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Chapter 13

Caleb settled himself in the seat next to Regan. She was nervous; his wolf could sense it, but if she could act as if everything was okay then so could he. This place gave him the creeps, he needed to be up in the open air away from all these—he glanced around—dead people. Because there was no getting away from it; vampires made him uneasy.

Then there was that Kael guy—the shapeshifter. He’d looked at Caleb as though he saw something. Something that had shocked him to the core. And while part of Caleb wanted to get out of there fast, the rest of him hovered on the edge of intense anticipation.

And terror.

Did Kael know something of Caleb’s mother? And if he did, was it going to be something Caleb could bear to hear? Since he’d learned that he might not be half-human after all, he’d refused to consider what his mother might have been, but he wasn’t so much of a coward that he couldn’t face the truth. And deep down he wanted to know. His father had always refused to speak of her and had banned the rest of the pack from mentioning his mother. Still, Caleb had learned enough from the other wolves to know that the relationship had not been a happy one. Why didn’t that surprise him?

He glanced up and realized that he and Regan were on one side of the table everyone else was arrayed on the other, and they were all watching him. Kael sat in the center with Raven beside him and Catrin next to her. She smiled as she caught his gaze. On Kael’s other side sat Gina and Darius. The Vampire grinned with a brief flash of fangs, and Caleb ignored him. He did not intend to get into a who’s-got-the-biggest-teeth competition with a vampire.

Instead, he leaned back and placed his hands on the table in front of him, just to prove they were steady.

“So,” he said. “Regan tells me you’ve been investigating my father and me. Have you found Ethan?”

Kael frowned. “We’ll get to that later. First, there’s a story I must tell. It takes place a long time in the past, but I believe it has some relevance to the present.”

He fell silent, clearly deep in thought. Raven’s hand reached out and clasped his arm. He smiled at her, then continued, “My people were wiped out over a thousand years ago, but many years before that, my two sisters were abducted by the fire-demons. We rescued Sasha, but we never found Kyla.”

Caleb frowned. “And what does this have to do with me or my father?”

“We always presumed Kyla was dead, we’d searched and found no trace. Now I have to accept that she must have been alive all that time, because I believe Kyla was your mother.”

Caleb tried to process the information. But his mind refused to cooperate. “How?” he asked. “Why would you even think that?”

“We”—Kael paused and gestured to Darius—“have been looking into your birth, and the truth is, you shouldn’t exist. There has never been a ‘born’ werewolf—they don’t survive. The most popular theory is that the unborn babies turn at the full moon and die in their mother’s womb.”

“So how do you explain me?”

“At a guess I’d say you didn’t turn until puberty. Is that correct?”

Caleb nodded. “I was eleven.”

“That explains why your mother managed to carry you to term.”

Caleb’s frustration boiled to the surface. Shoving back his chair, he stood up. Unable to keep still any longer, he paced the length of the room before coming back, bracing his hands on the table. “But it doesn’t explain how she did it.”

“She wouldn’t have had to do anything if she was a shapeshifter,” Kael replied. “Our children don’t change until puberty.” He looked Caleb in the face. “Just like you.”

Caleb shook his head, gritted his teeth. “It doesn’t prove anything.”

Kael ignored the comment and continued. “At first, we thought it must have been magic at work, but really, I didn’t want to accept the possibility that Kyla had been alive all that time. Kyla was my twin sister. We shared a bond. One of the reasons I thought she must be dead was that I couldn’t feel that bond any longer.” He ran a hand through his hair, his expression tortured. “Over a thousand years as a prisoner of the fire-demons. What must she have gone through?”

Caleb sat down again. “But you don’t know. Not for sure.”

“No, I wasn’t sure, and then I saw you. You have Kyla’s eyes.”

“He has your eyes.” Regan spoke to Kael, and Caleb turned to her.

She stared into his face. “The first time I saw you, I knew I’d seen those eyes somewhere before. I couldn’t place it, but looking at you now, it seems impossible that I didn’t realize. Jesus.”

Caleb had no clue what to think. He’d wondered about his mother for so long, wondered whether somewhere, he had relatives. Human relatives. No such luck. It appeared this man sitting opposite could be his uncle. It was the end of his dreams. Or rather his delusions. “You still have no proof.”

“There is one way we could prove it,” Kael said, and gave a sideways glance at Darius.

Caleb followed his gaze and understood immediately where this was going. “No way! I’m not letting him or his teeth anywhere near me.”

Darius smiled. “Perhaps you’ll have no choice.”