hold it under rein.
Seth had been furious that Kade’s ability had exceeded his own. He was jealous and insecure, a dangerous combination. He’d suddenly found something more to prove to Kade, and his violent inclinations took on a more disturbing focus.
At some point, Seth had quietly advanced his dark talent toward other prey.
He and his pack had killed a human.
It happened just months before Kade was recruited by the Order. Repulsed, furious, he’d intended to drag Seth in front of their father and the rest of the Darkhaven and expose his inexcusable breach of Breed law. But Seth had pleaded with him. He’d sworn up and down that it had all been a terrible mistake—a game somehow gotten completely out of hand. He had begged Kade not to turn him in. He’d promised that the killing had been accidental, and that it would never happen again.
Kade had doubted him even then. He should have exposed Seth’s secret. But Seth was his beloved brother—the other half of him. Kade knew what the news of Seth’s crime would do to his parents, particularly his mother. So Kade had kept the secret, even though holding it had been eating away at him constantly every moment since.
He’d protected Seth from the truth and sheltered his parents from the pain of it, and when the call came from Nikolai in Boston that the Order needed new recruits, Kade jumped on the chance to join.
Now the slayings of the Toms family had brought it all back. He hoped like hell his brother wasn’t capable of killing an entire family in cold blood, but he feared Seth’s promise a year ago was proving too hard for him to keep.
With that fear heavy on his mind, Kade started to walk toward the door. He didn’t realize until he was halfway there that he was walking on the thick pelt of a grizzly. The skin covered the living room floor, and although the bear Seth and his wolves had killed all those years ago was long lost to time and the elements, the frozen snarl of this dead bear’s head gave Kade pause. He walked back and knelt down near the open jaw of the animal.
“Ah, Christ. Let me be wrong,” he whispered as he carefully stuck his hand into the sharp-toothed maw.
He reached back as far as he could and swore tightly as his fingers brushed the soft cloth and loose bulk of a hidden pouch at the back of the grizzly’s throat.
Kade withdrew the small drawstring bag, hearing a metallic jingle as it came to rest in his palm. He loosened the strings and poured out the contents. Several gold rings slid into his hand, along with a braided leather bracelet with a bear tooth dangling from it and small locks of clipped hair collected from a variety of human heads. Dried blood caked some of the items.
There could be no mistaking them for anything but what they were …
Souvenirs that Seth had apparently been collecting. A killer’s hidden cache of mementos, taken from his victims.
“You son of a bitch,” Kade ground out harshly. “You sick, fucking son of a bitch.”
Anger and grief collided in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. He wanted to make excuses, grasp for any possible explanation except the one that was clanging around like a warning bell in his skull.
His brother was a killer.
Had he attacked the Toms family so heinously, too?
Something deep inside Kade just could not reconcile the wholesale slaughter of an entire family.
Despite the dread that was sitting like ice in his gut, he needed more answers before he was willing to convict Seth of being that kind of monster. He needed proof. Hell, he needed to look his brother in the face and demand the truth from him, once and for all.
And if it turned out that Seth was guilty, then Kade was prepared to do what needed to be done. What by rights he should have done when he’d first seen evidence of Seth’s apparent disregard for human life.
He would hunt his goddamn brother down and he would kill him.
CHAPTER
Eight
Most of the crowd at
Seth had been furious that Kade’s ability had exceeded his own. He was jealous and insecure, a dangerous combination. He’d suddenly found something more to prove to Kade, and his violent inclinations took on a more disturbing focus.
At some point, Seth had quietly advanced his dark talent toward other prey.
He and his pack had killed a human.
It happened just months before Kade was recruited by the Order. Repulsed, furious, he’d intended to drag Seth in front of their father and the rest of the Darkhaven and expose his inexcusable breach of Breed law. But Seth had pleaded with him. He’d sworn up and down that it had all been a terrible mistake—a game somehow gotten completely out of hand. He had begged Kade not to turn him in. He’d promised that the killing had been accidental, and that it would never happen again.
Kade had doubted him even then. He should have exposed Seth’s secret. But Seth was his beloved brother—the other half of him. Kade knew what the news of Seth’s crime would do to his parents, particularly his mother. So Kade had kept the secret, even though holding it had been eating away at him constantly every moment since.
He’d protected Seth from the truth and sheltered his parents from the pain of it, and when the call came from Nikolai in Boston that the Order needed new recruits, Kade jumped on the chance to join.
Now the slayings of the Toms family had brought it all back. He hoped like hell his brother wasn’t capable of killing an entire family in cold blood, but he feared Seth’s promise a year ago was proving too hard for him to keep.
With that fear heavy on his mind, Kade started to walk toward the door. He didn’t realize until he was halfway there that he was walking on the thick pelt of a grizzly. The skin covered the living room floor, and although the bear Seth and his wolves had killed all those years ago was long lost to time and the elements, the frozen snarl of this dead bear’s head gave Kade pause. He walked back and knelt down near the open jaw of the animal.
“Ah, Christ. Let me be wrong,” he whispered as he carefully stuck his hand into the sharp-toothed maw.
He reached back as far as he could and swore tightly as his fingers brushed the soft cloth and loose bulk of a hidden pouch at the back of the grizzly’s throat.
Kade withdrew the small drawstring bag, hearing a metallic jingle as it came to rest in his palm. He loosened the strings and poured out the contents. Several gold rings slid into his hand, along with a braided leather bracelet with a bear tooth dangling from it and small locks of clipped hair collected from a variety of human heads. Dried blood caked some of the items.
There could be no mistaking them for anything but what they were …
Souvenirs that Seth had apparently been collecting. A killer’s hidden cache of mementos, taken from his victims.
“You son of a bitch,” Kade ground out harshly. “You sick, fucking son of a bitch.”
Anger and grief collided in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to believe what he was seeing. He wanted to make excuses, grasp for any possible explanation except the one that was clanging around like a warning bell in his skull.
His brother was a killer.
Had he attacked the Toms family so heinously, too?
Something deep inside Kade just could not reconcile the wholesale slaughter of an entire family.
Despite the dread that was sitting like ice in his gut, he needed more answers before he was willing to convict Seth of being that kind of monster. He needed proof. Hell, he needed to look his brother in the face and demand the truth from him, once and for all.
And if it turned out that Seth was guilty, then Kade was prepared to do what needed to be done. What by rights he should have done when he’d first seen evidence of Seth’s apparent disregard for human life.
He would hunt his goddamn brother down and he would kill him.
CHAPTER
Eight
Most of the crowd at
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