn’t forgiven him, and he wasn’t quite sure if he got through to her, but there was something in that last exchange of words that made him feel lighter in his step as he traveled back downstairs. Maybe a little singing was just the thing this pack needed to lift their spirits and take their minds off the hunters. Dustin remembered with a certain fondness when he and Darren had joined in together on an old ballad or two in their earlier days before they parted ways.

  “How’d it go?” Ben asked from the kitchen. He was busily washing dishes while Logan reclined on one of the couches and Darren sat in his recliner with his fingers laced over his lap.

  “Not sure,” Dustin replied as he retrieved his unfinished dinner from the dining room and brought it to the living room.

  “You told her a great deal, Dustin,” Darren remarked, his voice deep with censure. The disadvantage of living in a house of loups-garous was the fact that no conversation was private.

  “I thought if she realized why you were going all Adolf Hitler on her, she’d back off.” Dustin plopped himself onto the free sofa beside Darren’s recliner and inhaled the remains on his plate.

  “I’m not being a dictator, I’m – “

  “I know, I know,” Dustin waved at him. “You just care. I get it.”

  “Is she going to be all right?” Logan asked, sitting up and gripping his ankles stretched out in front of him.

  Dustin shrugged. “I’d give her time to cool off,” he mumbled through a mouthful of beef.

  “What was that she mentioned about singing?” Logan asked as he swung his legs over the edge of the couch and gave Dustin an inquisitive look.

  “Singing? She said nothing about singing,” Dustin replied nonchalantly.

  “Go on, Dustin,” Darren egged. “Tell Logan all about your lovely Irish folk songs and how you can play the spoons on your knee.”

  Logan laughed while Dustin shot his alpha a nasty look. “Logan, go give Katey her dinner so she can finish it,” Dustin instructed.

  Logan did as he was told and headed upstairs with the plate of meat and glass of water in his hands. “At least someone around here is taking orders,” Dustin mumbled.

  A few silent moments passed, and Dustin knew Darren wanted to say something. The way his fingers squeezed over his knuckles was a dead giveaway. “If you keep your mouth shut, all those words are just going to blow out through your ears,” Dustin muttered as he reached for a book on the bottom shelf of the end table between them.

  Darren rubbed at his eye and let out a long breath of air, which was usually followed by the announcement of unpleasant news. “I’ve got to get Katey away from here,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?” Ben questioned from the kitchen, his hands covered in soap suds from the dish water.

  “I’ve been thinking about it and if it were up to me,” Darren said with all the gravity in the world as he scratched at his bearded jaw, “those families left in Crestucky would be forcibly removed from their homes. I didn’t want to say this in front of Logan, but I will not give Katey the option to stay here while there could be hunters in the area. Jacob already did wrong by me when he didn’t let me know of the potential threat. Now that it’s here, we have no time.”

  Dustin frowned. “You know I would never oppose you or your decisions, but what made you go from ‘staying is fine’ to ‘we need to evacuate too’?”

  “I thought Katey was done being difficult, but I was wrong.” Dustin leaned back in his recliner, letting his head rest against the plush back cushion. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. I thought Alaska had knocked some sense into her, but she seems just as rebellious as ever.”

  “Might I remind you she’s a teenager?” Ben added as he walked into the living room with his hands folded into a dish towel.

  “That’s no excuse for disobedience toward an alpha,” Darren replied.

  “Are you sending her away because you’re tired of dealing with her attitude, or because you actually think the hunters – whom we haven’t seen for ourselves yet – are a real threat?” Dustin knew he was walking on dangerous ground, but he had been in the same spot with Ben.

  Ben was bad-tempered and a handful to take care of at first. They parted on bad terms and Dustin had never forgiven himself for that decision. They should have stuck it out, and perhaps things would have turned out differently. If Darren were on the verge of making the same mistake, just because Katey was being a stubborn brat, Dustin wouldn’t be the one to sit by and let him go through with it – alpha or not.

  Darren turned a pair of searing eyes on Dustin, but before he could answer, the beta had another comeback. “Everyone in this pack, save for Logan, has accepted your guidance and leadership without question. Even at his worst, Logan disobeyed you and ended up making Katey into what she was. Katey is a whole other ballgame. She’s ambitious and determined, more than any of us were. We didn’t want this life at first. Katey does, that’s why she’s demanding more training and pushing you like this.”

  Darren looked away, his expression seemed unfeeling, untouched by what Dustin had to say. However, Dustin knew his alpha well enough that he was considering everything. He had never been one to ignore an appeal or push aside a kernel of truth just because he didn’t agree with it.

  Time passed slowly, and Dustin could hear Logan tryin
g to calm Katey down upstairs. Even their relationship was going through rough waters, and it hurt his heart to be in a household full of strife and tension this way.

  From what he could tell, Darren was listening to their argument as well, and he tucked his chin against his chest. “Tomorrow evening, Katey will leave on the same route the Devians took. Logan will go with her and Ben will serve as their protection. You and I will stay to look after the Devians.” He looked to Dustin with surprisingly heartfelt eyes. “I care about Katey. I don’t like the way she’s behaving, but I want her to be alive in a few more weeks so she can continue her training. As long as I know the hunters are close, I won’t be at ease. I’m doing this for her safety, not for my own sake.”

  Dustin’s lips formed a tight line before he replied, “Darren, the hunters are not that close. You heard Jacob say none of his scouts detected any hunters in the area and the cop at the school wasn’t a hunter.”

  “I trust Logan’s instincts,” Darren said quickly. “Those scouts only look for the obvious signs of a hunter in their scent and appearance. They don’t tap their intuition. Logan had that feeling about Katey and how she would accept the change, so I’m inclined to believe he truly sensed a hunter. The cop could be a hunter for all we know and the dog could have been used by hunters before.”

  Dustin couldn’t argue with that logic. In the past, Logan had demonstrated certain perspicacious tendencies about events or people. It was possible Logan was correct about the cop or his dog. There was still the possibility they were wrong and that’s what troubled Dustin, Ben, and - as it appeared - Katey as well. It was Darren’s confidence that spread to Jacob and the others, convincing them all that they really had detected the hunter and that the evacuation was essential.

  “You’re my second,” Darren continued, “I need you to stand behind me on these things. Otherwise, there will be disorder between all of us.” The alpha reached out and placed his hand on Dustin’s shoulder. “Are we in agreement?”