Page 46 of A Token of Blood and Betrayal (Kennedy Rain #4)

How had I let her into my circle? Yes, she was Christian’s sister, but I’d kept her outside my life until…

Until she saved it. One of Shelli’s stray wolf allies had attacked me in Owen’s store. Melissa cut him off. Killed him. Then, weeks later, she’d conveniently been able to slip away from her master to save Christian’s life after one of Satine’s vampires drank from him.

Melissa had helped me free Deagan from the compound. Notch by notch, she’d forced her way into my confidence. I’d ignored my gut feeling and trusted her.

Melissa whispered something into Christian’s ear. She was looking at him, waiting for some kind of response. He was still looking at me.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I searched his Melissa-matching blue eyes, analyzed his stonelike expression, his posture, the stiffness in his shoulders, looking for any sign of a plan.

I knew he couldn’t do anything obvious. Jerro and the other two werewolves watched him as much as they watched me.

But I knew Christian, and he knew me. He should be able to come up with a subtle encouragement, something that gave me hope. Something that said I’m with you.

He gave me nothing.

“Not really,” I said, toneless.

He nodded. Then his gaze moved beyond me, cataloging my cell, the pile of blankets on the floor, the broken glass near his feet.

“She can’t stay here,” he said.

Melissa grimaced. “It was meant to hold moonsick wolves, not a human. It’ll be a royal palace by the end of the week. I promise.”

Another noncommittal nod.

“Did you know Crusco was dead?” I asked. Maybe he needed a little help putting the puzzle together. I’d give him all the edge pieces he needed.

“No,” he said.

I squeezed my hands in frustration. It was like the Christian I knew, or thought I’d known, had been switched off.

The man in front of me was an automaton with no soul, no willpower.

His sister had carved out his insides and replaced them with wires and empty spaces.

But he had to be in there somewhere. He couldn’t be okay with this.

“Christian.” Melissa’s voice softened. She faced him squarely. “This wasn’t the plan, but it’s better. I won’t be tied down to a few nulled acres. I’m mobile. I can go anywhere, anytime. And you get what you want too. Don’t you see?”

“This isn’t what I want,” he said.

“You’re crazy about her.” She jabbed a finger my way. “And now she’s yours.”

A million tiny daggers stabbed my chest and my back. I shook my head slowly. I wasn’t sure why.

Melissa stared at me. “How could you not see it? He—” Her mouth flattened, then pursed to the side. “Never mind. I get it. For as smart as he is, he’s flat-out dumb when it comes to dating.”

“Melissa.” Finally there was something in his voice. Anger?

“It’s true.” She started pacing outside the bars again. “I tried to nudge him in the right direction, but when he finally mustered up the courage to ask you out, he invited you to his stinky gym.”

Yeah. He had. He’d even asked me to meet him for coffee once. Those invitations all made sense though. We needed to exchange information. He wanted to help me protect myself.

She reached the chamber wall and doubled back. “He fell for you before you even met. I swear, I know more about you than any of my exes. Your dad wouldn’t shut up about his amazing daughter, and Christian? He just had to tell me every single story.”

“Melissa.” His voice was rougher now, his jaw clenched tighter.

She stopped near me and grinned like we were friends chatting about boys in a bar.

“A few of them were actually funny. Like that time you tried to foster a pair of huskies and snuck them into a vampire’s room.

Oh, and the sunscreen incident.” She laughed.

“But the stories that really got to him were about how you got along with every guest and staff member. You treated them like they were normal humans. You just didn’t see anything dark about them or their world, not until high school.

Then you started smuggling in the unsanctioned like it was just a practical solution to an absurd problem. You inspired him.”

“That’s enough!” Christian ground out the words so viciously the werewolves stirred.

Jerro stalked toward him, chest puffed out, hands curled into fists. Christian faced him like he welcomed the violence. He swung a heavy right hook. Jerro must have been nulled by my blood because he didn’t attempt to dodge until it was way too late.

Jerro’s head snapped to the left. His body rag-dolled to the ground.

Christian shot toward him, but the other wolves charged forward. One caught his shoulder, lifted his fist—

Melissa shoved the wolf to the ground beside Jerro.

Then she straddled him. Leaned forward until her face was inches away from his. “He’s my brother. You touch him, you die.”

“Get off,” the werewolf snarled. She did but only after she shoved her hands into his chest again.

She returned to me, smiling like she hadn’t just threatened to rip off someone’s head. “I know it sounds crazy. If I didn’t have so many book boyfriends, I wouldn’t believe it was possible to fall in love just from a story. But that’s what he did.”

My gaze locked with Christian’s, but the man I knew still wasn’t there.

Maybe the film was rewinding in his mind too, more slowly and sporadically than it had in mine because she was his sister.

He loved her. He’d do anything—had done everything—for her.

He was trying to see some way this couldn’t be happening.

For him, I wished there was another explanation, but another memory locked into place.

I’d tried my best to suppress Lehr’s massacre of Shelli’s coven, tried to black out my role in Shelli’s death, but her final words resounded clearly in my mind.

She’d said I couldn’t trust anyone. She’d singsonged I know something you don’t know with her last breath.

This was what she’d known. Melissa was the missing piece, the orchestrator, the person designing all the lies to get what she wanted. Couldn’t Christian see that?

“She killed my parents.”

Her smile fled. “I didn’t.” She whirled toward Christian.

“I wouldn’t. I know you were close to them, and we were making progress.

Everything was going perfectly, but Shelli and the wolves”—she glared at Jerro, who was just beginning to regain consciousness—“were impatient. They tried to speed things up.” She looked back at me.

“Shelli killed your parents. She wanted Astrid. She’d been hunting her for over a decade.

I knew she was a power-hungry bitch, but the spell required a full coven. ”

She took Christian’s hand. “This is better, right?”

His gaze shifted from me to her.

“Kennedy might be pissed right now,” she continued. “But she’ll come around. She’ll realize you’re perfect for her. And we’ll keep her safe. No more worrying if she’s going to get herself killed.”

For the first time, emotion moved across his face. It shifted the ground beneath my feet, made the stone walls close in.

“You’ll get to feel the sun on your skin,” he said.

A smile warmed Melissa’s face. “It’s what we wanted.”

“Christian.” I hated the plea in my voice, the disbelief, but he couldn’t possibly be listening to her. This was a ruse. He wanted her guard down. He wanted the werewolves to trust him.

He looked at me, and something flickered in his eyes, something that said he really did love me. But it wasn’t like Blake’s love. Christian’s was tinged with something dark. Obsession? Regret? Determination?

I retreated a step, shaking my head.

“You’re going to be okay,” he said.

My heart turned as cold and hard as the metal bars of my cage.

I hadn’t seen the whole, completed puzzle.

I was still trying to convolute things, trying to fit Christian into the scene as a good guy.

A hero. What if he wasn’t? What if he’d shrugged away everything Melissa had done?

What if he knew the kind of person she was and didn’t care who she hurt?

What if he had maneuvered me to this place?

Melissa had said she’d eavesdropped on my conversation with Garion. I hadn’t seen anyone at the cemetery, and she’d knocked on my door minutes after Christian left. What did people say? That the simplest explanation was often the correct one?

The simplest explanation was that he told Melissa about the token, that he wasn’t stupid, and he hadn’t missed the signs that his sister was evil.

He’d told Astrid about my idea to try to null the token, an idea that Melissa had basically planted in my mind. He’d aided and abetted everything she’d done. He’d betrayed me.

Christian put his arm around Melissa’s shoulder and pulled her into a hug. “You’re right. She’ll come around.”

My heart locked itself behind a layer of steel.

“You’ll pay for this,” I promised. I’d get out of this prison. I’d track him down—track them all down—and they’d learn what happens when I stop trying to save everyone and finally choose to kill.

Thank you for reading Kennedy's story! I know you have a billion books out there to choose from, and I'm truly honored you've picked up mine. Kennedy will return in 2026.