Part Two: Lies- "Lies and Secrets"

“What the hell is going on?” I shut my door and stand in front of it. I search my room for a minute, thinking this might be about the rogue vampires or even a jealous Glynn.

“Never mind, I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be putting you in danger as well.” He is manic and crying now. I’m trying to stay calm and get him to give me something to cling to. He just hasn’t given me much to understand.

“We’ve been friends forever, Booker, just spit it out.” I lock the door and sit on my bed, staring at the crazed man before me. “Plus, where would I even hide you?”

“Anywhere. I don’t know what to do or even what to say. I came to my only friend, but all of this is so complicated. They think... I raped Marta.” His words are sharp stings across my skin.

I feel like I’m sinking into my bed. My mouth is dry now. I can’t look at him. Avoiding looking at anything, my mouth hangs open.

“Marta?” Hearing him say it makes it even less real. I tremble at the thought of betraying my sister. “You can’t be here.”

“I can’t go anywhere else. Your father wants my head on a spike.” He sits next to me, but I’m frozen. My father wanted him dead, which meant he was a zombie. My father had killed vampires and werewolves for half a century. He was still one of the fiercest hunters in the pack.

“How can you come here after doing something like that?” I smell the sweat coming out of his pores as he scoots away from me on the bed. “Do you have no respect for me at all? Marta is my little sister, not some tramp. She is one of the honorable flower holders.”

“I didn’t rape anyone. Marta and I have been seeing each other. It was a secret because your father doesn’t want her with anyone who isn’t pure alpha blood. My mother being a beta wolf makes me ineligible in your father’s eyes.”

I believed him. Knowing him all these years, I knew when he was lying. The other day, when Marta attacked him, it hadn’t been in protection of me, but in enraged jealousy. I also hadn’t seen him around lately. I assumed it was a love interest, but never Marta.

“Someone saw you together?” I assume there is at least visual proof.

“Your father found us. He told everyone that I was holding her and she was saying ‘no’. I promise she never said no. You know I would never steal someone’s honor. I fell for her, and since we were both in the run tonight, I figured I could petition.” He reveals his plan.

It was a smart plan. The petition would take the choice from my father’s hands and put it to the elders of the pack. If they saw potential, then he could mark Marta and see if the mark took hold in her flesh.

“She loves you as well?” I ask the obvious, and he nods yes. My smile expands onto my face. I wanted them both to find love, and they had in each other. My father would not allow it. If he could stop it, he would. My father only believed in love if it also brought power.

“Jocelyn, I know I should have told you before.” He sighs. He knows that this is much more than any of us can handle. I love them both enough to keep their secret, but there was nowhere to hide him.

“My father will find you no matter where you run to.” I’m honest.

The door downstairs flies open and we both freeze. Through smell, I can tell it is a pack of male wolves with Glynn and my father included. Anger is pouring from their energy, and so is this weird, all-knowing pride.

“I’m scared,” Booker whines like a house pet.

“I think you should turn yourself in.” I admit that he might still be killed, but turning himself in might spare his life for a punishment instead, which could just be exile. Surely my father wouldn’t put my childhood friend to death, especially in front of his daughter. Also, I would have a vote.

Then I realize that Glynn knew exactly what was going on last night and that’s why he wouldn’t give me details besides that it was a rape. He was trying to keep my voice from the action. Glynn was smart, but Booker made it to me, and now I wasn’t going to just walk away.

I needed to talk to Marta. I couldn’t sense her anywhere nearby. My father must have gotten to her. He must have made her mind up for her. If she loved Booker, then she wouldn’t love him lightly. My little sister's emotions were always fierce and real.

“Jocelyn,” my father calls upstairs. “Darling, you and your guest should really come downstairs.”

I shudder at the way my father’s voice sounds. I unlock and creak the door open a little. The hallway is so quiet that my heart is heard clear as day.

“Did you think that it would just be OK for you to be upstairs with him?” Glynn has his hand around my throat quickly as he leans me against the wall.

There is no humanity left in the way he grabs me. Taking his knee, he spreads my legs apart to pin me to the wall and slides his hands from my neck down my arms. He causes my fingers to relax in his as he lifts both of my hands over my head and holds them against the wall. I tremble.

“Let me go.” I struggle to break away the best that I can.

“Never. When I tasted your blood last night, I became high on it. You are my drug.” He smiles. “The mark you wear on your back is one I plan to rip deeper with my bare hands. If you move an inch, I will spill your blood right now in front of everyone.”