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

  At least they would believe that before they'd believe the black sheep of the family was actually going on a wolf hunt. Oddly enough, that was exactly where I was headed. There was a temple a few hours out of town and I knew there was at least one wolf there who was willing to put down any supernatural threat who gave him the chance. Heard he was a big fucker, too, with a pack of dogs he liked to feed the spoils of his hunts to. Hopefully they weren't finicky eaters.

  Sure, he wouldn't know I was a hunter on sight since I had yet to go through ascension, but the first silver bullet would be a hint. If that plan didn't work, I would just have to turn the gun on myself and hope he was good at hiding evidence. It may have been overkill--pun totally intended--but I wasn't taking any chances. The less of me that was left, the less there would be to resurrect.

  With plans A through P in place, I lifted the box springs off the bed and pulled out the thick red book Prentice had given me on the worst birthday of my life. It was the first one that had fallen after his ascension, and the dedication cut into me anew every time I read it. I must have traced those words a thousand times with my fingertips and read them aloud to torture myself twice as many.

  The story of William Winters himself had bored me to tears back then, but the way Prentice lit with passion as he told it kept me begging for him to continue. William had once been as hesitant to receive the blessings of ascension as Prentice was, but he eventually woke as a changed man who used his brilliance to bring our race to glory.

  It didn't take much reading to see why Prentice saw so much of himself in our ancestor. According to him, William's words were what had given him the resolve to stop delaying and go through with his ascension. Come to think of it, that journal was where a lot of my troubles had begun, but maybe it would give the wolves some insight. What began as a personal log full of philosophical meanderings turned into a glorified spell book after William's ascension, full of occult diagrams and symbols. There was one ritual that looked promising, but the ancient glyphs were over my head.

  Victor was supposedly a genius. I could only personally vouch for his expertise when it came to bondage and knifeplay, but hopefully he could make something of it. In any case, I doubted the book would give them the means to stop my family, but it was the best I could do. I pulled out my collection of texts from underneath the bed and grabbed a random book that looked equal in size to the journal before sliding it into the empty spot as a replacement. I looked around for what to do with the book I had grabbed and only then did I notice that it was a photo album. After a moment's hesitation, I slipped the book inside my backpack and glanced out the window.

  Sebastian's truck had just pulled into the driveway. I froze in panic when they got out of the car. Remus was the first to get out, but the driver wasn't Sebastian at all. It was some squirrely emo kid I didn't recognize. Something wasn't right. Sebastian would never let Remus go out alone after what Prentice had done, never mind with such a scrawny guardian.

  I hastily removed the ring from my finger and dropped it in my desk drawer, leaving it open just a crack. Then I turned out the lights, made sure the spare key was where I had left it on the other side of the door, and made my way down the stairs.

  The crowd in the lobby served as a decent cover, letting me watch them from a distance. I pulled my hoodie over my head for good measure. They were still on the other side of the door, but I could see two girls walking over to let them in. Remus looked around and for a moment I was sure he'd seen me, but he turned and kept moving towards the stairs.

  It took everything I had not to run after him and warn him myself, but I knew he would only try to stop me. His psychic abilities were mostly awakened by that point and he probably could stop me if he wanted to. It wasn't a risk I could take, no matter how much I wanted to say goodbye. If I stepped foot inside the Lodge, I knew none of us would ever leave again.

  I left through the back door and got into the lackluster sedan I had traded some lucky freshman for my Mercedes. At least he hadn't asked any questions. I just hoped the damn thing would actually start.

  It did. And here I thought I had bad luck. Miles passed like seconds, even in a car that couldn't handle speeds over fifty miles per hour, and I started to feel the rush of adrenaline. The fact that I was lead-footing it to my death didn't stop the wide grin that spread across my face. The reflection of a madman grinned back at me in the rearview mirror.

  I had gotten away. It was really happening.

  Maybe running away was a devastatingly stupid thing to do, but it was my choice to make. For the first time in my life, I was free. With the windows rolled down and the empty road stretched out in front of me. The time on the dash registered just shy of two. Soon the moon would reach its peak and it would be too late for the others to attack the Lodge.

  They wouldn't dare attack before the next new moon. We never did. Hunters had always been a superstitious lot and there were certain times and correspondences that had to be followed in order to receive the Patriarch's blessing. Those correspondences determined when we held weddings, engagement parties, funerals and even when we could hunt. Hell, there was even a right and a wrong time to be born or die. Some of us wouldn't so much as fuck if the heavens weren't properly aligned for the occasion.

  Call it religious OCD, but even as I was laughing at the idea, I was mentally doing the math to determine whether my death would fall at an auspicious time. Not that it mattered. If the Patriarch really was there to greet us when we died, croaking at the right moment probably wasn't going to get me back in his good graces.

  A glance at the GPS told me that the supposed sanctuary was still an hour and a half away and the road was getting more remote by the mile. I played games with the radio until a decent station came in. Maybe it really was my lucky day, because it was back-to-back Manson. His "Tainted Love" cover came on first, then "The Devil Beneath My Feet." Couldn't have asked for a better soundtrack form my own personal highway to hell.

  Since there was no one else on the road and there hadn't been for a solid hour, I went as fast as the car would allow. Driving sort-of fast under the black velvet sky with my headlights and the glowing yellow line on the road as my only guides was a new kind of bliss. As beautiful as the sun's rays were, maybe I could get used to the darkness. I had a feeling there would be a lot of it wherever I ended up.

  There was a shape on the side of the road that looked eerily like a person, but as soon as I looked it was gone. Maybe it had never been there at all, or maybe it was a scarecrow. This was farmland, after all.

  I shrugged it off easily and resumed drumming the steering wheel to the beat of the next song that came on the radio. I couldn't remember the title, but it sounded like Nine Inch Nails and it was rhythmic as hell. My enjoyment was short lived when I noticed another shape up ahead. This one was low and it stretched all the way across the road.

  While it had looked like just an abnormality in the pavement from a distance, it soon became clear that it wasn't. A line of spikes was laid out on a panel that stretched all the way across the road. I knew braking was a lost cause, but my attempt to swerve around the spikes only changed the angle at which the car hit them.

  The sound of the tires exploding and the impact with the road deafened me. My stomach lurched and I could feel my brain slamming into my skull as the nose of the car was suddenly pointed straight up at the empty sky. It turned and seemed to hang in the air for an instant before it dove into the ground.

  Everything didn't just fade to black like it did in the movies. Instead, I was flying one moment and the next I was gazing at an upside-down world, trying to will the limp, bloody arm hanging beside me to move. It all happened in one seamless transition as if some of the footage in my memory had been cut out and carelessly spliced together. The lifeless arm didn't seem like it could be mine, but there was no one else in the car. It never even occurred to me that I might be paralyzed.

  What did occur to me was that I wasn't badly obliterated enough to av
oid resurrection. Through sheer force of will, my fingertips twitched and I reached for the gun in the glove box. It was no use. I was still hanging from my seat belt as the thick edges dug into me like twine. If I hadn't been wearing the belt, I would surely have been obliterated by the road instead of in this mess, but no. I had to be Captain Safety even on my way to die.

  Footsteps approached the wreckage. I could hear the sound of glass crunching not far from me. A pair of men's shoes became visible through the spider web pattern on the passenger's side window. I didn't dare call for help. Cops didn't set up spiky roadside blockades. I knew exactly who had done this to me--my family--and the scarecrow in the field would be the only witness to what they did next.

  "You think he's alive?" It was Uncle Ezra, Emily's father and the one who had been watching me only hours earlier.

  Another set of footsteps crunched through the glass. When I saw the pristine wingtip oxfords, my heart broke.

  "Of course he is," said Prentice, his tone calm and detached. A shoe broke out the splintered glass lining the broken window, sending shards flying into my face and eyes. There were some more crunching sounds and the car lifted with a huge metallic groan. The movement forced me against the door and I gurgled on my own blood in a failed attempt to scream as something was torn from my chest.

  Only then did I realize that one of the spikes had somehow broken off and lodged itself in my lungs. Taking even the shallowest breath was agonizing and required moments of gasping for barely enough air to keep me conscious and prolong the torment. The car shifted again as Prentice returned it to its upright position.

  The roof was still folded around me. All I could do was sit there choking on blood, at once hoping death came quickly and dreading the agony waiting beyond it.

  Prentice grabbed the door handle but it stuck. Instead, he ripped the door off its hinges and tossed it off the road without effort. He wasn't like the others. He had never been one to show off his supernatural strength and prowess, so the visual reminder that he was capable of such superhuman feats made me see him as a monster for the first time.

  It also made the gentleness with which he unfastened my seat belt the very next moment seem almost obscene. He looked at the hole in my chest, then at my face, and must have noticed my look of disgust because he frowned ever so slightly. When he lifted me into his arms, I tried to scream but ended up choking as blood backed up from my lung all the way into my throat.

  "He's hurt bad," said Ezra. There was a hint of concern in his voice, but I knew it wasn't for me. He was worried I would die the wrong way and bring shame to our clan, putting its preeminence in the Family in jeopardy. "He won't make it to county at this rate."

  "I'll handle it," said Prentice, carrying me towards his black SUV.

  "We should get him back to the homestead. Maybe if we bury him first --"

  "I said it will be taken care of, Ezra," Prentice said in a chilling, authoritative tone I had only rarely heard him use. "Concern yourself with cleaning this mess up before the humans see it."

  There was no response, which meant that Ezra was acknowledging Prentice's authority for reasons beyond my understanding. Ezra was a well-known hothead and liked to argue at every chance he got.

  "Please," I croaked as Prentice carried me to the SUV. Instead of putting me inside the vehicle, he laid me on top of the hood. "Just let me die."

  He laughed. It wasn't a furious laugh or a choked laugh, it was just...a laugh. "You think I'm letting you get away with this little tantrum? You'll die when I say you can."

  He disappeared inside the vehicle for a moment, coming back with a first-aid kit. If he thought a bandage was going to fix a hole in my chest, he was further out of his mind than I thought.

  Prentice took out what appeared to be a syringe and began unfastening the tie around his neck. He worked quickly, but everything happened in slow motion for me. He bit the cap off the syringe and held it as he ripped my shirt open. He positioned my dead arm above my head and when he angled the thick needle towards my ribs, I was filled with fresh horror. I knew exactly what he intended to do and tried in vain to shake my head.

  "N-n-no." My feeble attempts at protest were stopped short as he held my wrist with one hand and plunged the needle into my lung with the other. I gasped as he drew the blood out with the syringe, but each paltry breath brought far more pain than it was worth. Once the syringe was full, he expelled the blood and started all over again. By the third time, I had lost the ability to scream.

  Or so I thought, until Prentice began stuffing the rags of my shirt into the hole in my chest, using it to apply pressure. He made his tie into a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and tied it tightly around my chest, seemingly determined to keep my heart beating if only so he could break it into even smaller fragments.

  My breaths were coming in short, ragged gasps and the hope of dying was fading with each second that passed. His eyes met mine and, for the first time far too long, my Prentice was staring back at me. "Did you really think I'd just let you go, Arthur? You of all people should know better than that. Nothing that's mine escapes me. Not even you."

  Even if I could have responded, there were no words. At least none that I dared to say out loud.

  My eyes grew heavy from blood loss, or maybe from the lack of oxygen to my brain. It was a crapshoot, really. I heard Ezra asking questions and Prentice returned to his new old self as he answered them and loaded me into the back of the SUV. Something about a hunter who worked as a doctor in a nearby town.

  None of it mattered. The only thing in the world that mattered, more than living or dying or anything else, was what Prentice had said. It was only in that moment that I realized the full extent of how fucked up I was. He had just run my car off the road and I wasn't angry or scared or hurt. All I could feel was elation because of his admission that he had done it because I was his. Not because I belonged to the Patriarch or the Family, but because I belonged to him.

  Maybe there was hope after all. Maybe there was something of him left in there, which meant that just maybe some part of me would survive, too.

  Chapter 2

  ARTHUR

  Sunlight streamed in through my window from the wrong direction. I opened my eyes with some difficulty only to realize that I wasn't in my dorm room anymore. Everything was white and light and sterile, but I didn't feel dead. I didn't feel undead, either, which was even better.

  The memory of the not-so-accidental car accident was returning in bursts. I raised my hand to touch my bandaged chest. There was no needle sticking out, but I was wearing a hospital gown and a neck brace. I noticed the IV taped to the back of my hand and followed the long tube to a bag hanging over my bed. That explained why I wasn't in pain. It also explained why everything was so fuzzy, especially the light.

  "Oh, you're awake," said a petite blond woman in scrubs. She looked enough like Emily that I was alarmed for a moment. Her voice was sweet, too, but not overly so. "Lucky you, we were about to move you into long-term care if you didn't wake up soon."

  "What's long-term care?" I asked hoarsely, relieved that I could speak at all. I could wiggle my fingers, too, which suggested that I wasn't paralyzed--at least not fully.

  "Let's just say you would have woken up with a few more tubes," she said in a tone that made me think I didn't want to know the details.

  "Am I...alive?" I asked hopefully.

  She gave me a quizzical look. "Of course you are. Or is that the beginnings of a cheesy pickup line?"

  Hardly. "I still have a pulse, right?"

  She frowned, realizing I was serious. "What do you think that beeping sound is? I'm not gonna lie, it didn't look good for a while there. The doctor and your cousin were talking about alternative methods of treatment, whatever that means, but you pulled through the worst of it a couple of days ago. He brought you in on Friday, you turned around on Sunday and today is Tuesday."

  So my miraculous recovery had taken place on Sunday, the most auspicious day of the
week for hunter pastimes like picnics and necromancy. Dread welled up inside of me, but I reminded myself that even if I had gone through transition, I was still myself. Maybe that was what all hunters thought, but I for all intents and purposes, I still felt like a weak, pathetic human.

  And what a sweet feeling it was.

  "Where is my cousin now?"

  "I think he went to the cafeteria. Probably calling to update your mother again," she said wistfully as she leaned over to rearrange my pillows. "That's the only time he ever leaves your side. He's such a sweet guy, doting on his family like that. It's a shame he's taken."

  "Yeah," I murmured. "It's a shame."

  "You know, if it wasn't for his quick thinking you'd be a goner," she said. "The procedure he did isn't for the faint of heart. Even with all my training, I'd have a hard time if it was someone I loved in that situation."

  "Yeah, I'm lucky," I said, gazing through the window slats. "When do I have to go home?"

  She chuckled, holding up a fresh IV bag to replace the desaturated one. "Most patients are chomping at the bit to get out of here. You'll have to ask the doctor for specifics, but you sustained some pretty heavy injuries there, kiddo. Aside from the concussion, the sprained neck, the broken bones and the punctured lung, you lost a lot of blood. If your cousin hadn't been here to give you a transfusion--"

  "Transfusion?" I echoed. I must have misheard her.

  "Well, yeah. You wouldn't have survived without it and we didn't have any donor blood in your type. A family came in right after you and cleaned us out, but we only had enough for one of them. I'm afraid you picked a bad time to get in an accident."

  "That's not possible," I said, struggling to make sense of it. "Are you sure it was his blood?"

  "AB positive," she said, laughing at her own joke.