Dead Wolf (Kiera Hudson Series Two #5)

“Because it had to be your choice, Kiera,”

he whispered back. “I had to know if you would save me over your friends.”

“Why?”

“Because I had to know you believed me,” he said softly.

“Believed what?”

“That I was your brother. I know you, Kiera. I know you are better than me. Despite what I’ve done to you, you couldn’t let your brother die,” he said, staring back at me. “At last I have what I’ve searched for my whole life.”

“And what’s that?” I breathed.

“Family,” he smiled. Then, glancing briefly down at the man we had both once loved as a father, Jack fled the room.

With the sound of his feet thundering down the stairs, I raced after him. From the top of the staircase, I shouted, “Jack, what is the name of this person who understands how to pass between the different layers – times and whens?”

At the bottom of the stairs, Jack paused and looked back at me. With his eyes glowing fiercely in their sunken sockets, he said, “Her name is Lilly Blu. If you can find her – you’ll love her!”

“Why?” I shouted.

“Because she’s one of us,” Jack grinned back at me. “Lilly’s a wolf!” Then he was gone, racing out of the front door and into the night.

I ran back into the bedroom and to the window. I looked down to see Jack spring into the air, changing into a giant wolf in a blaze of glistening hair, claws, and razor-sharp teeth.

Hidden by the trees which sat opposite the house, Jack turned on his giant paws and looked back at me. Throwing his head back, he released a deep, booming howl into the night. Then he was gone, leaving me alone at the window.

Moments after seeing Jack’s long, bushy tail disappear between the black knotted tree trunks, the police van trudged to a stop outside, and I watched Murphy and Potter climb out. I couldn’t help but feel anger and hatred for the both of them.

Chapter Six

Kiera

I sat in the chair, my father dead at my feet, and waited for Murphy and Potter. The lamp continued to shine its murky light from the corner.

I took a deep breath and tried to gather my thoughts – gather my nerves – for the confrontation I knew was about to come. I heard the sound of the front door swing open below. The hinges made a wailing sound like a baby lost in the dark. There was a moment’s silence.

“Kiera!” It was Murphy who called my name.

I didn’t answer. I sat silently, taking shallow breaths. Tiny plumes of breath escaped my mouth and floated away into the dark.

“Kiera!” This time it was Potter who called, but his voice sounded laboured, as if in pain.

Again, I didn’t answer.

I heard them moving around downstairs, and I tracked the sound of their footfalls as they passed from the living room, to the kitchen, and back again. Then, as I expected, I heard the clomping sound of their boots on the stairs, growing louder as they got higher. They stopped on the landing, just outside the door. There was a moment’s silence, then the door came crashing open as Murphy came storming into the room, his long claws brandished before him. Potter stumbled in behind him. He looked stooped somehow, and one arm cradled his ribs. His face was covered in blood and the left side of his face was swollen out, black and purple coloured. His right eye was almost swollen closed, and the other was bloodshot. Murphy glanced around the room to see if there was any hidden danger.

Then, seeing me sitting in the chair with my father stretched out at my feet, he said, “Kiera, are you okay?”

“Where are Kayla and Sam?” I asked, ignoring his question.

His lips opened and closed as he fought to find the right words. “They’re missing.”

“Missing?” I asked.

“The teen-wolf has taken her,” Potter mumbled from the open doorway. “I knew we should never have trusted a wolf. Scum, the lot of them.”

“Scum?” I breathed, cocking my eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, scum,” Potter wheezed. “Look what they did to me...”

“We’d better go and find them,” I said, cutting Potter dead.

“Hang on a minute,” Murphy said, looking down at my father. “What’s gone on here? Who killed your father?”

“Jack Seth,” I said, staring back at Murphy, searching his face for any flicker of emotion.

“See, nothing but murdering scum,” Potter spat, shuffling away from the door towards me.

“Don’t!” I barked, not looking at him, but raising my hand in the air, as if to warn him off.

“Don’t come near me.”

“Why did he kill your father?” Murphy said, peering at me from beneath his bushy white eyebrows.

“Perhaps Jack killed him because my father killed his?” I said, refusing to take my eyes off Murphy.

Murphy glanced down at the body on the floor, and in that moment, I saw a flicker of recognition on his face, and that was all I needed to know Jack had been telling me the truth.

Although I could feel hot tears starting to burn in my eyes, I refused to shed them. I was too angry and hurt to cry.

With my eyes fixed on Murphy, I pointed down at my father’s body and said, “To me he was Frank Hudson – my father. But to you he was known as Paul Murphy. He was your younger brother, wasn’t he, Jim?”

Murphy raised his head and looked at me, and I could see not fear in his eyes, but sadness.

“Yes, he was my brother,” he whispered, then swallowed hard.

“Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?” Potter suddenly wheezed, then coughed, standing halfway between the open doorway and where I sat.

Then, turning to look at him, I whispered, “I’m scum.”

“What that’s s’posed to mean?” Potter said, hacking out a stream of coughs. He covered his mouth with his hand, but I could see the blood he had coughed up running between his fingers.

“All wolves are scum, right?” I glared at him.

“You know it,” Potter said, wiping the blood from his hands onto his trousers.

“Then I must be scum, too,” I said, unable to hold back the tears now. “I’m a wolf – half Lycanthrope.”

“What’s going on?” Potter said, glancing over at Murphy.

Dropping his head, so his chin almost touched his chest, Murphy said, “It’s true.”

“What a load of old bollocks!” Potter barked, his chest rattling. Then looking back at me, he added, “You can’t be a wolf – you don’t have a hairy tongue!”

I jumped up from the chair and said, “I can’t deal with you right now, Potter.”

“What have I done?” Potter groaned, pressing his hands against his ribs.

“What have you done?” I roared at him in disbelief. “How about you and that teacher?

What about her?”

Potter looked at me, his eyes wide like a rabbit that had been caught in the headlights of a speeding car. “I thought that was you...” he started.

“Liar!” I screamed at him, tears streaming down my face. “I saw you! Jack showed me.”

“That sonofabitch!” Potter shouted.

“You’ve got to believe me, Kiera. She was a wolf.

She did some of that mind-fucking with me.”

“It looked like it was you who was doing all the fucking! ” I hissed.

“It never got that far!” he yelled back at me, then took a deep breath as if refilling his punctured lungs. “I figured her out before anything like that happened.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out sooner,” I sneered, wiping the tears from my cheek with the back of my hand. “Couldn’t you feel her hairy tongue? After all, she had it shoved far enough down the back of your throat.”

“You’ve got to believe me, Kiera,” Potter said, shuffling towards me.

“Back off!” I spat, raising my hands.

“Don’t you dare touch me.”

“I thought it was you – honestly,” Potter said. “Jack Seth set me up. You saw only what he wanted you to see. He wants you to hate me.”

“And what about Eloisa Madison?” I roared. “Was he lying about her, too?”

Potter looked at me as if he had been slapped across the face.

“It’s true then?” I cried. “You and she were lovers – that’s why you ripped her heart out!”

“I had sex with her once,” Potter said. “It was before me and you ever met.”

“So you killed her to stop me finding out,”

I said, glad that he was hurting.

“No!” he yelled at me. “I killed her because she was a child murderer. Just like that teacher and all of the other wolves – they have a way of getting into your head and messing with you. She tricked me into believing that someone else was the killer while she escaped. She looked into my eyes and made me forget about her. At first I did, but then I remembered. I remembered that night in the hangar just outside of Wasp Water. She was a danger to us – she was a killer.

That’s why I ripped her heart out.”

“It’s true,” Murphy said from behind me.

I span around to face him, my fist clenched. “Why should I believe a word you tell me? You’re nothing but a liar, too!”

“I’ve never lied to you, Kiera,” Murphy said, and for once his voice wasn’t gruff or angry sounding, it was soft. “I might have kept secrets.

But I’ve never...”

“Secrets!” I gasped. “You’ve let me live a lie ever since I walked into your police station back in the Ragged Cove.”

“I’m not proud of that fact,” he whispered. “But I did it to keep you alive – just like I saved your life the day I plucked you from the dead waters.”

“You tried to drown me!” I reminded him.

“You were already dead – or so I thought,” Murphy tried to explain. “But the moment I heard your cries I went back for you – I saved you, Kiera.”