The Alpha - Joel Abernathy Page 0,32

from the door, Andrew was trying to soothe him as he faded fast.

Even if it was the last time they saw each other, Colt told himself it was for the best. He’d never been good at goodbye.

Chapter 14

Time had never stretched out as much as it did in the hours Colt had to pass between leaving his apartment and showing up at the coordinates the changeling had given him, which turned out to be alarmingly close to the gravesite. He didn’t want to risk running into one of Roland’s men, but he knew he could always order them to leave if he did.

When he finally ventured into the forest, he left Christopher’s body against a tree in the exact spot the changeling had specified. He shook his head and found himself looking around at the trees. They stirred the same sense of familiarity the photograph in Evelyn’s keepsake box had. He pulled the necklace from his pocket, hoping it would jog some memory, something that would make sense of how he had gotten there, but all he felt was confusion.

All along, Colt had known that being with Jason was a risk. He’d simply imagined he posed the greatest risk, and as long as he was in control and careful about who he shared the details of his personal life with, Jason would be safe. Now he knew that keeping secrets from Jason hadn’t protected him at all. All it had done was make him helpless.

Christopher groaned, and as he began to regain consciousness, the tree bark started smoking behind him.

“Take it easy unless you want to regrow that heart again,” Colt warned.

“Fuck you,” Christopher slurred.

“Thanks, but I’ve never been into the whole fire crotch thing.”

“Why haven’t you killed me?” The other Alpha was having a hard time lifting his head off his chest. There was still a gaping hole in it from the last time Andrew had cut his heart out.

“Honestly, I don’t give a shit about you, but there’s a sick freak out there who’s gonna kill two people I do give a shit about if I don’t hand you over to him. Nothing personal.”

Christopher laughed, and a glob of blood—or maybe it was flesh—fell out of his mouth. “An exchange. I see. Settling in well to the role of Alpha, aren’t we?”

“I’ll live, which is more than I can say for you. Whatever the changeling wants with you, I doubt it’ll be pleasant. Personally, I’m hoping I get to kill both of you.”

Christopher raised his head, his horrified gaze fixed on Colt. “Did you say a changeling?”

“Yeah. Guess you guys let one slip through the cracks.”

“Listen to me,” Christopher said urgently, his tone commanding as if he wasn’t the one in chains. “You can’t let it get to me. There are things I know, things in my mind that if it got access to—”

“Save it,” said Colt. “It’s not gonna do you any good. Even if you’re telling the truth, the people he has mean more to me than your little Assembly of assholes.”

“It’s not just the Assembly,” he seethed. “If he gets to me, the entire Kinship is at risk. There’s a reason we kill those things when we find them.”

“Then you should’ve done your job better.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Christopher said, shaking his head. Colt got the feeling the other Alpha was talking to himself more than to him. “Every changeling birth recorded in the last seven hundred years has been dealt with.”

“So you missed a birth. What do you do, investigate every ghoul from an Alpha line the moment they pop out of the womb?”

“Yes,” Christopher said without a trace of humor.

Colt stared at him. “Seriously?”

“There’s a special order of investigators known as the Midwives who answer only to the Council. They’re sent to every Alpha household at the time of a new birth. If a child with the changeling mark is discovered--”

“Yeah, I know,” Colt said through gritted teeth. “No one survives.”

“Then you should appreciate the gravity of this situation.”

“I appreciate the fact that soon, I’ll be through with both of you.”

“You can’t kill an active changeling,” Christopher laughed. “They’re not like regular ghouls who have to wait for maturity to become powerful. Once they start feeding, it’s over. There is no stopping them. If you don’t run now, you’re a fool who doesn’t stand a chance. And those hostages you’re willing to sacrifice so much to save? They’re already dead.”

Colt knew what Christopher was saying was only rational. The chance that a ghoul