“Aurora? Are you okay?” Maxhelped me straighten myself. He looked nervous. Did he sense it? That I had avision about him?
“I’m okay, Max, thanks forcatching me.”
Trent let out a long breath of air.“Okay good, because it’s our turn.”
The music changed just as Kaireached me. He gave me a quick kiss and a stern look, then walked away. Maxlooked at me accusingly. I looked into Max’s face now, seeing him weep over hislate wife made my throat tighten. I looked ahead.
“What did you see?” he whispered.
Just then we were ushered out bythe crowd. A loud upbeat Bollywood song played over the loud speaker. Peopleshouted and clapped as we spun and danced around Trent. I tried to smile andfollow what Tara and her friend were doing. I couldn’t stop thinking about Max.Once we had escorted Trent to the stage where Diya was waiting, I sat down.
The next three hours passed in amix of fascination of the beautiful wedding and arguing with Kai in my head. Ifelt I needed to at least tell Max what I had seen and let him decide. Kai knewMax better and said I needed to let it be. In the end, I promised not to tellMax. For now. The most horrible part was that once dinner started, Max sat nextto Tara and they seemed to be having a nice conversation. They were smiling andlaughing and it was killing me. The night ended well past 3am. We were beyondexhausted. I passed out the second my head reached the pillow. My thoughts amix of werewolf labor, losing your mate, and what I would wear to my ownwedding.
Secret
We woke up to the blaring of aphone call. Why are hotel phones so loud?
“Yes?” Kai answered. “You canhave thirty minutes, Papa.” Then he hung up.
Why did I feel like something wasabout to go down? We dressed quickly and waited for the car to pick us up. Kai’sfather stayed in a small compound in the nicer part of Delhi. We drove througha guarded gate and into an open gravel parking. His father and mother stoodoutside.
We exited the car. I wasn’t sureif there would be hugs or small talk. We didn’t have a chance to talk muchsince we arrived because of Diya’s wedding.
“Hello, thank you for coming. Iwant you to see something. Follow me.”
And his father turned and walkedinside. So much for small talk. Kai’s mother approached me and gave me a hugand a smile, then walked in after us. As we followed his father, his motherturned into a different room. She wasn’t coming? We followed a winding hallway.I could hear muffled hissing. Oh no. This was not going to be good. We reacheda dark door. His father put his hand on the handle and turned to us.
“It’s them or us. Choose a side.”Then he opened it.
What I saw stole my breath. Asickly, skinny-looking vampire was shackled to a medical bed. Thick iron sheetcuffs bound his legs and hands, another at his neck. His bed was tilted up sowe could look right at his face. A large rag was stuffed in his mouth. Helooked dehydrated, he was laboring for air. This was wrong. Vampires wanted ourkind dead, yes, but this was so, so wrong.
“You’re torturing him?” I spatout.
Raj looked up at me. “It. I amgaining information fromIt.”
Kai looked only mildlyuncomfortable. “How can you make it talk?”
Raj smiled. “One of my brightestwolves has designed a serum. If consumed in large quantities, it acts on theneuroreceptors. It’s somewhat of a truth serum.”
“So you starve him and he drinksit and gives you information?”
His father nodded.
“How long has he been here?” Myeyes glanced to the desk in the corner which held a silver stake.
“Since the water incident,” hisfather said proudly.
A MONTH!
“We’re better than this. Ourkind. We’re better.” I walked out. I couldn’t take it. For just a second I hadseen something human in the vampire’s eyes. Some emotion. I shook it off. Ifelt Kai follow me out.
‘This is why my father is acouncil member, an Alpha of hundreds of wolves. He’s ruthless. But if there isone thing I know about my father, it’s that he acts with honor. This vampiremust be telling him things that are important to our kind. The second it stopstalking or they don’t need it, my father will cleanly kill it.’
‘After a month of torturing him!’
“Aurora, may we talk in privatefor a moment?” Raj had followed us into an open drawing room.
Kai stared his father in theeyes. “No.”
