Chapter 47

Piper

Zander pulled me closer to his side as fear started a lake of nausea in my stomach. I watched helplessly as William used all of his strength—which I knew he had a lot of—to pull open the door, with no luck.

"What is going on?!" my father asked again, his voice growing louder.

I could hear the fear in it even though he tried to mask it as anger.

"Is it Douche Boy," Amanda asked from behind us, over the rim of her coffee. "He did leave a while ago didn't he?"

I knew Henry didn't have the strength to hold the door closed against William. Even if he used something to barricade us in. Wolves were stronger than that.

Zander glanced down at me. We both knew who was behind it. Priscilla had locked us inside. I didn't know why, but it couldn't be for any reason that was good.

"I'm not sure," Zander said, his voice calm.

Dad's eyes widened. "Is this some sort of sick game you're playing? Has Piper been locked inside all this time, too?"

"Dad, no—,"

He lifted his hat and ran his palm over his slick head. "This is insane. Call the cops again, Dear. Maybe they'll be able to get us out."

Mom pulled out her phone, and with shaky hands, dialed 911. She held it to her ear, tears of frustration lined her eyes. "I have no signal," she whispered. "Do you have a landline?"

Zander twisted his hand into the fabric of my t-shirt before walking my mother toward the landline.

Dad took the opportunity to come over and put his hands on my shoulders. "Tell me now if you've been locked in. He's busy. You can always tell me, Baby Girl."

"I haven't been," I whispered. "This hasn't happened since I've been here. I don't know what's going on, I promise." Which was a half-lie. I couldn"t tell him the truth unless I wanted to be tossed into a padded room.

Dad turned away to hide his face, but it was too late, disappointment lingered there. Disappointment that I hadn't reached out, or that we were really stuck in here without knowing the cause.

Several minutes later, Mom and Zander walked back into the room. "The phone line has been cut."

William gave the door a break, wiping sweat from his forehead, he glared at Zander. They had a private conversation, and I knew it was rooted from the lady William had invited over. He wanted to reach out to her, but Zander gave him a quick shake of his head.

"Piper, come with me. We'll go check the windows in all of the rooms," Zander said. "William please make our guest at home. Have Vivian make some tea, please."

"I don't want any tea," my father shouted. "I want out of this damn castle!"

I took Zander's hand, following behind him as he ducked inside one of the first doors we came across. My father's voice faded as he shut the door behind us.

His hazel eyes danced a honey yellow, and his lush mouth pulled down into a knowing frown. "We both know the windows aren't going to open," he said, sitting down on the guest bed, and offering me his hand.

I took it, and climbed into his lap, "What are we going to do?"

"I have no idea, Little One. We need to keep your parents calm. Your father is growing more and more irate. I don't know Priscilla's plan, but we need to prepare for anything."

I rested my head against his shoulder and traced the tattoo etched on his skin. "How do we do that?"

"Keep our guard up. I have no idea what she is capable of."

Swallowing the hard lump in my throat, I captured Zander's jaw in my palms and kissed him lightly. "I admire that you won't fight evil with evil. It only adds to your appeal. You know that, right?"

He smiled. "There is enough evil in this house, and none of it was invited by me. Come on. Let's go check on them—,"

A scream rattled my eardrums.

Zander stood up quickly and raced out of the door, storming into the front entrance where we'd left them all. Zander halted in the doorjamb, his shoulders tensed, body frozen.

I peered around him.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Maybe this was a bad dream. Maybe Priscilla had spiked my morning coffee.

But my mother's bloody scream seemed too real.

William was in full wolf form, his back arched, teethed barred at what appeared to be something out of a nightmare.

At first thought, I assumed it was Priscilla, the beast from Zander's stories, but it looked more like a hound.

A hell-hound from some twisted fantasy land.

Something my grandmother had told me stories about in my childhood to keep me from straying too far into the woods.

My father was so still that I hadn't realized he was in the room. His eyes were large, and his arm barricaded my mother and Amanda against the wall. William snapped at the thing, but it didn't seem to mind. He seemed unbothered by the threat.

"Zander," I whispered.

He slowly looked down at me, fear sketched on his face, his eyes swirling into the color of the beasts.

"What is that?" I whispered.

"I'm not sure. We need to get your parents to safety. I want you to stay here. Don't move, okay?"

How could I? My feet were cemented to the ground, the palms of my hands stuck to the wall I'd backed up against like super glue.

Zander walked calmly around the room as the hellhound and William danced around one another. I watched in complete fear as he gripped my father's arm, and made eye contact with him.

If I could have only read my father's mind at the moment. Surprisingly, he walked all of them toward the staircase without any fuss, leaving me in the room with the hound from hell and William.

The sound of their teeth snapping at one another, the growls and the clacks of their nails on the tile shivered under my skin. A new fear had definitely been unlocked.

I never feared giant wolves, or hell-hounds in my previous life.

I feared tornados, earthquakes, and men breaking into my apartment. This was a different universe. A different realm of a world we all lived in, and we'd been blinded to.

Zander's heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs, calming the heavy racing of my heart.

My gaze met his from across the room.

Slowly, Zander"s arm outstretched and he screamed, "No." The chill came upon me so quickly. I hadn't felt it slither into the room like before.

It overtook me as if someone dumped a bucket of water over my head.

I didn't have to look to know what—or who—stood behind me. My feet slipped out from underneath me, my chin hit the cool marble, and my body began to slide down the hallway, over the long runner, and toward the opposite in.

A scream slipped from my throat, and fear sliced at me as if I was a cutting board receiving all the blows. Zander barreled across the room, his body shaking as he ran as fast as his human legs would let him.

The fear.

The ache.

The love.

On his face broke my heart into tiny pieces.

The whirling sound behind me grew louder, and before I knew it, I was lunged into blackness, that I assumed mimicked the hate in Priscilla's heart.

As I fell, my hair twirled around me and the wind drowned out any other sound. My limbs lifted above my head, and I felt like Alice being plucked down the rabbit's hole, only my dress didn't guide me down to safety, I landed on the hard ground with weeds and grass around me.

My breath left me, and I searched the ground for something to grip, to bring it back into my lungs.

Finally, a slither of air slipped into me, and I gasped to life.

Sitting up, I glanced around at a familiar backyard, full of roses and a garden full of life. Priscilla stood underneath the trellis of flowers, her hair braided against her shoulders and a soft smile on her face.

For a brief moment, I thought I was dreaming. "Sa a se rev."

Of course, she knew what I was thinking. I was glad to know it wasn"t a dream. Kind of. A dream would have been easier to get away from.

I scurried backward, my back hitting the edge of the hedges, as I scurried upward. "What do you want? Where am I?"

Priscilla chuckled, reaching upward to pluck a rose from the trellis above her. "Do you know why I choose a rose, Little One," she mocked.

"Enlighten me," I said. "Because it was his mother's favorite flower?"

Priscilla stopped in front of me, her vibrant eyes smiling and she placed the rose behind my ear. "You're right. His mother spent hours out here with him as a child. I saw from a distance. Watching through the woods, longing for a relationship like he had. And when I had Xavier, I could finally give him what I longed for." Her eyes flashed yellow, and a goulish look flickered across her face. "And he took it all from me."

As quickly as she blinked, she squatted and bent down in front of me. "Do you think for one second that I would allow him to have you? To put a baby inside of you? To have what he took from me?"

"We're not scared of you," I whispered.

Priscilla smiled, placing her hand on the side of my face, I felt her laughter spill around me, vibrating my skin, and rocking my vision back and forth.

I struggled to get away, jerking and pulling but I was tossed into a whirlwind of Zander's past. His mother's beautiful, thoughtful eyes, cradled him to her chest.

His father's hatred and clenched jaw. The strike of his hand, and the thrashes against Zander's back.

Zander's first transition into a wolf, the power he held inside of him, and his father's harsh grip on his life.

The trip to take his mother to her grave.

And then I was thrust into a burning cabin. I caught myself on all fours, my knees and palms screaming from my fall.

Priscilla watched me from a distance as I searched for a way out, crawling underneath the billowing smoke, and hearing Xavier's cry from somewhere in the fire.

Tears pooled in my eyes as I searched for a way out.

Zander's face formed in my mind. Everything he'd been through in his life and he'd turned his life around.

He'd become a good man despite the life he'd been dealt.

Priscilla's gaze moved over my shoulder, and her face pulled in the corners, full of concern. As soon as we'd been tossed into the midst of the fire, she pulled us out.

I fell to the marble, my back screaming in pain, my body crying out for help. Through tear-filled eyes I looked up at the scene in front of me. William's wolf laid in the middle of the floor, the hell-hound circling my father as Zander approached him from the side.

His gaze hit mine from across the room.

I watched in shock as my father cowered away from the hell-hound who looked ready to jump.

Zander eased forward, his eyes on me. "I love you," he whispered.

The realization of why he said it hit me too late. He leaped in front of the hellhound as he jumped for my father.

My father hit the ground in a ball, while Zander rolled around the floor with the rabid dog. Unable to shift into a wolflike William, Zander fought him with his bare hands.

Why was my father in this room?

Why had he come down?

Stepping forward, I walked toward the two of them, listening to the sound of flesh scraping flesh, and teeth gnawing at Zander, and I grabbed a candle stick from a table in an attempt to save him.

My father crawled to his feet, his eyes wide as he shook his head. "No, Piper!" he shouted.

Zander's body fell to the marble as he roared in pain. Blood soaked his ripped button-down, his face feral, his body heaving from pain.

The hell-hound circled him.

Torment overtook my body.

Fear. Pain. It blinded me, and my ability to make a rational decision. Swinging back, I hit the hell-hound with the candle-stick, causing his attention to turn to me.

Then a blur swooped in from the staircase and ripped the hellhounds head from his body. Another wolf—whom I assumed was Vivian—tossed his lifeless body toward the hallway.

She barred her teeth, bowed her head toward Zander who laid heaving on the floor and scurried off into a room to shift.

Dropping to my knees beside him, I brought his head into my lap, my hands hovering over his body, not knowing where to touch.

"Zander," I whispered.

"I told her to stay upstairs," he whispered. "I told everyone to stay upstairs."

I pressed my mouth against his, tears mixing in our kiss. "Where did she take you? Are you okay?" he whispered.

"No. I'm hurting for you. You don't look good. We need a doctor."

He laughed. "There is no time to call a doctor. Is William breathing?" he asked, trying to crane his neck.

William still laid in the corner of the room, his body moving up and down in even breaths. "Yes," I whispered.

"Is your father okay?"

A sob broke from my mouth as I nodded up and down, stroking my hands into his blood-soaked auburn hair. "Are you going to be okay? This is deep. I need to get up and get something to apply pressure with—,"

"No," he shook his head. "Stay here with me."

The look on his face was unreadable, but I could sense that he didn't think he would make it. I didn't think he would make it. The wounds were so deep ...

"You saved me. You saved my father," I whispered.

Zander closed his eyes. Something stirred inside of him. The beast. His last ounce of air. I couldn't tell. "I need to get help," I cried, tears coating my face. "She did this. She barricaded us here, and she sent that dog here—,"

"Shhh, Little One. I still remember the first time I saw you," he laughed. "Even through the beast"s eyes, I saw how beautiful you were in the moonlight. Those hazel eyes, and dark hair. I loved everything about you instantly. Even if you couldn't say the same for me."

"You frightened me," I whispered. "You still do. You are scaring me so badly right now. Because I'm afraid I'll never be able to show you how much I love you, Zander. You sacrificed yourself for us. You're selfless. No matter what you did back then. No matter the mistakes you made. You are not the old Zander Blackwood anymore. You're my Zander Blackwood. You're my ... forever. And I'll never stop loving you."

Zander smiled, a tear traveled down his cheek to my palm that cradled his neck. His body went still. My entire life flashed before my eyes. I felt as if I would die right there with Zander.

"I love you, Mr. Blackwood," I whispered. "Don't go." I began to shake his shoulders, and keep myself from lashing out like the lunatic I felt inside.

"Is this what you wanted!" I screamed. "Is this what you wanted, you bastard!"

My father's hands gripped my shoulders, and he started to drag me away from Zander, but I held onto him, holding onto the last hope of happiness I had in my miserable life.