- LUCIEN -

It doesn't make sense.

I scowl at the sight before me, scrunching my nose at the smell of blood strong enough to cover the stench of excrement in that cell. There's a head on the sink, another on the floor by the bunk bed, and a third not so far from my feet. By the wall on the far right is where I find three arms that look like they've been tossed carelessly into that corner. The rest of the body, I sigh and swallow before my meal can come back up, is scattered everywhere on the floor around me. Whoever did this had made sure the pieces can't be put back together.

Three vampire prisoners have been murdered and then mutilated inside Central Prison. Two more have disappeared without a trace with the doors to their cells still locked and showing no signs of tampering. This part of the tower is heavily warded, meaning teleporting in and out isn't possible. So how did the murderers get out?

Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be my problem, except that all five vampires happened to be the prisoners who'd been transferred here from the Westwood Prison. They were our prisoners taken from the latest raid. After that meeting when Lord Remus had stormed out, the Chancellor had ordered for them to be transferred to Central Prison to give the rest of the woods access for interrogation. By the time I managed to get here to ask questions, they're all either dead or gone. Somebody is clearly trying to cover their tracks, but who?

I lower myself to the ground to check out the marks on the floor. Long, thin lines have been etched deep into the dark stones of the cell as if someone has dragged their seriously long nails across the block.

Not nails. Claws.

I should have guessed. This is Central Prison, the only one with the power to let anyone come in and out of this cell freely is the Chancellor, who happens to be a werewolf. This is the Northwood's doing. The evidence is all there along with the motives to back it, and yet it's too clear, too well connected that I can't bring myself to draw that conclusion.

I can see why Kain might want to cover his tracks if the shipment had come from his side of the wood. It even goes with the fact that he's issued a command for a transfer. It doesn't, however, explain why he would leave claw marks as evidence without at least trying to cover it up before I've been allowed in here. This is going to hurt him for the upcoming election if words get out. It's too careless, too stupid to make sense and I can't help but shake my head at what I'm seeing.

"It makes no sense, I know."

Behind me, Zach Veyron is standing outside the cell with his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

I rise to my feet and give him a customary bow, seeing that there are other people in the hallway. He may not get along with my master, but the man still outranks me, at least right now. "My Lord."

He nods in acknowledgment and, to my surprise, gives a gesture that dismissed everyone else from the area.

"You've seen the claw marks, I presume?" Veyron asks, still leaning casually on the wall, not paying much attention to his surroundings. I don't buy it for a second. I've known Zach since before he became a Keeper of the Gates before he even made beta. The man wasn't born into this like the other Keepers. He'd clawed and killed his way up from the bottom. For that much, he deserves my respect. For that much, I refuse to acknowledge any mask he wears.

"I have," I reply, keeping my expression as empty as I can make it. Zach is too good at reading people, and I can't let my guard down with him around.

He smiles lazily. "And I suppose you believe we did it?"

I smile back at him, slipping my hands in my pocket. "Didn't you?"

He pushes himself off from the wall and walks towards me, stopping a few steps away. "How is your sense of smell these days, Lucien?"

"I can smell just fine," I tell him, resisting the urge to take another sniff out of his suggestion.

"Try again then," he says, placing a hand on my shoulder, and I resist the urge to shake it off, for the reason that I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being able to affect me. "Not with your vampire's nose this time, with the other one."

The werewolf one, he meant to say. I know what he's doing. Zach has been trying to recruit me from the moment he saw me at High Court when he was nothing but a bodyguard for Kain, and then tried harder when he became acting Keeper of the Northgate. The fact that I'm half vampire doesn't matter to him. Zach sees only the werewolf part of me, to the point that I feel it's not just my alliance that he wants, but I haven't been able to figure out what. Needless to say, it irritates Lord Remus to no ends on top of Zach's attempts to do everything to piss him off. I have a feeling I'm a big part of it. That it's because of my refusal to acknowledge the wolf part of me that gives him an aversion to Lord Remus. I don't consider myself a Werewolf. I never do and I never will, not when that part of the blood that runs in my veins belong to the scum who'd left me - who'd left us.

Still, I'm not an unreasonable person. My sense of smell is one of the strongest traits I've received from that part of my blood and I might as well use it to my advantage. So I do what he says. I take another sniff, and this time I smell something else. A unique, sweet, subtle scent. A flower. What kind, I can't pinpoint even though I do recognize it from somewhere.

"That flower doesn't grow in the Northwood," Zach says lazily. "Nor does it grow around here near the Sky Tower."

I know the scent. I'm certain of it, I just can't remember from what or from where. "Well, what is it?"

"I'd tell you," he drawls, "but it would mean betraying my alpha."

Of course. It's just so like Zach Veyron to drop you a riddle and never give you the answer. The man likes to lurk in the shadows, watching things unfold from afar as if the world is a show he enjoys watching from the side. The problem is that he only appears to be watching from the side. When Zach Veyron strikes - and he always does - you never know from which direction it will come from. To be honest, he and Aelia Valaris deserve each other. No, I check myself at that thought, they're deadly together if they ever form a real alliance.

I brush that aside from my mind for now and concentrate on what's in front of me. "Why tell me at all?"

"Consider it a courtesy from one beta to another," he whispers over my shoulder, where his hand still rests heavily, "You're one of us, and I want you to realize it before it's too late."

"Too late for what?" There's a bad feeling in my stomach - a hunch that's been there for centuries that there's something I don't know and I should. Something that makes Veyron so persistent in his efforts to recruit me, and that he's about to act on it.

"To save that Golden Boy of yours." The grip on my shoulder tightens as if he wants the words to sink in. "Chris? Am I right?"

A cold shoots down my spine at the mention of his name. I wheel at him before I realize what I'm doing, my hands snatch a fistful of his collar and I throw him against the bars. The impact sends an echo that travels far down the hallway.

"What did you do?" The sound that comes out of my throat startles me. I sound like an animal - a feral one growling at a threat. I don't do that. I don't lose it, except when it comes to -

"What did you do?" I slam him against the bars again before I can finish that thought, my anger is roaring in my head, and I'm seeing white. From above, I feel something crumbling down, falling onto my face and shoulders, then I realize the ground underneath my feet is rumbling. The entire floor is shaking, pulling me out of my blinding rage for a moment.

Zach looks up at the power that surrounds us and then the ring on my finger that's glowing bright blue. I follow his gaze and realize that it's me, it's my power that's filling the hallway, threatening to bring down the ceiling and the walls around us. I draw a long breath and will myself to calm. The power settles and disappears, leaving me with the kind of exhaustion I've never felt in my life. What the hell was that? Where did all that power come from?

Before me, Zach has gone a little pale, but in his eyes I see something closer to delight than surprise. He looks like he's just been proven right about something.

"Not me," he breathes, "Kain. He wants you out of the game, and since he can't get his hands on you..." His voice trails off as if he's trying not to finish the sentence out of caution.

He's coming after someone I care about.

I want to punch a hole in the wall at that fact, to rip something to shreds because I know how well that strategy will work. I've spent all my free life trying to be careful, to make sure I don't go back to that dungeon again, to never make mistakes. I've made sure I tie all the loose ends, that there's no weakness for anyone to use against me or against Lord Remus. But I've forgotten something. I've forgotten Chris.

"Why?" I ask, grinding my teeth to keep from being consumed by that rage again. "Why me?"

Zack looks straight at me, his yellow eyes showing none of the amusement they held earlier. "Because you're the only one Remus Valentin has left," he says. "The only one that's holding him together. He won't win the election without you."

My fingers around Veyron's collar go limp at that. Zach is right, and I must be blind to not see it coming. Lord Remus can't win the election without me. I've been managing everything to the point that he's unaware of a lot of troubles that have been going on in the Westwood Estate. But even if I wasn't, he's still struggling to hold himself together from losing Marcus Acheron. I've forced him out of addiction. I've done what I could to put back the broken pieces bit by bit over the past ten years, but I know more than anyone alive how fragile he still is. For some time now, I have a feeling that it's going to take just one more thing, one more loss, for those pieces to come crumbling down, and this time I won't be able to put them back together. This time nobody can. I am the last thing that is holding him together, keeping him from breaking. Kain knows this, and now he also knows how to break me.

"He's going to stop at nothing unless you come to us, Lucien," Zach says in almost a whisper. "You're going to have to decide where your heart lies. Chris Hailey or Remus Valentin."

I might have laughed at that statement if only the wound in my chest doesn't still feel so raw. It all comes back down to the same decision - a decision I've already made or at least I thought I had. I tell myself it will be easier this time, that I've already done that once and I can do it again. I've already broken him, and I don't think there's anything left for me to break, his or mine.

"You can tell Kain," I let go of his collar and take a step away, "that he can shove that offer up his ass or I'm going to the next time he tries. I will never be one of you, and I won't turn on him."

I won't, and I've made my choice a long time ago. Remus Valentin is the only reason I'm standing here, having a life outside that dungeon, outside of that cage they'd locked me in for three centuries. He's the reason I met Chris at all, the reason I can live and feel alive again. I owe him more than my life, in ways no one will understand, not even him.

I don't have time for this, I think as I turn to walk away. There's a new priority on my list that has just been pushed forward, and I have somewhere else to be right now.

Behind me, Zach releases a heavy sigh, like he's just made up his mind to do something he's been trying not to. "Tell me one last thing, Lucien," he says before I make it out through the door, "has anyone ever told you who your father is?"

My step falters at the mention of him, even though I've always thought it can never affect me, that I don't have the capacity to care. "I don't need to know about a dog that ran away leaving its pregnant wife to die alone." I know how much my mother had loved him, how much it hurt. The bastard had left us, left me in the dungeon and for three centuries I've suffered for it. All I care about is that he's dead.

The smile he gives me sends a chilled finger trailing down my spine. This is it, I think, this is when he deals his most valuable card.

"Your father never ran away," he says, the words echo back and forth along the wall of the stone corridor like a sound from a nightmare. "He was killed. Brutally murdered, by those vampires you're trying to protect."

For a moment, my body freezes at those words and what they imply, and then I realize who he is, that I know everything that comes out of his mouth is a part of some scheme he's trying to put together. "You're lying."

"Am I?" His tone is light and laced with something venomous. "Can you really smell it? My lie? You know the scent. I know you do."

I do know the scent, and the problem is that I can't smell it. He's either telling the truth or he's too good at this. I convince myself it's the latter and I walk away, refusing to respond and give him more opportunity to lure me to his side. There're more important things for me to take care of than my past right now. Things I can still lose that I have to protect.

"Come to the Northwood Estate when you have time, Lucien." Zach's voice trails behind me as I walk out the door. "I'll tell you everything you need to know."

--------------

A/N: I finally get to the point where I've been really wanting to write. I also can't wait to write Zach but he doesn't come into full play until much later. Villains are my most favorite to write but then again, everyone is a villain and a hero in some ways in all my stories. I never like black and white contrast between the two, and so everyone ends up being gray lol I hope you enjoy the story so far. Let me know your thoughts. :)