Chapter 11
Wren felt as if he were caught in a vicious nightmare as he looked around a room that he hadn't seen in over twenty years. Hell, he hadn't even really remembered what it looked like. He'd only seen the room a time or two in his youth, and even then only briefly.
He flinched as he remembered the sight of his father lying dead on the floor between the bed and door.
Shaking the image off, Wren glanced around. The room was the height of high-tech, 1980s fashion, done in dark blues and greens, with a king-sized water bed. Abstract art hung on the walls along with the skin of a tiger his father must have killed. It was a common Katagaria trait to mount their first kill as a reminder of their prowess and a warning to any other animal who might want to tangle with them.
By the size of the skin and the wound marks on it, Wren could tell his father must have had one hell of a fight on his hands at the time. But the important thing was that his father had survived while the other beast had perished.
His heart hammering, Wren walked slowly to the open windows to see the bustling traffic that ran behind his father's carefully guarded estate.
"Is this the house that was burned down?" Maggie asked.
Wren nodded slowly, wondering again who had set the fire and when. "We have to get out of here before someone sees us. My father tended to eat trespassers, and I don't want to prove my uncle right by being the one who kills my father when he attacks us by mistake."
She shook her head at him. "We have to find evidence."
"There won't be anything in here," he said simply. "My mother wasn't that stupid."
Suddenly, there were voices outside in the hallway that seemed to be coming nearer to their room. It was definitely a man and a woman...
And they were fighting.
Wren grabbed Maggie and pulled her into an extremely large closet that appeared to only have his father's clothes in it. He briefly considered flashing them out of the house with his powers, but since he didn't really remember the layout of the place or the schedule of the staff or his parents, he could end up reappearing right in front of himself as a cub or his father.
Both of those could be disastrous.
For the time being, the best thing would be to stay here and wait until he got a better grasp on the situation.
He heard the bedroom door open and then slam shut.
He went cold as he recognized his mother's angry tone. There was a harsh brittleness to her voice that was unmistakable even after all these years of not being subjected to it.
"Why have you called me back from Asia, Aristotle? I need to run wild for a while."
His father gave a dark laugh. "You've been running wild for too long now, Karina. It was long past time for you to come home."
"Why?" She slammed something down.
"I've learned some interesting things about Wren. As his mother-"
Something shattered. "Don't you dare start that. I gave you your heir that you stupidly accepted. You have no further need of me."
He heard his father's voice deepen. "You need to see what Wren can do."
"So it can change into a human now," she said in a bored, sarcastic tone. "Well, la-di-da. It's long past time for it to start changing. I told you it was retarded."
Marguerite drew her breath in sharply at those harsh words. She saw the pain on Wren's face that he tried to hide and felt rage consume her. Honestly, she wanted to kick open the door and beat his mother for her cruelty.
How could anyone say such a thing about a child she'd birthed?
"Don't you dare walk out of here, Karina," his father growled.
Marguerite heard cold laughter from Wren's mother. "I'm not one of your people you command, Ari. Nor am I your bitch. I don't have to listen to you."
"Fine. But just so you know, I changed my will while you were gone."
Dead silence came from the bedroom for several heartbeats.
"You did what?" Karina finally screeched in a tone that should have shattered glass. As it was, Marguerite was rather certain her eardrums would never be the same again.
"You heard me." Wren's father's voice was cold and emotionless. "I'm sick of you catting around and flaunting it in my face while I pay your bills. I know about your leopard lover and I know he came back here with you. Fine. I set up a separate residence for you in New Jersey."
"New Jersey?" she snarled. "Are you insane?"
"No, I'm pissed. If you think I like the fact that the Fates damned me to mating with you, you're wrong. You are my mate by their decree and yet you won't let me touch you. I am damned to celibacy while you whore around with any leopard male who comes near you. Yet you expect me to keep you up. Dream on, my love. Your days of freeloading are over."
"You owe me," Karina said from between clenched teeth. "I didn't ask to be your mate any more than I asked to give birth to a mutant abomination. If you were really a tiger, you would have killed that thing when it was born instead of stopping me from doing what was necessary to preserve our species."
"Wren is my son."
"You human," Karina sneered in a way that said "human" was the worst insult she could imagine.
"Yes," his father said angrily, "and like a human, I've made Wren my sole heir. If something happens to me, your entire future rests in his hands. So if I were you, I'd be praying that he's more human than animal. Maybe he'll take some mercy on you. But I wouldn't count on it."
"You bastard!"
"Yeah, and before you tear the house apart looking for the will to destroy it, it's already on file with the Laurens firm in New Orleans."
"I hate you!"
His father's response was immediate and filled with the same scathing hatred. "The feeling is entirely mutual. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go spend some time with my son. When I come back to this room, I expect you to be gone. Permanently. Taylor will drive you over to your new home, where you'll find your new checkbooks and credit cards waiting there for you. You're off all my accounts entirely and eternally."
A door closed an instant before something shattered. Marguerite could hear Karina screaming and breaking things in the room. It sounded like she was about to tear down the walls. Then Marguerite heard the sound of a feral cat roaring and hissing.
Finally, it stopped.
The sudden silence was unnerving.
Marguerite froze, half-afraid the woman would come into the closet to shred Aristotle's clothes or something.
She didn't.
Instead, Karina made a phone call. "Grayson?" she said in an almost reserved tone. "It's Karina. I believe you now. Aristotle has completely lost his mind. I'm back in town. Is there someplace where we can meet and discuss what needs to be done?"