I should have been able to fight off the attackers.
There were only two of them. The mountain of a man who I spied, too late, approaching from the right. And a second one that I never even saw, who seemed to appear from nowhere. Suddenly he was right behind me with a rough hand reaching around my face, pulling me backwards and down into the crook of his elbow, with something soft pressed hard against my mouth.
I knew there was nothing I could do once I breathed in the sharp smell of chemicals and my vision started tunneling into darkness.
Up until these past few weeks, I had been proud of my fighting skills and fast reflexes. I was one of the best fighters in my pack. But the baby was slowing me down. And I wasn’t training anymore, I realized. My new lifestyle had me lazy and weakened. Out of practice, I’d dropped my guard, too.
The giant was coming close, his tombstone head blurring in and out of focus, when my body went ragdoll limp. Then I was looking straight ahead at the blue sky, in which white clouds were jumping around in snowflake patterns like the inside of a kaleidoscope.
I heard a car’s tires screeching to a stop. Then, a car door opening and hushed, hurried male voices. The rough hands on my body shoved me hard down into the back seat of a car and I blinked into the dim light.
I saw my father’s face, blurry and doubled, turning around in the passenger seat just before I blacked out. His expression was one of cold disgust.
“I tried asking you nicely, Fiona,” my father said, his voice dripping with disdain.
I remained silent. He had me tied to a chair in the garage of our family home, of all places. In a circle around us stood his motley crew of henchmen, only a few of whom I recognized as former business associates of his.
“I asked nicely, and you did not even bother to reply. So now I am asking… not so nicely.” He chuckled, running a hand through his beard.
“What do you even expect I could do for you?” I asked him. “I am Alexander’s fiancée. Not his advisor or even one of his soldiers. I do not know anything about his military strategy or secrets.”
“But you can find them out.” Father was annoyed, saying this like he was talking to a slow-learning child. “That’s all I’m asking of you, Fiona. It’s simple enough for a woman like you to bait information out of a man like him.”
I kept my cold, emotionless mask in place. He wanted to rile me up, make me scared and emotional, and I wasn’t going to let him get that out of me.
“And what do you plan to do with the information you’re after, anyway?” I asked coolly. “Are you going to betray your country? Sell his strategy to the vampires, in order to pay off your debts?”
Father paused his anxious pacing, coming to a dead stop just before me, and spat in my face.
“Vile girl,” he muttered, wiping his wet mouth with his hand. “How dare you even speak such a lie about your own father.”
I let his hot saliva drip down my cheek, unflinching.
“No, no. I would never commit a crime against werewolf kind. But there’s someone I believe capable of such a thing.” He resumed his idle stroll across the oil-stained concrete of our big, empty garage, tapping his chin with his index finger thoughtfully. “Yes, someone many among us would believe capable of heretic behavior. Someone famous for his uncontrollable anger and reckless nature.”
“You’re going to frame Alexander?”
Father wheeled around dramatically. “Ah-ha! I never said you were not bright, Fiona. You may be stubborn, rigid, and insolent…” His mouth twisted into a grimace as he started listing all the things he didn’t like about me. “Inflexible, disloyal, and, now we know, a whore… But you were always bright.”
I let his insults roll off me like water slicks off a waxy feather. “And what purpose does that serve you?” If I was going to have to endure being abducted by my father, I may as well get as much information out of him as I could while I was stuck here.
Father made a Hmm sound, pacing again. But he could not help himself. He was too self-satisfied with his plot to hold back from telling me all about it.
“You see, my dear child,” he began, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “It seems that one of my debts owed is, in fact, due to be paid to your fiancé’s stepmother.”
I laughed. “Scarlet? You’re trying to get in with Scarlet by framing Alexander?”
“Not trying,” he said. “It’s already happening. There is nothing you could do to stop it.”
“But you need my cooperation to make your little plan happen, do you not?”
He growled with frustration, his face growing redder every second. I held my eyes locked on his, showing no signs of backing down.
“I could find another means, without your cooperation,” he said.
Somehow, I doubted that. It seemed clear that my father’s whole plan hinged on using my closeness to Alexander. “Then that’s what you’ll need to do. Because you won’t break me. I would never betray him.”
Father’s eyes were livid. The prominent vein in the center of his forehead was bulging. He coughed painfully or laughed so dryly it sounded like a choke.
“You won’t betray him?” he asked. “You won’t betray a man you barely know, but you’ll betray your own flesh and blood?”
There was no reasoning with this man. I was not the one who betrayed the family. My father was the one whose crimes and greed destroyed the pack. He may as well have been speaking into a mirror.
“I’m giving you one last chance, Fiona. One last chance to pledge your loyalty to me again and swear you’ll return to me the information that I need.”
I paused. Because I knew that whatever was coming next after this reply, it was not likely to be pleasant.
“Never,” I said. “I’ll never swear allegiance to you again.”
My father gave a nod to one of his men, who stepped behind me and started loosening the restraints that held me to the chair. A tiny flutter of hope stirred, making me feel the impulse of the wolf pressing right under my skin. But this was not my moment. It did not matter if I could get my hands free. I was badly outnumbered and outmatched in this company.
The men shoved me to my feet and led me up the half staircase that went from the garage into my parents’ home, where I had lived with them almost my whole life. Just as I started to wonder where my mother was, I spied her.
She was a tiny figure at the top of the stairs. Still as a statue, and with a wooden, defeated look on her face.
I was taken to the downstairs bathroom, where the lights were all turned on, and I noticed with a sinking feeling that the bathtub was full to the brim with clear, still water.
