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“Well, yeah,” I went on, wanting to lay it on thick, “look at this place.” I gestured around at the mansion. “I’d love to live here, and I know Mom would, too.”

As we went up the stairs, he patted my shoulder again. “I’m going to give you and your mother the best life you could imagine.”

“That’s great,” I said, flinching as his fingers dug deeper into the skin of my shoulder.

Glancing up, I saw that he was looking at me intently, a look of madness in his eyes so great that my inner wolf gave a low, threatening growl that I just managed to stifle.

Swallowing hard, I looked at the spot between his eyes, because the look he was giving me was too terrifying to look at directly.

“Things are going to get very intense soon, Ash,” Kyle said, and there was a weird tension in his voice, like live electric wires were running through him as he spoke.

His eyes drilled into mine even harder. “I’ll need you to prove yourself to me, son.

A final… how should I say it?” Kyle’s brow furrowed, then he said, “A final show of allegiance to your new father, shall we say.”

Forcing myself not to shiver, I grinned. “Anything.” I steeled myself to say the next word and tried to make it sound as natural as I could. “Dad.”

Kyle smiled even more broadly and nodded his head a few times as though he liked he liked the sound of it. “I’ll tell you the full plan later, but the gist of it is that you’ll need to kill Cole for me.”

The sentence slammed into me like a sledgehammer. Had it not been so shocking, I wouldn’t have been able to control myself. All I could do was stare back at him, the smile plastered on my face as I nodded faintly.

Finally finding my voice, I said, “Sounds like a plan, Dad.”

He patted me hard on the back, grinning like a madman. “Good boy. Go on into your room. You need some rest. I’ll let you know when dinner is.”

I stepped into my room and waited until I heard the lock click behind me before sprinting to the bathroom.

Sliding on the tile on my knees, I barely managed to get my face into the toilet before I puked.

My stomach heaved and cramped as the lunch I’d had earlier burst up out of my mouth, splattering into the water.

With Kyle gone and no one around to see my weakness, I allowed it all to come flooding out.

Tears streamed from my eyes, burning my cheeks, punctuated by gags and vomiting until there was nothing left in my stomach.

I was sobbing, terrified of what my life had turned into, when a cool, wet cloth touched my forehead.

Jerking away violently, I crashed backward, scrabbling on the tile, eyes wide with shock and surprise. Sydney knelt beside the toilet. She gave me a sympathetic smile and flushed the toilet.

“I thought you heard me come in,” she said.

I shook my head, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “No.”

“Sorry. You were making a lot of noise, though. I can see why you didn’t.” She beckoned me over with a wave. “Come here, kid.”

Kid . She was only five years older than me, yet it did seem like she was much older. The little I’d discovered about her life was more than enough for me to understand why someone so young would have such haunted eyes.

Throwing my pride aside, I crawled toward her and let the pretty young woman clean my face. The motherly way she helped me only made me miss Mom even more.

I looked into her eyes and asked the question I’d wanted to ask since she revealed herself to be on my side.

“Why are you here? If you hate Kyle, why are you pretending to help him?”

Her hand froze as she wiped my chin. She glanced behind her to see if my bedroom was still closed, then turned back.

“You’ve got a guard outside. We have to be quiet. I only got in here because I told him Kyle wanted you to start learning what I do. Wants you to be well-rounded.”

I nodded. “Okay. Sure.”

She helped me up, led me to the small desk in the bedroom, and opened her laptop to look convincing if anyone came in.

She took a single deep breath and began. “Kyle used to date my mom.”

“Are you serious ?” I asked. It sounded like the worst possible life I could imagine.

Sydney shrugged once with her left shoulder.

“Mom was always a sucker for dominant men. My real dad wasn’t much better, honestly.

She and Kyle got together about three years ago.

It wasn’t a huge deal for me. I was away at college, getting a degree in computer science.

The real problems started about eighteen months ago.

You’ve heard about this special drug he has, right? ”

Of course I had. Kyle loved bragging about what his crazy scientist friend had cooked up. He even showed me a clip of him using it on someone. It made me shudder to think about it. All I could do was nod.

“Well, Mom and I are human. Kyle, obviously , is a shifter. He wanted Mom to be like him. He injected her with one of the first versions of that drug.”

“Holy shit,” I muttered.

“Yeah. Didn’t even tell her what it was.

I was home over summer when it happened.

Saw the whole thing happen.” She stopped, lower lip trembling.

“She turned into a wolf right in front of me. Kyle got angry when she couldn’t change back.

His men had to grab Mom and hold her down.

He locked me up because I was a witness.

His people—that asshole scientist of his and his men—tried to get her back.

They did all sorts of experiments on her, but nothing worked.

I could hear her howling and yelping in pain, but I couldn’t get out of my room.

Eventually, the experiments wore her body out. She died. My momma died, Ashton.”

I wondered how broken I would feel if the same thing happened to my mother. I couldn’t even fathom it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Sydney brushed away the single tear that had slipped out.

“So, during those hours I was locked in that bedroom, I had a realization. I was going to die like my mom if I didn’t play things perfectly.

Kyle knew I was a witness to tell what he’d done.

I also knew I couldn’t run. If I ran, he might go underground and vanish before I could notify the authorities.

He has a soft spot for people who love him.

He’s got some kind of complex, I think. It’s why he’s desperate for you to call him Dad , and for your mother to want him.

I knew that I could ingratiate myself to him, draw him close—and take him down if I played on that.

“So, when he finally unlocked that door, I swallowed every ounce of rage and hate and remorse that wanted to rip out of me.” Sydney looked disgusted with herself but continued, “And I told him that my mother had always been a drag. That the only thing I’d been looking forward to was him being my stepdad, and I was…

” She sucked in two little hiccupping gasps, and more tears slid down her cheeks.

“ Happy she was gone, and I wanted to work for him. So here I am. I put on this airheaded, sexpot, computer-savant act that he likes, and work right alongside the man who killed my mother.”

“Fuck,” I said, letting the word rush out of me like a sigh. My mom would have had my ass for saying that word, but after a story like that, I couldn’t think of another expletive that worked.

“It was me alone, biding my time in this group of sycophants and murderers until Dallas. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t really like Kyle.

He’d been brought in a long time ago, and back then, he’d been a good little follower.

But around the time Kyle started using the drugs and really hurting people he turned, I could see it happen.

Kyle was too blinded by his narcissism to realize it.

Ash, I thought I was a good actor, but Dallas is better.

The only reason I knew he was acting was because I felt the same way. ”

“Uh, thanks for telling me,” I said dully. It sounded stupid and pointless, but what else could you say to someone who’d opened up a hot and festering mental wound to you?

She wiped her eyes again, and like a switch being flipped, she hid her emotions again. Once more, she was all business. “The reason I came here this afternoon was not to tell you my life story. Dallas and I finished up our plan.”

“Plan?” I asked, perking up. “What plan?”

“All you need to know is you need to be ready. Two nights from now, at midnight, there’s going to be a power outage. Security will go down. When that happens, you need to come find one of us. We’ll try to be nearby, but you’ll need to be careful.”

“Find you?” My head was spinning. “What?”

“It’s time to get you back to your family,” Sydney said. “Get you back to yours and end mine. My so-called stepfather’s time has run out.”

“Why are you helping me?” I asked, then quickly added, “I’m grateful, thank you, but why? Couldn’t you get close to Kyle and kill him, then run?”

“For your second question, he’s a shifter and I’m a human.

His reflexes are faster than mine, and he’s stronger.

Plus, you have no idea how hard it is to get a gun in this place.

He’s always got people nearby, too. No, it wouldn’t work.

Not until two nights from now, anyway. As for your first question?

” She patted my knee. “It’s what my mom would have wanted. Two days. Be ready.”

With a last smile at me, she left. As the door closed, I realized she and Dallas were the bravest people I’d ever known in my life.

Living and working with a psychotic animal like Kyle, doing his bidding, carrying out atrocities to get close enough to him to finally deliver the killing blow?

It was pretty badass. Like they were secret agents or something from a movie.

Settling on my bed, I inhaled deeply, then exhaled. Two days. All I had to do was hold Kyle off for two more days. After that, I’d be back home again. Back with Mom and Cole.

No. I frowned at the words and how they sounded in my head. It didn’t sound right.

No. I’d be back with Mom and Dad.