Chapter Thirteen
Boone groaned as a wave of heat flashed through his body. It felt as if someone were pouring hot lava on his skin. The burn was instant, the pain pure agony. Boone forced his eyes open and gasped when he saw the man standing in front of him.
“How?” he whispered. It just wasn’t possible. The boogeyman. Boone’s worst nightmare come back to life and standing right in front of him.
Wait.
There was no scar on his left cheek.
“You’re not him.”
Boone had never been so thankful for something in his life.
The man’s smirk was as evil as Boone remembered. “Had you worried there for a minute, didn’t I?”
“Who are you?”
Boone screamed as that intense pain ripped through him once again. It wasn’t until he was sagging from the chains attached to the wall, panting heavily, that he realized the pain came from a red-hot poker being pulled along his skin.
He wasn’t sure a shift would heal those wounds.
“I’ve been waiting to meet you, Boone, you and your brothers. Hugh. Simon. Otto. Sawney. Reece. Tre. Trevor.” With each name he called out, the man jabbed the poker into some part of Boone’s body. He seemed to enjoy hearing Boone scream. “And all the brothers you have yet to discover. There are so many of them. Your father was quite prolific.”
“He was a bastard,” Boone spit out through gritted teeth. This guy was kind of a bastard, too.
“True.” The man walked over to the fireplace on the other side of the room and set the poker back into the hot coals.
“Who are you?”
He was the spitting image of Boone’s father, minus the scar on his left cheek. Even without the scar, it was eerie enough looking at the man. Boone had kind of gotten used to the idea that his father wasn’t around anymore. He wanted it to stay that way.
“My name is Klaus, Klaus Marshall.” The man smirked again. “Your uncle.”
“Impossible. Aldo Marshall was an only child.”
“Actually, Aldo was one of three sons. The middle child. He never did like being the middle child. Our older brother, Bern, was the golden child, the next alpha. I was the baby, doted on by Mother and Father alike.”
Yeah, Boone could see how that helped the guy turn into a productive member of society.
Not.
“Aldo, he didn’t get much attention, so he started acting out, getting involved with the wrong kind of crowd.”
Considering the man was pulling a hot poker out of the fire to use on him, Boone couldn’t help but wonder what he considered the right kind of crowd.
“Eventually, our father could no longer hide the things my brother did—even if he secretly approved of them—so Aldo was banished from the pride.”
“If he was banished, why are you here?” Boone stiffened and tried not to cry out when Klaus stuck him with the hot poker again. “Why are you torturing me?”
“Oh, I’m not torturing you, nephew. I’m persuading you.”
“You could try asking.” Boone had no idea what the man wanted.
Klaus grinned again. “Now, what would be the fun in that?”
“Just tell me what you want to know,” Boone shouted, tired of playing Klaus’s sick idea of a game.
“Oh, I’m looking for my brother, of course. Father regrettably passed a few weeks ago. Bern sent me to find him and bring him home.”
