Chapter 2 - The Father Who Refused to Stay Dead
Dashiell did not move.
For twelve years, he had carried one memory of his father more clearly than all the others.
A closed coffin.
Black roses.
His mother's white hand gripping his so hard her wedding ring cut into his knuckles.
Tomas Garcia had been buried on a wet November morning while Dashiell stood twenty-six years old, furious at the world and suddenly responsible for a pack that had lost its Alpha.
Now that dead man was kneeling ten feet away.
Not before his son.
Before Kiara.
“Get up.”
Dashiell's voice was quiet.
That made it worse.
Tomas Garcia slowly rose.
Age had put silver into his dark hair and deeper lines around his mouth, but there was no mistaking him. He had Dashiell’s height, Dashiell’s gray eyes, and the same habit of becoming unnaturally still when everyone else was afraid.
“Son.”
“Don't call me that.”
Kiara stood between them with her fingers pressed to the burning circle around her wrist.
The alarm continued shrieking overhead.
Bianca whispered, “Dashiell, we have to move.”
He ignored her.
“You died.”
Tomas's expression barely changed.
“That was the intention.”
Dashiell took one step forward.
“You let us bury you.”
“Yes.”
“You let Mom believe—”
“No.”
That stopped him.
Tomas looked toward the elevator.
“She knew.”
Dashiell's face emptied.
Bianca closed her eyes.
And that was when Kiara understood.
Bianca knew this part too.
Dashiell slowly turned toward his sister.
“You knew.”
“Not then.”
“How long?”
Bianca didn't answer fast enough.
“How long, Bianca?”
“Eleven years.”
The words hit harder than shouting.
Dashiell stared at her.
Their father had been alive for twelve.
Bianca had known for eleven.
Kiara watched something break behind Dashiell's eyes, then disappear behind the control he had spent his whole adult life perfecting.
A violent crash echoed from the floor below.
Tomas turned immediately.
“They're inside.”
“Who?” Kiara demanded.
“The Hollow Crown.”
The name meant nothing to her.
Apparently it meant something to everyone else.
Owen Cross went pale.
Bianca backed toward the wall.
Dashiell noticed both reactions.
“Explain.”
Tomas looked at Kiara's wrist.
“Not here.”
The red circle was no longer simply red.
Thin black lines had begun branching from it like veins of ink.
Kiara swallowed.
“I'd really appreciate someone explaining why my arm looks like it's trying to become a road map.”
Another crash.
Then gunfire.
Dashiell's attention snapped toward the hallway.
His eyes flashed silver.
“Stairwell.”
Tomas shook his head.
“They'll expect that.”
“You've been dead for twelve years. Forgive me if I'm not taking tactical advice from you.”
“Then take it from the man who has spent those twelve years keeping Lucian Vale from finding her.”
He pointed at Kiara.
Dashiell's jaw tightened.
“Who is Lucian Vale?”
Tomas looked surprised.
Then angry.
“Elena never told you?”
Dashiell's eyes went cold.
“Apparently nobody tells me anything.”
Kiara almost felt sorry for him.
Then she heard it.
A heartbeat that did not belong to anyone in the room.
Too slow.
Too close.
She turned toward the wall.
“There’s someone behind there.”
Owen frowned.
“That’s reinforced concrete.”
“No.”
Kiara stepped closer.
Her strange hearing had always been good.
This was different.
She could hear cloth moving against skin.
A controlled breath.
The tiny metallic click of a weapon being readied.
“Down!”
Dashiell lunged.
The wall exploded.
Concrete sprayed across the security room as a suppressed rifle fired through the opening.
Dashiell dragged Kiara behind the steel desk.
Tomas shifted instantly.
Not completely human.
Not completely wolf.
His hands changed first, claws tearing through skin as he crossed the room with horrifying speed.
Bianca fired twice.
Owen fired once.
The attacker disappeared back into the dark passage.
Kiara stared.
“There’s a passage inside the wall?”
Dashiell looked at Owen.
“You're head of security.”
Owen looked genuinely shaken.
“That passage isn't on the plans.”
Tomas laughed without humor.
“It wouldn't be.”
Dashiell rose.
“You know where it goes.”
“I built it.”
Silence.
Tomas moved to the shattered wall.
“Before this tower belonged to Garcia Holdings, it belonged to the Covenant.”
“What covenant?”
Kiara's wrist pulsed.
The moment Tomas said the word, an image flashed behind her eyes.
A stone room.
Seven chairs.
Her grandmother standing beside Dashiell's mother.
Blood on a silver bowl.
Kiara stumbled.
Dashiell caught her.
“What happened?”
“I saw something.”
Tomas turned.
“What?”
“A room.”
His face changed.
“Describe it.”
“Seven chairs. Stone walls. A silver bowl.”
Bianca whispered something in Spanish.
Dashiell tightened his grip on Kiara.
“You've seen that place?”
“No.”
Tomas approached cautiously.
“Your blood remembers.”
“My blood doesn't get to remember things without asking me.”
For the first time, Tomas almost smiled.
“You sound like Rosa.”
Kiara froze.
“You knew my grandmother?”
“I owed her my life.”
“Then tell me why I can hear her inside my head.”
Tomas's almost-smile disappeared.
“Because Rosa put a blood echo inside you before she died.”
The words hurt more than Kiara expected.
Her grandmother had raised her.
Her grandmother had taught her to keep her head down around wolves.
Her grandmother had made her promise never to let anyone test her blood.
Kiara had thought those were the fears of an old woman who had lived through violent pack politics.
Now they sounded like instructions.
“What did she hide in me?”
“Memories.”
“How many?”
“I don't know.”
“Of what?”
Tomas looked at the mark.
“Everything she couldn't risk writing down.”
The gunfire below intensified.
Dashiell pulled Kiara toward the opening.
“Move.”
They entered the hidden corridor single file.
Tomas first.
Kiara behind him.
Dashiell stayed directly behind Kiara.
Bianca followed.
Owen came last.
The passage sloped downward between concrete walls barely wide enough for Dashiell's shoulders.
After thirty seconds, Kiara caught a scent.
Metal.
Dust.
And something sweet.
She stopped.
Dashiell nearly walked into her.
“What?”
“That smell.”
Bianca sniffed.
“I don't smell anything.”
Tomas did.
His face hardened.
“Silverleaf.”
Dashiell grabbed Kiara.
“Don't breathe deeply.”
“What is silverleaf?”
“Sedative,” Bianca said. “For wolves.”
Kiara frowned.
“I'm not a wolf.”
Tomas looked over his shoulder.
“That is exactly what someone spent eighteen years making you believe.”
They hurried.
Kiara's legs began feeling strangely heavy.
Not sedated.
Different.
Her bones ached.
Her hearing sharpened until Dashiell's heartbeat sounded enormous behind her.
Then she heard another sound.
A whisper coming through the walls.
Not her grandmother.
A man.
“Kiara.”
She stopped dead.
Dashiell touched her shoulder.
“What?”
Someone laughed through a hidden speaker.
Soft.
Male.
Confident.
“Hello, little crown.”
Tomas spun toward the ceiling.
“Lucian.”
Kiara's stomach dropped.
The voice continued.
“I've waited a very long time to hear you breathe.”
Dashiell stepped in front of Kiara.
“You come near her, I'll kill you.”
The man laughed again.
“And that is why Elena was so afraid of you meeting her.”
Dashiell's eyes flashed.
“Say my mother's name again.”
“You still don't understand, do you?”
Static crackled.
Then Lucian said something that silenced everyone.
“Ask your father why your mother died with your blood on her hands.”
Dashiell turned.
Tomas's face had gone gray.
“What is he talking about?”
“Keep moving.”
Dashiell caught his father's shoulder.
“What is he talking about?”
“Not now.”
“Now.”
Kiara saw the exact second Tomas realized he could not escape the question.
“Elena died protecting you from a bond she believed would destroy both of you.”
Dashiell looked toward Kiara.
“What bond?”
Tomas stared at his son.
“The one that began the second you covered Kiara in your scent.”
Kiara looked down at the white shirt she was still wearing.
“No.”
“That shirt didn't cause it,” Tomas said. “It only completed the first trigger.”
Dashiell went absolutely still.
“What first trigger?”
Tomas pointed toward Kiara's wrist.
“That mark appeared because someone exposed her blood to yours while she slept.”
Kiara's stomach dropped.
She remembered the three tiny breaks in the circle.
Not scratches.
Punctures.
Someone had injected her.
Dashiell looked at Owen.
Owen's expression changed.
Just slightly.
But Kiara saw it.
So did Dashiell.
“Owen.”
The security chief lifted his gun.
Bianca gasped.
Owen aimed it directly at Tomas.
“I'm sorry.”
Dashiell stepped in front of Kiara.
“Put it down.”
“I can't.”
“That's not a request.”
Owen's hand shook.
“You don't understand what happens if she fully wakes.”
Tomas stared at him.
“You planted the key in Bianca's room.”
Owen said nothing.
“You created Kiara's access trail.”
Still nothing.
Bianca's face twisted.
“You son of a—”
“I was trying to stop this!”
Owen shouted it so loudly the narrow corridor threw the words back at them.
Then his eyes landed on Kiara.
Not hatred.
Fear.
Pure fear.
“Lucian doesn't need to take her anymore.”
Kiara's wrist burned.
Owen swallowed.
“He only needed Dashiell close enough to awaken her.”
Silence.
Dashiell's voice dropped.
“Why?”
Owen looked straight at him.
“Because Kiara isn't the weapon, Boss.”
A terrible smile touched his mouth.
“You are.”
May you like
Then the corridor doors slammed shut at both ends.
And the silverleaf gas began pouring in.
