Equilibrium: MM Gay Shifter Romance (Kingdom of Night Book 3) Read online

  A moment later, the hall was empty. No one dared to question Sebastian and no one ever had reason to. He looked back at Victor, who had already gotten to his feet with me gathered in his arms.

  "We've gotta get him out of here," Sebastian said, casting a wary glance at the pond.

  Victor wasted no time in complying. Before I knew it, we were in the lobby as the last of the group was filing out. Victor placed me in one of the chairs across from the bench where Val was sitting with her head in her hands.

  She looked up at me with bloodshot eyes and seemed to have aged a few years overnight. "What happened to you?" she asked, her voice hoarse from crying.

  "That's what I'd like to know," muttered Victor, crossing his arms as he stared down at me. "And he's going to explain."

  I took a deep breath, still trembling as Sebastian put a blanket around my shoulders. "I'll tell you." At least, I would tell them everything I could without alerting them to the moon's plans for me. My focus shifted to Val. "There are things you need to know, but I'm not sure you're going to like them."

  She sniffled, wiping her eye with a tissue crumpled in her hand. "There's a lot that's happened these past few days that I haven't liked. Trust me, nothing you have to tell me could make it any worse."

  Chapter 13

  REMUS

  By the time we left the sanctuary, it was well into the early hours of the morning. Despite Sebastian's pleading, Val wouldn't come back with us to the Lodge. It took a while to convince both she and Victor that Alex's ghost really was still at the sanctuary, but once I succeeded, she was adamant about waiting there in case he appeared. Despite my pleading, Sebastian refused to stay behind with her and separate from me, but he did promise to come back in the next couple of days to check on her.

  Billy, as it turned out, had been unable to cope with the loss of both his brother and the realization that his wife was only with him because of the moon's interference. Val had refused to let Sebastian go hunting for him, insisting that he would come back when he was ready. I doubted that would stop Sebastian if Billy's absence stretched on for more than a few days, but he humored her for the moment.

  Ulric had already taken Hunter back to the Lodge by the time we left and I felt sick thinking about the fact that Clarence was probably finding out about the moon's accursed "blessing" as we pulled onto the highway. Even worse was the knowledge that it was my fault for leading Hunter to his initiation by blood in the first place. The tension that hung in the air on the drive home confirmed the fact that Sebastian and Victor blamed me as much as I blamed myself.

  My phone buzzed and I jolted. The droning sounds of the road had almost lulled me to sleep, so it was a mercy. I was terrified that the moon would send the dream she had promised ahead of schedule and I would end up transforming with Sebastian and Victor in the car. When I looked down at the phone, it was a text from Clara. It seemed strange to think of someone so elegant doing something as mundane as texting.

  A is awake. Thought you would want to know.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed against the seat.

  "Who was that?" asked Sebastian. Victor kept his eyes fixed on the road.

  "Arthur is awake."

  He looked at Victor. "Tonight?"

  "Has to be," he muttered.

  "What?" I asked warily. "What's tonight?"

  "Arthur is going to tell us the rest of his story," he said darkly. "Before anyone else gets hurt."

  I gulped. "I told you, the moon is the one who did that to Hunter."

  "It seemed like the moon," Victor corrected in a tone that made it obvious he saw me as a child. "The Patriarch is the most powerful psychic in existence. He could probably appear as Santa Claus if he wanted to."

  I looked to Sebastian for help, but he shrugged cluelessly.

  Whose side are you on? I demanded, breaking my no unsolicited telepathy rule.

  He flinched visibly. Just because you and Victor can get into my head doesn't mean you have an open invitation.

  You know as well as I do that it was the moon. You agreed to let me see her. Why aren't you saying anything now?

  Hey, I'm not getting involved in this. I made the mistake of letting you go into that pond and look where it got us. You almost drowned and Hunter is marked up like some voodoo exam cheat sheet.

  Which is all the more reason we need Arthur alive, I insisted. We obviously can't trust the moon or the Patriarch, so having a living hunter on our side is an asset.

  Look, all this strategy stuff is Victor's domain, he said. When it comes time to lead the troops into battle, that's where I come in. Till then? I ain't steppin' on his toes without a damn good reason.

  How very submissive of you, I said dryly, turning out the window just in time to avoid the brunt of his glare. It was admittedly a low blow, but it had been a long day.

  "What are you two bickering about in there?" asked Victor, giving me a pointed look in the rearview.

  "Nothing," Sebastian and I said in unison.

  The rest of the drive was silent, both audibly and telepathically--at least where I was concerned. When we pulled into the lot, I made it a point to open my own door and slammed it shut before either of them were out of the car.

  "He puts on a suit and suddenly he thinks he's a verndari," Victor said dryly.

  Sebastian gave a snort of agreement. I tried to ignore them as I stalked up the front steps and fumbled for my keys. Getting to Ulric first was my only hope of ensuring that Arthur was interrogated rather than tortured. As much as I wanted to check on Hunter, Arthur was the only one of the two I could actually do anything to help. Besides, I knew I was probably the last person Hunter would want to see when he woke up.

  "Where do you think you're going in such a hurry?" asked Sebastian, grabbing me by the back of my damp jacket to dangle me a couple of feet off the ground.

  "I think he's trying to intercept dear old dad," Victor said, clearly amused as he watched me struggle futilely while Sebastian held me by the scruff like a pup.

  "You know, for a supposed master of discipline, he's become a lot unrulier under your care," said Sebastian, mimicking Victor's academic tone.

  Victor shrugged. "Ever since he became a vampire, our sessions have taken a backseat to other priorities. I'm thinking that was a mistake."

  "I'm thinking the same thing," Sebastian said in a conspiratorial tone I didn't like at all.

  "Put me down."

  Sebastian raised me higher and eyed me. "Put me down what?"

  I glared at him. "You can't be serious. Now?"

  He stared blankly at me. "You've definitely gone feral," he pronounced, dropping me back on the ground. I staggered right into Victor, who stared down at me with an intense yet unreadable gaze.

  "He's right," he murmured. "It's a problem that needs to be fixed. Not tonight, but soon."

  I gulped. He was serious. They both were. "And tonight? What happens to Arthur?"

  "It depends on whether he's cooperative or not," said Victor.

  "He will be," I said earnestly.

  "For his sake, I hope so."

  Sebastian was already halfway down the stairs. Victor grabbed my arm and pulled me along as we followed him. As much as I wanted it, the twins being united as one front was not something I was prepared to deal with.

  Ulric was in Arthur's room when we made it downstairs and, to my relief, the boy sitting upright in bed and drinking a bottle of water had my friend's clear blue eyes rather than the solid gold ones I had come to dread. They lit up when they landed on me and he stopped drinking, wiping the excess water from his mouth.

  "Hey, Remus," he said enthusiastically. I knew then that he had no idea that the Patriarch had attacked me in his body and intended to make sure it stayed that way.

  "Hi, Arthur," I said with a smile, taking the other chair next to the bed. Ulric was watching us quietly. "Hi, dad."

  "You came back at a good time," he said. "Arthur and I were just having a chat about his grandfather.
"

  "You were?" I asked, surprised.

  "Yes. Hugh was a good man, which was something I once never thought I would say about a hunter. I was just expressing my condolences for Arthur's loss.

  "We were really close," Arthur said quietly. "Grandpa Hugh wasn't like the others. He never hated supernaturals. Guess it's sort of his fault I'm such a rebel."

  "If he was such a warm-hearted fellow, why did he authorize the attacks on those other packs?" asked Sebastian, folding his arms.

  "He didn't," said Arthur. "He started getting sick right around the time Remus moved here. The rest of the Family wasn't happy about the truce, but they honored it while Grandpa Hugh was strong. The thing is, hunter authority isn't passed on the way it is with wolves. One leader is supposed to pass on his power to the successor the Patriarch chooses when it's time, but Grandpa Hugh resisted. We all knew Prentice was his successor, but he held off on passing the baton for a lot longer than he was supposed to. Now I know why."

  "Your grandfather resisted the will of the Patriarch?" asked Victor.

  "Yeah," he said proudly. "To the very end. Prentice was siphoning the Patriarch's power from him for a long time, but he held out as long as he could."

  "What happened in the end?" asked Victor.

  "And why would the old man try to resist his creator, anyway?" asked Sebastian. "Aren't you guys supposed to be mindless drones?"

  "One question at a time," Ulric scolded. "He was about to tell the story before you came in."

  I breathed a sigh of relief at the realization that Arthur wasn't going to be tortured again. I should have known Ulric would have a more civilized way of dealing with the matter. Watching the way he and Arthur interacted, it was like they were old friends.

  Arthur gave a dry, nervous little laugh and looked warily at Victor and Sebastian. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know," he promised. "Just give me a second to try to remember where I was when I lost consciousness."

  "You were telling us about the isolation chamber," Victor said confidently "More specifically, you were about to tell us how you escaped."

  "Oh yeah," Arthur said, resting his head against the back of the bed "Thanks."

  "Before you begin," said Ulric, fishing something out of his pocket. It was a gold pocket watch with the crisp outline of a sun engraved on the front. He took Arthur's hand and let the watch dangle by its chain before dropping it into the young man's palm. "You should have this."

  "What is this?" Arthur stared at the token in wonder, brushing his thumb reverently over the engraving. "I can't take this, it's beautiful."

  "It belonged to your grandfather," Ulric said quietly. "He gave it to me as a gift to commemorate the signing of our treaty. He said I should hold on to it as a token of friendship as long as the treaty was in effect."

  Arthur made eye contact with him and they both shared a knowing gaze that lasted until Arthur closed his hand around the watch and Ulric looked away, clearing his throat. "Thank you," Arthur said, his voice still hoarse from the Patriarch's abuse of it. "This...well, this means a lot. There's nothing else left of him. Prentice purged the homestead of all his things."

  "He would want you to have it," Ulric said softly. "Let it be a reminder of the man he was and the one he would want you to become."

  "I'll never be like him," Arthur said quietly. "But as long as I'm here, as long as I'm still me, I'll try." He sniffed and tried to disguise it as allergies, but no one in the room was about to call him on the thin farce. "Okay, so the isolation room. Yeah, that was one hell of a vacation," he said, slipping back into the snarky, untouchable persona he wore so well. "What's that line in that Eagles song? The one about how you can check out whenever you want, but you can't ever leave?"

  "Hotel California?" Victor asked impatiently.

  "Yeah, that's it. That's the isolation room," he said with a heavy sigh. "I checked out the first hour I was in there. Leaving took a bit longer than that, but I'm lucky. If Prentice knew then what he knows now, I probably never would have gotten out."

  Chapter 14

  ARTHUR

  It would be an understatement to say that days blended into weeks in the isolation room. The truth was that arbitrary concepts like time or space or life or death or Arthur and Prentice ceased to matter at all. It could just as easily have been years when the lights went out as it could have been hours, but it didn't matter. How could it? Whether my mind had been broken after two hours or two years, it was gone and it was never coming back. I felt it. I knew it. And there wasn't enough of me left to care. The lights that made up everything shut off and plunged me into nothingness.

  Bending over, I pressed my hands against my ears and braced for it what was coming next. The expectation of my final punishment lingered even after most concrete thoughts had abandoned me. The doors slid open and it was like thunder ripping through the sky. I screamed and the sound drove me equally mad. I longed for the hallucinations that had plagued my early days in the chamber, but the damned shadow people had bailed the moment the lights came on.

  You could never count on those fuckers.

  Footsteps filled the room like nails being driven into a coffin. Hands closed around mine and pried them off my ears only to replace them with some kind of padded vice. Earphones? The earphones made the sound bearable but they did nothing for the darkness.

  I blindly groped the floor and attempted to crawl away from the unseen intruder. My captor lifted me into his arms and carried me somewhere. That room had been everything for so long the idea that there could be any physical location outside of it was overwhelming on its own. Touch was the only sensation that hadn't failed me and now it was torture. Regardless of whether I struggled or not, my captor held me close to his chest and never faltered in his progress towards some unknown destination.

  All I could do was hope it was the end. Hunter, human, Arthur, Patriarch, none of it mattered anymore. The Patriarch could hollow me out and use me like a shell if he wanted, as long as there was nothing left of me. All I asked was erasure, complete and irrevocable. Existing was a burden I could no longer bear, in this life or the next.

  When we finally came to a stop, he placed me down on something soft, warm. Finally, a reprieve from the intolerable pain of touch. Blankets covered me and the hint of a shadow moved somewhere up ahead. I jolted when the bed sank in front of me and I felt him grow closer. A moment later he pulled me against his chest, his arms wrapped around me like a vice. The smell of him was blue and gold and quiet and hazy.

  In that moment, it felt like God himself was holding me.

  That last thought echoed throughout my dreams. Maybe they weren't even dreams, maybe they were hallucinations. I didn't know how long I had been asleep, but when I finally woke up I could see the ceiling.

  I could see.

  When I lifted my head and looked around the shadows were nowhere to be found, but I felt sure they were still there, watching me. The room was one I recognized, but it belonged to a world that had existed so long ago that I couldn't quite accept that it was mine. I didn't care enough to investigate any further.

  I must have lain there for hours because the sunlight sank through the blinds and the room became dark. The door opened and I didn't care about that, either. The ceiling was fascinating enough to absorb my interest.

  "You're awake." Prentice's voice seemed to echo through the room, surprised, but it was nothing compared to the sound of the door shutting. He must have noticed when I cringed because he muttered an apology as he stepped into the room. "How long have you been awake?"

  I shrugged and rolled onto my side, away from him.

  He sighed. "So it's the silent treatment, is it?"

  I ventured a disbelieving glance over my shoulder.

  He paused, realizing the absurdity of his own words. "Alright, poor choice of words," he said, pulling a chair closer to the bed. He turned it around and took a seat, leaning over the back of it like he always did when he was trying to be an edgy, relevant pro
fessor.

  "At least give me some indication that you're coherent. You've been babbling about shadows for days during your brief periods of consciousness."

  "Funny what being trapped inside a box will do to you after a few...weeks? Months? Years?"

  He breathed another sigh, this one a product of relief. "Months. Three, to be exact."

  His answer churned my stomach. For a normal human, fifteen minutes was all it took to induce hallucinations and hysteria from sensory deprivation chambers that were far less advanced than ours. Apparently, I was hardier than a normal human, but even mom had only ever left me in there for a few days at a time, a week tops.

  "Don't think it was an arbitrary decision," he muttered. "You probably won't remember this, but I gave you the chance to free yourself on many occasions. If I'd had any idea you were this willful, I don't know if I would have gone through with it. Giving up without results would only have meant that we both suffered for nothing."

  "You don't need to explain yourself to me." I no longer recognized the sound of my own voice. Speaking in a whisper felt like screaming. "Did you finally get your answer?" I asked even though I no longer cared.

  He fell silent and I knew he hadn't. "Then why did you let me go?"

  "I couldn't handle a day more," he admitted quietly. "Your screams are all I can hear at night. Even during the day, they claim my thoughts."

  "You can't hear anything coming from the isolation chamber," I said listlessly.

  "I know that," he snapped, his voice ragged. "Arthur, please. At least let me look at you."

  It didn't seem worth the effort, but I forced myself into a sitting position and sat with my legs crossed, facing him. It was a position that had always been uncomfortable due to my build, but I was no longer overweight. Funny what three months of starvation could do to a person.

  When I finally did look at Prentice, he looked worse for the wear himself. His eyes were rimmed in a deep shade of blue like he hadn't slept in a long time. Guess he hadn't been lying about the dreams after all.