The Apex They Could Never Own: A Werewolf Romance of Power, Possession, and Fate novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Midnight at the Garage

Lucas and six wolves come to Hold her, Ansel fights them in the yard and Dara's cuff blazes, and Lucas takes her father as surety.

"Why would I go anywhere with the Council's hound?" I said.

Ansel took his time answering.

"Because the Hold is a room with a lock on the outside," he said. "I've carried the key."

My father stepped in front of me, holding the tire iron he keeps by the door.

"You get off my property, son."

"Toivo." Ansel looked at the iron, not at him. "You have about ten minutes."

Hattie already had her phone out. "I'm calling my mom," she said. "Brough pack takes anybody who's in trouble."

"Tell her to keep her pack home tonight," Ansel said. "Anyone who opens a door for Dara gets hunted."

Hattie lowered the phone and stared at him.

I looked at the clock over the parts counter.

It said eleven-forty.

"Dad, get the truck keys," I said. "Hat, grab the go-bag out of the office."

"We're going?" Dad said.

"We're not sitting here waiting to be asked politely."

Then I heard engines.

Two black SUVs came down the gravel road with their headlights off and stopped in our yard side by side.

Seven wolves got out.

The one in front wore a charcoal coat and a silver cuff.

He had a smile I'd seen at a dozen Christmas tables.

"Dara," said Lucas Corbin, pleasantly. "You're already packing. Good."

"Midnight," Ansel said quietly, without turning. "He's early too."

"Ansel." Lucas grinned at him. "Good boy. You found her. Step aside now."

Ansel did not step aside.

"I said stand down."

"Only your father can say that to me," Ansel said, "and he isn't here."

Lucas's smile slipped, just for a second, and then it was back.

"Fine. Take him."

Two of the wolves went for Ansel at once.

I had never seen a wolf shift that fast.

Ansel's coat tore down the back, and an enormous gray wolf stood in the middle of our gravel yard.

One of Lucas's men was flat on the ground with his arm in its mouth.

The second man hit the side of the garage and stayed there.

Hattie yelled and swung her bag at a third wolf.

Dad charged somebody with the tire iron.

I stood in the headlights with my wrist burning.

I don't know what I meant to do.

I held up my hand, the one with the black cuff, and shouted at them to get back.

The cuff went white-hot.

Every wolf in the yard flinched at the same time.

The two Lucas had kept back at the SUVs dropped to their knees in the gravel.

Nobody had told me it could do that.

Nobody had told me anything.

"Hold it," Ansel said.

He had shifted back, and he stood in his ruined trousers with blood on his chin.

"Don't let go yet. Push it at him."

"At who?"

"The one who's about to hurt your father."

I turned.

Lucas had walked right through the flinching men.

He had my father by the collar of his work shirt, and a silver knife under his jaw.

"There it is," Lucas said softly. "That's the power I'm going to marry."

"Let him go," I said.

My voice was shaking, and my hand dropped.

The cuff went dull.

The wolves on their knees began to get up.

"Dara, no, don't you do it," Dad said. "Don't you dare give them anything."

"Be quiet, Toivo," Lucas said pleasantly. "You signed a surety clause eight years ago, and I'm calling it."

He tightened his grip.

"Father forgave the loan in front of three hundred wolves. So now your daughter owes us instead."

Dad's face went gray.

"Dad," I said. "What clause?"

"I didn't read the back page," he said. "Honey, I'm sorry. I didn't read the back page."

Ansel moved one step toward Lucas.

"Please," Lucas said, and pushed the knife until a bead of blood showed on my father's neck. "Do."

Ansel stopped.

Ansel was the most dangerous wolf in the valley.

I watched him stop because of a thin line of blood on a mechanic's throat.

"Here's how this works," Lucas said. "Your father rides with us to Highgate tonight, as our guest."

Hattie spat gravel out of her mouth. "Not a chance," she said.

"You come up the mountain yourself by Sunday noon, Dara. Bring your cuff and your good manners. Then he goes home."

"And if I don't?"

Lucas smiled the way Corbin smiled, gentle and sorry.

"Then he stays," he said. "Forever is a long time to be a guest."

They put my father in the back of the second SUV.

He didn't fight, and he kept looking at me through the window until the taillights went around the bend.

The yard was quiet, and the smell of blood hung over the gravel.

Ansel pulled a torn jacket off a hook, one-handed, and put it on.

"Sunday noon," I said. "That's four days."

"Yes."

"Then you'd better start telling me everything you know about Highgate."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he put his left hand back in his pocket.

"Get in the truck," he said. "I'll start on the way."

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